001thank you for February 27th 2025 it is now 6:30 p.m uh we have a couple of our members uh online tonight um and then we have some members here tonight so uh this meeting specifically is set to be about the budget so uh before we get started and I turn to over to Dr brosman why don't we do the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible justice for all so before we get off with Dr rman I'll open up to public comment does anybody have anything I'll start with the audience anybody in the audience tonight have anything for public comment okay hearing none will go to online and if any anybody online has any comment please
002just mention your name your address and uh remember tonight is specifically about the budget so we're hoping you'll keep your questions to that I have raised hand from Lis okay Lisa how are you tonight I think it's working thank you so much yep I appreciate the opportunity to give some feedback tonight oh my gosh I'm just uh sorry I just ran into the door okay um first thing I wanted to say was thank you for rescheduling this workshop and maintaining an open dialogue and I want to thank the board of education for implementing the cell phone policy um recently my um Canton High School junior recently told me that the YouTube uh app is going to be blocked soon on the laptops and I personally am a big fan of that and I'm happy to
003hear that information um okay I look through this superintendent package and I wanted to provide some feedback um on page 13 there's a graphic showing the national rate of inflation versus the Canton Public Schools audited rate of increase and um I don't know why we're not looking at a regional or local rate of inflation instead um because canton's constantly comparing itself to other schools in the state or other schools in the region um throughout the whole portfolio of the superintendent's budget so it just seems um that we should compare ourselves fiscally to um the rate of inflation locally as well um on page 14 there was a line item for new personnel and I know that was discussed last year so um since I was an advocate for not hiring new Personnel I would like
004that to be elaborated on if it's possible um on page 15 there's a p graph that shows 80% of the budget is Staffing and benefits and um what I had asked for last year um was if it was possible to break down the cost of the Staffing Which percentage is Administration Which percentage is um teachers Which percentage is support staff and if that could be shown over the years like what it was in 2022 2023 you know 2024 and and I haven't seen that information um maybe I'm missing it maybe it is somewhere and someone can enlighten me um on page 21 there's a a a doubling cost of District Safety and Security and if that could be elaborated on I would appreciate it um I recently learned that the Board of Education payroll specialist
005is not in the board of education budget but in the board of selectman budget and I would like that explained um on page 21 benefits is requested to be a million dollars more than it was last year and I need to understand if that's because of contractual uh obligations or mandates of some kind that I'm not aware of um um on page 23 Fuel and Communications funding is also requested to be double over what was spent in 2024 so if that could be elaborated on um and on page 20 24 the district technology infrastructure includes um hbac which I found very confusing and um yeah I just wanted to know what the Staffing levels were versus enrollment over the years um and administration versus Staffing levels versus enrollment over the years and and I haven't
006seen that anywhere um and that's it I really appreciate the opportunity Pro to provide feedback thank you very much okay thank you for those comments when the superintendent goes through the presentation tonight some of those questions might get answered if they don't one of the things you may want to do we have them listed but if you want to check back you could uh you could check back U to the district office we make sure you get you those answerers for as much of it as we can I would I would draw your attention to page 17 um where it has a Personnel summary of some of the expenses there but I don't know if that fully answers your question um but we'll get back to you on the others than thank that's what the
007budget workshop for so thank you for those questions I don't have any other raised hands no other raised hands for tonight okay um hearing none I I think what we'll do is we'll ask the superintendent to I know we have some questions and I think he's going to highlight some some uh points uh for us and uh we'll see if we have any board questions after we hear from the superintendent Dr BR super thank you Mr Daniels um Mrs nardy is going to pass out a uh PowerPoint for uh for each board member in the community here and this will all this is also for the people that are online and for the people that are watching this by a take uh this also is posted on our website under budget so um very transparent
008with all this information and I will do the best that I can in our team that is here to actually address Mrs C's questions so I think we could hit them all tonight and since it's a budget Workshop I would recommend that if we don't answer the questions to bring Mrs hogin back on to do a followup it's a workshop I don't mind that at all I think they're uh valid questions and I believe some of them we were prepar to answer based upon some of the questions that board members asked and uh the rest I think my team here and with Mr Robins online we could address that so what I'd like to do is just to give you a a brief summary of what was presented uh at the administrative Budget on February
00911th I just want to remind the the board and the community that the budget is grounded in a vision of the camp po schools with creative thinker Communicator collaborator critical thinker a compassionate citizen this budget aligns with the Board of Education goals of student growth and achievement partnership and Community engagement Financial sustainability and efficient operations learning environment and belonging embracing equity and Workforce Development the board of education budget priorities have always been at least since I've been here for the past year and a half student achievement in all areas across the district maintain class SI according to the Canton Board of Education policy focus on teaching learning professional development so social emotional well-being of students and staff provide a safe and healthy environment propose a fiscally responsible budget that aligns with the c Board of
