001of the board to discuss the proposed budget for next fiscal year before we get into that Mr zenski ever will call for form here here thank you we'll stand for to pledge since I was here last time I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you you know do we have any members of the onions that wish to address the board this evening as soon as there are none I will turn it over to Mr grippo's chair of the finance committee but for folks that may be tuning in or I know that's been here uh this is our third or fourth what is the fifth meeting of this budget proposal the
002finance committee uh wrapped up its two-week long journey uh listening to another presentations which probably all the materials are available in the Cheshire Public Schools website all the detail we have is up there and there's quite a bit of it anyone that has any questions or insights into that please take a look and please contact us as far as I know I have not received any specific questions I'm not sure if the email as we see the exactly um we'll check again before the meeting is over just in case people might be sending something in before anything happens tonight uh so the finance committee has put forth a budget recommendation which is a superintendent's budget recommendation for the full Board of Ed and as we tradition to every year the full Board of Ed reviews
003that and makes a decision and ultimately adopts a budget that may not happen tonight in case it does not happen tonight we are required to have a budget adopted by February 14th so we have a little bit of time that being said Mr grip I'm going to turn over to finance committee report update uh thank you Mr chair um the finance committee uh met uh just earlier this evening and we passed a motion to approve a budget to be presented to the full Board of Ed for consideration of 85 million 872 591 dollars that is an increase of 5 million 208 171 dollars uh and a 6.46 increase over the approved budget from last year or current budget and uh that's where we stand right now uh outstanding yeah would you like me to uh
004make a motion to get the ball rolling well do you have a motion um I would imagine so yeah questions discussion is going to be on that yeah all right so yeah just yeah I'll make the emotion on the on the motion uh so I'll move to uh uh move that the Board of Education approve a budget of 85 million 872 591 dollars a uh increase of 5 million 208 171 dollars an increase of six point four six percent it's very second I knew it this Harrigan seconds discussion questions okay input here we go from any any board member but any comments at all okay I'm gonna go all right okay um okay so um [Applause] I appreciate thank you for everything you've done and thank you you guys for all that you've done um
005I I will confess I have major reservations about the size of the increase of this budget and um it just I understand we are up against a wall we're at um almost 96 of fixed costs um either through contracts um you know through energy costs through just any number of contracts that were required to meet and it leaves us so little room to maneuver um and uh uh you know just function um and I have said this in the past um I I just in my time on the board what strikes me most is is the cost what's killing us is mandates from the state and um there's just this assumption that somehow those in Hartford can pass some law or slip it in at the last hour in the implementer bill and our taxpayers
006will pay for it and don't worry they just won't go out for dinner or another one night a week and there are a lot of people that this is going to hurt this is a right now as I understand uh the formula this is a two mil increase on 34 meals in this town um and I find it rather disturbing that even when we hold legislative meetings uh of the legislative delegation we get two out of the five present um and there are three other representatives and a state senator who do represent Cheshire and couldn't bother to be there with us to discuss our concerns about the growing impact of mandates I am just one lone voice on this board but I sure hope they're listening it has to stop because this is starting to
007affect our kids in our town and there will be a time where a community is a community of all ages and from young to old and if we are forcing our one segment of that community and it isn't just one segment there are young families that will at some point not be able to afford this anymore we have got to get some relief and um I appreciate your working you guys with with the situation um but as I said I I cannot support a five plus million dollar increase so thank you Mr chair I'd like to make an amendment you made this a okay um I would like to uh amend the motion to um decrease the the budget ask by 619 401 dollars um I went through the budget you know at least at
008a high level trying to get into the to the line items here and um I think that reduction uh preserves all of the so before we get into this question so you you propose to amend the motion on the table to reduce the increase by six hundred nineteen thousand four hundred one dollars yes Faith seconds we now have a discussion on the amended motion which reduces the increase by 619 401 so Mr gripple would you like to continue explanation ah thank you Mr chair uh so that would be an increase of four million five hundred eighty eight thousand seven hundred seventy dollars uh which is still an incredibly large number um uh but as we've as uh Faith had mentioned previously uh a lot of this budget is contractual increases for the most part um
009but we also have to keep the taxpayer in mind uh and we we I know the superintendent has mentioned um you know potential grandless growth uh we don't know what that is right now we have to assume maybe it's only you know one percent as it has been historically we don't know if it's going to be more or less uh we don't have any uh commentary from uh town hall right now um we you know we do know that energy prices are way up uh we know uh that we have contractual increases for salary and benefits we have our medical benefit trust fund which I think was an increase let's see according to this is 10.6 percent which but I think on just on the trust fund basis might actually be higher than that uh
