001[Music] all right welcome everyone this is the Green Field Public Schools budget and finance sub meeting Tuesday November 21st 2023 accordance with government of massachus governor of Massachusetts March 29 2023 order extending certain provisions of open meeting law GLC 30A section 20 for open meeting law any member of the public may make an audio or video recording of this meeting and let's do a roll call Susan extrom I am here Kate Martini are you here here I am Glen Johnson mad is not here but we do have a quorum so if anyone is here for public comment Speak now or no not not seeing anyone let's go right into number three on our agenda rising to the top with a blast discuss Capital all right I submitted two Capital requests because the date the date
002came so I submitted them um two variations on repairs of the Federal Street School elevator um one so just in case you don't which you might not prior to my arrival there was a capital request for repairs to the elevator and the city allocated Andy you can correct me I'm going to estimate about30 $150,000 but at that time I believe Judy was acting and the decision was made to go out for a study on the elevators some of the funding uh paid for that study which we do have stay tuned for second request um so we still have about $100,000 in capital allocated for Federal Street School elevators recently the North Tower elevator was closed because it didn't work so we got a repair estimate from United elevator it was about $150,000 that did not
003include any um electrical that may need to be done to reconnect Fire Safety Systems telephone systems yada yada yada um so I did a capital request where I added on the cost an estimated cost of um going out for design um Andy fill in the blank I can never remember designer thank yeah designer selection because of the cost of the project um Andy can explain why we need to go out for designer selection and then I added on a flat maybe four or5 th000 estimated for any additional electrical emergency telephone hookup etc etc then I subtracted the amount that we still had allocated for Capital and that was the amount that I submitted for one Capital project the second capital project was replacement of both elevators that's about a million and a half dollars the
004estimate was 1.3 when the report that Judy contracted for um I would say summer or fall of 21 20 21 right before I started um we did get that report early December last year but it was after the capital requests were due so I submitted that report along with a capital request for replacement of both elevators which like I said um I think I estimated at 1.5 given you know increase so both of those have been submitted we still have outstanding projects uh paving at Federal Street had been approved a number of years ago but by the time the DPW had the ability to do the project instead of it being 75,000 now it is about 200,000 so instead of Paving the 2 by two foot um we're on hold with that um there are
005some other projects some fencing um I'm trying to think Andy I apologize Kate Susan I had to see a doctor for an Urgent Care visit this morning so I'm in the car I don't have the whole Capital update in front of me but um so there are a few sort of dangling participle capital projects from years ago we're GNA ask the city to let us use fencing money from one school because we don't need the fence anymore uh like it's complete we still have remaining funds but we need to do some fencing at four corers so I'm going to request a reallocation it's the same type of project it's just different school um we have to get city council we have to get city council to agree to that right um I don't know because
006it's Elementary School fencing Elementary School fencing I don't know I had to provide an update to the city on the status of our current um you know all the funded projects so I put a note I was going to request reallocation into a different fencing project yeah but we'll see and where did you say the second elevator was I know the first one was at Federal was it a second one at federal or both North yep North Tower and south tower um just in case you guys don't know the towers do not connect at the upper floors yeah so our South elevator is running but the north is not meaning anyone with Mobility limitation uh really can't access anything at Federal for the north side once you go into the door even the main office
007is upstairs yeah how does it go from 150,000 to 1 point5 million because the 150,000 is repair 1.5 million is replacing to okay I would just clarify that the 150 we were necess that was even before every I think everybody here um we don't even know like because what ended up happening was when we were starting to tackle that when Judy was interim uh I had reached out to the consulting firm that did the study and came up with a proposal and I shared it with Judy and at the time George velver and uh George told me whoa whoa whoa wait a second here this was not you know I don't even didn't think they they when it was allocated to the schools 150 thought that that would even address I think they were just