010Education goals the budget that was proposed by the administrators some of the highlights include the C Public Schools will continue to refine student performance data collection practices and protocols in order to further further support the growth of each and every student establish responsive responsive multi-year technology Improvement plan to ensure operational efficiency alignment of culture and climate practices through vertical teams using data to inform programmatic needs and responses collaboration with State and Regional Partnerships professional learning and responsibilities time resources to support the continued growth of certified and non-certified staff and provide continued Safety and Security for our school Community the next slide I just want to remind everyone of where I was on February 11 but also remind everyone on the board in the community that I also presented a budget in December a forecast budget
011at that time that was a 5.97% increase in December so when I reported to you on February 11th of where the min ministrative budget was at that time it was a budget of 32,9 4,801 and what is represented in here are salaries of an increase of 990 which is 3.03% health and benefits which is a big number which is 989,50 77,000 from what I presented to you if you recall in December when we got new um numbers from our health insurance company we're going to come back to that because I believe there are board members that have some questions on that of why our insurance went up so much and I do have a question so I appreciate Mrs Cogan's question because if you just take salaries health and benefits Insurance property liability transportation and
012Fuel and I'll ask Mrs Robins a little bit later to address that electricity heating oil and natural gas just to roll over I was 6.28 fixed cost of just to roll from what we had this year in 2425 to roll to 2526 it's not including any new personnel which I'll talk about in a minute just to roll over was a 6.28 we do have the special education decrease of what we spent this year to what we're going to spend next year and then if you look at Athletics educational technology reference books instruction materials student support facilities tech services travel and meetings it's a012 so when I say this is not a budget that is made up of new supplies or any new initiatives it is not a budget that is making up anything new for
013our school district it's maintaining what we have and pushing forward with what we have we do have new personel in here which we'll talk about and then I did make some Personnel reductions and Personnel moved to some grants so on February 11th I proposed a budget to you of 5.88% over the increase and if you look above just to roll over was 6.28 so there was a lot of reductions that we needed to look at but from February 11 to when I had to present to you on on February 11th to where we are now some things changed so that's what happens it's a fluid process as we work through a a workshop and what I do want to remind you though of what I did have to take out to get to the 5.88
014because you remember from the forecasting budget I was at 5.97 and I had to add in $577,000 because at that time in December I had no idea that insurance was going to be a 20% increase we're actually factoring it in on in December as a 7% increase so that's a 133% jump so when you take the health insurance small Capital that is being added now in negotiations I had the difference that I now had to make up from December to that February 11th was $654,000 that brought me into the seven I knew that I was not going to bring a 70% budget to the board of education so we did reduce a classroom teacher a special education par educator a maintenance employee that was uh proposed non-existing maintenance of proposed new maintenance some retirement savings
015software and infrastructure software to open Choice CMS basketball was proposed we cut professional development by 20,000 board bed supplies and recognition by 5,000 and then we had some Savings of Social Security I am moving back as I discussed at our last meeting the preschool that is at CIS that was costing us $46,000 in transportation moving the preschool to Cherrybrook that we could save 46,000 I did have some playground equipment in there for our preschool that we needed to get at CIS if we were going to do there and then I moved some Personnel into various grants in District meeting and traveled 5,000 and then if you remember I told you that we're going to start a new program for special ed next year with the savings projected at $55,000 from so from the time that
016I presented you to in December to February 11th I cut $84,000 already out of the budget to get me to the 5.88 Mrs mle is going to be here next Tuesday to talk about the new program for special education to uh just explain the the the program the best that we can right now without um we're in contract negotiations but she's going to explain what it it's about so right there you could see $84,000 I did reduce and that also affected our open Choice uh grant funding that U we moved our dishwasher that we need for the high school family consumer science we that to Small Capital as I said last time I want the community and the board to know this is not the dishwasher that if you're fortunate enough to have a dishwasher
017at your house this is not a dishwasher that you have at your house this is a commercial dishwasher for a school so this isn't anything that we could get a donation for this is a commercial dishwasher to help with our family in consumer Science Program technology replacement we're moving $30,000 for our Middle School Chromebooks into the Commissioners Network Grant I did cut the teacher and residents um that we were looking at knowing as I mentioned that we would not be able to guarantee that we would have a job for the individual because our enrollment is going down a human resource specialist was proposed uh we cut that out and I did cut uh two mtss parent Educators for 22500 ,000 that was an open choice but I had to move software that was in our
