Special Meeting of the Bridgeport Board of Education Monday, April 21

001Yes. All right. Good morning. The order special meeting of the board of education. Today is Monday, April 21st and it is 6:32. We have a program. Um in attendance we have a bre the for chair Bill Kovix in person uh Marissa Menzina Dr. gentlemen sorry we're getting started we're getting started Dr. is here and um we got the forum so we can get started. Uh today the item on the agenda Oh hi Sam's here as well. Um uh we have the uh today the agenda item sorry is the uh fourth full board training session facilit Um I'll just bring us to order. We're very fortunate tonight. Um this is there's a discussion on finance. Um and I do before we do that just one little bit of housekeeping plan to see um the final meeting

002which was I believe June 16th um is going to be with um Chris Huran who was formerly the communications person for the Boston public schools. Um he can't make that. he thought he might be able to zoom in, but I don't think that kind of meeting is couldn't be as helpful if it isn't in person. So, we are going to have to try to reschedule. We'd always allowed for some flexibility toward the end anyway. So, hopefully the between Danielle and us, we can work on finding an alternative evening for that. Um, the other thing I would point out, um, is that we had stressed at the beginning that all of Cape's time is part of to-dos, but if we had to bring someone in for a fee, we'd have to talk about that and there

003will be a fee for Chris. I'm meeting with him uh, we are on Zoom uh, Thursday and we'll have better idea what that might be, but there might be some expenses for him to come down from Boston. Uh but knowing the experience CC's had folk in a large city and also working directly with boards for community is a lot of that work. Um I I'll stand behind it will be a very helpful session for you. So we'll have more information as that goes on but I want to just plant the idea that we'll have to work on that last date. Um so again tonight finance um Ed Arum has been well we've both known that for a very long time. Um he's a member of the technical assistance team working on your finances. Frankly we

004couldn't come up with a better person to actually help do this work tonight. And so without further ado, we're going to turn it over to Ed and let him walk us through um the work that he's doing to help you get a better sense of how the board should be doing it work relation related to financing. Just let you know uh before I start uh I've been assistant superintendent of business for 38 years. Then I retired in 2005, opened up my consulting business. I uh probably work with 30 to 35 school systems whether it's uh building projects whether it's uh overseeing uh closing schools opening new schools uh organizing uh business plans and so forth. So just right now I stopped before and then I co-chair the building committee in Tarington for a 7 through

00512 $185 million project. We opened up the high school uh on January 22nd and I wanted it two months in advance which we did. Everybody wanted it in March and April. We said no, let's do it January 22nd when the finals are done so the kids can go move in. They don't have to change the schedule and so forth. And in September or August, the middle school will be uh there. Middle school now 678 will be a 456 building. Uh the now the uh what happened was before former superintendent wanted a K345 would assist the schools transportation was horrendous. Kids weren't getting home till 4:30 5:00 in the elementary. So now they're going back to K3. Uh and I mean uh live in Torington for about 46 years which we can't be that 46 years

006coming from New York City. So uh and also it's been a pleasure working here in Bridgeport. Uh everybody we interviewed uh has has been open and honest with us. We also met with the mayor today while we interviewed a couple of board members. So, u getting a flavor of this district and u the teachers and the unions so forth which we have met. So, uh, it's a pleasure being here. And I say that with all honesty because it's it's really nice to be in a community where where everybody is open and honest to us and we're getting a lot of information. We're pouring it out to people to the commissioner. We told the commissioner a couple things we want them to do to take care of because it could be great communication between the the

007the city and and the board and the state working together which we all want to have. So off my soap box on that one, but I any questions on anything? That's what the record show Mr. Ben is also doing the meeting. We appreciate your uh I couldn't believe it. He says to me, "I'm gonna have lunch for you guys." Yeah. Right. Okay. And he had lunch for us. So, I really appreciate what So, then you're done. Yeah. And we appreciate Avery helping us do getting all the meetings together. So, first first luck in budgets. This is I'll go over this one first. Uh and if you have questions, please interrupt me. We have questions. If I can answer it, I will. If not, I'll I'll write it down and get back to them. Okay. So,

008the budget's developed to meet the districts. I know you're going through core value, you're going through the vision, you're going through your vision, you're going through community needs and economic realities is is probably one of the top priorities also in this day of of what's happening at the feds and so forth. What's happening at with at state? What is the purpose of the budget? really is a financial support for your academic goals, your administrative goals, the operational goals and align the core values with vision, the mission, community needs and economic realities. Really what are what are the systems goals that we want to really uh this have for a community that the board of ed sets up and and the superintendent looks at those and goes through those. So it's a very important form financial

009support consider considerations and patent bill unfunded mandates you know when I was in uh what we we did an analysis of unfunded mandates it it's you know whatever you look at one thing it's unfunded everything you we do here almost is unfunded mandates and that's a killer for all communities, not just Bridgeport. Uh enrollment projections of, you know, in in certain communities in in in Bridgeport and also in Torington during CO, we saw 167 kids come into Dorington. 63 were from New York. We had to go back to the state to get the building bigger because of that. So enrollment plays a very big part and and you should have what you've done and I don't know if the state will look at it the projections that you made causes a problem with schools in

010case they're not big enough whatever because what happened a number of years ago in a number of cities probably 10 15 years ago they would build capacity so high that they had to get money back. So they were very uh um conservative now. But as long as you have eight-year projections and give the top a the eighth year where the biggest projection is, they will fund that kind that they will fund as long as it's somebody who's doing it. You know, maybe an outside company looking at that special ed course. The state is right now looking at special ed costs because they are so the excess cost grant used to be funded at 100%. You're lucky if you get 65% now because there's only a small pot of money used to be uh 40 million

011I think it was. Now I know that state is going to give uh Bridgeport additional 1.8 million out of their 8 million that they're supposed to give. So that they're looking at that but 1.8 8 million is not the you know the fun. It's not 100% of what you do. You know what I mean? If you submit something which is 4.5 times your uh annual um in per pupil cost you know you want to get 100% over that. They give you 60%. It used to be five years ago seven years ago they got 100%. But now special ed costs are going up, rising uh uh schools are outside tuition is going up, transportation is going up and it's a problem. Community support very important that we that you that there's transparency that you go out

012to the community, you tell them, you meet with them. uh including when I was there and you have the budget budget documents, we used to go out to different different organizations. When I was in region 15, which is uh Mbury Southbury, we had an elderly housing project with a thousand people there. It was Heritage Village. So we would go to Heritage Village. These were retirees who understood what education was and they would support because that during region 15 it was a the budget was voted on by the people. Okay. So that's we you so community support is so important. General inflation uh we see what's going on now with inflation uh with uh costs are going up and that's a that's a problem we have to look at for inflation. What is that number? Is

013it a 3.2 is a 1.5? It's important to look at rising healthcare cost. I know you're on the state land. state plan also in the rising too. So it's it's before the state land everybody was in one group and now I think they're looking at the chain what's the groups are because why are we paying for the the communities down the Gold Coast when we're not at the Gold Coast paying so it's important so they're they're looking at that as I understand and increase cost for operation and maintenance you have to keep the schools you know open properly health, safety and security. So what's important the operation what are the utilities what's happening with also uh planning this what's happening with the food service that's a separate budget but that's another important part of uh

014Bridgeport and and and all all lunches are C which mean you get it's a free lunch for everybody and that's that helps communities That's on a record and Mr. Woodson also joined the meeting. Yes. Before you turn the Medina, right? Yes, Medina. Never met you, but I know that. Hey, appreciate it. You mentioning the on the board that the area you had a location that had over a thousand people. What was the kind of support just to get a little uh insight out and what was it that? Yeah, we would go we would go to Heritage Village and we would bring our budget and then they would we have an open session. What do you against the budget? What do you have questions for? What do you have? And they would ask questions. Sometimes we