008really thinking it was the Band-Aid for you know not knowing quite honestly what the Band-Aid would even be yeah well yeah I mean we're going solely on the um review of the system by United elevator you know they came on site when pooped out we've spent about $8,000 on repairs to that elevator and I'd say about the last 18 months yeah um so it's it's the it's the original elevator I want to say it was installed in 1991 if my memory is correct so it's definitely aged um the nv5 report that's what was used for the 1.5 million replacement basically said there's you know components need to be replaced there's elements to the entire elevator system that are underground um the parts that are underground based on the age the equipment they don't necessarily believe
009that it was um treated to be underground so they're not sure the state of the components that are under the ground um so you know the placement of both elevators is certainly could be even more costly than 1.5 so what are we doing in the meantime hoping like heck we're gonna get the capital request for the 150,000 so United elevator can repair based on what they know repair the north side elevator right but they're telling so this is the issue there we have to go out for designer selection then he comes does the assessment creates the PID specs then we go out to PID if it was United elevator that was doing the project they said to us it would probably take six weeks because they have to order parts so we're looking at months
010before that elevator get fixed so I'll ask a stupid question in the meantime do we get one of those one of the chair lifts on the stairs well that would only get people the four steps up to the office to get to do all of the stairs I mean that would means that I couldn't Oh you mean the little electric thing that go up the railing yeah oh I don't even know I don't know either I'm asking the question I mean we can't have buildings like this I don't know and they've been like it's been like this for a while you know don't disagree I know there's discussion about um you know we should try to get a new elementary school I I'm not saying we shouldn't we should I'm just saying I don't like
011the committee at some point will have to decide if you want to like push forward the 1.5 million replacement or if you w to not like I I don't I don't know but I know short term we have half a Federal Street that's not accessible right which at some Point's going to create a problem yeah what was the amount what was the amount of the actual Capital request um you of the first um piece for their replacement you said you deducted what yes um sorry Andy is it possible can you access that just he's looking yes that's fine you want the uh the most recent request that we made or yeah yes the repl the request that I just submitted um in November for the update I I think I I named them I thought
012clearly enough but who knows [Music] yeah okay while Andy's looking I'm gonna guess it's pretty close to that 150 only because with the adding and then subtracting there wasn't as much subtracting is adding yeah okay the total request was 1,37 no not that one the other one that one the first one just for the repair oh um it should just be the other one in that same folder the other interesting treat with the elevator if in fact United ends up doing the work they declined to have their workmen fingerprinted so one of our staff would have to stay with them the entire time that they're on site we literally would be paying someone to stand there and watch them well look by the time this gets started I will no longer be on school committee
013and I am a site safety person so box of joe Susan and you just yeah pretty much that's what I'm gonna do all week you know what Kate I'll take her she can park it there and watch them AKA play soliter on my phone there you go did you find it Andy I'm looking at is it the just the north elevator repair yeah yeah $775,000 75 yeah that was the request that was the request because we already have a hundred or maybe just over a 100,000 still from a prior allocation right right so um if the 75 is approved um Is it feasible that this repair project would be able to take place before school year yes we would just have to go out for designer selection um then once the designer is identified they
014would come out do the assessment create the bid specs we'd have to post that bid for the repairs then whoever is awarded the bid would have to order the equipment so just a clarifying point if we're only talking 75 grand there may be a state contract since it's such a low dollar threshold where we wouldn't need to do that but Andy the full project would be 150 but even we would just have to look and see I guess I'd say y That's fine so there's potential there's potential right okay so either way work could take place say next summer I would hope quite frankly it's well before that okay I would never want to guarantee or even Hazard a guess in this industry regarding when it is that vendors say they can and can't come
015out and we still get told things of uh you know delivery delays of equipment for all the reasons that we've still hearing from uh we'll say the covid days yeah but fingers crossed I mean let's be [Music] optimistic it's uh it's unfortunate that something like elevators do not uh fall under any of the types of work that the SBA might with we would not want the SBA because that process was even would be even longer it's a long time it would be Absol yeah add another year quite honestly onto it so so that's capital that's great well and just so that both of you know in addition to those that were submitted to the city we need to buy a truck because we have two plow trucks one of them was taken on the off