018general budget into our open Choice budget that's all review everybody if you watched the video the last time those were all things that I spoke about on February 11th so what happened from February 11th to February 27th where we are now I do want to share before I go into that and it was asked by Mrs Cogan's new staff request we have three of them social worker point5 District uh for our Thrive program either way that would be in the budget if we were going to uh not create that position that that those funds of 33,500 it would be more than that because the student would have to be outplaced so we're bringing the part-time social worker in to save us money of being able to bring a a student um back then you can
019see after school campus supervisors that we would have one for um an after school at CMS in Sanz this is nothing new this was proposed in last year's budget and then we had the campus supervisors for Cherry Brook and Ken Intermediate School at two of them one for the Intermediate School one for Cherrybrook at 19,800 those are the only three new Staffing positions in the budget now there there was a question question by uh Mrs cogins regarding the the Personnel summary sheet and the Personnel summary sheet that is on page I believe 17 within your budget book Mrs cogin did ask a great question of Canim we have it from 23 22 I would love to be able to do that but the lack of information and really going back into before my arrival um
020it's not there the the data is not up to a standpoint of putting it in a a chart like how we have it today so what we um the best that we could do is do 25 and 26 to feel that our our data is accurate a as we move forward but from a a staffing standpoint there's no new Staffing so some of the changes and it will address one of the other questions that was uh asked in public comment well when we presented that in Fe 11 we presented 75 kindergarten students well the message must have got out there to the community that you need to register your children quickly so since we reported 75 we are now up to 105 kindergarten students so the budget was proposed with five sections and now parents
021have heard us so parents are listening they are now registering for kindergarten and we we feel right now that's a pretty solid number of 105 it's about where Peter prowder actually said it was going to be he thought it would be about 110 NASDAQ when we did it thought it was going to be about 125 121 so we think we're going to land on 105 and I always told you when we were proposing the when I proposed the forecast the budget and then when I propose the ministrative budget on February 11th that we're going to do it as a static number where we are at that time well I'm sharing with you that we're at 105 and the recommendation is that needs to go into six sections and on the chart the next chart of
022page 11 you could see that we added in that six sections and that it would be at 17.5 if we go to if we go to Five sections it's too many kindergarteners in a classroom that we would go out out of the policy Jordan does that include potential waiver so it does it does so we have 15 possible waivers in there if we go upon our history all 15 are going to come into the I just wanted to make sure that it what's not included in here is we're really going to have to look at our open Choice um numbers of allowing any students um from Harford to be entering in as uh kindergarten but as you can as you can see have having that kindergarten it's not any new staff remember in the my
023budget I actually cut a classroom teacher at Cher Brook now I have to put it back in so if you go to the next page you'll see that our budget from February 11th to where we are now if you take the 5.88 and you add back in that kindergarten teacher at 57384 it goes that's a16 and then it brings our increase up to a 6.04 I want to remind the board and the community if I didn't have that insurance increase of a 20% this budget would be in the high 3es to Fours that that 20% for health insurance which we're going to talk about in a little bit that is something that is driving this budget this is not a budget that and you'll see that is anything that is really new except the the
024new Personnel that I shared uh earlier now there was a question about the the payroll specialists in accounts payable many years ago there was a discussion on doing a shared finance office so when there was a shared finance office there was a shared finance officer for the town now the school has a business man and the town has a finance director but what happened when they did this is that at the time the Board of Ed had their own payroll uh person and their own accounts specialist person the town took over those positions within their budget so it was taken out of the board of ENT budget let's say 10 years ago and put into the town budget there have been many changes in the past four or five years with u accounts payable and
025and payroll literally those people those individuals they strictly do Board of Education business they don't do anything for the town they they the the payroll person handles payroll the account payable handles Board of B uh bills so what's been discussed for the past year is the superintendent of schools or the business manager does not have any responsibility over and oversight thank you oversight over those individuals the town the CAO had oversight over the school district payroll so was discussed with the the first selectman the CEO myself and the Board of Education chair is to move those individuals back into the Board of Education uh budget they're in our office right now that they work in our our office they're downstairs um so it it just makes sense that they F uh fall under the oversight
026of our school business manager so if you look down below we added in the payroll specialist and the accounts payable at. 2120 it brings our budget to a 6.45 but the town it's no new money to the town does everybody understand that I want to make sure I'm presenting that clearly it's no new money to the town it's just moving it to our budget out of Peter's pocket does everybody understand that okay so hopefully I address Mrs uh kogan's um question there because it was a question that I knew that we had to go over and there's been uh some talk and I think this is the first public time that we we've said it because it really is just happened in the past week week increase to their salaries so like from so like