015can't answer the question. We'll come back. You know, I mean it's important. We did that in Torington too. You know, the principles would would have communications in their own school. They had their budget. they would review their budget with with the PPOs and so forth. So everybody knew what was going on. I think it's was important especially in in region 15 because the voters vote on the budget. So we have to you know give them uh what the budget is. I just thought you were coming up with something that they were supporting us and like they were trying to support the district in a sense. That's what I thought. But it was just to get their their you know understanding of well on the budget process and get their thumbs up like hey we're doing

016the right thing also you know and I don't know and I didn't delve into here Bridgeport but a lot of those Heritage Village we brought them in as volunteers so they're volunteer in the school system and then at the end of the year we took it out ourselves we didn't do one in the budget I would pay for it or the superintendent pay for an ad in the Waterbury paper thanking and listing all of their names for volunteers in the school system and and that's you know was worth the you know just just let him know they would come and and they would read to them kindergartens and so forth and uh the end of the year we would list all of the the names in the paper so it was it worked so nice

017and you have you have to make different ways you know I mean You have somebody there with Heritage Village. Boom. Use it. You know, you got questions? No, I I understood what you meant. We We had a fight here on a budget 25 years ago where the fight was, well, no, he's going to raise your taxes and the senior citizens in town voted in favor of it because they believed in education. So, but if you get you have to have the discussions. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Well, when when it was pushed by, you know, the anti- boys saying, "Oh, it's tax increase. It's going to cost you more money." And and their attitude was that they voted strongly to support it because they believed that their children had benefited from it and they

018wanted to see other children benefit from good education. We we had to go out for referendum for the 7th through 12 school and it was during CO, you know, and and we went out during CO and we passed it. 4:159 million. Then then the increase in the population, we had to go back to them for another 20 million. They passed it 4 to1 because they knew it was good for the community. You know what I mean? Uh it it would raise their uh real estate, you know, uh housing. would raise their uh idea of what that housing cost their real estate property would increase because of something coming in. Next one is budget development typical key participants. Um and we're finding out it's important to have these participants of the finance and the school business

019official spearheads the budget development. We've talked a number of times. Still talking about Oh, okay. something. Yes. Yes. When we say key participants, it's also a team. Everybody's a team working together. strong team can can um help the district move forward. Weak team or problems. So participants call that team participation the finance the business or official spares the budget development process reduces the budget document. We will I have a document that I used when Zindum and Tony a couple years ago. We really need that budget document which we really don't have budget document to give to the principles the stakeholders to the board all see everything. So that's important. Payroll supervisor provides salary projections based on actual staff counts contractual salaries. I finally uh met with the IT people at at the uh city and

020at at the board talking about uh modules which are available to the board of ed. Uh it's already paid for it. It's a combination with the city and the and the board for their modulars, budgeting, human resources on salaries. the city um has all that listed and and we want working with Nester to hopefully implement something with the budget documents ordered and principles and stakeholders school principles and department heads provide recommendations for non-payroll expenditure line items. This includes not only instructional purchases but facilities, transportation and special ed courses. They're they're in the school. They know what they need. They know the students. Uh they may get an additional special ed student in the district or another type of student that may need additional help and so forth. So it's important that they look at also

021they're in the they're the ones who know about the facilities. So if something's happening facilities, they need they should bring that up into a budget so forth. Superintendent sets initial vision and ultimately recommends a budget to the board of education that is aligned with strategic goals of the district. He's he's the educational leader of the district. He'll he'll bring the budget to the board of ed and and then he has to defend it to to the board of ed and the board of ed may have different ideas and they should bring those ideas up to the superintendent. The board of ed reviews superintendent's budget and makes changes that deem necessary before adopting a budget that moves to the fiscal authority for funding appropriations. should be a two-way communication with the board of ed the superintendent

022on what you know superintendent says I need this why and there should be a rationale and then the board of ed says well maybe we should do this instead so there should be a rationale open discussion which is always healthy in in in dealing with and then you have fiscal authority final monetary approval authority of the total budget requested by the board of education and and remember they don't has wine item veto. They can't touch that. Yes. For clarity sake, if there is a disagreement in fundamental disagreement in the budget between the superintendent and the board of education, how is that resolved? By by talking it out. You know, this is I I've been in, you know, I've been in uh education getting old 55 years. Okay. I started in Betharten in New York. I

023started as in New York. First day I was there, they had a strike 1968. Okay. I was I had to go through I had to go through, you know, I'm scab and all that, but I was administrator and so forth. But um we had to work together after that strike was ended. You know what I mean? Uh just broke up district. I'm in district 17. Um People have to work together. Everybody doesn't agree on everything. And you have to come out with a a idea that we're working together. And people don't remember. It's for the kids. We're here for the kids. We're not here for somebody else. If we forget that, we've lost the ball game. I think my question really wasn't. I'm sorry. May I clarify again? No, I understand your question. Well, the

024superintendent wants to spend $5 million on program and the board wants to spend $4 million in a program and the board makes it clear through a vote that we only want to spend $4 million. How much do we spend on that program? The board's vote controls. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Thank you. You know, you yourself have 55 years experience in the industry. you know, how h how how how do you how do you go about giving your opinion to u you know, citizen, somebody who has no background in education, no no type of education in finance or stuff like that. How do you how do you you make it very simple to talk to them, you know? I mean, we used to have uh uh coffee clutches, so to speak. Bring them in, talk to them.

025That's the only way you're going to communicate is you know when I was in Bethy people didn't know about what's happening. So, you know, I would go to the churches and with my from my wife who wasn't my wife at the time, he says, "Okay, you're coming with me." Okay. You know, and they would serve food to me which some of it I would not eat. So, instead, you know, picking picked me think I didn't go there. So, but that's it. You know what I I was in they used to call me the mayor of empis because I was there all the time they needed me and my my wife. So, you know, it's I I don't know. You know, it's so important just to speak to people and you know that you're going to

026get arguments. No doubt about it. But you just try to, you know, say what you what for the kids, you know, if you don't say what for the kids, you know, you build a new building for the kids. If you have a new programs for the kids, special a course for for the kids that need it, you know, I mean, get that the kids are there. I don't know what else to say but that's got we our sixth session is going to be on communications and we'll be spending more time talking about that answering that question. Yeah. Yeah. Just dealing with people, you know what I mean? It's uh sometimes it's tough, you know? Uh they get in your face and you just look let's go get it out. been on a number of those

027arguments and and you know also what I found also is humor helps a little bit to break down the barriers. Maybe Yuma can help. But a lot of times, you know, we talked about in the last meeting, you know, jobs are on the line and uh you know, what you say, what you do, you know, could lead to your job. So, you have to, you know, fine line. Thank you. again if jobs were online you know you meet with everybody you tell them why what's the situation uh you know it's important to meet with those people sorry no thank you for that answer actually I love the simplicity of of it of just the simple communication as far as the answer you gave um on the board education uh point here the bullet point um

028because I am This is my second year on the board. Um, and you in that section is it speaks about review of the superintendent budget and makes changes as deemed necessary since you are the expert. There's no doubt about that. Um, how important is that? because I know I missed that opportunity last year and I just want to make sure our county understand how important is that um part of this creating a budget is that yes it's it's very important you know and that's why when I spoke spoke to Nester today and and and superintendent we want to get a budget document that is readable understandable that is what the mission goals and the core values of Bridgeport are. You really don't have budget document that that a principal can look at, give their ideas

029that special ed can look at, give their ideas. There's no budget document really. And once you have a budget document, it it lists the priorities. is listed. So the so now the board of ed can see it and if they don't like act or why why what's the what's the reason if the superintendent's coming coming up under budget or under budget should it be contested about everything that's on there. Well there's going to be contention no doubt about it but I I not well how do I put it? It shouldn't, you know, the superintendent knows what what the vision, the mission, the core values of students in Bridgeport are and he would present a budget that way. Now, the budget may have more money for one item that the board of ed may not agree