010just outside of the line item um so we're facing these these increases um but like I said I like to still keep the tax bear in mind um and so uh what what this does it preserves the the positions that the superintendent has asked for in his budget that would be the Four elementary teachers the the 1.6 uh or 1.4 bcba that uh was it I don't remember off the top of my head I could probably pull it up here but all the basically the positions that were asked for in this budget um and it also uh preserves the the cushion for fuel electricity and our energy contract uh but it basically strips out everything else from instructional expense um and support services at least by by my account by the way I did the
011math um so that's so it's basically a budget that only uh pays for all of our contractual uh increases and uh gives us cover for uh potential energy costs and of course you know energy costs could go down maybe be in the next six months I doubt it but uh it could happen so that that could leave us with a little more Headroom uh going into May um but that is my reasoning for the motion yes and um so I'm wondering if Mr Griffo can give us May talk three or four areas that would make up the 619 thousand four hundred and one dollars uh uh the the the areas that are cut you mean uh or well not increased yeah um where do we get the most uh the uh majority of the decrease
012in increase uh would come from Support Services it would essentially be uh any increase asked for uh would be flat lined with the exception of line 732 which is the uh the uh energy contract for 38 162 dollars that'd be a majority of it right there um and then um maintenance and operations um any increase asks for with the exceptions of line 410 and 620 which is the uh fuel uh and electricity um increases that were uh budgeted for for next year everything else would be zeroed out at least as far as an increase will go so there's still let me see there would still be uh four point six million in maintenance and operations there would be uh let's see 7.3 million in Support Services and uh 4.5 million in instructional expense so could
013you give me that line item and support services for them uh Support Services the the only line item that would be increased would be line 732 which is uh for thirty eight thousand one sixty two that's for our uh um actually what it's called our energy contract for the LED lighting that we did uh several years ago so now I need to go further deeper in and see what's being affected if you take that much out of Support Services foreign so all it's all these other lines right yes 3 30 to yes okay so who's gonna explain to me so what's gonna happen if we do if we wipe out that sure the easiest way to um identify really the implications of that are under the support services tab each at each account number there's
014an overview of what that account provides so you know whether it's other Professional Services whether it's uh you know our our rentals and leases Communications all these different lines are addressed there so you know simply rentals and leases I imagine you know the cost of the Town swimming pool may go up for example which we pay for or you know our golf for athletics or whatever that that'll likely go up we would um you know offset any increases there against other lines if it's flat funded that's how we would manage it would that necessitate Jeff for Dr so long would that necessitate increasing the Student Activity fee you mentioned a couple well you know that's a proposal this is a you know management of the budget um I didn't hear that is a recommended strategy
015to address this I think you know I appreciate that's kind of a last ditch effort um you know last Stitch uh intervention if you will to offset budgetary accounts and if we were to increase the current Student Activity fee is 125 if that were let's say increased uh to 150 150 dollars it's about thirty thousand dollars for every twenty five dollar increment you increase that so that would be a relatively nominal offset on a six hundred thousand dollar reduction in thirty thousand dollars I guess I'm grappling with this like let's just not have any increase in the whole area of of our budget which just seems really irresponsible to me I'll just say um I wonder Dr Solon what does that realistically mean for our schools how our schools operate we won't have as much
016paper we'll be praying for good weather because our and we don't want our energy costs to go up or we're not going to plow the the um parking lots when it snows what are we not going to be doing well if we don't have a budget for Support Services I mean the budget would be 7 million seven thousand 288 I hope we could do something with seven million seven thousand two eighty eight if I stick flat [Music] the budget in within that line item yeah oh yeah the the um the reality in a budget when you design a budget for a school system as large as Cheshire is that you know just like any other budget with your home or whatever there are variables that you can't predict in the next 365 days um it's
017certainly fair to say that uh we are a very lean operation um it was in the presentation we spend four million less than our peers a thousand dollars per student less than our peers so that gives us less wiggle room before you impact service but there will be things for instance the sheer weather that operate favorably in things that don't operate favorably like maybe uh not in the certainly not the case this year but let's say outplacement costs which can have pretty significant variability when those things happen we Monitor and adjust throughout the year and we've obviously been quite successful in doing that over a long period of time to to find success obviously as as lean as we we get particularly as we grow we have to monitor even more closely and determine you
