001out to the board of education meeting which is the long anticipated presentation of the budget. Very excited. Um Mr. Zinski, happy new year. Roll call, please. >> Mr. >> Here, Mr. >> Here >> Mr. Madam Chair, you have a quum. >> Thank you. Please join us with the pledge of allegiance. algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Our first item is audience comment. If there are any audience members that would like to speak, please go to the mic, state your name and address for the record. Seeing none, we are going to move right ahead and I'm just going to pass the mic to Dr. Solen. >> Thank you. Pardon the uh informality, but
002it's like 100 degrees in here. And uh anyway, so thank you very much uh Madame Chair. Uh before I walk through the presentation of the budget for the 26 27 school year, I want to begin by wishing everybody a happy new year. is our first meeting after the holidays. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and all the best in 2026. I want to thank everybody uh who had a hand in putting this significant binder that you have and the presentation tonight in order. Um it's really representative of a lot of work that Emily and her team have done uh led by Heather uh in the finance office and uh Marlene and and Vin uh still you know Vin still very much involved in the process and of course all of our administrators who
003spend a lot of time uh talking with us deliberating about you know where we need to make investments to best support our kids and the amount of time that they spend talking to their uh staff and students and uh parents in the deliberation process as well. This is a product months in the making. Uh Vin would often talk about the budget basically being a year- round exercise uh with some high points, some peaks in that process and certainly this is one of those peaks. Uh so as I walk us through I just want to remind the board of what the board members responsibilities are uh as dictated by statute. Basically we need to provide adequate instructional books, supplies, materials, equipment, staffing facilities and technology, equitable allocation of resources among its schools, proper maintenance of facilities
004in a safe school setting. um pretty broad headings for uh what the responsibilities of the board are. This year that balance between schools becomes a little bit different when we consolidate three into two buildings and we have the the people moving that we do. It's a little bit trickier. Uh and I'm going to talk a little bit about you know what how that looks for us moving forward. My responsibilities are to collaborate with district leaders that I just referenced uh to create a fiscally responsible budget that again ensures that equitable and developmentally appropriate educational experience between schools, safe, clean learning environment, fulfilling the statutory obligations, and of course the advancement of board of education goals. What we provide in our budget is instruction to 4,482 students. Um, of course, you know, when you think about
005a school budget, you're certainly uh conscious of the instructional and educational component of that, but we do much more through mental health, nutrition, medical care, uh, so that our students can access their instruction, specialized services for those uh, with different needs to ensure that everybody can meet their potential. and of course diverse opportunities beyond the classroom, clubs, athletics, music, theater, uh, and transportation to and from school. So, it's much more than just the classroom budget, but this is why we provide it for again the 4,482 students that should walk through our doors next year. So, all of our budget is filtered through a tight lens. How will we use our resources to best support the board goals which include uh developing our students as complex thinkers and ensuring that our students become strong social emotional
006learners. And so when we evaluate different elements collectively, internally those are the primary filters that we're um using to determine is this something we should advance or not. So why is social emotional learning important? Um there's all sorts of research to indicate uh that it not only has a positive benefit for students self-worth and their ability to navigate relationships in the world, but um I clipped a headline from an article in the bottom right hand corner there, social emotional learning linked to higher math and reading test scores. And I I think it's more than a coincidence that our achievement has increased every year that we've been focused on social emotional learning in concert with complex thinking. So, you know, Justin Trudeau said, and this is one of my all-time favorite quotes, the pace of change
007has never been this fast, yet it'll never be this slow again. And he said that in 2018. And um Emily and I were laughing earlier today looking at some of the um really rich budget graphics that I included in 2017. Uh it didn't look as cool as that that um opening picture of the the schools. But uh that is just such a small drop in the bucket compared to like how the world has changed and how AI and other advancements will continue to really accelerate the pace of change for our kids and for our teachers and community and how do we support our students in navigating that. Uh and that's the complex thinking piece of all of this. So, our budget environment um just like Justin Trudeau was mentioning in 2018 is is constantly evolving
008and there are a lot of uh you know changes in in context and history that uh we have to be considerate of as we build the 267 budget, the uh enrollment in the Cheshire public schools in June of last school year. So, you know, just um like 7 months ago now roughly was 4,257 students. We'll start next year 225 students higher than that. Um that's roughly a grade level uh for us nearly a grade level full of students more in our district. the majority of those students in K to6. Um we have in this budget uh an increase of 1.2 million to address special education needs uh exclusively. Um you know our our the it's more than a percent of our budget uh dedicated budget increase dedicated to supporting uh diverse needs for students. And
009then I wanted to remind the board and the community that last year uh we had uh decided as a community to carry over $250,000 from the operating budget in the 2045 school year into 2526. And that was certainly helpful in this year, but it does create a $250,000 hole in this budget uh that had has to be make up made up if we want to just maintain the current level of service. So uh some of the external factors that we're facing, wages, benefits, and general inflation. Um inflation is up uh about 18% uh a little more than 18% since 2022. Um the as you may have seen today the governor held the press c conference uh regarding the minimum wage increase. Uh it's about 3.6% increase over last year to now 16.94 cents an hour.
010Um, the Connecticut FMLA and Connecticut paid leave have had implications for us that I know Emily will touch a little bit more on as we we delve into the information on the operating side operations in our budget uh Tuesday. Of course, state and federal med mandates and and the revenues. Uh I I know that there's a lot of angst around some of our revenues such as uh you know IDA and and title one and some of the grant funding. The grant funding is not an executive function. It's a legislative function and that budget has been set through the year. Uh there's a continuing resolution on part of the operating budget that expires at the end of this month. Uh but uh most of the education funding is dare I say stable. Um but I'm reticent
011to really put too many eggs in any federal basket right now. Uh our continued growth and development is certainly an external factor that's uh influencing us pretty significantly. And I point to these images on the screen. [clears throat] You'll see the image on the left is the north end in 2015. The highway that's running um sideways horizontally on the screen is 691. The thoroughfare that's running, you know, north and south vertically there is route 10. So the left of that you can see really undeveloped. The right of it is what it looks like today. So that's just kind of a a snapshot of development at least on the north end. On top of that, our community is getting younger. Of all the towns in Connecticut since 2019, the of every town with 20,000 or more
012students, our youth population grew by the second highest amount at 2.7% growth. Um, North Haven was the only community to outpace us at 3.2%. So, um, we're adding housing and we're getting younger at the same time. Um, oops, wrong direction. Some of our internal factors are like our new teacher contract. Uh, the cost of the new teacher contract is 4.46% 46% and you'll hear us sometimes say allin because the general wage increase there is 2.9%. So a lot of our teachers are at the very top step of the contract. They get a 2.9% raise. Everybody else gets a the step raise um that is also gone up 2.9%. So as you metriculate up in uh years through our contract uh we have certainly not everybody is at top step. So the total cost is 4.46%.