030with. They want to cut it back. So, there's a discussion of that, but you know, the superintendent's budget till it goes to the board and then the board has their idea of what it should have been. If I could jump in a little super, excuse me. You the superintendent should be able to share with the board what the costs what what the cost of of certain things are in budget or all things in budget. Great example would be something again that I that I've experienced. Um you know cost you a million dollars for energy costs in your district. Let's let's just call that million dollars. So if you look at the last year's budget, it was the but the superintendent spent district spent $980,000 on energy cost. So you're looking at inflation, you're looking at

031other factors that are definable factors and saying I'm anticipating a million dollars. If if you're going to budget less than the million dollars, you better come up with costs or cost savings cost. So So at that point, you have you're working with an energy company. You have strategies, but they're real strategies. The board's voted on them and and you can rely on the fact that you're going to cut the million dollars to $800,000. That's your strategy to get it to $800,000. What happens often with budgets is boards of ed, superintendent, school officials want a greater percentage of the pie to go to teaching and learning instruction, new textbooks, new programs, new technologies. They don't want to spend a million dollars, but you have to budget the billion dollars because that's what it costs you to

032run your district's energy program. So what boards mistakenly do is say, you know what, we we don't want to reduce the teaching staff with the personnel staff. We don't want to cut a program. So rather rather than cutting the program, they'll cut the energy cost without a strategy to $800,000, $700,000. So then you get into January, your energy budget is through the roof. You don't have the money to you allocate the money for that energy account and now you you're $300,000 over budget and you have half a year to make that $300,000 up and now what do you do in terms of making that up? Staff, you furlow and you do all those other reactive modes. So when you So the tension point often between a board and an administration will typically be the board

033desiring to to do good things for kids and the administration is often saying but we have these other costs we have to pay for unless we have a strategy to cut each of those costs. So that's where a lot of those conversations go. I I it just it really to your question Joe a little bit. Um the two words that I think are critical this is all going to work are trust and communication for a whole bunch of reasons which we don't need to go into. There's a a breakdown in trust right now between the board and central office and it's not for people in the room. This is just that has to be restored in order for when the superintendent comes to you and says this is what we need. We need $5 million

034for this project. He needs to be able to explain to all of you why it needs to be $5 million. If the board then turns around and says, "Well, we think it really needs to be four for all the reasons Jody's talking about, then you have to have that communication." Dr. Avery would sit there and go, "But this is why it needs to be five." And he say, "Well, this is why we can't." And that's to um Ed's point, we have to have communication because yes, in the end, you could say, "You know what? 4 million voted it. That's what you get." But if we don't have the communication, then it becomes perhaps um I'm trying to think of the word, but it's not a planned decision as much as a reactive decision to use

035Joy's word. So that's where the communication comes in. And then you where the chips lie is where they lie at the end. Yeah, I I got this. It's not really well for me, but I'm probably the only one sitting here that actually voted on cuts with another superintendent and I had a great relationship. We got Dr. Versa Johnson. It was not a trust and communication issue. There was a disagreement in a value system of what to cut. Superintendent had wanted to access the science director and another position. I advocated to save those positions which is still in existence today. And we had a great relationship. It's not wasn't a lack of trust. It wasn't a lack of anything. It was just a lack of a difference in approach. and I rallied up the sick folks

036for that month and they remain today in the district. So it's not only a lack of trust, it's just a lack difference in vision that will happen at time to time between the superintendent and you still need a level of trust to hear each other. Correct. And then make a decision what we all believe ultimately what a majority of us feel is in the best interest of Yeah. And and it just also raised that up to say it's not unusual for a board of education to change a superintendent's budget, especially during times like this when we're cutting. Especially during times like this, it's unusual for a board not to give inputs and not make a single change or not propose a single change and put it as present to it. But but again, and I

037don't want to take but our district got it with a 10% cut, you know, a little 10% cut. 1988 budget was 23 million. Our 1989 budget was 20 20 million roughly. We lost like $3 million. Um we came in zero, they cut us 10% back when they could. Um we went to the superintendent and said, "Come to us with recommendations." And because it was so severe, we didn't second guess those because we had trust in him to make the decision in the best interest operationally because he's got to use the term public. He's got all of the things going at the same time. That's spinning plates um that we saw in that little video clip. He's got to make sure all of these things are working in the same time. Whereas each of you may

038have individual priorities. In our case, it was so severe and again different kinds of money but same kind of percentage. Um we we didn't want to second guess start second guessing that and so we they cut we had to make they were horrible. Um but we in that point we said to the superintendent you have to help us get out of this mess and we trusted his recommendations. Did we cut people we thought we should keep? Yes. um did we save people we thought we might have we had the same thought process you did but we in the end it was so severe we said you've got to run whatever's left we want to trust you to do that takes a leap of faith um and again if to your point if we get to

039that point where there's a disagreement it's who has the votes so and I think that's really what you wanted to clarify yeah absolutely Paul it's yeah just to show that this Casper is also here have a question back in 1989, was part of your um method for saving money like begging or advocating to the state for more money? Was it just the situation was so severe what you had to do and say you're in session and the state severely cut their money to us which is very similar to say here ECS or the equivalent G whatever ECS was back then. um was cut significantly. The town basically said we're not passing on the co we're not assuming that the difference in price which is why we got that cut. They did not fund. So um

040sort of the but again it's kind of similar. The state has cut back and um you're trying to figure out how to make up the difference. In our case the town said we're not making up the difference. It's going to come out of your budget. But you know, in fact, that's I'm here probably for anything as much because I got very involved in the advocacy part of it through Cave and through Bloomfield. Um, working very hard to try to get everything we could and we got some, but it wasn't enough overall. The next one is assessing and addressing student district needs. Enrollment projections used to project staffing and resource needed for general education and special education. Who's coming in? What's the projection? Who's leaving the district? Who's over 21? So we don't have the special

041ed of 22 now. Um kindergartens they came to the age of five in certain dates. So projections are very important every year to see what's going on and where are they living in in projections because they could be living in one part of town and so forth that increases the enrollment at school. You give a projections whatever the projection may be up or down. How how how firm is it that you go with those projections? If you do a study, you paid paid study. Yeah. The somebody's coming in doing the projections who had been doing them for other districts and so forth. It's important that they're probably almost, you know, correct in what they're doing. You know, it's we had to do that in Torington. Um and then CO hit. We had to look at

042it again and now the projections were up. So projections are very important. Uh it depends upon also with co who thought that 167 kids would be coming to donate then 63 from New York you know I mean so projections are very important every year you know and also moving the students from one building to you know from 8th grade to 9th grade to the high school how many kids are going there you can almost see that movement and that's done in house tubal um alv the eighth now the eighth grade so this is if your projections are wrong and the state doesn't look at that you can have overs that's uh it's happening in Bridgeport so and and and superintendent and the board has to look at that see what's the best plan to help

043and we're trying to help with the commissioner on doing some of that takes us to go down. Well, some of the high schools not going down were built too small. Absolutely. Yes. That's I think I was seven superintendent code. Oh, let me just You're right. um projections that were given as I understand it and given to the state higher as I understand it they took the lower amount which that you know in that time also had different people running that office who are no longer there was a problem with that office red so happens that this sidebar. So we were I was in that office telling them about how increase he gets a call. That's the last time everybody saw him that day was there and as you pointed out that was the state taking

044low their projections. We've had a history of that within Bridgeport of giving the state our projections and being having the state reduce those projections so that we have small high schools that aren't sufficient to meet our needs now because they didn't take a projection. They went to the lower number. We're trying to work through that with the state. I don't know if you want to tell them that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I've been on a phone and with Zoom with the commissioner and with Charles Hughes telling them that we need this waiver for one year. Okay. And again, today on the phone with them, I gave them the email that was June 1st, 2021 that gave you the waiver 2020. So, we're working on that. Also I uh presented to the commissioner that was one