016the road by DPW because of the body condition um so the only truck we have left is not heavy enough to hold our sander so now we have one plow truck no sander we supplement the dpw's cleaning of the parking lots um their equipment is is Big um often times the parking spots are not able to be cleared as as much as they should for our staff um so we're looking Andy is on the hunt for it would be a 3/4 ton truck that would be of appropriate weight to hold the plow and the sander um so we're dealing with that Jake needs to replace one of his Vans um which van I don't know which one one of them one of the little bus fanss um so we're dealing with that stuff we're not
017looking to use Capital funds for that I mean we you know Andy and I have talked we have the ability to just purchase but there's still some procurement stuff and quite frankly we have to find a truck we have to locate it okay anything else on Capital Andy anything Christine's not thinking of no okay um all right so moving on from Capital FY 25 budget prep Kate I put this on here because um at this point there isn't a whole lot of action going on towards the new budget but I wanted you to hear what the process is I know that you've heard it before but I thought it'd be helpful for us to hear it here so that you could ask some questions just just of you know this may be my last budget
018meeting and there should be someone who has at least heard the process in this space it seemed to me so anyway anyone want to take it away well all right so the first thing one of the things that we will do is Andy and I will look at the city's budget calendar and kind of go backwards and try to set an anticipated date for the school committee budget hearing um just so you know Kate that'll be coming shortly a projected date then um what we do is just begin at the beginning we'll sit uh Karen and Andy and I will sit with Barry we'll go through all the staff make sure anybody who isn't with us is off the list anybody who's joined us is on and then in The Fairly near future we will
019quotation marks roll the staff for fy2 build in any contractual increases start there then we will start meeting um department heads will be told to ask all of their staff send the list of what I call the gotta haves um anything that is required for them to function examples of that would be food for the culinary program um clay for art things like that so we build site based requests from that we sit with each I cannot hear Christine well we sit with each administrator and go through their requests uh verifying we'll say you know reasonableness needs and then talk potentially about funding sources at a later time with Karen Christine once we start to get an idea of uh potentially funds available whether it be grants or revolving accounts we have Andor if we
020start to hear from the city as to uh any idea but we do go forward with our we'll say the needs-based budget to determine what the needs are and present that uh and then the deliberations begin and Esser funding runs out shortly or expires I should say December of 24 or September of 24 okay September I think you have to have it encumbered by right and is there any indication that the state is gonna I don't know any out of the ordinary allocation of funds will be given to school districts too early to tell nothing all right and do we have just based on your experience Andy what would you think it would be falling somewhere what would be where do you think what would you expect the budget would be falling into based on
021your experience this isn't going to be a hard number by any means but you know God I wouldn't even Hazard a guess honestly I mean it would because we're talking about reviewing you know what we had been using our grants for the Easter grants to see as far as anything um potentially Personnel related although we've been dialing that back uh as to whether or not those are going to be you know kept so I mean do I do I even Hazard a guess you know shoot high and say 10% you know but again don't to it but we've been pretty good might not even be quite honestly that might not even be high yeah but we've been good about not using the user funds for personnel for the most part I mean we've had to
022in some cases but um and last year we had planned two but then we switched it over to onetime expenses so that changed changed the view a little bit um so okay what things do what things does the committee need to be aware of that could be that you are concerned about or that you and Christine and Karen are concerned about steady allocation well yeah I'll get side qu everything that we control our grants the revolving accounts to some extent um the administrators do a very good job of yeah you know so it really comes down to what is that number that we're going to get from the city yeah I'm hearing some rumbling but not enough that I'd want to say it out loud it's so interesting to me that during election season everyone
023thinks the schools are so important then when it comes to budget season suddenly they're not quite as prioritized as could be so anecdotally I say that Kate you must have questions or not uh I was actually no I'll save that for later I do not have a question okay Christine your thoughts I'm trying to get into the building hold on um um I think that um you know just to be clear we did put a lot of one-time funds into eer 3 but some of that stuff still needs to be reincorporated into the budget likei um some extra some of the field trip cost some extracurricular costs for stiens were put in there um so it's not as if those funds aren't needed can't hear a blessed thing Christine sorry I'm trying to get on