013The non-certified um salaries next year rise to by 5.57%. In part, we uh had more aggressive non-certified contracts over the last couple of years to ensure that we would keep pace with the increase in the minimum wage, which we've done. So, uh we are compliant with the law in terms of ensuring that everybody is making at least 1694 at this point. our medical benefits costs as [clears throat] I'm sure you know you've heard socially and then we know uh locally have uh certainly accelerated last year it was 11% um making 6.92 this year feel like a relative break. Um some of the other factors that again are impacting us are uh with the even though we're contracting the number of facilities we have closing three and opening two our square footage actually increases by 9%.
014Um, and because we have those different facilities, we have to renegotiate some of our vendor contracts, including the cleaning service, snow removal, alarm monitoring, to name a few. Um we are trying to account for all of those as we plan but again this is a process that starts in January and really for us doesn't end until June but uh will go to the council in April. [clears throat] So hopefully, you know, as as always happens, we gain more information about a variety of things, including this year now things like these contracts and enrollment um as time goes by and uh hopefully we'll have a clearer picture uh by April and certainly by June. Um this year is a little unique in that we have carrying costs on the two buildings that we're vacating. As you
015know, we're de demoing um Norton in June. Really? We'll start doing that. Um but Chapman and Darcy will remain uh properties for the Cheshire public schools through the end of December. And so we have to heat those buildings, snowplow them or whatever to ensure that uh they're not a community hazard. cut the grass, things like that until the end of December. And as I had mentioned previously, there's the $250,000 fiscal cliff. So, per pupil expenditure, when you look at how much does Cheshure uh pay for education relative to other communities across Connecticut, you can see the history here. Um last year, our per pupil expenditure was $20,816 per student. And I say last year because information data for 56 isn't available. So the most recent data we have is for and um the state average
016in comparison was $3,454 more than what we spend per student. That puts us at 122nd out of 1265 Connecticut school districts with our per pupil expenditure. If we were to take that delta of 3,454 and multiply it out by the number of students that we had, the budget would have to increase by $14.6 million to reach the average Connecticut school system. That's a like you can't even wrap your head around that number. If we look at just DRB and I'll highlight, you know, what communities um comprise DRB later, but it's really our peer communities like Simsbury, Avon, Farmington, Rocky Hill. Our budget would have to increase by $8 million to meet that average. In over the years 22 to 24, Connecticut's uh inflation rate was 15%. The average Connecticut district increased SP spending by 12.1%.
017Cheshure increased student spending by 8.5%. So, we work to retain a really high value and I think that value is uh highlighted by the fact that uh most Connecticut districts are shrinking in terms of the number of students they serve. Well, Cheshire is obviously growing. Um, if we went from the 8.5% to the 12.1% that would be the equivalent of a $3 million budget increase. So again, I think over the last many years, we've pres pro provided an incredibly uh good value for our our community. But at this time, we're under a lot of pressure uh from a variety of places. We we know about the growing enrollment, the increased student needs, rising medical benefit costs, and of course inflationary costs. And so, um, we didn't just wake up with a new problem, new challenge
018today. This has been, um, the vice has been turning over the last few years. Uh and so when we sat down to look at our initial internal budget request, what would uh when we put everything together, rolling over um current services, uh but also, you know, again talking about where could we add value, that request came in at 10 point um 56, I think it was percent uh beyond what our current budget was. And I just go back to um you know my responsibility to try and provide not just a a strong budget that addresses community needs but is also you know fiscally responsible. Uh and so we worked to push that number down to an increase of $ 8.2 million or 8.83%. Um that is uh reflective of a lot of time and energy
019taking a look at what are what is the enrollment looking like where can we uh save money but again where could we potentially leverage some things to benefit students and I want to walk through this what I'm doing today is initiating a process with the board and Um, you know, this is this is and has been a collaborative process. You're going to hear from me today. You're going to hear from Marlene. You're going to hear from Rob and an Emily. Um, I'm sure maybe some community members. Uh, this is a work in progress over the course of this month really to try and identify where do we need to spend our resources. um to best support our students and community. So um there is a lot to consider in here. You know, some of the
020driving factors in this enrollment are things that we, you know, I've already kind of hit on the enrollment. Um there are two additions in this budget um that are on the instructional side. There's another operational one that I'll I want to talk about in addition to maintaining uh classroom teacher staffing ratios. But the additions um on the instructional side are a STEM coordinator uh curriculum coordinator. Now, that's a position that we had talked about uh and was included in the board of education budget last year uh and ultimately had to be reduced uh through the the you know review process at the council level. In addition, um this includes an elementary assistant principal that I'll talk a little bit about more momentarily. But again, you know, you're aware of some of the other driving factors
021with enrollment. Uh this is a table highlighting the multifamily housing units that have come online in Cheshure or are impending. Uh the uh different uh developments highlighted in yellow are developments that are open and we are currently receiving students from. So from those uh six open uh developments, we currently have 85 new students from those locations. Uh there are another five that are impending um in various stages of development from more or less just groundbreaking to near opening at this point. Um, so it hasn't been a wild influx when you look at the total number of units, but I wanted you to be aware that, you know, this is happening. Of course, there's other there are other housing uh freestanding housing units being developed uh as we speak where we do tend to get more
022students out of those uh developments. But I wanted you to be aware of this and I wanted you also to be aware when we talk about some of the enrollment numbers today that uh Mike Zuba from MP planning is part of the whole redist redistricting process uh completed a projection for us the same way that um he did back in 2022 with SLAM when we were initially proposing new schools. Uh, so we have that data and that data is considerate of the housing development. We historically use the New England School Development Council, NASDAQ. Their report is in your budget binder. They only uh weigh in and enrollment. So they're only looking at uh people that were born in Cheshire. And if we add enrollment, they they factor that uh in future projections, but they don't
023have this level of detail. So, our projected enrollment, I talked about the enrollment at the close of last school year being 4,257. As of today, our enrollment is 4,372, an increase of roughly 20 students um 115. And then projected uh for next year is 4,482 students. uh a increase of another 110 over current. Um the as you can see the bulk of the enrollment growth is prek through six 9 through 12 is inclusive of our transition programming. Um the a lot of the enrollment growth there is in that transitioning programming. It's only like 15 20 students at Cheshire High. I mentioned uh the slam projections from 2022. The green line on this graph illustrates one of the models. Um Mike had a high, medium, and low projection. The green uh illustrates the high projection. The