045I said to the commissioner why don't you come down to Bridgeport there are many things that are worthwhile to look at one is when you open up the new registration atonic that's probably one of the best things I think it's one of the greatest things and the woman there who runs it we we interviewed her unbelievable I'm sorry I don't know her name know she's married to Jeff Um but yeah, so really great. Come down and look at that because every district used to have to do each school would do it and there was always a screw up. No doubt about it. This is now in one place. Do it. It's it's really uh an important one-stop shop, right? And it's really good. The other thing which unbelievable you had a student who uh got

046into all four uhmies. That's unheard of. You know what I mean? So there's things and we talked to and I'm terrible on names. Sorry. Uh we talked to the communication people. They're out there doing that communication. So I'm sorry about that. Jim and Yes. Yes. So, um, we're working, the three of us are working for the benefit of the kids in in Bridgeport. And if we have to tell the commissioner one thing or we have to tell Avery one thing, we're going to tell them because it's the best thing that we can see, you know, and hopefully the commissioner will come down. We talked about security. Uh, fantastic security here with the police and and and the board of ed working together. Um so you can't discuss that in open session anyway but it's it's

047important and uh and when we also uh special ed the teachers we have uh they're going to have 14 hopefully teachers be able to uh take and and the board of ed approved it which we which is great. So now you have 14 teachers they they get everything done in summer for the special ed teachers. There's another one we're trying to work through theou so that uh uh regular ed teachers uh who have special ed can can or or regular they could be an English teacher but they also have special ed uh certification that would help district. So, we'll we're looking at everything to help the district and we appreciate maybe helping us with BMOU and but if there's something wrong with district, we're going to tell them. There's something wrong with the state, we're

048telling them. That's what we're here for. Who the hell? People may not like it, but the truth is the truth. Set us free. Wow. And it's set us free. Yes. Don't talk to my wife. She may not. So, also staffing cost, you know, it's almost 80% of a bunch staffing cost, uh, salaries, benefits, and and the levels of where they are. So, that's staffing, operational cost, transportation, facilities, utilities, technology. We met, here's another thought that we had. We met with the uh Wii transportation and and this is just top of my head because I've done it before. They don't get paid until November because of the roots and so forth. What we tried to do in a couple of districts is, okay, we know that whatever the contract is, the contract, why not pay them

049over 10 months, okay, and get a a a uh I wouldn't call a rebate, but a discount of that. So even though you know they they're looking at the roots roots so forth if you give them 10 payments they'll give you a discount and then we can every month look at is there a did we make a mistake over the years and so forth. So that's a thought that we that we've had that uh because they don't get paid till November after the first bill is submitted and it's can be a hardship. just thought uh program evaluations review of current programs and potential new initiatives including academic and extra budget timetable annual cycle planning typical begins in the fall and approval process ends in late spring with the timing and the process of that varies

050from district to district. Key milestones, budget kickoff, school and departmental submissions, multiple review points, superintendent recommends to the board of education, board of educ. It's a continuous open communication with everybody. Board members responsibility shall provide an appropriate learning environment for all students which includes adequate instructional books, supplies, materials, equipment, staffing, facilities and technology, equitable allocation of resources with schools and proper maintenance of facilities and a safe school setting. Board members responsibility the budget process starts with identification of priorities. The board of ed plays a critical role in working with the community and administration to identify a district's vision, mission, and goals. in discuss subject superintendent's responsibility to collaborate with district leaders to design a fiscally responsible budget that ensures equitable and developmental appropriate education experiences between schools a safe and clean learning environment fulfills statutory

051obligations and allows for advancement of board education goals. Does the board support budget adoption? Identify, discuss, and resolve difficult or controversial issues early. So, we know there's going to be something coming up. We want to let the board know that it could be an issue out there. Demonstrate values of linking goals and program goals to cost. What does it cost us to to run a building and so forth? How can we link that? work with administration to identify programmat programmatic or operational efficiencies that are good. Can we save money on on energy? Have we looked at are you doing light repairs, changing lights, saving money that way, saving cost? Have we looked at other grants that are out there that could be used to bring money into the community? Work with administration identify seek unanimous

052if possible board member support for adopted budget. Educate the community about the value in budget. Public funds cannot be used to provide information that urges support of the budget but can be used in the board of budget and engagement and we adopt a responsible budget that supports the work through appointed board finance committee to review and monitor tendences on an ongoing basis. So if you have a budget document and you have u programming that give you monthly financial reports that's how you can ask questions why why is this you know know usually it's 20% of the budget at this time but now it's 60% well you we want to know why it's so important so it's important to get we're working with to get those things on unice so that you would have monthly financial

053and also each principal and stakeholder would get their budget and say okay here's my budget this is what I've spent so far this is what you know they would get a budget for the beginning of the year and here's this is and each month they would get a report showing where they spend their money so can you talk a little bit about the process that you're being you now in the district on how that's that's calculated or not being calculated in a in a a manner to where the board would be equipped with that information. I do want to say that you know things that we do in this district is manually done. There's no electronic system that has the capability of providing those accurate reports on a consistent basis right now. So that's he

054talks about that but when you talk about what we're doing in that process we're not doing that. We can't really give you that information in a timely manner because we the system is not set up that way. We do everything manually. Each department has their own way of doing it and they do it manually right now. That's why we met with the city because the module are there for the use of the board of ed. Uh it's no cost to the the board of head because the city board and wall. So what happens now? We asked the 19 director uh Jeff we asked him what's your budget? It's 25,000. You can't have a budget 2019. That's my budget. It really is. He he doesn't know what he has. The bill comes in, it's paid, you

055know. I mean it's it's there's no uh get to it later. incumbrances, you know, requisitions. And that's what we want to with NEST, we want to bring that into the district for requisitions and and purchase orders and so forth. And it's it would all be on mun system and so forth. That's what I'm saying. Just from my experience, it's standard practice where the board budget would be on just would be on the towns or the city's unit system. It's not an unusual thing to be looking at. doesn't mean that they would have control over your budget. It just would mean it would be sitting in in their unit system and you'd have immediate access to your budget to to to help you with forecasting and determining where you are currently with with all the object

056codes. But if you look at historically the last 12 years that the district how the district has ran it was all controlled internally and no one had access to any budget other than the CFO the district and the superintendent you know over those the different superintendent over the years. So I think what has what has happened is historically the CFO pretty much controlled everything every aspect of the budget and no one really had really insight as to the yearly progression projection you know of how you analyze that budget. And so when you do that, everything else is limited, you know, when it comes to progress of I need a program to help develop my English language learners and we need to we need to budget $80,000 for this program. No one had control of any

057of that in the district. And so that's where you have issues when year after year after year it was controlled that way and no no one saw the benefit of evaluating the program to see how effective the program was. If it wasn't effective throughout that year, then you looked at doing something different. From a superintendent perspective, how do you hold your your language arts department accountable if you budgeted a million dollars for that department and you've used eight, you know, $800,000 of it for another program that had nothing to do with language arts. So, so you want your language arts director in that department to have control over the budgeted money that the board allocated to that department. Yeah. And that's a process that the board has to get involved with. Not trying to tell

058educators what to do, but just justifying, you know, if if I come or department head comes to you say, "Hey, we need this. Why do you need it?" You know, what are you going to use to do do it? and how can you guarantee the the board that it's going to be impactful to kids, right? So, that's the process that we have to do more of as board superintendent relationships as we develop this whole new process that we're going to do. And he talked about the document. We don't have a document to follow for you to follow for principal directors to follow. We don't have that in place right now. And so when we rebuild this thing, we all have to come up with that process. So you guys are clear, we're clear, principles are

059clear, teachers are even clear. This is what's going to happen and the time of year is going to happen. Good question. Like if I look if I go if I wanted to see Westport's um like their bargaining and unit contracts and stuff and I go on their city website, I should be able to see right I don't think Bridgeport is capable of doing that in any department. It does. If you go, if you go to the city website, all contracts are you can see the new contracts. All the contracts are open right on the website, including the way we transportation contracts. A lot of things are on the city website. No, no, on the district website, but but but the school the school the education stuff is not on there. You can like if I

060want to see this education budget, this it's there. It's there. It's there. unit is published on the district website by school drill by school unit allocations are there right school the only thing the operational account and not is kind of done on what they call pool meaning control by the operational like office supplies and all those things controlled by the finance director Basically, it gives each each school their allocation spreadsheet. They put in their request to the business office and it get processed. It's not online. It's done on a pulled account. So, the schools have their operational account allocation, but it's like let's say it's a million dollar or $2 million. Each school is given allocation based on the number of students. Say $50 or $100 per student depending on the size of your school.