027let's say they were 65 and 63 on the town last year is it higher now so is there an impact so so right now Anna has the numbers as what they would be for next year I believe that's what she's there come um what I can tell you is payroll specialist for school districts firsts Town payroll Specialists and other boards B actually make more more funds than what the the payroll specialist is is currently making okay so should we expect a larger increase no this is oh for next year's but I don't I don't think so I don't anticipate that we'll have to see how that all plays out I don't want to say would it do 3% four it all depends it's non union positions so you have to see what your pool is
028like and different things like that thank you and then the next slide here these are some of the questions that you asked as boards and the first one was can you please review the role and responsibilities of the three proposed campus supervisors how are these responsibilities currently handled the campus supervisor position is already established as a position at K middle school and K High School it is proposed that this position be added to both Cher primary school and Canon inter meded School the campus supervisor provides Safety and Security support by Greening visitors monitoring hallways and shared spaces and working collaboratively with school leadership as well as the Director of security the pro proposed position of after school campus supervisors at Camp middle school and high school will provide safety and supervision after school and in
029the evening for the first paragraph we don't have anyone that really does monitor the hallways and watch our parking lots at our schools right now these positions would allow to do that and then the same thing for here at night as you were walking in you noticed for those of you that got here earlier there there was at least 50 kids walking out of of the school and we have our basketball team in they're practicing there's no supervision going on after school within our buildings and I'll just leave it at that I'll answer any questions that people have me later question how much funding do we expect to receive from the federal government next year through various grants do we have any indication whether These funds will actually materialize intergo uh intergovernmental revenue and Grant
030Revenue are listed in detail on page 34 through 36 in the budget we outlined every single Grant uh that we received in in this budget and the explanation of each one of those grants so if there's any specific questions we'd be more than happy to answer them at this time we have no substance reason to believe that these grants will not materialize that's fluent things may happen things may not happen so we're really going to have to keep a close eye on on uh state grants and federal grants what percentage do you use to calculate special ed uh excess cost for next year I I did speak to the Board of Education chair and the chair of the board of Finance we're going to use EX cost of 72% because it's supposed to be funded
031at 100% we were told we were going to get 88% we did 72% this year they brought us down to 6 um 2% and now we're hearing it I don't know if they voted yet they didn't they did now it's sitting in the governor it's sitting in the governor so if the governor doesn't veto it's now going to go up from 62% up to actually 75.8% so actually feel pretty comfortable with the the the 72% um for next year because also there's $10 million next year in the general funding 4 million in bond that helps districts that create special education programming to keep kids in District we have two of them right now with Thrive and learning lab and we're going to have a third one so we will definitely apply for those grants next
032year and we're hoping that will uh off offset some of our special education uh expenses when you propose eliminating positions for next year did you calculate reductions and benefits cost yes we did uh when proposing the elimination of positions reduction and benefits were taken into consideration when do we expect the final Insurance numbers within the next month um Mr J I I hate to put you on the spot but you've been involved in this and you may be able to address Mrs pin's question better than I can and I'll let Anna jump in uh with what happened with the the health insurance sure it's it's uh we have a self-insured plan and so that means we have a component that we self-insure and so we need to keep x amount of money in that in
033that fund to pay claims over that there's an insurance policy that takes care of anything over that um and somewhere along the line um the funding of the claims account did not happen and um so we are we are um you're supposed to keep about two months of premium in there so there should be about a million5 in the uh in the claims fund there's only about 140,000 in the claims fund so on top of rates going up meaning the amount the cost of the insurance and the cost of the administration we now have to make sure we have adequate funding in our self Insurance uh in our claims fund and to do that it's going to require 20% uh increase this year so that's that's why and that's townwide it's not Board of Education
034it's not just the town it's combined the board of the board of um um selectman is also putting in 20% in your budget uh how that happened we we're investigating who's liable for it we're check we're investigating uh but the fact of the matter is we don't have enough money in that claims account so uh we need to replenish those dollars that's simple as that thank you Mr [Music] Daniels question six open Choice numbers final uh the open Choice memo that we presented on January 14th illustrates the available seats the district is proposing the open Choice Lottery process begins on December 5th and closes uh February 7th open seats are required to be submitted by February 28 so Mr Bishop actually just sent ours in today placement determination is made later in the spring and