024blue uh illustrates the low projection. At one point in 234 postcoid we were um just short of that low and then we've vaulted in between the two um kind of closing in closer to the high projection in terms of our actuals. So I talked about maintaining services within our budget. Uh, class size ratios are something that, you know, the community has strongly voiced support for. I know our staff feel that way. There's pretty much universal support for trying to maintain class sizes to the greatest extent possible. I talked about how that proverbial vo vice is not new. It's just been tightening. So, if you look at our class size ratios, uh they've been creeping higher over the years, uh particularly at the elementary and middle schools. Um the special education services obviously we want to
025try and maintain that. Um and a lot of that's, you know, driven uh legally. So, we're required to um we would do it anyway, but uh we it's it's a must. Same way with the medical benefit funding, our medical benefit funding, uh, you know, in the 20 years I've been in the district, you know, some years back in the day, we would, um, find ourselves in a little bit of a surplus in that account, so we would short it. Um, and it was a lot like playing with fire. Uh, and the town would do the same thing. And we kind of collectively agreed a few years ago, just fund it at what the the projection is. And so our our budget this year and for the last couple of years reflects what the projected claim
026rate is. Um and it seems to be spoton and I'll touch on that momentarily. We had to replace a van that is dying. Um we provide some of our own vehicles for transportation because it's more cost effective. Uh unfortunately the van costs about $100,000 to replace. It's a specialized van. Um we uh this budget includes a building maintainer 2 which is a skilled trades person uh with the addition of u advanced HVAC equipment at our two new buildings and uh to be over the summer hopefully uh do little uh we were adding a a trades person. Restoring um is a moderate increase in our maintenance budget. uh and a $100,000 increase in instructional supply. Um with the $100,000 increase, we're still $40,000 short in that line of what that budget line was in 200910. Um
027which again kind of reflects where things have gotten squeezed over the years. Advancement, I did talk about the STEM curriculum supervisor and administration at Barnum. uh a little bit more detail on the STEM coordinator. Uh the science and math standards have shifted significantly over the years. We seek to hire somebody kind of a counterpart to Azra is our K through8 curriculum coordinator at the uh secondary level to support the uh math and uh science uh changes that we've made to include coaching, curricular review, um facilitating professional learning, data analysis. Uh, and that's a salary benefits position of $135,000 left out of the budget. And this is part of where I talk about, you know, where's this the collaboration come in. You know, um, thought long and hard about uh, elementary assistant principal. Um, you know,
028again, we're trying to be as fiscally responsible as we can. Uh, this one is the one that keeps me up at night, though. the uh eighth grade uh class sizes at DOD next year projected it in the MP planning report at 25.9. Um that is high, very high obviously. Uh not where we want to be. Um, and maybe it's my history of cafeteria duty at middle school that, you know, makes it um, that one jump off the page and that's what keeps me up at night. Um, you know, I think if there are going to be a lot of questions that arise over the next few weeks and a lot of conversation, I hope that we get to have more conversation on this piece of it. Um certainly I know we'll talk about the elementary
029assistant principal, but um you know this is this is one that like I said the half team uh would be $170,000. I will point out that when we look at the element or the middle school enrollment projections over the next couple years, right now we're at uh 698 for next year. Um it'll be 790 in two years. That will guarantee like you must like nobody has to do anything. But it would be um kind of malpractice in my opinion if we weren't adding four teachers from where we are today to meet that demand. which is another reason I think that it may make sense to do two now where I know that I I have demand knowing that I'm going to have to add two more down the road to kind of um soften the
030slope there a little bit if you will. Um another position we considered was humanities coordinator. Again, we're prioritize prioritizing STEM given the shifts that have occurred there. Um, we know that we need a special education transportation van that's dying. We use this van to transport our uh students that are in the transition program to work study. We used to contract that at great cost. The teacher went out and got a special license to drive a van to dramatically drop our costs. The van's dying. Um and so what uh we did Robin looked into the new seed grant that is available through the state and this is a an acceptable purchase. It'll ensure that our students get to their work uh study um assignments and it'll save us a lot of money. So we're making that
031investment through the seed grant early intervention center classroom four-year-old classroom. Uh we looked at that this budget does not include the uh transition K. Um if you recall uh those of you who were on the board two years ago, we introduced that when the state um birth date requirement went from being five as of January 1 to five as of September 1. It happened kind of late in the game for our families. And so we said, you know, we we have the space at Darcy. we'll charge tuition, run it budget neutral. And we have, we did the first year and then we said, well, we're transitioning out of that building in two years. Let's run it an additional year because the demand was there. Um, but now this is two years. I mean, the kids
032that were in this law were changed. We're only two, three years old now. We're okay. Uh, we feel like we've done right by our community and we feel good about transitioning out of that program. those two teachers that were there will be reassigned into our K6 uh group. But uh this does there is a fourth grade or four-year-old uh group that uh receives special education services that we were looking at the potential there but it looks like you know we will um navigate that without adding that additional classroom. Um, and then there was a request for a building maintainer again with the additional square footage and a request for an additional grounds person. Um, if you've been to Chapman and Darcy, you know, those are postage stamps relative to the north end. Um, but you
033know, again, in in trying to ensure that we're as fiscally responsible as possible, we're making that we made the reduction there. I did not advance that in this budget. So, our certified staffing changes, this is where you need to kind of uh follow closely because uh we are with the redistricting shuffling a lot. Barnum um we and to be clear this uses the B2 enrollment that I think you're familiar with. Uh we are going through the waiver process. Uh as you you may know we are already uh in the middle of I would say the priority legacy waiverss. Uh we sent those uh options we sent that option to 135 parents roughly 104 have already replied. Um, and about a little more than 50% are opting to stay where they were assigned and then the
034other less than 50% are shuffling around. We'll complete that process. Um I I'd say if on this pace uh we might have some stragglers early next week, but we should be done early next week, which is prompting me to try uh to shoot for Monday to start that second phase a week early because the sooner we know where our kids are going, the sooner we know where our staff is going. So as much as these numbers reflect projected shifts to buildings, the ratios will still stay the same roughly. I mean very close. So the staffing shouldn't the number of staff shouldn't change significantly. Um maybe by a teacher, maybe if like all things fall perfectly, but um I won't know that unfortunately until the waiver process is complete. Um, so we've we've included everybody here.