018know if anything were to happen like uh Mr crippo mentioned the medical benefits line and we may have to turn back to the town I'd like to think that over the last year and a half two years there's been a demonstrated um Mutual effort on both parties the council and the the Board of Ed to work very closely together and uh I hope they would be understanding of the fact that this budget being lean that if next year there were some sort of unforeseen circumstance that we could document um that we've been otherwise living within those means that they would be receptive if we had to go back and have that conversation but again you know you're trying to predict out 365 days things that are going to go up and down um I think
019we can work to live within that it's okay and um and I think where so if so I want to preface a few things so these are Mr gripple's ideas for line items um at the end of the day no matter what the budget is that ultimately comes back from the town the user CEO and Vincent will figure out how to make it work as you see fit you may not touch this line we're not there yet but suffice to say if things stay flat in certain categories is is it safe to assume that like this year I think you're holding back expenses at 60 we would that would that Force you next year depending what comes back it's not the full ask or something that's you know less than what you would consider safe
020when you have to hold back spends even more to see how the year goes before I mean UB40 when we talk about monitoring and adjusting throughout the year I mean we yeah we certainly don't release discretionary money and I think you know when Dr Harrigan talks about you know what are the implications there's less discretionary money right right I mean and I think this ham and others have mentioned you know that a lot of our um budget is dedicated toward contractual uh increases and so there there isn't a lot of discretionary money so we hold back that smaller amount and I think that's what I'm saying it makes us a little bit more susceptible to fluctuations outside of our control and in that case I mean worst case we would ultimately have to turn back
021to the town to explain that and solicit more funding worst case Mr chair I would like to uh can I amend my own motion yes you can um I would like to amend my emotion um as I'm sure all of the administrators and teachers watching perhaps uh uh also that you know when I went through uh Norton school they always taught me to check my work and so I did miss a line as I'm trying to preserve all contractual increases um I would like to um uh amend my motion to decrease the original budget original approved motion by 514 470 um for a total increase of four million six hundred ninety three thousand seven hundred one dollars that way that also um at least by my calculation also preserves uh line 510 which is our
022um Pupil Transportation contractual increase for datco and uh I'm sorry Mr griffel it's 514 000. 470 dollars so there is a motion the current motion yeah uh instead of it being a six hundred and nineteen thousand four hundred and one dollar uh less of an increase up it to 514 470 making the new budget increase amended motion would be 4 million 693 thousand seven hundred and one dollars that would be the amended motion if there's a second [Music] Andrew seconds so the amended motion has increased the budget by four million six hundred eighty three thousand seven hundred one dollars good question yes can I just get the correctionalized through the sudden change again uh well my my rationale in making the original motion was to preserve all contractual increases and preserve um the uh um
023position uh additional positions asked in the budget as well to keep our class sizes at uh 18.1 or thereabout and uh preserve our special education integrity um in order to do that I missed the uh the contractual increase for Deco so I wanted to add that back in thank you to the chair is there before we go back and forth and changing I know the super for those at home their superintendent has brought forth to us some reduction you know Alternatives and I like to see if he can at least go through some of it so that we can get all the figures out there in the open sure you know I want to be clear I mean these aren't this wouldn't be my recommendation obviously right I made a recommended budget um in you
024know consideration of potential impact yeah so uh without the song emails today is not uh reduction recommendations there are again a heads up that we may not have consensus potentially approve the full budget request and lieu of that um if he did not receive the full budget request what might be some areas he would look into to make up the offset so I think we have a list of things that made me want to sure I mean you know it's up to you frankly and looking at Mr grippo's proposal it's not wildly deviant from some of the things that I would recommend um you know first and foremost and I I appreciate this board's historic effort to focus on providing resources at the classroom level and I think that you know has certainly aligned with
025My Philosophy over my tenure superintendent the last eight years or whatever it is um and Mr grippo's proposal does retain the staff I think that first and foremost is Mission critical it does retain the class size I mean our Elementary class sizes are at a historic high for the last decade not unreasonable but not a place that we want to make reductions obviously our middle and high school Staffing is really at a place a threshold that we want to try and retain um so looking at non-classroom oriented lines as he does in that proposal I think is probably if I knew that we had to make that reduction the places I would be going um I respect his rationale understanding that things like bus transportation contracts going to increase period end of story The we