061That's your allocation operational account allocation. Then the school will put in a request through form stack which goes to the business office which gets entered in mute for processing. But it's not an ideal. It's not there. Okay, you can have a pool of everything, but a school's given a million dollars. What is it for? There's no budget document that shows you uh for instance in a in a high school if they have Spanish, how many Spanish teachers are in that area, what are the supplies, what is maybe they go to a conference, maybe they have textbooks, you know, that's what you should be getting and should analyze on a monthly basis. Yeah. Well, some of that does exist on schools. They got school breakdown spending on our website. But no, I want to go back

062to the point where because they do every school got a budget. Yeah. And every all the expenditures you could go you could go get as granular as you want on the on the school sites. See how much the text it is there. It's cumbersome. It's all there is there. But back back to the point about um one of Dr. Avery raised that we do need to get more involved and so what you raised about the system which is true because the example you gave about the English the language department using the money those are line items as long as I've been on the board and observing the board probably about 12 years in total I've never seen a line item transfer voting which is where they use 800 $800,000 is $200,000 left. They don't need

063it in that department. What department should they use them? And then the board will vote to move that $200,000 or add $200,000 if they have a shortfall from another line that has it. And that's and hold them accountable. Why did you ask for a million when you only needed $800,000? Why did you ask for $800,000 when you needed a million? And that's where the board needs to get more involved. I'd like to see the board of education behave more like the city council and not have the budget process one meeting a month, especially when it gets close to budget time and times where we got big budget. We need to sit down for basically hours at a time and get do deep dives and understand what we're voting on. So if you have a again

064detailed budget you can tell okay and and a transfer usually are done depends upon quarterly a lot of districts do it quarterly some districts do it at the end of the year some districts do it every month I would that's gets a little too involved I would do it quarterly I wish I had done in the past but I had a budget that that went through a school system okay here's forb school They had a budget. You knew the principal. You knew the principal. You knew the salaries. You knew everything in that false district was $5 million. Just there. We don't do knew all of that. And that's what we're trying to do here. So everybody has that budget. You can see, oh, huh, XYZ school has $300,000 for math. Why? You know, I mean,

065so it's important. And when you have that laid out properly, we'll see what was spent the previous year. We'll see what was budgeted for this year, what's been spent for this year up to whatever objection for. And you know, then you can ask, you know, Andre asked a moment ago, why is this so out of whack? You know, if it's over budget or really under budget, what's going on here? And you can ask a question and say I don't understand this and and either of our administrators will explain so we can right and if you have the documents there's the ask the questions you know and a lot of times I knew what the questions would be because it's the same question all the time you know I said well that's again this is why

066it is and so forth you know I mean but it's a it's a tool for everybody it when I was assistant super it would help me You're right and mistake people don't make mistakes. Also we should have as you do we have an independent audit comes in and auditive comes in and so ensure total expenditures do not exceed the proof total year in preparation presentation create clear and concise presentation materials report highlight key points emphasizing important aspects of the budget anticipate questions we should have budget books. We should have some PowerPoint presentations. What are the key points? What are the main drivers for budget increases? It could be state mandates that are pay what I do make mistakes. So, thank you. Where were the savings realized to help offset costs? uh changes to personnel levels,

067changes to enrollment, and anticipate some questions. Prepare for in advance for potential questions from board members. Request feedback prior to presentation. Any questions on that? The second one is what is the school budget? Most we know this but just reemphasize financial plan outlines the expected expenses for a school district. Purpose ensures resources align with educational goals. We want to make sure that the goals and the mission align with what was submitted. Major expense categories which you know salaries, benefits and structural supplies, facilities, maintenance and utilities. again when the number and I see it all the time to us that's the first thing they call if they've got maintenance which why you know I mean the kids are there we have to look at them we all do we all do operational costs facilities banks utilities

068support student student support services counseling special ed transportation Capitales, infrastructure, technology. These are just definitions that all know hopefully incumbrances but is that commitment to pay for specific purpose future such as purchase orders or contract. If you can if you do incumbrances whether it's incumbrance for purchase orders or incumbrance for salaries and projections that helps out. If you don't have any recumbentrance for salaries, you know, you look at well, how how do I do it? Well, look, let's look at what each uh whether you do monthly or you do each payment always 26 days and 52 days, whatever pays off, then you look at it on a monthly basis. They usually don't change from month to month. They may change a little bit, but you have you're looking at it each month and and you're

069making sure that the projections and incumbences are there. So, it's important. Expenditures a payment with either cash or I don't even know if you use credit cards. Um totally against that, but that's my project my thing. Projections a method of estimating an entity's future financial performance. What's the projections end of the year? Thank you. Thank you. Budget to actual the process of comparing a company's actual financial results to its budget on a monthly basis. Also look at the prior year. If we spent 29 million for something, why are we budgeting 15 million and why are we projecting 23 million? Something went skew. So we had to look at that. uh budget transfers, the movement of funds from one budget line item to another or from one account to another. Again, look at that because it

070happens, you know, hopefully know what it is. That's oh, we saved a ton of money. We saved $200,000 on on on one thing. Where can we put that? Somewhere else. So they make that you know we we need some it's just like children moving in they need something a computer a textbook or something all of a sudden 10 people kids move in one school or they move to another school so it's important to look at that transfers but now the new history of non-lapsing funds this has changed last year you had there's 1% and the 2% and everything had to go to S in their coffers. Without the change in the legislation, board of ed can put up to 2% in a special account to the board of ed don't have to go to the

071so of finance to approve 2% up to 2% the budget as surplus that you can put in your account and you can set what you want to use it for. So it's important but uh pause for the event voted to create an unexpended funds account or it should also develop and adopt guidelines procedures for deposit into that account and expendes expenditures out of that account because just for clarity the board of education reserve fund that's not really just for clarity it does not belong to the city that just put it in the Yes, the city has absolutely no control over the bureau city. Thank you. Um first point I was going to make the second point I'm going to make the maximum amount allowed is 2%. Correct. Correct. What's the minimum required? General required abundant

072reserves has to be on account. Well, I was speaking to you as my question. Thank you. Go ahead. But prudent financial budget or plan others have something for the rainy day. Let's just be this can't be running down the wire every year. What's that? No. Yeah, but if you you know you have up to 2% you have a half a percent you're going to put it in there. Yeah, why not? This thing is what is the minimum meaning you don't have to have anything as reserve? That's where it's going by law. How how many how many districts how many districts you think have about $5 million? Yeah, has to be a big district. I was in uh Danberry was something we opened up the account, you know, we had probably $600,000 in that account. Yeah.

