001[Music] uh this is the Greenfield Public Schools budget and finance subcommittee meeting January 22nd 2024 and I will call the meeting to order at 12:01 and take a roll call uh Martini I am present and member Den present okay and member child's is not here yet but may join us at some point okay okay uh so we have only one uh item on the agenda for today which is just an update on the fy2 budget development so uh Andy and Christine I will let you take it away so at this point um we've done done all of the meetings with all the department heads um I will say I'll let Andy and Karen interject but um there's really nothing like Earth shattering that you know there's no um huge requests of things that I recall
002um some lines are up a little some lines are down a little you know it's it's nothing I don't think that you would sort of expect um we do have some um some staff that I will review with you um suggestions or desires that I have to add to fy2 which I can talk about briefly um so as I talked about two School committees ago uh because of um cost associated with subbing and overtime we have posted the um float custodian position again um but that's you know that's happening now um last year we had an IT position that was funded out of eer 2 that we let go um you know we didn't continue the position into eer 3 um or into the local for this year um I'm I'm at this point I
003am proposing adding a an it um staff person I'll be honest when we look at the full budget request I may or may not um change that plan but as of right now now I have tentatively put it into the budget um there are projects happening and with our eer 3 money we expect to be adding technology so the fact that we're a person down um may impact our ability to get all of the new technology up and going so that is a potential um and I'm looking um new we have a special education IA that um is needed for an IEP that has been added to the budget um I'm just going to interject one second to say uh member child's has joined us yes I I noted the time time for arrival for
004the for the minutes um I'm just scanning down my staff list um we have another IA that is um would be a new one to one so a couple of IIA vacancies um due to individual student needs and then potentially adding the um custodial float back into the budget and um the it position that's what I have I don't know if Karen or Andy if you remember oh and Glenn it's right at the top I forgot Glenn had asked um if we could potentially budget for for a school committee um secretary more in terms of assisting with um budget uh subcommittee meeting minutes and things along those lines and we already are posting for that HR um support person to do the FMLA and um workers comp that I talked to the school committee about
005in December um so we're we're somewhat looking at combining those so that we potentially actually get somebody to take the job as a full-time position um and them being on uh you know in the district full-time allows a lot of flexibility in terms of their ability to access the minute you know the meetings and I know that you can take minutes from a recording but um it just allows them to be more of a participant in the process um so those are those are the only potential new with the acception of um I know that the committee wants to talk somewhat about the music program so that's five full-time positions as I'm counting is that correct great for now I think you folks Kate you most certainly know and just for Elizabeth and an special
006education changes minute to minute so I put an asteris always near the IIA um near the IAS so right where are we um at right now with the Staffing of IA positions and I know the committee um only very recently approved the um requested increase so there probably hasn't been time to have really an impact on hiring but how is it going for IAS yes and and substitutes we we have some substitutes you know um the problem is we have more absences on a daily basis then you know I think any District would have Subs um and we do still have some vacancies I would estimate if I think quickly six seven potentially um we do use Staffing that we already have to cover um you know St this is the time of year for
007student absences so at times there are students who have IAS who are out therefore we're able to move Staffing around but um yeah we do still have some vacancies we have professional vacancies like our psychologists bcbas um that have continued to be um continued to be vacant um they were last year they still although I am we are in process of making an offer to a school psychologist so hopeful that they will take the position um but you know a lot of the professional positions that we have opened have been open for more than a school year okay um the float custodian that was um correct me if I'm wrong I remember talking about it um in December um has it been posted for a little bit now I believe we posted it the day
008after the meeting or two days after it was posted pretty quickly okay so far no takers though huh I'm not aware that it has been filled I haven't seen a hiring um Hing recommendation to this point for it I'm actually looking to see if we have any applicants that's one of our biggest challenges is we're not there's there's not a lot of applicants for the positions that are posted um are we still in the same position of um paying out quite a bit of overtime in order to um so the the positive we have a couple applicants for the custodian those are very recent um so I can check in with Mike about how that's going um no he's he's you know Mike's um making some changes internally with practice that he's hoping will positively