035is based on the Declaration of open seats uh We've not yet yielded any new students participating in open Choice placement may continue through September 25 so we may see that we um all our spots were filled and then we may look at our enrollment in September and say we have some more spots available and we could go back to the open Choice office and say we have spots available question eight what new educational programs are being developed for next year's curriculum at Char Primary School K Intermediate School K Middle School can high school right now from a standpoint of funds the only thing that we are implementing with new money is the newly adopted Ela program at sherbrook Benchmark for 11,000 that's not the total cost if you remember receiving grants for that um but
036there's no new uh funds being um in this budget for Kon Intermediate School Kon Middle School Kon High School there's new textbooks for kanton high school that we've spoken about um but from a any new initiatives we couldn't think of anything that is a new initiative of course there'll be analysis and revision of curriculum but that's all embedded within our budget already and I just want to remind the the board of the budget process timeline that next uh Tuesday you're going to need to vote on um a budget and if we look at the budget number right now uh as what we have as the administration it is a 645 604 without yeah 60 645 04 that is with the the kindergarten teacher that was Anna she knows good weal is 6.45 so the the
037number that you would have to approve is a 6.45 if we're looking at what we have here and then what I and then what I would like to do really quickly um is uh Mrs Robbins if you could um I'm just looking through the questions that were asked in public comment uh Point well taken on the the rate of inflation uh looking at it from a regional standpoint it was just something that Mr Bishop explained to the board um as we're looking at it from uh United States inflation because that was a question that we were asked as public I believe we address the new person address Staffing um and benefits District safety um I I think I went over that the reason that it may be doubled is because there are three new um
038positions two of them one's at CIS one's at Cherrybrook the board of board of select men positions the health benefits uh Mrs Robins would you be able to explain the why fuel is going up so much so fuel um electricity is what's driving that number and that number is a utilities number our electricity costs are off the charts the fuel actually has decreased slightly so that is um impacting that number in a positive way but electricity okay thank you and what about the technology infrastructure with the what the HVAC is in technology infrastructure can you explain that sure all our HVAC systems are automated they are um so our technology infrastructure supports all of these systems throughout the district thank you Mr Daniel I believe that was uh if not all the questions pretty close
039to the questions that were asked in public and and I'll open it up to the board that the administration is here to answer any questions that you may have or anybody in the public since it's a workshop so I'll start with the Board of Education and I'll open it up to the public and then I'll I'll audience here and then anyone online that may have uh an additional question so board members um any questions here the superintendent might be able to add further Clarity to I just had a clarifying question for What on this C had asked so it does say that the maintenance vehicle vehic vehicle is going from uh oh no it is a reduction okay so I think the confusion is the three columns so in 24 we were 38 this year
040it's 83 and now we're down to 74 so that increas is really just on utilities which is the electricity B correct okay um and then my second question is for the classroom teacher that was a reduction on uh February 11th that's now being back added back in because we have 105 students um was that like is that exactly the same number so the 57 and 57 number so if you look at the the the slides in the slides where it has the reductions yeah um the reductions on page 16 16 you can see classroom teacher 57385 and we added it okay so did that reduction is that their total salary plus benefits the the benefit would be in another category okay okay so then and do you want to explain how that sure sure um
041there is a give and take on benefits um for one reduction we would not take the benefits out because it's fluid people come and go on benefits it would not be responsible to reduce that number for just one person but if we had several we would then take an average and reduce those appropriately okay so that's going to lead to another question then so and I don't know if this is the right place to ask that but since we are self-insured if we have people that are on our plan that are then not going to be on our plan anymore the insurance carrier that we have would be very would want to know that so are we not when you're saying that we're not removing people from the benefits if we're removing one person at
042what point do we trigger to actually remove someone from our benefits for job during open enrollment we will do a a a headcount okay okay and when you take reduce one position during a budget process uh not everybody again not everybody takes the benefits so we do not reduce right now if I knew exactly who it was and if they had benefits or not I would do that if we had a retiree if we had somebody retiring if there was some specific information I would do that but even given the state of our self-insurance fund we're very conservative at this point I understand that and and that makes sense okay um what is our um percentage that we have who do elect the benefits do you know that and do you have that I don't
043have it off the top of my head I don't have the percentage off the top of my head we'll have that Tuesday another work Tuesday I have one more question and I think the special education par educator that was a reduction we aren't adding that person back in and is that because of need or like we no longer feel we need that person or is that an actual that's a cut reduction that's a reduction and we're going to have to figure it out okay we're going to have to figure it out okay thank you just surprising um so I I I willon answer uh Mrs cen's question on Connecticut inflation so Connecticut inflation in our graph in 2022 we have it at 6.5% for the United States in C in uh Connecticut was 7.1% in