024my computer I I don't know why I can't no one can hear me um I can you so there's also there are also a few staff positions in eer 3 that you know we'll have to consider if it's something that we want to continue in the local or if the district is in a place to move forward uh without the other huge impact huge the Middle School really needs to move to full year science and social studies um to do that we need to add six staff so the issue of making a decision about the redistricting will have an impact have a pretty significant impact on the budget request because if the um sorry if the um decision is to wait now I know the question had come up about letting all of our intradistrict
025choice kids sort of age out of their choice to school um if that decision is what's voted by the school committee that will take six years because we have kindergarteners so by the time they age out into what would be grade six um at the middle schol school that would be six years so we I would not suggest we wait six years to add full year science and social studies to uh the middle school so you know the oops hold on I'm logging in the decision would need to be do we add for your sence and social studies now do you wait although mcast is um being you know becoming relevant for our eighth grade um with Civics we need to consider the impact of all of those changes um with the redistricting you know
026if the decision is to do it now and we reduce Elementary positions that will be part of offsetting the cost of the additional Middle School staff or if the decision is to let the students age out then the committee would also need to think about are we going to wait to add full year science and social studies to the middle school so I mean there's a pretty big swing in there from a staffing perspective um so the um that's part of why I wanted to I had encouraged the committee not to wait too long to make a decision um but worst case if if a decision is not made in December my Approach would be to build the budget um as if there was not going to be redistricting at this point and to add
027the six staff you know that would just be the superintendent's budget that obviously the committee could do whatever it felt with it but that would be my intention is to um you know I have to build the budget so we kept talking about there might be a cliff in the 25 budget that we were going to have to deal with do you feel like that's still the case um I yes but um I think because we moved I mean Andy you you interject here I think we because we were able to move most of the staff out of the grant we might not have a huge Cliff off which we will plummet um but it's certainly not a not noticeable slope you know there's going to be some impact like I said and I think
028Karen filled in there are some things that are part of the grant that we'll need to think about do we need to continue having or are we in a place to let them go and those decisions help us determine whether it's a pretty significant fall or not I mean if we keep everything the request goes up and then you know we have to see what the mayor and city council do or do we cut it ourselves on the front end it not not tons of options there but you know I'll come to you with a recommendation well and my my I said this every year I've been on school committee my preference is always to go to the city and say this is what we need behind the scenes knowing that we're not going to
029get that because I think I just I think it's really important that the community understands what it costs to educate children and by lowballing ourselves at the city level no one ever learns that and then when the number keeps getting larger they're kind well why didn't we know this and well that's because we've been lowballing ourselves so I will leave that in all of your capable hands as I watch the budget happen from the sidelines love you minina I don't know Andy do you have a different perspective on the cliff versus the slope nope and so so if we just from a budgetary standpoint if we did not redistrict we'd have to hire X number of new teachers at the middle school well that would be my recommendation right because of of curriculum changes standards
030changes the pilot of the um Civics Karen for mcast so you know we don't have to go to full year but then once Civics mcast is a required subject I would expect there would be some impact on our students performance so you know it's kind of picking our poison to this at this stage and just redistricting in general in the fashion that we have that we've been discussing with grades moving things like that that has less or more impact um it it has more positive impact financially because whether we do Choice stop choice or continue with intradistrict choice there's still a reduction in the number of Elementary School positions um there's still a change if the eighth grade goes to the middle school there's still some shifts with teachers at the high school so there