073And and and to balance that out to either $25 million down to $2 million or for children to walk an extra mile or to cut par professionals. Those are the balances. So it's not as irresponsible of a move that some would have you taken. I was just talking about at the end of the year if you have anything left, it should be in that. Yeah, we're having a discussion about this year's budget that we don't need to have right now. I think um it's correct, you know, and these two have been asking, you know, debating about how much needs to be left in the savings account. It's a a legitimate discussion. Um but and you can you know you've given your opinion I think but it's absolutely pertinent. Oh absolutely absolutely legitimate discussion but we're

074not going to resolve the time. The question was you have 2% you have up to 20% best practices inter controls driven policies separation of duties requisition and purchase order process contracts reconciliations the accounts and entity orders. Does your district have an established process for requisitions purchase orders for their levels of approval of purchase cards so forth? There will um we will be uh hopefully there'll be training secretaries putting requisitions and purchasers at the school level and do it at the district level. any requisition has to come through someone at central office to put it in the system to get it into play. used to it used to be we used to have all these things set up in the district prior to 2012 you know and then the new CFO came in and brought all

075that in house in order to control the spending from the departmental and campus levels and so it made it very streamlined where all of it came here to be processed and she controlled all those departments you know as the manager of the funds in the district. in reality not been not not known to the to the board that that was actually happening because the process worked very very well over the last 10 to 12 years when you had additional millions of dollars going in from ESR to where when you control those dollars you could do a lot with you know that internal working system you know uh and you take a lot of that autonomy away from the campus and departmental levels. Does that make any sense to you? It probably don't make any sense

076to you guys because you you probably wouldn't be involved in the process. Well, in reality, the district, the brick school district is still using mun to process all their requisitions. They enter it in Formstack. It gets channelneled to minutes. It still gets entered to mun. There's no other system that's used to purchase anything other than meals. It still get entered. It's a lengthy process that I agree but it should be processed at the school level. So, so the principal sees it, he approves it to central office and it goes central office final approval, right? Well, the principal approves it in Palm Center. The secretary of the school enters and the principal approves it. So, not nobody's been circumvented here. It's just that it's a to me it's a ridiculous lengthy added step. The principal still

077approves it in form time. The secretary of the school enters it. The principal approves it. Then he routes the business office who enters it in minutes. Then he routes to me. I kind of routed them all to me. Anything over $1,000 gets routed to me because I want to look I want to open the requisition, see the item they're buying, and I reject it. talk, but you're supposed to that's that's your job. It's a licensing process, but acquisition was done at the business office. It shouldn't be done. I agree with you. It was done at the school level, but through Homestead. It's a unnecessary added step. I agree, Mr. Traver. Yeah, I I didn't quite understand your timeline. That's all. Okay. the the estimate hasn't been did well because that Marlene implemented that and she

078came here that and those changes were made when she came here and that done by her under superintendent ballist back then. Um so that system has been you know within her domain and and sort of under her the veil of of of her system it being her system. So now it's being opened up and looked at a little more closely by you all. So I see it changing and you're looking at how to do it better and different. I get that. But it was not tied into the esser money coming into this district. It was exactly my my pay for the clarity on that. I think you're exactly exactly the way I said that. Yes. is just taking out the extra step that was put on which to me is very unnecessary, very time consuming,

079very labor intensive because I haven't seen district that doesn't have requisitions purchase orders and they all have it at the school level and then reports go back to the principal. Hey, reports are then given to the board. That's the process. It's a it's it's a simple thing. It's not rocket scientist. You know, when you talk to principles and directors, that's the way it used to be done in this district and it was efficient. things work really really well you know and that's one of the struggles that campus principles have right now because as a principal the way we were trained I know all my staff I know everything that's needed I know my budget I know every if I have a miss if I lost a counselor and a teacher I know I have two

080staff members I'm going to be hiring you know they don't even know that because it's all intertwined in this just made system that doesn't make any sense to anyone, you know, and that's where we have to go back to the basics of understanding how that's developed because most principles were trained the same way. I don't care what state you're in, it's the same way. It's anywhere you go, it's the same way that principles across any university train principles and assistant principles to do the work because it's transferable anywhere. And so that's what we have to go back to and that's kind of what we're leaning towards right now as well. It's it's not any different from the city on the city side basically every department has their operational account but there is a lead there

081is a lead meaning that there is a cap uh whatever you allocated on your operational account if you burn it all and spent it all in one day that's your business. the system will not over by one penny. Yeah. Question. Since we're on internal controls, we've been calling for since I've been on board for forensic order for years in in ter in part because of the concern about internal controls. Is our flawed system set up in effect without without checks and balances? For example, can the same person who puts in a purchase order write the check to pay for that purchase order or is just separate them into that check and balance is in place. So those checks in place a little bit different so that the principle was in uniform district that everybody knows

082it. Hson there was no they called me in in Danbury they called me in in falling or wherever this is the way we do budgets everybody even in Torington they call me in four times there and I love that you know that's what here here which I gave them and I'm working hopefully what I would do also I would give them the this special ed, you know, I mean, what are we spending on special educ because we're trying to bring kids back and so so it's it's a work in progress here and I think there'll be great so so while the principal is concerned with sitebased management and concerned about his or her own budget, you also want the principal to be aware of the district initiatives like programs like special education the district science

083programs just so they have a more global understanding of how their school fits in the scheme of the entire district. It works. But it does, you know, and there's always going to be arguments. No doubt about it. But arguments that can be smoothed over and discussed and worked on, you know. I mean, that's what life is, you know. I'll tell you. Here's a funny story. I married the first year at my wife. I'm watching the New York Knicks going to triple overtime. My wife wants to watch the odd couple. Who won that debate? How's the odd? Next day I bought a the team and I tried to get tickets for the Knicks. I knew where my friends was. You know what I mean? You have to It's it's and to finish your funny story Charles

084Smith was from death. That's right. Yes. And we're married April 6th was 54 years. 6 was 54 years. We got married in New York 54 years ago. 6 ines of snow. Have a good picture of that. The next day was 80 degrees. Whatever she says goes. You know, life is good. I can't complain. I have two sons. One's 51. He lives in Atlanta. We've been on radio and TV, 26 years. My other son lives in Seattle. They both one married a Japanese girl and one married a Turkish girl. So again, no requisition for purchases, contracts, authority, sign, legal review, risk management, review, conducting risk, sorry, risk assessments, cash handling procedure. Do you have clear policies and procedures, student activity funds with responsible? Power of rec reconciliation perform and procurement reimbursement check issuance process. Common financial

085challenges in education budget cuts and funding shortfalls. Oh, I'm sorry. We'll have to make the last Okay. There anything in there that they should? Well, just budget cuts and f funding shortfalls reduce state and federal funding which you're going to have to do all the time. Impact on staff and program when you have to unfunded mandates again and critical capital needs maintaining and and just uh the last one the next and the last one and the last one I'll just not going to go over because it see it's But here best practices financial oversight and I can go in detail later on procedures and controls set up procedures by which all fiscal activities in the district can be accumulated characterized reported and and a scale of 1 to 10 right now is Bridgeport and I'm

086just because I think a lot The work expected of all of you. And um how how much work do they have worth? Five. Yes. Five. Okay. Save. That's safe. Yeah. Save a lot of work. And it's it's good work because you're helping the school. You're helping the kids. We're here for that. You know what I mean? And u it's also doable. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right. None of these things have to be created for nothing. They're all principles and processes that exist everywhere. So just implementing them here. It's a matter of willpower. But that's it's going to take time. No doubt about it. And and have an idea how to do it and I think uh they will proceed to that once we and to and to tie it back to the work is regarding the

087state. I know that's one of their expectations of all this process between what they're doing at the technical support team and the work we're supposed to do with you is that they want to see these processes in place and your role is going to be different than it is at the superintendent level and building level. But ultimately you have to know that it's being done and they have to do it to your satisfaction in order to sort of get checked off on that. And and that's a huge culture shift because the the work is different, you know, not only from the staff side, but from the board side and even the superintendent side of how you coordinate all those things together. That's going to be the toughest part because the shift that has to be