0442023 we have it at 3.4 and in connetic it was 3.4 and in 2024 it's 3.4 so it's it's basically mirroring the national average maybe a little bit higher in some cases so that's uh that's the answer to the inflation any other questions from the Board of Education sure um the kindergarten projection uh 105 did you say that that did include open Choice seats or did not it does not so right now the 105 we were thinking it still may happen um we were thinking that we would open up two to three seats for kindergarten and when it came to [Applause] 105 we're going to have to test the waters a little bit especially as as Jordan said are we counting the 15 kids that may come may not come so let's say kids don't
045come then we'll be able to go back to those choice and say we have three open but that at at six sections with 105 we're teetering a little bit with we don't want to go with 18 19 20 kindergarteners in the class so we got to be careful so that that goes to some questions that people have asked do we do we accept open Choice students if we don't have room here's a perfect example that we may not be able to accept open Choice students say kindergarten okay but we're definitely so we're definitely more looking at not 105 but more like8 you could be looking at more we haven't made the sum that's there could be more because people m in the could yes could be more Cates but if it was 105 let's say
046the number was 105 Mr Bishop said can we add in three Harford I I probably would not oh really 105 yeah because that's about 17.5 um children in a class and that's just an average so could be one that has 18 one that like 16 so we right on that line for kindergart what month do we typically have like I know people can invol mid year but at what month do we typically say okay this feels like a solid number this feels like a solid number so when I was coming to in December remember last year I just gave the the board the ndaq number and I gave it as six sections and when I gave back the kindergarten teacher as a possible cut so of the question was well we knew that we weren't
047going to have that so that's not really a cut so what we did in December was gave you the actual numbers but every line that I I follow that up with will keep the board up to date in that we will um if we need to ask for another kindergarten section we'll call special meeting we'll ask well it just happened to be that we had kindergarten registration last week and I commend Mr hry and uh his secretar of staff that they were calling people they were calling people and saying okay what are you going to do here and that's when people and then the night of kindergarten orientation is the other night right had have three or four that registered that night so any other question I just don't know if Mr Sher has a
048question I'm get I'm G stay with this grp first thank you so my question is about question number two that um asks about um how much funding do we expect to receive from the federal government next year and I'm I'm just wondering you know there's been so much talk about losing Federal funding for participating in Dei initiatives and I wonder if there's any real indication that that could happen yeah so what we've been us CH at any time um what we've been told by our legal counsel and our attorney is that we are aware of this guidance that was issued by the office of civil rights the United States Department of Education on February 14th uh we note that the change in the direction of the Department of Education will monitor further the guidance from
049the the department uh we note that the guidance emphasizes the legal prohibition against discrimination against students or employees on the basis of race uh and that the C public schools are aware of this well established legal principle and that K Public Schools do not engage in any practices that violate the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of race that that we will remain uh committed to assur uring that all the students have an equal opportunity to learn as a right under the Connecticut Constitution at the Connecticut Supreme Court and we'll just continue to monitor uh what comes out of the um United States Department of Education and we are at this time reviewing all our policies and our attorneys are reviewing our policies and we're also in the process of um going to be reviewing
050curriculum and different things like that and there's been no set timeline on the the curriculum and the instruction material so we're going to have to uh pay attention closely but relative to the um executive order that was just um sent down on uh February 14th our our attorneys given us that advice Mr Daniel and because of that I mean even without the letter we do this normally I mean so it's it's a normal um standard operating procedure and and we're reminded that Federal funding can't be terminated without a multi-step legal process that they have to go through so I feel very confident that you know we're not in any danger of losing the federal funds thank you yep any other questions from uh people here so let's go online and we'll start with Mrs Sullivan
051any questions Kim um no the questions I had have been answered so thank you thank you very much we'll go to Mrs Jordan Felicia any questions I don't have any additional questions Cindy thank you for that question because my question was in line with that and I appreciate the clarification on that thank you now Mr sh Joe Joe can you hear us can get him on the phone you hear us he says no questions he says no questions no questions it just call okay I wish I knew sign but maybe I just okay um all right so everybody's question here we're good here so I'll go to the audience anybody have any questions about what you heard tonight we're fortunate to have the chair of the board of Finance here I'll start Brian I don't