035Barnum, um, given the significant shift there, the large enrollment, seven teacher increase. Doolittle has a two-teer decrease. Highland has a seven teacher decrease in Norton has a nine teacher increase. uh Darcy, we will eliminate those two transition positions I talked about and fold them back into the elementary uh classes. And and when you look at this and say, "Wow, like we're we're increasing our elementary staffing by seven teachers. Our class sizes must be dropping like crazy." That that's great. Unfortunately, it's not. They're not dropping. Um, if we retained everybody in this in the as is outlined in this budget with our projected enrollment, our current elementary class size, and I'll show you in greater detail momentarily, our current elementary class size is 19. The projected class size with the addition of seven teachers is 18.7.
036It really doesn't move. 19 in the elementary grades. I looked back over the last decade, it's the highest it's been. Um, so that's that vice again that's been kind of turning the [clears throat] screws. Uh, and it's been a slow turn and it's not, you know, the worst we've ever seen and and our current our students are still doing well, but there comes a point where we want to, you know, at what point do we need to dial that back? unified arts. Given the additional sections of elementary classes that we would be adding, uh we're looking to increase an art and music position as well as.5 PE uh to serve the additional class sections. That's a 2.5 teacher increase. Um to meet the demand of again roughly 225 exactly 225 students over the last year
037and a half. Uh there's a request for a special education teacher uh to serve those elementary grades. Uh the Barnum assistant principal position is uh folded in here. And again this is where we you know can debate things. Uh that position, the budget is $165,000. Uh the two positions to uh classroom teachers at Dodd are $170,000 on the budget line. Uh the district STEM coordinator, as I indicated previously, was 135. Uh and so that's um an overview of the certified some of the non-certified staffing impact. Uh we've held the parah educator line flat uh which is challenging to do but um we've been able to navigate that and again I commend our administrative team for making that happen and still supporting our kids. Um there's one additional building maintainer too that I already talked about
038in here. Uh that's a trades person to support the mechanicals uh the additional mechanicals across the district. Um medical benefits I talked about funding the medical benefits to the claims rate. Uh our current reserve is 2.02 months of claims as of the end of November. We don't have December data yet. Um but 2.02 is in the sweet spot. That's right where we want to be. Generally two to three months claims is safe. Um, a lot of the last year we we've kind of floated south of two two months. So, we're in a good place right now. Um, and this year's budget is uh an increase of 6.97% again per our uh insurance provider. Um, that is an increase from 1.2 million a month roughly to 1.3 million a month. This does not again this does
039not enhance our reserve balance. So this going from 1.2 to 1.3 won't give us one three three months claims is really all predicated on then what claims occur over the course of the next year which obviously NOS has control over and we we hope for the sake of our staff that it's very low. So what does our recommended budget uh look like by category? These are the budget requests by category. We are 80%a staff. We are a human labor intensive business. Um we we fund people because people are what really help our students. Um but again 60% of the budget going to salaries, 20% going to staff across the uh benefits across the district for our people. 9% for support services which includes transportation. The instructional expense including special ed is 6% of our budget
040and 5% dedicated to maintenance and operations. By category, uh these are the increases. Um of the total budget increase, 50% of that is dedicated to the staffing line salaries. uh includes uh the certified positions that were added and the contractual increases for all of our uh certified staff included including central office staff. Um the uh benefits increase represents 15% of the total increase. Support services um including our transportation contract is 14%. the transportation contract had a a bump anyway. Uh but also we needed to include additional one additional maybe two additional buses. I I don't recall but I know there's additional busing in this that we had talked about way back during the uh start time and redistricting conversations. Um the uh instructional expense represents 15% of the budget increase and maintenance is 6%. Again
041that includes um some staffing uh budget increase. Uh this is just a more nuanced look at, you know, more detailed look at that last one. The teacher salaries alone, uh that's the existing staff is 24% of the budget increase. As you um rotate down from the top right hand corner to the green slice of the pie there, the six 765,000 that is all of the new folks salaries and benefits um are wrapped up into that 9% of the overall budget increases. The new certified staff, just the teacher enrollment ones. Um medical benefits 13% of our uh budget increase non-certified 8%. You can see the the rest of the chart is fairly self-explanatory with outplacement um the $700,000 increase there being 10% of our overall budget increase. I mentioned uh the greater detail around the class
042sizes. I really wanted to bring your attention to the far right where the red circles are. We currently have 119 teachers, 2,263 K6 students and 19 students per teacher is the average there. By moving the total staff count to 126, given the enrollment growth, our average moves to 18.7. and it doesn't really move the needle in terms of a ratio. Our middle school uh class size is highlighted here in green and red uh and the you can see the um class size over the last what's that eight years I think uh along the bottom at 19% being the highest we've had in that window and like I said I went back prior to that and it's well past 10 years that uh we haven't had 19 students on average now at the elementary grades On
043average, you you'll have um lower class sizes in the early primary grades and higher class sizes in the uh fifth sixth grade group. But uh you can see the uh the high class sizes at the middle school uh has as they've kind of crept up um over the years. And uh knowing that we are going to see a huge jump in enrollment over the next two years, I think again that's worth taking a look at. Uh projected revenue is pretty much flat. The ECS uh at 9.5 million roughly is been that number uh in that vicinity since 1989. Um and it sounds like a joke, but it's not. Um and so I think when people talk about restructuring educational cost share or at least fully funding special education excess cost grant um those are really