009impact the overtime uh um you know there's always a trade-off if you reduce the amount of overtime then um you know he's prioritizing areas of buildings to be cleaned which isn't um that's nothing that is out of the norm with any District where I've ever worked there there are the needs at times to prioritize if you have a special project if you've got um you know a spill or or graffiti or something that's out of the ordinary that needs to be tended to then sometimes you need to prioritize what our staff is doing during their normal shift but that's not an atypical uh decision making process for facilities directors but positive we do have a couple of applicants so that's nice I don't know what experience they have or you know the potential of them
010being hired but we have a couple folks in there okay uh and you mentioned the music department um do you have specific um plans in regards to the upcoming budget related to that so um so there's a couple things I guess one thing I would just say for the committee is that when we talk about the investment the district makes in to our music program um you know it was very clear last year that the desire of the committee was to continue to financially support strings for kids which you know is is fine um but I I think the committee you know should know that for this upcoming school year that's about a $225,000 investment out of the school budget toward music for the students of greenfields um we have two full-time music teachers at
011the elementary and then you probably know we split a music teacher middle school high school I had asked for the numbers um of students who chose music electives a couple years ago um at the high school but I don't have them yet uh just a reminder that year Maria sceta of her own choice moved from being a music teacher at the middle school to being a math teacher and we weren't able to find a placement for her and then as we looked at the students who had chosen music electives at the high school the numbers were quite low so we made the decision to consolidate um so we can add a music teacher um you know we've thought a little bit about adding um we can add instruments back to the elementary uh um that
012was very well participated in when we had the music teacher at the elementary the only challenge is there is potential one of our current employees would want to shift as I don't know that but that person was the instrumental music teacher prior um but if that configuration does occur and we add the music you know the instrument teacher back at the elementary school we've had a hard time finding music teachers so if we don't get a general music teacher at the elementary level then we could run the risk of having instrumental music and then a vacancy in the general music which we have to provide because that's one of the specials and that provides the contractually required preps for our classroom teachers so we have to have a body in that space um so we
013could do that we could have a full-time teacher at the middle school and full-time teacher at the high school but at this point we've done the course selections for next school year at the high school um if the committee wanted to put a full-time music teacher at the high school the guidance Department would have to rerun course selections for grades eight through you know upcoming eight through upcoming 12 um and then we would have to see if we got sufficient students choosing a sufficient number of Music electives to run a full-time schedule um we generally don't look to run a class if we have less than 10 um you know some AP classes could be an exception uh special education of course we run we run as needed but you know that that would be
014a gamble to find out whether or not we've got enough students who wanted the music electives at the high school to run a full schedule um at the middle school we could do if we had a full-time person we could do General music or band we can't do both because of scheduling con um constraints we could do one or the other so those are sort of the choices that I think um you know the committee could consider if that is something you want to do for this upcoming year or do you want to consider adding music electives for the following year so that they can be built into the course selection process um but those are just my thoughts I I've asked a bunch of questions in a row so I want to make sure
015to give room to an and Elizabeth do you have um questions or discussion um I'm sorry forgive me I'm I'm sick in my basement um actually I don't know is I have so much a question but I have a lot of concern about the music program and the arts program in general um our mission statement doesn't describe our district as being you know concentrated on Sports but that seems to be where we put a lot of our passion so I'd like to see a more and I'd like to see art have a more equal footing with sports and I know that the band in middle school that Miss scera did that program was arousing success with a lot of support from parents and a lot of support from kids so if kids aren't signing up
016up for the band electives or if there aren't enough children interested there's a reason why and it's probably because Miss CA is not doing it but um we need to find something similar to get their interest alive because the passion for the Arts is there but we maybe are not tending that fire the way that we need to and so I'd like to make sure that we have all of our arts and our Sports all of those special activities should be equal because not all the kids want to play the sports and they're not getting what they need in the uh Arts end of things so I'm hoping we can get maybe a little deeper into how we're going to fund the music and the art and how it's going to come about and what
017we need to uh get it on par with the other things that we offer so question for clarification what does it what do you think is missing for Arts I mean if you folks want to fund more art just you need to tell me where you think that would go in in the district and you know you can you can certainly add funding into the budget for art I think it would be really helpful to have a a table where we have currently what we have available um just for art and music and also Sports any sort of extracurricular items like that and have this data sheet so that we know where it's on offer everywhere because it's kind of complicated to wrap your head around it because we're not like in the buildings with