026know that it's a thirty eight thousand dollar lighting review you know these things um are legitimate increases and I appreciate the rationale there so all in all you know I don't know that I'd make dramatic changes to the proposal on the table if indeed I was asked to reduce by the amount on the table I just want to add a point of clarification well that point it's not an important thing so we use the average of 18.1 class students per class but if anyone is able to see the enrollment um tab of our budget book not every class is going to have 18 or fewer students there are some grades they'll have 20 21 22 23 starting to lower grade levels there's lower so I don't want the public kind of false perception that all
027classes would be 18 it varies the average turns out to be that way if things stay the same so there will be class sizes like this year and I think the police appointing enrollment is maintaining what we currently have and some of those classes are our sizes are 20 21. so um this one point that out it matters so yes I am so this is the difference for me um on what this superintendent gave to us we have line items and we can clearly see what what actually is being it's like Dr Solon uses a scalpel to show us whereas Mr grippo takes a hacksaw and just says every every increase goes in this entire Support Services category everything that's not contractual so I really appreciate seeing where things what's going to be actually affected
028because from this list there's only um 100 and 83 000 668. things that I would that I would go for in reducing the budget which is a drop in the bucket so this number of 500 470 is um I guess I'd want to see where exactly the superintendent would find that 517 thousand four hundred and seventy sure um you know Dr Harrigan I think it I I appreciate the question to be honest um with that number just being thrown out now it's kind of hard for me to to go back and identify specifically where I would adjust relative to the proposal on the table and to be clear I didn't mean you should do it right now okay I'm sorry figure out you give it a shot but you know yeah um I I know
029you didn't mean to to say that my number was arbitrary and then I pulled it out of thin air um at least I don't think you meant to say that maybe you did um arbitrary but it's it's not it doesn't consider the effects when you just are looking at a number and saying this this all goes in this category it's it's not for me it's it's not seeing what the results of doing that are going to be in our school right and and just a few minutes ago um uh superintendent mentioned that when in May after we get our final number back from the from a council then we will they will determine which line items will be affected most greatly right and it's hard to know right now in any sort of finality uh
030what line items you can hit exactly right because we don't know what our final number is our medical benefit trust number might improve our Energy number might improve the town may decide you know what uh Mr grippo you're entirely wrong and we're going to give you our the full ask of the superintendent who knows that never it's never happened that's true um but I think that you know we have to make some educated guesses and we have to make some hard choices because not only is there going to be in an increase from our budget there's going to be uh you know potentially an increase on the town side there's going to be additional debt incurred because of a uh that the town needs to plan for for our new schools that we're going to
031be building of 166 million dollars this is all going to be on the backs of of the townspeople and I know that the townspeople understood that when they voted for the school project but now this is where the rubber meets the road and I feel that at least by reducing the budget in a sensible way that this increase of 4.6 million is although at high is still um uh gives the resources that our school system needs to continue to be successful I respectfully disagree with all of that exactly what you just said it doesn't if we are not careful and I guess the audacity to think that the superintendent proposed a budget that was so far off that was over 500 000 off um and seeing some of the places like increasing Student Activity fees
032and and increasing class sizes to be on the list of some things that would be affected in order to get there well let's be clear no one's proposed to increasing Student Activities fees that's just a my opinion red herring that's thrown at the table it's neither here or there I wouldn't support that I don't think any board member will support that and so we're not proposing that but let's see what happens you know come April but we do get back I hope that's not the case but I understand you're in 10 am um and I mean please continue on uh if you did I want to say is there anyone else that's been sitting around has any questions uh yeah Tim thank you Tony uh Jeff when I look at the list that you gave
033us not your recommendation but General guidance sure uh I see three positions three teaching positions do you think there's any chance if this if this happened do you think any there would be any chance that those would result in layoffs or just because you have some attrition typically in a given year yeah I I can't I don't I don't know it would because the any reductions that we would make would really be targeted um you know based on class sizes uh likely at the high school level it would definitely result in higher class sizes and reduction in service report or and or course offerings I mean that's a uh decision that we make if you know things are dire and because it would be targeted by a certification area it may result in layoff then