088made is a shift to a whole different side that a lot of staff that's in the district has hadn't experienced because a lot of them are new over the last five years. you look at the number of people that changed over the last five years, you know, so they they didn't have that, you know, expertise, you know, you know, to follow through with this whole new change of having and I think the why is going to be very important sharing that we're not just doing, we're not adding new procedures, making it like more difficult, but we want to be we want to be in better control over our budget and ensure it's going in the right direction that principles have more authority over their budgets to ensure that students sitting in their seats have better

089academic experiences. And we want the board and and the superintendent to be proactive, not reactive all the time. You know what I mean? That's the thing. Second one, expenditure oversight, financial oversight is a key component for all stream business. When you get the budget documents, when you get the monthly plan, monthly assessment, you should ask questions. Why? How come? Why is this double and so forth? Whatever. And you think that's where they've also forecasting as well. Correct. Correct. Financial reporting requirements, state of Connecticut, the federal reporting requirements to which all school districts must adhere. You have to file at the end of the year. um EFS report to the state. That's the that's that's golden that that one. And and this the the board of ed does have all of the charter accounts on the

090EFS system. If you did, would it take a lot of time to move those over, but you already have that? Want to make sure I can. You're saying that every meeting we're going to have this presentation, this sort of summary of where the budget's at. Yeah. You should have during the finance committee they would get they would get that. Well, once it's said, you know, and it show, you know, yeah, that's that's pretty. It would be the budget would be a finite this would be a a maybe instead of 100 pages it's 50 pages what it is board policy and board's role in general school boards have three major responsibility develop the annual budget to run the school system setting school policies and hiring and evaluating the super I leave you with those thoughts and

091also I don't have to go through it. Just just an idea of what a budget manual looks like. It went for Bridgeport. It shows you principles. They want a new personnel pandemic. You know why? There's a new program. Why? You know, Reena has some conversation with that. So, We don't have to reend the wheel. The city has all the template. All we have to do is basically what the city put in mut because the board is not going to enter their budget and mutual it should be you know it's very straightforward the dates of when you have it and so forth. Yes. that there the data there the processing there page by page sampling is there you have any question entering call the fin then we do on the city side a week two weeks

092to the time to the deadline or a week to the deadline we send everybody a reminder deadline is these days three days to the deadline we send everybody a reminder. A day before the deadline, we send everybody a reminder. The poor reminder. If you don't meet the deadline, the school will shut the system down. Basically, meaning whatever your current year budget is gets rolled over into next year. That does not mean you don't get a budget. your current budget gets roll just as a kind of a reminder as we Yes. No, go ahead. I was just going to say that the um goals that you set those performance goals uh this third one uh basically develop and implement a comprehensive budget plan that ensures fiscal responsibility and sustainability for the next five years. and part

093two, review and update policies that outline the board's oversight of the operational budget as well as grant applications and expenditures with your accountability, sustainability, making making informed decisions that benefit the entire school community. So that's your goals for this. So, I think this is maybe a good way of sort of reinforcing the idea that if it's doable that there are people in place to help you do it and um it's just going to take some willpower and do it and sort of this might be something that that um communications person speaks to as well around around getting in and the why around these major structural shifts. Absolutely. Good idea. So mine was just a short, you know, on page two, you you you call it the budget committee. I assume that's your finance committee, right?

094So then you you start I see on December 9th and January 13th or December in January meetings, right? Because that's the processing. Yeah, same here. So well are there questions, comments? Um we we question but as a comment I can say you know thank you for being here. Thank you for let us know what we can do because that's all we need to be going back and forth. What we need is health power as you say we live what we get and I know our parents community the whole United that's what we don't need to judge nobody nobody what we need is we have the policy open door with that they bring come help us tell what you can help us what you know what we need because they know what we need they our

095state they know what we need so what that's what we and people like you and other colleagues um we appreciate I really appreciate you know special tape. You guys did an amazing job and I'm very you know honor for me to be you guys here. I appreciate that. No, everybody uh has been uh warm to us. They've asked a lot of good questions. They've given us answers that you probably didn't want to hear that we didn't want but we heard you know and that's what we're gaining you know and working both again. We tell what we think to the superintendent, the board. We tell what we think to the commissioner. Mhm. What we think that they should do, what you should do, and and and also the positive things when we communication people, go out

096there on a monthly basis, get things going, which they are. They're two young, especially both of very young. They know what they do. They're doing a great job. Yeah, they're young. So they know how to do it, you know. Well, they did. Yeah. And and they know the the media. So it's very well. Yes. I I again, you may not believe me, but I I enjoy coming down. Yeah. You know what I mean? I really do. I really do. The people have been helpful here. We've been helpful to them. and uh ask my two colleagues they'll say the same and we will enjoy what you will bring down. Has has the team visited any of our schools? We're going Monday mostly all of them next Monday. We've met with everybody and uh um PJ is

097taking us uh next Monday when um I don't have we're going to at least five schools Monday. We didn't have a chance yet because we were doing all this other stuff, right? Okay. Because it's a lot to consider him say an actual impact of a real realization. We have a couple elementary schools. We're going to some of the self-contained classrooms. I was well our our third person David Abby has been in most of the special ed classes, the uh uh rise classes. He's been in across the s classes. Yeah. Yeah. He's been around, that's his specialty, special ed. So, he's been around in those classes, made in comments, so forth. You going to teach us how to how to bring us bring our schools down here to to Bridgeport? That's Yeah. Specialized special ed schools.

098We we need them in Bridgeport. Yeah. Well, we we hope Shane's cool. Mhm. You know, SC my wife dear. Yeah, that's you know, we want to bring children back. That's the best place. Absolutely. And Bridgeport some other that's where that's where money is going. Yes. A lot of it I understand that that's happening in all the district. It's not only br that way we get that out of the not we have the biggest district. So we have the biggest number over 4,000 kids that are going out of district. love without saying conversation guys there too much conversation everybody too much one person at a time and I and I thank you for bringing some key words that I that that I that I like and I'm a words kind of guy words matter to me

099so when you talk about you know when you say the statement and all of you talking about the panel when you use the statement board approve or board vote that means something that means that it's coming to the board that the communication is coming to board when you use the word trust you know trust is a word is an action word it you know you can gain trust and you can also lose trust of course so some of the things have that have been happening throughout is you know people have been acting according to what that level of trust is you know what I mean so you know if if I ask you hey can you you know give me something or information I've asked for it and then I don't get it so then

100that's something that it breaks a little bit of that trust so now I got to find a another way to ask for it for to require that information. So it builds thing and you know that's what we're trying to build and we've been building it very good since you know January because of the better communication and you guys use that word uh many times during your discussion of the communication to be able to have a free chance to do what we're doing right now. It means a lot because then we can get understand each other a little bit more, you know, and we can see where we're coming from and believe in our words because I think anybody in this world can't say anything about every word that I've used. I've put action behind it

101and then nobody can call that to attention because again that's the way I carry myself. Anybody can talk to me. I'm an open door. You call me, text me, email me, do whatever. Um but I I will speak power to power. I'm here for a reason. I'm here to represent my community and my community is my biggest voice and my like you mentioned the community team to get the support and let them understand this is what's going on. If you got a better way of doing it, let me know. Give me advice. This is what we got to do. Um and I think your visit to your school is going to be, you know, impactful. Bring some tissues because it's going to be some sad things, but again, we need to know where we are