018you so we don't know but um it's hard for me to remember what we have at elementary versus middle school and why it can't cross over in certain ways because of scheduling conflicts or things like that so it would be great if we had a sort of a uh just a easy write up so that we knew where we stood with each of these things so that we could see um maybe what we're missing or what we could add um it's hard to come up with really concrete ideas because it seems like there's a lot going on like you have a lot on your plate with that and the schedule of it and the different buildings so I wonder if that's something you could in your with all your extra time I can I can
019I just want to make sure I'm understanding what you're asking for um you want to know where art is available in the district right right what kind of art where what building like and you know have you had to cut it because of lack of Interest or has there been a lot of interest and then we stopped or any of those things any pertinent data points one spot I can write it up but I can also tell you fairly quickly all of our buildings have art um all of our students access art all the way through Middle School it's one of the electives that's provided and the high school actually has two full-time art teachers so um and the high school offers a pretty nice variety of art electives in my opinion so um you
020know one of the challenges in adding art is it does complicate the schedule like if we were to add an art teacher at the elementary just for the sake of of you know an example um that I don't know when students would access art as a second elective during the day um without taking away from English language arts time math time science and social studies lunch recess um we have to offer PE so that is not something that we can you know to skip so well maybe I can rephrase this if I'm a parent and I want I'm planning on taking my kid to G GPS I want to know what art is available for my child how would I find out like where would the list be on the website to see what kind
021of disciplines are taught and at what grade level I guess is what I would need because as a parent I would want to know like my kid is a stellar sculptor and they need to like have that as part of their Adventure I need to know where it is do you know what I mean like where's where's that list and then is there a Google survey possibility for parents to um get in there and say what they would like to see or uh different artistic disciplines or music disciplines that they'd like to see happen and be available as a feedback generating tool the list of where art is is in the high school's course uh program of study because that's where they get choices at the elementary and the middle school they are students are
022signed up to take art so um okay so is there a place on the website where we can see how that's broken down probably not I don't know I mean like I said at the high school they have the program a study but at the elementary and middle school it's it's just an Ive so um I don't know on the website I want I want to recenter a little bit uh because uh I am definitely interested in um discussing longer range planning and communication about arts in general in the district but um we are to here to talk about the FY 25 budget so um and I also would like to um just discuss music um a little bit more specifically because I have had um quite a bit of constituent communication specifically about the
023music program um not that folks are not interested in um other types of Arts programming in the district but I've just had a lot of email about uh particularly the music program so um based on what you were um saying Christine about um possibilities uh it's sounds like the most immediate thing that might be available would be to make a posting for um offering instrumental music at the elementary level and if you post are you able to post and see if you get applicants and who applies and then you decide whether or not to actually fill that position yeah actually we do have um a process by which we we consider it um an anticipated opening so we can post with a start date of next school year anticipated opening and then um see what
024types what type of Interest we get and then I can certainly share out with the committee that you know we had we had wonderful candidates that are um qualified for the position so we're going to interview or I can say we didn't have any applicants and so this would create sort of A Wrinkle In in the big picture yeah we can definitely do that okay uh would that require any any particular action or Direction um from the committee or you can just do I think both I think I can do it but I feel like if the subcommittee has an interest in that I can do it on at the request to the subcommittee for thank you for being patient with me subcommittee chair thing before all right so uh so I will make motion
025then I move that a position be posted for uh Elementary instrumental music instruction is that adequate as a motion for me did anyone second that I second that okay and any discussion on this I'm sorry can you read the motion again the motion is that a position be posted for elementary instrumental music instruction ah okay anticipate I'm in agreement I'm sorry say Christine anticipated opening an okay uh all right a position be posted for an anticipated opening for elementary instrumental music instruction is that correct wording thank you uh and do you want to just re second that just okay I will second that again bureaucracy okay thank you uh any any discussion about this particular motion all right let's move to a vote uh I am a yes member Childs we cannot hear you for