052know if you need anything clarified or as the chair of the board of Finance no no I appreciate you being here though thank you um I do have a couple comments Brian Miller n Road um you know thank you to the board thank you to the superintendent for working through this budget process it's been you know clearly a difficult one particularly with the health insurance situation had to make some difficult cuts um in order to keep the overall increase down um my son's basetball player I was bued to see that the get Middle School basketball team proposal was cut but I understand why um I'm happy to see the campus supervisor roles um being proposed again I you know as my son has been guilty of running the hallways after school when he's supposed to
053be watching basketball game or something like that I entirely understand the reason they need to be here um I do not want to see the campus supervisor roles be leveraged to justify an SRO situation um nor do I believe that any funds coming from the Canabis tax in town will be able to support anything like an SRO um you it's unfortunate the again the sales Statewide and Nationwide are not what they expect them to be but that sales techniques they always over promise on the deliver um so I don't expect any serious Revenue to come out of that one store in town and sorry one more thing um yeah you know again another bummer that got cut was a human resource specialist I think that's something that you know not only the town does the
054town side need a HR rep but School needs one too I think that's important again I understand why it's been cut out of the budget this year um as far as the I congratulate the um the close attention the board and superintendent are paying to the federal policy influences on our town and our budget um I I agree with the approach checking with the lawyers paying close attention and I do urge a continued awareness of what's going on at the federal level I do you know I also you know as this came up in the board of Finance meeting there's a lot of Scare Tactics my opinion coming down from the you know the new new Administration and I don't think there's any reason for preemptive action uh based on some of those things that
055are coming out there as suggested there's a court system in place that things have to go through the court system before we should react to anything that's happening at that level that's all you thank you Brian great comments ladies any comments [Music] question okay online any questions online any further clarifications or Lisa has her hand raised go ahead Lisa you're on Lisa think you're Lisa you can go ahead are we having audio trouble noine she's able to speak maybe her hand is still from the last time oh okay Aubrey has a question all right I'll allow Aubrey to talk and we'll see if L is able to Sure Aubrey go ahead you're on hi it's Aubrey blle Bart Drive um thanks for your meeting and I apologize if you address this I am at a
056soccer practice right now and it's really loud so I may have Miss heard but I thought I heard um Dr grman mentioned that the potential to add a kindergarten section and teacher and I was wondering if if that's going to happen are there also going to be additional support staff added because typically the kindergartens have one or two eras if you could yeah so so great question Aubrey uh the the kindergarten teacher were it's I cut a classroom teacher from my proposed budget in February 11th but with new kindergarten numbers just as of today we have to add the section back and we'll have to work within the existing uh pair of professionals that we have at Cherrybrook Primary School to uh work within those uh classrooms we're going to have to utilize existing have
057to do that okay my other question was that I think I heard you say as well that there are some Personnel that are covered by money and I if we can get of those I don't the material it is like that she said you're breaking up a little bit Aubrey can you try that one again yeah my question was um I believe I heard Dr Grossman say there are some Personnel whose salaries are covered by grant money and if it would be possible for us to um see that or it's already laid out in the materials and is that in our budget book already and then also in the open Choice Grant um the Personnel in the open Choice Grant is listed um we also note in the Personnel summary which Personnel I think it's
058on page 17 you can see which the numbers of people covered in the grants um in each of the categories you'll see if it's a state Grant or a Federal grant um in this book we don't have dollars associated with that these numbers but we certainly have them available Aubrey anything else that's it from me for now thank you Lisa you have your hand up again um we couldn't hear you before we're going to open up the mic for you again um can you just give me a thumbs up if you can hear me now yeah we can all right thank you yep I just I really appreciate um the reference to page 17 showing the P graph of the Staffing salary and benefits but for clarity um what I was asking to to see
059was a historical line graph Associated to enrollment so what has been the Staffing um for administration certified teachers and correlated to enrollment so that was just what I was asking for before and then my second question and I really appreciate the opportunity to get clarification on this was regarding the insurance self-funded payout amount that you have to raise um a million dollars for um and is it low because you know it the benefit was needed by staff and it was paid out and now we just need to reestablish the fund or is it low because it it was just never supplied to begin with and and what has it historically been set at for the past you know five years what what has that number always been and that's it I really do appreciate um
060this opportunity to talk to you thank you yeah so so um the Self Insurance Fund was not funded that that's where the uh the swing and the Miss is that um we we paid the uh the increase in the premium and the administration charge but somewhere along the line we were not advised or we did not realize the fund had depleted so that's that's what we're continuing to investigate how that happened so that that's the issue there and uh with with respect to a 5-year analysis the standard is always about 2 months worth of Premium is what's needed in a claims account now that can be fluctu it can fluctuate and you can adjust that that's the suggested amount uh there's sometimes I remember when I was a selectman we decided to maybe do a