044critical issues I think for a lot of communities. For us the real priority is that excess cost grant. Uh the federal government and state have never fully funded that. Uh this year we did actually see a subtle increase in that. Um but it's it's still well short of what the law says that we should be getting. Uh that's uh basically everything beyond three and a half times our per pupil expenditure. So, if a student has costs that exceed roughly $70,000, that money is it's designed that the the state reimbures that money. except they use a block grant for that. Which means that every state or every uh municipality tells the state how much money beyond the three and a half times they've spent and as a proportion the SP the pie gets split up and
045sent back to towns based on need factors. And so, um, we fall pretty well short of what our, uh, our annual statutory allotment should be. I talked about, uh, the Connecticut DURS, the district reference groups. The, uh, green on the M, well, I think we're light blue on the map. Um, highlights uh, the communities that are in Durg. Yeah, that teal blue color and you can see the list of communities on the lefth hand side. So this is um basically what constitutes our our peer group based on a lot of demographic data. And when we compare ourselves uh in spending relative to that group uh we're you know bottom third of that group bottom quarter of that group uh at $20,815 per pupil. So again um you know we we represent a really strong value
046because our performance is well beyond that. Uh we're number eighth in the state of Connecticut and you know not that I'm competitive but 700s behind Madison just bothers me. Um anyway uh they do very well too. Anyway, so um again we're we represent a tremendous value. I talked about our emphasis on social emotional learning and um the research talking about how that also uh feeds high test performance and so I think that's that has been a a powerful relationship for us over the years to help feed our performance. Um, but of course I I don't want to just attribute it to that. The the people in this room and our teachers and our students of course and parents put a lot of time and energy into making sure that our kids are successful. And so
047um that's been happening. We again represent an excellent value. Uh we have superior uh achievement in the state of Connecticut which uh certainly translates well across the United States. Um some of the best achievement in America. Uh we have schools of distinction. Um we're annually recognized as a top community for music. Again, I talked about how important it is to go beyond the classroom and offer our students growth opportunities in the arts, athletics, um clubs and activities. Uh and at Chreer High School, more than 93% of our kids participate in things like that. Uh we annually win the CIA Michaels Cup. Um it's a it's a regular occurrence for us. Uh we have national special Olympics champion schools in the district. Uh one of the few uh communities in Connecticut that or America that can
048say that. Uh recognized for the best buddies chapter in America uh and Connecticut uh the top best buddies groups. Um, and our pre our preschool program is is accredited, nationally accredited, and 98% of our upper classmen take dual enrollment or career prep classes. Uh, so again, you know, we represent a tremendous value for the community. this. I acknowledge that this budget increase at 8 million plus dollars is a significant lift for the community. Um, and I I know that uh there's little solace taken in the fact that we've operated incredibly well under um I would say I don't want to say under budget, but we've navigated it much better than most communities. Um unfortunately our enrollment growth uh and the uh other financial factors in the community are really testing us uh at this point.
049And there are there's not a lot within our budget that I could turn to and say, you know, here's some lowhanging fruit that we could cut a million dollars and not have to impact programs. you know, the the the trees been picked over the last few years, and I am really concerned entering this um budget year knowing um the fiscal realities that exist across Connecticut, but also the circumstances that we face within the Cheshire public schools. Um, let's take a little bit of a walk, if you will, through the budget book. Um, I just want to highlight some things and, um, for the thousands watching on YouTube, I would, uh, direct them ultimately, maybe not at the moment, but tomorrow, to the Cheshire Public Schools website. If you select board of education, all of our
050budget information is there, including a complete PDF of this book. So, if you see our board members walking around maybe without the book, um they may just be accessing it online, as I often do, uh it is very easy to access on our website. Um, so as you know, if you will, if you'll jump to the certified staff, it's uh certified staff tab. It it's the first um the first section of the book that outlines individual accounts. You'll see there it says page one and at the top of the page it'll say 110 administration 111 directors supervisors 112 principles assistant principles. I'm taking you here first because this is just the first account um item in the in the budget book. And if you have a question about any account, when you open up the
051book to this page, this first page, it will highlight for you what these accounts are. Um it's what's involved in each account. So, as you can see on this, it it talks about what's added. It talks about what's included in the in the budget. If you flip to the next page, and this is I'm only really going to walk you through this this one um series because each series has the same sort of pattern to it. So on the next page, you'll see like the magenta uh graph that um it says administrative salaries and it has the um the little dots going up year-over-year. It shows you the last 20 years um how that uh budget, you know, has has changed over that time. And if you flip to page 11 in that um section,
052it says certified salaries with a a graph. In each section of the budget, it'll show you what percentage of our overall budget did this um did this line occupy. Right? So you can see that back in 20067 certified salaries represented 53.8% of our budget at the far left and at the far right in 2627 the proposed budget certified salaries represents 47.2% of our budget. The next section I just want to take you to if you would is in the non-certified salaries. It's the next section on page 11. This one illustrates the um non-certified staff salaries compared to the total budget. You can see a lot like the certified salaries. Um the growth in our salaries is not what's driving the budget up. That that also is is relatively flat. The next pa the next section
053is employee benefits medical benefits. On page two of that that section, you can see the graph and in effect um that account has doubled in the last decade. more of our investment is going to medical benefits than anything else on a percentage basis. If you uh wouldn't mind flipping to instruction, the instruction tab, page six, and the instruction tab. It's account 560, tuition outplacements. You can see the escalation in tuition outplacement. We've only got a few more stops on the the trail here if you don't mind. Um all the way toward the back staffing because these are I'm trying to hit some of the the questions that tend to come up more often from board and community members to just kind of show you there is so much detail available here. We work incredibly hard.