026now but you heard me there we go okay yes you're back okay thank you uh and member genive yes secretary okay thank you uh that motion carries all right um is there further discussion um in regards to the topic of music I would just say that I would like to continue the discussion about how to um continue to enhance and promote the music program going forward um in which we will then be really talking about FY 26 I think um but that's definitely something I think we'll probably continue to hear hear more about um as a committee and and should address as a as a full committee uh Christine was there anything um additional that we should know about the um fy2 budget development at this point um I think the biggest pieces are that
027um the February meeting will be bringing the bus contract for the committee to vote on um the process that's required because we were part of a group bid for a 5-year contract is the city council had to vote to approve that we go out to bid for a fiveyear and then they just voted to approve the resulting contract so now it goes to school committee um the increase in transportation um was about 11% which Andy has shared is not atypical at this stage of the game um Andy do you happen to know the impact on the all funds for that Transportation bid or did we not do the math that that far yet well I mean it's it's an 11% so um as far as the impact on the all fund since we're building the
028budget it's just going to be part of our bottom line cost proposal um just so everybody as far as I want to say I know it's a concerning amount but the last contract was a fixed price for a good chunk of it so um the vendor did actually last fiscal year reach out to see if the member districts were willing to potentially engage in uh increasing the contract this past year obviously we said no um so uh uh this is just I'm going to say that unfortunate nature of doing business when it comes to uh bidding and transportation I can tell you in our other clients the 11% is about the average of what we've seen across the board so um again I'll say quote unquote not ideal but you know the thing about it
029is that we do have the funds both in our as we're building the budget but also we do have the transportation revolving account that we use to offset the the transportation cost as well so our there was only one yes there was only one vendor and our recommendation is going to be to accept and approve any questions in regards to Transportation I have a question about a different topic but I don't want to move on from Transportation if anybody has anything member child's so for this Transportation does are we planning on adding or cutting any bus routes don't know yet um sorry go ahead oh sorry um there's a couple pieces um we are doing a little bit of work around I will be talking with the committee at some point about the um busing
030policy to propose options if the committee wants to entertain them or not um which could have an impact on bus routes so I'll be doing that you know I would say no later than March hoping for February but no later than March um and then we'll have to have um the vendor run our bus routes for next year but it's generally um I expect will be about the same um as what we are now other questions or comments about Transportation I wanted to ask about um any positions or other changes in relation to going to ful year science and social studies at the middle school um because that was something that had come up when we were um discussing uh redistricting and um I just wondered what as I recall there were going to be
031U there was going to be a need for several new positions in order to make that happen is that something we're not doing this year right we that's not the recommendation right now um in looking at we would need about seven staff added to the budget to do that and given that redistricting will have in the year following and some of the staff impacted or that we expect to be impacted at the high school um those those positions can be shifted to cover some of the need at the middle school we felt like it would be maybe not the best timing to do it for next year but to wait until there was the bigger shift in Staffing to move to that and that's you know that's our Karen and I had that conversation with
032Mich thore um it's just it's a huge budget impact to add seven people yeah yeah especially if then we would be looking at potential or likely reductions the year after it's possible some of the folks that we would hire would then be let go which is certainly not anything a district wants to knowingly go into you know we always want to hire folks with the Assumption they'll be with us for a very long time so um so that's our professional recommendation but uh that's what I thought as a result of um choosing to delay for a year on the redistri te but I just wanted to ask um and also in Rel oh I'm sorry member child's go ahead well this is also about potential additions is there any way in the foreseeable future that
033Spanish will be coming back to the Middle School um that's something if the school committee wants to have happen um we would just need to you know guess you folks would need to make that decision and if that's what you want they add the position back and then the middle school would need to um build the master schedule around around whatever that would look like we did talk about that happening in terms of redistricting because of the fact that um at the high school e8th grade does take a language so there are sections of French and sections of Spanish that are um scheduled for our eighth grade so when eight moves back to the Middle School there'd be a reduction in the number of needed sections of the high school so we did anticipate that