031would be some but um we would still have a budgetary increase to add like the numbers of Staff we would decrease would not offset the numbers of Staff increased at the middle school okay and I say all of this stuff as expected anticipated projected estimated you know of course of course okay no Kate any thoughts I have a question but it's unrelated to the current topic so when we're done with this one then I'll ask you my question I'm done if you guys are done I'm done okay um I just had one um unrelated question as I said so um recently I understand there was a supplemental budget that was passed um and there's uh $75 million of funds in it for school districts impacted by the special education tuition rate increase and I just
032wondered whether Greenfield is going to see any of that or not well Andy I'm going to let you take it because Kate Andy and I were actually talking about this exact thing yesterday uh we don't know yet as to whether or not they're going to put it through the circuit breaker formula calculation or if it's going to be through the circuit breaker extraordinary relief which if I heard that it would be through the extraordinary relief which means that the cost you know there is a higher threshold of 125% greater than your current tuition cost that would have to be reached in order to be uh available make yourself available to it so doesn't that negate the point of it really it's it's yeah you know so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's you know
033they're going to allocate it through the circuit breaker and just we're all going to in a sense apply with that 75 million available and get whatever it is each District's per rated amount of the current circuit breaker available funds would be um so let's fingers cross that it's the first one not the extraordinary relief uh when would you anticipate that decision would be made I have no idea as to how the wheels of Boston quickly move I would anticipate come spring the earliest um that's when they are you know I'm just again thinking along lines like there EXT ordinary relief that's the window for that so you know they could be looking at you know the I'm going to say a two-prong approach of these funds along with what they normally allocate for Extraordinary relief
034and doing it all at the same time because even when you do I'm just not sure as far as the technical side of things because when you do extraordinary relief you have to use the circuit breaker workbook that they use for claiming your normal circuit breaker request so there's you know I don't know how many workbooks they're going to end up having to create to keep track of between extraordinary Le normal circuit breaker and adjustments to circuit breaker as well as this 75 million if they go fingers crossed an additional appropriation because you would still have to go through and claim your request okay outside of that easy peasy yeah that's all I just know lower the add that money into the overall circuit breaker funds lower the threshold for the year there you go
035all set done and done oh Susan I know that just is too easy right you have do you have the ability to um project about how much will be requested in uh the Medicaid reimbursement this year um no um because that all varies based on the actual special education related expenses and all the eligible requests the or eligible expenses that would fall under that um plus it's I want to say maybe two years in AAR that we get reimbursed for as far as the the process of getting that reimbursement um and then also the lpvec that works with us um they'll do like a preliminary audit to make sure that everything that we are claiming you know are eligible expenses or not so um it's been about 200 Grand if you look at the history
036of the what we've received over the past three years it's been about 200 between so when will you have a better idea of um how much the next one will be uh that is in all based on the lvc's claim filing and we won't know that you know as far as I mean it's been sometimes middle of the spring like last year was about that time when we were able to talk and negotiate with the mayor about getting that additional appropriation allocated to us okay thank you however there are L field questions there are less and less things that are being accepted as reimbursable though is my understanding have you noticed that to be true Andy yeah I mean if if yeah I'd say there used to be you know they've raised the bar on
037I guess I'd say in particular on the Personnel side of things regarding lure required for the therapeutic services that are reimbursable um and so you know I'm just thinking about in one of our other districts they used to claim uh people that had one form of certification and then were told that they actually had to have another certification from the state in order for it to be eligible that was a few years ago that that changed um so uh that's other than that I mean it's it's a cottage industry I'd say as far as you know going after these funds um so that you know you've seen there have been some you know I've read some articles about districts that have gone through and had an audit dawn of their Medicaid and have had to
038you know e quotequote reimburse the government back for I'm going to say inaccurate claims filed versus you know as it's never the other way around of saying oh you should have gotten more here you go yeah okay well if there's nothing else then I'd like to make a motion to adjourn second okay and we'll do a roll call uh Cameron xrum yes I vote we adjourn remember Martin sorry yeah is Cameron here I don't know no that's my actual last name is Cameron xrom and I went home and everyone calls me Cameron there so I've been struggling anyway uh yeah so Kate motion to adjourn yes yes all right we are adjourned thank you