054I give Vin a lot of credit for revamping our budget book and I'm sure Greg Florio before him and Emily has continued that um really diligent work with Heather and our team to make sure we have the data available for for the board and the community. You can see on that first page of the staffing book, it shows the 256 school year and the projection for 2627. So you can see how many people in each position we have um scheduled and across the district. The the second page of that has our para educators, literacy support, uh maintenance staff, secretaries, health. It it again has um a tremendous amount of detail. in the last um couple of pages here in the final section of the book under supplemental information. Um the first page in the supplemental
055information is a question we get asked often. Uh what's the retirement history? Um, there used to be a point, um, maybe when I first became superintendent a decade ago, where we could count on a an individual retiring at top step, let's call it $100,000 today and hiring a teacher right out of school at 50,000. So if we budgeted, you know, 10 teachers that were going to retire, you pick up $500,000. Unfortunately, today there's a real shortage of teachers coming out of college. It's like hiring a unicorn. Um unfortunately or fortunately, we remain an attractive destination for teachers who teach in other communities. But when we hire somebody who's got 10 years teaching experience, financially, it's a much different uh you know equation than we hire somebody who's right out of college. That being said, this
056um you know shows you what our retirement history looks like for both teachers and administrators from 2000 till uh 2425. Um, and finally, if you keep flipping a couple of extra pages, you'll come to a page that says Cheshire Public Schools Superintendent Recommended Budget, and it's got um each account with each line that rolls up to that account underneath it. So, you know, just looking at the bottom of the page, account 113, teachers, you know, Chapman art teacher, chapman PE teacher, Chapman music teacher. It shows you everything there. I I've seen a variety of other budget books from other communities. It is hard. you'd be hardressed to find something more comprehensive or more transparent than what you will find in the Cheshire Public Schools budget book. Um again, it's available online as well. Uh if
057you would like to review that. Um and so again, just to kind of close here with some of the key uh takeaways, the budget is really focused on trying to ensure we maintain our trajectory of success. Um you know, our enrollment growth uh is a blessing and a curse. You know, people want to move here and I almost made it through the budget presentation without saying that people don't move here for the nightife. They move here because we provide a great education um and that's what people want for their children um to experience the work that these guys and and their teams provide. Our achievement continues to climb as we focus on complex thinking and social emotional growth. uh we are stretched um every day and I think we'll you know we'll be continued to
058be uh stretched to utilize our resources to to get the results that we do. Um and you know just taking a look at if this budget was adopted as proposed the 8.83% 83% increase. Um, our per pupil expenditure because it does the the per pupil expenditure looks at all expenses less transportation. And so if you back it out, our per pupil expenditure in the upcoming proposed budget without reducing a penny would be 21,489. The state average in 2223 several years ago was 21657. So um you know again we we aspire to provide a fiscally responsible uh budget for the community that um garers the results that you know I think reflect the expectations in our community. and this budget um as much as it does have a a bit of sticker shock um I think
059we really shoot to do that in this budget. So uh just to close again I want to thank everybody who participated in the process not just the budget process but educating our kids every day. Uh it definitely takes a village and and I'm really proud of of our village uh and what we do in our community to support our students. Uh it's a great place to work and learn. I I I hope and I believe the 2627 budget calendar. Um tonight obviously we kick things off. I mentioned several additional opportunities throughout the month to um talk about this and with the I think appropriate amount of uh reflection and contemplation between uh we'll pick this back up on Tuesday at Dodd in the gym or excuse me in the cafeteria. uh Thursday uh we will
060be back at Dodd to review uh the accounts again uh before we get to January 20th where we invite the community the community is welcome to um send questions to board of ed contact at cheshure.k12.ct ct us at any time or um to come share questions in person. But um the meeting on January 20th is is designed more so to engage in dialogue with the community andor uh within the board. uh we take a brief respit on the 22nd for a business meeting uh held back here before uh reconvening on the 29th to um if we haven't adopted a budget on the 20th. Um and so that kind of provides the overview. Typically we we might meet on the 27th, but I need to put in a plug. Uh the Cheshire Education Foundation, who does
061so much for our schools and community, uh is celebrating their 30th anniversary. Um and they're doing so with a special concert for the community on January 27th. Uh stay tuned for more on that tomorrow. Uh we'll be sending out information um about that. So this is uh this concludes uh the budget presentation. Uh typically I know that the board uh takes this time to you know kind of go back and digest this volume of of work. Um and we come out with questions and more presentations on Tuesday. Uh but certainly if there's any you know sort of quick stuff that I might be able to respond to Sam, it's a up to you. >> Thank you Dr. Sen. Yeah, in the interest of, you know, ensuring that we have at least equation and questions that
062arise. Um, and like Dr. Solen said, we will have an opportunity to disagregate and review all the line items and so forth. I do want to make sure that, you know, we provide you questions in advance of the um subsequent meetings >> to the greatest extent that you can. I understand that things sometimes spontaneously come up, but you know, there's a lot of information here. Sometimes the questions are really historical in nature. >> If you have a question um it's really helpful to email me uh in advance and then Emily, Marlene, Rob and I, we can Rich Clevette, whoever can convene and try and make sure that we are able to provide that answer at the next meeting for the community. >> I think there are some broad uh topic questions at the moment just
063for clarification. So I'll just start with Mr. White. Thank you. Yeah. Um, first point, when you were going through your presentation, the you had mentioned a van. I'd heard you mention $100,000 and then $56,000. Were you talking about the van and then the driver for the van basically? >> So, I apologize. There are two vans, >> okay, >> that we're looking at. >> The first van, um, it's a $100,000 van that we need to replace for transportation. that is only the cost of that van. There was another van that's um you know specially accommodated in a different way that is only $60,000. We needed both vans. Um thankfully the seed grant that we received from the state will pay for the $60,000 van. So I backed that out of the operating budget. >> Okay. So
064two vans. >> So we have one van that we're actually in the operating budget. The other van that we needed to purchase, we're purchasing through a grant, not tied to the operating budget. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Uh and also with regard to the budget meetings that are laid out here, >> do we do we want a capital budget meeting on the books? >> Uh the town is kind of tweaking what they're doing with their capital budget timeline. Am I correct there, Vin? Where they >> I think they have a little bit of a schizophrenic relationship with the capital budget. where we've heard a variety of different >> dates and Emily. >> Yes. So, they are trying to push it so that they're getting it approved in July. I know there was a
065very extended process this year, but usually the town sends us over information. Last year, it ended up being November. They have not sent out the information for us to start um compiling that and sharing it with you all. The hope is wherever we get to, it's that we're having an approval conversation in July of 2026 versus October of the school year. So, um, more to come on that. >> The other >> Okay, it's not it doesn't fit in this twomonth time frame, one month time frame. Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> That's a fair question though because it it's kind of bounced around over the last few years. The other um item that the town is processing that you might have heard about, they had solicited community members I want to say in October
066um for a a special committee to look at insurance. >> Um that has not kicked off yet. >> Any other questions? Mr. Right. No, I think about no just for meetings. >> Any other board members? >> I do have a a couple Dr. S. Just again clarification. >> Um, page seven on the inter external internal factors. I know you highlighted the teachers contract, but I feel as though the administrator's contract does impact [clears throat] this as well too. So, if that's >> I would have to reference the budget book to get you the exact numbers. Do you have it right there, Emily? >> Are we asking for like the wage increases? >> GWI and um step. >> Yeah. So, for the cap contract in 2026 27, it's 2.75. It was 3% this year. >> Yeah.