034one of our Spanish positions would likely be split between middle school and high school so I do think um you know at least when when we did the big Grand movement of staff and and students we did project that at least 8ighth grade we thought would be able to access Spanish so um you know I think if if the committee can wait a year um there will be more shifting um including Spanish um some general music I believe we anticipated the full-time science and social study so I think the middle school schedule is going to be changing pretty dramatically at least I say this all with projected anticipated um you know no guarantees until we actually do that schedule but it looked like those things would be um would be happening with the redistricting piece
035does that make sense an I know that's like thousands of moving parts and ifs then but that answered my that answered exactly what I was asking so it sounds like it's in the same uh position as uh science and social studies where while we technically could hire for next year long-term strategically that would cause more of a headache there's there is potential that it would cause some reductions in staff that we may have just hired yes any other questions or discussion about that specific topic I think I just had one other thing I wanted to ask about which was um we did discuss the need to have um on offer some planful um social activities to help students who are going to be transitioning to a different School um next year and I just um
036wanted to ask if that is included within the anticipated budget um not expit yeah no exactly they we we do offer um you know family engagement things like the Sundays the playing um on the playgrounds at all the elementary schools um part of what the committee will need to talk about and I expect that um at some point in The Fairly near future we'll be trying to schedule a redistricting committee subcommittee meeting um you know is the the full committee will need to make a decision about um all of the students who would be impacted by the redrawn school catchment lines and how the committee would like to do that if it wants to have everybody just move to the new school based on the newly Drawn Lines effective September of 25 and get my
037years right or if the committee wants staggered um staggered changes of schools so that will have a fairly significant impact on the types of activities that we would need to offer um maybe well maybe not the type but the the volume um so I think that you know the subcommittee should meet and then that conversation go to the full committee and then we can be more specific about how we would do any type of um orientation to a a new school does that make sense yes thank you okay is there um anything else that you think is important to know about um the fy2 budget development Andy was there anything you wanted to make sure yeah I just wanted to kind of share I always do every year for everyone there are set like dates
038that are kind of key dates for us to keep in mind um in addition to our local dates as far as when the mayor needs to have our budget and we need to have our hearings and everything but at the state level I'm more talking about like we should be hearing next week sometime uh if not even this week uh the governor's proposed budget for fy2 which will include the Chapter 70 amounts and the required local contributions that the Commonwealth will be uh providing to cities towns region so uh we'd like to think I mean all signs are pointing to that they still will fund the student Opportunity Act funding as much as that's great when you're talking about Greenfield is what we say a above an above minimum community so that in a sense
039you know I'm going to say it's nice but it just gets absorbed in the total amount that we get regardless so that's you know and then that starts the ball rolling of both deliberations amongst House and Senate Ways and Means uh Full House and full Senate at the state level then we have as far as our internal budget development operations is what we call like the April one moving date and those are for the special education students where any student that is on our roles prior to April 1 uh we are fiscally responsible for any student that comes into the district after April 1 the district from which they are coming is fiscally responsible unless it's an out ofate but those are kind of the key components so we've built these budgets uh like in
040special education regarding our tuitions we do have some like a contingency built in place but we've also done things like factored in the increase in the tuition rate set by the state for those 766 programs so just uh you know as far as this is as much as it might not seem it we are actually still early in the process admittedly it's can be a pretty fast process but it's it is still early so I just wanted to share those as uh some key timelines at the state level that we are running parallel with speaking of the increase in the um chapter 766 which is specialized private schools uh for special education um did greenfields see um anything from the supplemental budget um that we did not reach the we did not reach the threshold
041to see any amount above okay thank you any other questions Karen is there anything else about the budget for next year that the committee needs to know about that I didn't think of no I was just thinking in terms of curriculum and a lot of the grants are ending so I just think we need to be consciously aware that to continue our highquality instructional materials um unless desie rolls out some new and exciting grants to continue the support of that we will have to move that money into the local to support that moving forward to purchase ongoing materials correct so when when the superintendent budget comes out you will see that impact okay uh anything else uh for discussion or additional questions all right with that I will move to adjourn and I have a
042second I'll second that thank you any discussion on a journey all right then uh I say yes member Childs yes secretary jie yes okay we are adjourned at 12:40 4 P.M thank you everyone wonderful thank [Music] you