102to be able to move forward and to build. So, I appreciate your attendance and I look forward to meeting some of you guys because I haven't had the opportunity that some people have had. Yes. Sorry. Look forward to No, it's timing. Oh, look forward to it. Thank you. Yeah, just some uh Tim Sto's point is correct. We do need to reduce our special education cost approximately $114 million per year, over a third of our budget. and listening to hearings happening right now all day in special education funding. You know what? We need to bring them back. We need money. We need one. Some of the some of the special education students have such unique needs that we can't justify hiring one person to provide for two students and $200,000 rather than taking advantage of these

103programs right now. You know who's out here protesting against in district programming? these out of service pro providers right now about about 10 to one they they're trying to protect their space and trying to protect their private markets because unfortunately they see our children as profit margins now if we could build a home the problem is every single district's going to be trying to build their own they'll be competing for the same resources and right now as the bill stands it's only I think it's 14 $15 million in competitive grants to build in house programs for 160 something districts competing for them. It's a tough hopefully we can do it and that's an end goal but I think it's a goal that we can reach tomorrow. No joke. I took a liberty of again since

104policies is at the center of everything you talk about. I took my I went through the cage cage 3000 series which is around business and non- instructional operations and I made a copy of the table of contents and I also attached several policies I thought would be model policies I thought would be within here your interest and your in your discussion. I also heard I didn't I didn't make a copy of this policy but we do have a policy on non-lapsing educational funds but I'd be happy to share that with you as well. I didn't bring that but that didn't come up but since it has we I wrote the policy based on the new statutes and so that's will be available to you as well. So if you just take one of these, pass

105it down. If you see anything in this table of contents beyond what I shared with you, please ask for in my policy. Be happy to share it with you if you do right away. Policies that I attached are one has to do with business administration, one has to do with lease purchase agreements. I know that came up contracts have come up before. So they do have a model policy on contracts and specified responsibilities and also policy mon policy on periodic financial report expended and expended reports. So similar this is what was talking about some policy language support you or may they already have policy on those topics. Just the model, our model policy might help either revise your current policies or form some new policy work on this. Um, were any of these part of

106the ones that I already received or no? I just want to double check. Thank you very much. Thank you for anticipating what what Ed is going to be talking about tonight. You guys are making amazing progress with your policy work and I had a chance to watch you online and you know the leadership the administrative leadership and the board work and your leadership has been outstanding and they're doing my view the right number and the right level of urgency doing really good work. I appreciate that. Appreciate him. He's been great. He's been setting up the team and with Dominic and all them. So looking forward to it. Thank you. No, I know regard to the policy, but um part of the state's complaint with us was we weren't over suing grant administrations properly, but we

107never discussed anything about the grants that we did any recall that that we weren't properly looking at grants that they had called us on the carpet at the f the very first meeting that we were not properly familiar with the grants and their administration. Seemed like a reach to me at the time, but I would like to get a little more clarification on that. What do we need to understand besides what grants could be expended for and if they're following the policy and the procedure of those grants? because that that that was that seems like a major point to it's it's something that they raised at the one of the first meeting that we had you know with the board regarding concerns I think it was just more of a far reach more so than

108anything and my my impression of that as well and it was also integrated into the training request that language right here which might help um the training outcome must result in a new or updated policy that outlines the board events oversight of the operational budget as well as grant applications and expenditures. So I guess the deliverable would be updated policies which obviously it's not the writing of it that's important but the implementation of it and so I think it follows sort of the discussion we've had this evening about there's a lot of pieces in place that have to be put in place but would need to be solidified through the policy which I could also share policies are that well we can look at that too. I really haven't looked at grants. Yeah, they had

109they had called remember the miss come up and they were asking questions about the money and come in the draw down the money and when the money was coming in and the reports were filed and they tried to but they didn't spend the time to go through it in any detail. and say a lot of those grants were not even approved correct on the state of Connecticut. So they were really trying to make sure that they got that picture that there was that's my eyes for Bridgeport more so not it was not developed into a full discussion to look at exactly where things were at. It was a generalized statement that seemed to be made and concluded without looking at the details of where things were at and why what was the problem with the

110flow of the cash and why it wasn't being drawn down. And you know that there was a there was also also a carryover. Okay. But title one and alliance alliance wasn't approved until December. Kim, right? You know, and that's what this was January. This was early January district. problem was with the state, not with race. Yeah. And she was trying to explain that to them, but it was living in Boston. Yeah. And I think and I I because they I think the state made a made a problem with last year's budget and alliance because remember state has to approve the alliance budget. So they approved the alliance budget 23 24 and now they gave them 2425. Oh, I don't like this budget. We approved it the year before. Yeah. And they were blaming the district

111for not drawing down four months or five months into the fiscal year. They said, "You're the one holding the grant. You didn't approve. How come we draw down? I mean, get your house in order." Was I I I get a cop I go on on the website and I can get all the grants. And I said the first meeting I said, "Where's alliance? Where's Title One? They haven't approved it yet." In case if you don't know. All the grant reviewers come to the office once a week. That was not No, but that is what the other is how it got portrayed was, well, why haven't this money? Well, we haven't had the money yet. We're only beginning to be able to draw down on it. And it was like never fully developed to say. Madam

112Chair, Dr. Avery, if you will, might I suggest that we reach out for positive affirmation that we in fact did check off this box or if we have not checked off this box, what would be sufficient actions for us to take to check off the box to satisfy their I think we're already in compliance with that already. I mean, that's one of the things that we we we push soon as the grant was approved. We've already started to Well, no, no, I'm not speaking of development grant. I'm talking about the board training and the board issues around this that they brought up as the reason that they're interfering with our business because we weren't properly overseeing the grants. I want to make sure that box is checked and later then they don't play. Gotcha. Well,

113one thing I do on my end is again share with you some model policies related to this topic. So you can determine if you have policy around issues around grants to that defines your approach. And if you I think if you have a policy or policies related to this topic, you can at least point out that we have policies that guide our practice and and we are in compliance with the administrative tasks that are required to draw down on these grants. Okay. So, um you actually might get a little early tonight. Get out a little early. Uh what I would like to do is um just set up our next meeting a little bit. Um the expectation of the state as I understand it is to really um formalize those performance goals is where did

114the board votes pass those Monday Monday. So um we'll focus sort of that part two of sort of trying to flesh out some of the activities that will revolve around that. And then the second part while while your first goal is to create a um a vision um we can start having that conversation as well and to start framing out um sort of maybe the why of what you're here about and then from that we'll go into um more of the process by what you want to do. I don't think it's fair to expect anything that you'll have the goals, but we can work toward setting you up for success with that. But I think it starts with because what the state keeps pushing us the performance goals. So we I want to really make

115sure that's defined in a way that there's no argument from them. You've got the plan, you've got the action plan in place, and you're working toward it. And that will include part of that work is establishing a district vote because as we've heard tonight, we've heard regularly, a lot of this doesn't work until you've got a really good clear district vision. But um I think all this work has been to set up so that that can be successful too. And we the only other outstanding thing is we have to work on that last date and if we can work about it. Yeah, we have a board meeting that month. So maybe we get to swap dates. I'll I'll have a better idea when he's available, but if we try to stick to the Mondays, um

116that probably help June 9th is the weather. June 9th. Yeah, I will would talk to him Thursday and Thursday. What's what Thursday? Um 9th 16th as well. The 16th is the original date that the year. Yeah, that's the date you can't make. Yeah, we had a little latitude if we go a little later because we had have it by the end of the months, but let I'm going to work on the 9th to see if we can get that. Well, the 16th is not going to happen. Just so I'm clear. Correct. Yeah, we'll probably if it if we do the 9th, we can put our board meeting on the 16th. and you know well it's about communication but it's a kind of thing that doesn't lend itself well to because he offers a zoom in

117but um so much of the conversation is about talking to each other as such I don't think it's a good mix for him so um with that alternative date we'll work on that any action plan to like begin flesh out what kind of you know what does this look like all favors any oppos You guys meeting of Germany. Oh, they should have