067>> Thank you. And then we have new board members obviously if you can kind of go over really just the process requests from building level to you know central office level and then how you composite. >> Sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. As I as I mentioned this is kind of like a year-long process. So we start um in the fall with at the building level. Uh there's a lot lot of dialogue with administration and um community members at the school level. The uh principles then submit requests to the uh to central office uh to Vin, Marlene, Emily and myself. Um, and at that point we we're also in that buildup looking at all the other elements of the budget that are not necessarily principal related. Uh Emily will be going through with Heather uh in our
068HR department all of our current contracts, where are they on step, what's the rollup look like? We're going through all of our um recent information on um utilities. What are the utility projections? What contracts do we have? Compiling all that information. Ultimately, we will meet uh individually with building level administrators to uh ask them to walk us through the different requests they're making, the rationale. uh it could be really beneficial to try and look at where can we um couple certain requests to get better value. If if three buildings need desks, can we uh get a better volume discount, for example, things like that. Uh ultimately, we kind of roll up what those filtered requests are into the budget. Um we're obviously looking at our enrollment and what sort of staffing would be necessary to
069maintain uh those ratios and then we unfortunately you know have to cut things out of there to try and boil it boil it down to like I said that fiscally responsible request that you see here today. Thank you. >> Mike, >> Jeff, this is great. And Emily, and I know that a lot of other people had a lot of input. Um, this is the best budget book yet. >> Um, on page 13, you started to give us some of these netcertified staffing changes. you started, you gave us, you threw out some numbers of what each of those positions cost. Um, is there a way that we can see those numbers again when we meet on Tuesday? >> Sure. >> Yeah, we could lead with with that the different positions and the >> Yeah. And I'd
070kind of like to see also like the half two half team >> sure >> teacher numbers and >> those I I think separated would be would be nice. So on that page 13 and and that you're referencing here, I'm trying to >> get to that. The um the uh numbers you see here look different than any year uh at least that I've ever done this because we're moving people between buildings. So you see a plus seven, it's because the enrollment is anticipated to grow, I would say roughly by 140 students in that building. And you see the negative two because it's probably going to drop by 40 students or so. Um the net there in terms of our overall staffing is um seven teachers, but we're taking two transition teachers and moving them up. So
071we have five ads each. Uh we budget for each teaching position $85,000. That includes salary and benefits. But we I'll certainly outline that. You know, we can outline that again on Tuesday. >> Well, you can see where I'm getting at. I I'd like to see maybe some of us like me uh think that a half team at DOT in eighth grade is more important than one of the others that you've left in that you've left in the budget. >> Yep. And that's fair. I mean, that's like I said, I certainly welcome that dialogue. Um, and it's a really tough it's tough decision. >> Yeah. Thank you, >> thank you. Um, >> yeah, just I think aligned with what uh Ann was saying in general a couple years ago, we cut some spending. We ended up
072adding the elementary STEM program. >> Yes. >> So, you have any of those ideas? I >> The world's changing as Justin Trudeau mentioned, changing a lot. So please uh keep that in mind about me and probably others being open to ideas about shifting things around. >> Um and then second of all, something I mentioned you probably a month or two ago. I just want to make sure you have a chance to do something with it. Um so in the past year, we've seen the federal government with ICE ramping up dramatically. Somebody even getting shot at a school. Um, but I just hope I the last time I think I mentioned it in a meeting was probably a year ago. So, I just want to uh make sure that you and your team are on top
073of whatever our protocols are. Um, >> and uh just stay on top of that. I I don't want anybody walking into our schools doing anything. >> Yeah, of course. >> Um, that's it. >> Yeah. Thank you uh for that reminder. I did send out our ICE protocols that align with state law uh to the administrative team. I think it was last month, but certainly you can resend that tomorrow. The reminder, >> any other questions? >> Just staying on page 12. Um and this might be just a conversation we have later with regards to the STEM position. We're only focusing on the high school and leaving out the middle school. >> Well, this person would certainly work very closely with Azra Marlene as well. So, um, this person would be, you know, housed at the high
074school more than likely, but you would be a part of all of our meetings with the middle school. Um it's really important that both the same way Azra is connected to Cheshire High School. um we think it's really important to have you know strong vertical articulation and so um where it's appropriate you know our admin team just the other day was talking about at a upcoming PD how can we get our high school department chairs connected into our middle school department chairs um and making sure we have that strong connection so um in terms of just the the where that person's assigned on the state you So, uh, teacher assignment, it would be 912, but not exclusive. The work wouldn't be exclusive to the high school. >> I just I I don't want to leave
075the middle school out. And maybe that's just language we used in the job description or something. That's all. >> Yeah. I I just wanted to add to that because I I I believe that we had that discussion at the end of last year when we were discussing keeping um this in and it was a 7 to 12. we've finally kind of talked about to agree with. Um so I I would agree with our chairperson here that I think it's important for their continuity for 7 through 12 particularly in in these areas of math and science. >> I'll work with Marlene to make that adjustment. >> Um I know there's some headlines if you're aware of any Dr. So then with the state insurance and if that's going to impact us in any way, shape or