061month and a half and then when things started to get hot we needed to do a little bit more but the standard is 2 months of Premium which in this case uh you know is about a million5 is what they recommend which is about the right amount based on the claims the claims history that we see and Anna did I miss speake on any of that nope that was just right okay great so so I think I understand it better that it was basically just depleted and never replenished that's what happened okay I appreciate that thank you and Dr brosman I think you said the data it's hard to get the data yeah I least say I I said this and I I completely understand your your question as a superintendent that's been here now
062for a year and a half um I was asked to question last year and I I just don't feel that comfortable with the the the Staffing and how all the Staffing data was kept and the roles and the responsibilities um because it was never asked um to put it out there um so I I I think that's something that we just need to to to start new um what I can't tell you from a a broad sense from the administration standpoint uh I know no new administrators have uh really been added titles have been changed um but I I I I need to be very transparent I I don't feel really comfortable uh putting six years of of data out when um the records that I was looking at last year was not sufficient enough
063for me to really feel with what's out there I I I appreciate that thank you okay um any further questions from the board you had a couple minutes to kind of catch your breath any other questions so um we have a meeting on Tuesday um and the goal would be whatever budget the the board wants to put forward to the board of Finance because after Tuesday it it's not the administration's budget anymore it's the board of education's budget and um we need some time because it needs to get to the board of Finance by a certain date and we need to put new books together for the board of finance and so my question to you is is there anything else that you would need for Tuesday that would help you the goal on Tuesday
064will be that we have another PowerPoint the first five six slides will be the exact same so anybody that is new coming out will'll review everything that we've done because you've been working on this since October basically and talking about the the budget so for for you it's you get it and I apologize for not I apologize for keep repeating myself but I think it's important for the public to hear each time um and then Barbara mle is going to be here on Tuesday just to talk about 10 minutes about the new program that we're going to bring in so you could see that what we're trying to do is save money across and she'll be able to share that this program is going to save significant dollar over a fiveyear trend just like the
065the Thrive program but is there anything else there was a couple questions that I know Claudia received that we'll be able to embed in there but is there anything else that you would help you for next Tuesday so you said the budget was 6.45% and that speak partially because of the 20% of uh Insurance health insurance deficit what if that wasn't the case and and what would we be if our our insurance was at the 7% original number right when we were at 5.88 we would have been very very close to 4% maybe just a hair over so um anything else that's okay so uh here's where we are we have a 6.45% budget um that we're looking at 6.04 is really um you know the 645 includes a couple of the Town employees coming
066over to our side um we know that our fixed costs are what they are we heard about this health insurance that's driving this if you remember I think it was last year when the superintendent provided um a forecast showed about 5 years he thought this year we'd be in a 3.5 3.6 uh range and without the insurance and you heard it from the business manager you know we be right in that four so he was very close in his in his uh projection so um you know typically at this this particular time uh boards Boards of Education will take a look at the budget and they'll tell the superintendent to start cutting here start cutting there um but at this particular point we know that the superintendent already made 800,000 Plus in Cuts I commend
067him on that we know that this is basically a flat budget with the exception of a couple SRO that we we're bringing SRO campus sorry don't want to say s campus supervisors people outside that are going to skew me um campus super supervisors we know that those are really the only thing along with the social worker but that is a money maker because we're keeping kids in class this is a flat budget there's with what I think as a board of education we see through the continuous Improvement plans we see the the progress that our uh our um principles are making our schools are making and and my fear is always that we can't feed the fire but that's that's the financial situation that the town in right now so I'm I'm advocating that we
068don't make any cuts at this particular point that we wait to hear I'm sure we're going to get guidance from the board of Finance on where we need to go with this and then we can roll up our sleeves and figure out about uh is is it uh you know are we going to make a cut are we going the way it is they have some decisions to make because they have Capital Improvement considering all this so I think um it would be my recommendation as we go forward that we let this uh stand and get further direction from the board of Finance as we go forward so on Tuesday if you have any more questions we can have those answered uh and then um I'll be presenting to the board of Finance on the
069um I think it's 19 it is the 19 19 uh and then I'll be looking for the direction from them and then we'll be coming back to see what we have to do okay any questions for me anybody in this room have any questions anybody online have any further questions Kim Joe or Felicia I see no no Kim no Felicia no no thank you I'm good thank you okay with that I think I'm going to close this meeting um and um everybody agrees that we're done with with our work here tonight then um I'm adjourning the me the meeting at uh 737 well actually 7:34 so the meeting Jour at 7:34 see you Tuesday