076form. >> So you know, I think that for a lot of the comm a lot of communities across the state, >> uh the state municipal insurance program represents a a good value. It's a good decision for them. It's something that we've scrutinized closely um to determine whether or not uh that would be a value to us. our program, our insurance that that we use, we're self-insured. We use a facilitator of claims basically in Sigma. That's cheaper than the state program. Uh I think the headline you're referencing is that today the uh state announced that I mean that that program's been around for a number of years. This is the first time it performed in the red. Um, I wish that we had only performed in the red once over the course of many years. Nevertheless,
077at the end of the day, it is it has been cheaper for us um and provide a better service to retain Sigma than to go with that state program. But we are constantly looking at it. As a matter of fact, I just invited um the state controller to a meeting with the South Central area superintendent group uh to talk about, you know, what does that look like? Um because we are constantly looking at how do we do this as efficiently as we can. >> Great. I just have two more items unless anybody else has. Um page 17 again, more process. There's always some confusion as to where the revenue goes. Is it directly to the board of ed or to the town? >> Good question. And for anybody who is watching a recording of this
078or watching live when board members are re referencing pages. It's not slide numbers. It's the pages in the packet which will also be available online tomorrow. Um the revenue that we receive, it's just the way that our charter is set up goes directly to the town. So we budget revenue um because we know that this is education related revenue to Cheshire. So, our budget request is not um the 80 or 101 million in this case plus the 10 $11,000 $11 million in revenue. Um it's our spend is 101. The town receives 11 million. Um so it's the net I guess uh is 90 million. >> Awesome. And my last item is more actually sorry. Um I know you keep an eye on it, but as far as retirement knowledge of early retirement, has that started?
079>> We're still a drop early in the season. Yeah. Um unfortunately um we have a a couple of retirements um due to health reasons and some other retirements um as well. Uh there's I only have a couple of retirements that I'm that I have confirmed at this point aside from our illustrious chief project officer. >> That one I think is pretty solid. >> He's back there somewhere. I see. >> Yeah. And then for the January 13th, uh do we have Robin on the 13th or Marlene to kick us off? >> Emily will actually uh kick us off on the 13th. So be exciting operations action >> and then 15. So we'll have Emily, Marlene, and then Robin for special ed. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I don't know that that will all happen on one
080night. >> No. >> Um >> it's a lot. >> Emily's, you know, presentation is pretty comprehensive. Uh we got a lot on the operation side, but definitely [snorts] uh she'll kick us off and we'll go from there. >> Great. Thank you. >> They do tend to be longer nights as we get through those. >> On on page 15 around the budget increase by category, I'm just looking at the special ed. I know I'm I'm beating this to death at times, but um we heard yesterday at the legislative breakfast that the legislation that was passed last year um has some relief for districts. I mean, have we gotten any information from the state department or any direction on if and when there are any funds available? >> So, the seed grant was something that we had
081heard about a lot, right? >> Like or very early fall and we just uh basically got that information like two weeks ago. Robin was on a call I want to say last week, Rob. All right. Last week >> just Yeah. >> Yeah. So hopefully by the end of January that money that was promised in August, September will be accessible and that's where we're hoping to tap into it to purchase that ban that is sorely needed. Um, beyond that, the excess cost grant information, I know that that is one that um is is really a topic of conversation and I we had our legislative breakfast the other morning and I tried to impart on our representatives, our state reps that were there that this is um twofold. this issue is twofold. That uh if we're spending
082in excess of $70,000 on a student, that student probably has very significant needs. And um oftent times the student has needs that are extend beyond the resources that we have to effectively provide for them in our community and we outplace that student. To just say, "Give us all the money that we spend beyond the 70,000 back," only addresses half of the equation. If there's not a governor on the top pushing down the costs that have gotten to be astronomical at the outplacement, you're only feeding the beast. Um and because there's nothing to stop private providers from continuing to jack up the cost in in you know in effect you're incentivizing communities to outplace knowing that they'll get the money back. So you know this is a complex problem and the state has um made a
083commitment to address outplacement costs. Um but I also recognize that you know uh the commitment to reimburse communities. It's a problem for Cheshure and we have um a large enough community. If we're if you were in a school system, some school systems have south of a thousand kids and two kids get out placement, the the tuition is well beyond $70,000. And I know Robin will highlight some of that. The transportation could be almost as much like that'll would bankrupt small communities. So, it's really an important issue for um Connecticut to address, but what we've seen in terms of our excess cost reimbursement, it's gone up marginally and you know, we continue to advocate for that to be looked at. >> I just thought I I had read at the end of the last legislative session
084that there was going to be or is a cap now on out of district placements, >> the the tuition. I haven't received any information on that as of yet. I receive what the cost will be next year and many of them are going up by 5% >> which is a huge difference. So I think my average cost is $140,000 last year was 120. Y >> it's going to go up% >> and that's before transportation, right? Talking about just tuition. The the other thing that I think you might be referencing too is that the state is >> only um like accrediting certain outplacement providers. Um and so they'll only reimburse us if we send to an accredited >> outplacement provider. um trying to there are some that are less reputable that the state has indicated that
085they won't reimburse us for. >> I'm good. >> And with that, thank you Dr. Sen. >> Thank you. >> We will definitely digest all of this if I can get a motion to adjourn. Mr. White. Any second? Miss Coour. All those in favor of adjournment. Unanimous. Thank you everybody for coming out.