034it may not be covered by so if if um arbitrarily speaking if the Cantonese teacher retires them using classes that we don't even have they retire but I need to cut the hockey teacher well it's not it's going to result in a layoff of a hockey teacher you know again I'm using classes that we don't offer to just illustrate a point rather than to alarm anybody or provide misinformation so yes it could okay um [Music] yeah so I'll just I'll just make some general comments first of all I want to thank uh staff Jeff your whole team for everything you do and putting this together I appreciate it and especially when it comes to changes in the budget I know that's probably the most part of a budget most difficult part of a budget um
035one of the big concerns for me is the groundless growth we are having it um but we just don't know what it is I don't even think we have I don't even think we have motor vehicles yet at this point um oh with regard to let me back up for a second I should ask this question before with regard to a potential Student Activity fee are there any kids who get excluded I'm not saying a one-off but I mean do you have a program in place to ensure kids are able to get involved you know if there's absolutely okay absolutely okay thank you for that have we ever had a discussion with the town about an energy trust fund the reason I say it is specifically because of Ukraine and the volatility um and even
036if it's not a trust fund but a discussion with the town like if things get crazy and then I'll add another question and just to be clear on this for the 12 months of the next budget year do we have our rates locked in for any of our fuel types oil gas electricity so I'm going to defer to Vin yeah on those you're talking about for the 23 24 for the upcoming budget 23 24. just through the end of this year okay do you have do you have a reasonable expectation that you'd be able to lock in rates or just can you lock in gas rates and we could if but just not warranted at the price levels right now so okay gas in particular where you're still on uh floating rate you know the
037eversource standard rate for you know our schools okay which is you know I know this is a period of very high energy prices it served us well the prior three years so you know hopefully things do settle down but you know that that is a risk in the in the budget it always is and we'll typically go out to bid on our fuel prices I'm talking about diesel fuel gasoline heating oil those won't happen until um you know late in the fall for the following fiscal year and usually what we'll do is we'll contract to to buy the fuels we need but not necessarily lock in price so the the price locks are dependent on you know what's available in the market okay so it seems like we do have exposure there in a significant
038way I mean the headlines I'm reading about Putin and Ukraine starting you know going back in the next month and that is a significant factor in the cost of fuel and energy it's just the reality of it so that so I guess I thought of having a discussion with Council about that you actually put that as one of the three points in at the cut on your coverage sheet Global energy um okay uh yeah this is this is five million dollars is a big ask um I'm comfortable with a reduction of a half million dollars whether that's the guidance provided by the superintendent or Adam's suggestion um I'm just talking in the general Bar Park uh but at this time generally speaking I'd prefer to follow the superintendent's guidance um I appreciate all the I
039appreciate all the leg work and that heavy lifting that you did Adam and looking at this stuff but that's generally where I would defer I think you know at this point um this isn't a formal proposal that I had put on the table this is a more or less a selection of a menu for the purpose of moving this forward I think it makes sense if I may to adopt if we're going to you know adopt the reduction to adopt the budget as presented by Mr grippo with the understanding you know this is in our first year doing this it's going to go to the council it's going to there's going to be great consternation over those numbers and as Mr paragini said it's going to come back to us again and at that point
040typically uh in May our team gets together again has an updated lay of the land revises all of the budget lines uh to a place with the allocation that was provided to a place where we think is appropriate and then the board adopts that so any adjustments that I might make or you know months down the road yeah understood and I appreciate that kind of Samantha and then Mr purple can you just clarify your 517 470 again because I did appreciate the point of reserving positions but I just wanted to kind of hear and make sure I heard it correctly um yeah so the uh the reduction uh at least in my mind uh comes from the uh comes from instructional expense support services and maintenance and operations and it's has been up put earlier
041this evening I guess I uh I would be uh putting uh I would in my mind having a zero increase on every line uh every line item with the exception of of course all line items and certified salary non-certified salaries and employee benefits right those all are maintained um and then the uh in the increases ask for inline items 4 10 620 and 732 which is all of our energy cost increases electricity Fuel and our energy lighting contract and oh I'm sorry inline 510 for uh our transportation contract increase as well with deco everything else would be zeroed out in my mind which of course is non-binding that's just oh I came to my calculation currently of a reduction of 514 000. four seven zero off of the recommended budget uh thank you and I
042just I would support it if we could you know later on ensure that we preserve these positions hold tight these special ed programs that Robin proposed as much as possible I know these are just options based on the superintendent's suggestions but you know every item is an impact to classrooms no matter what so I think your proposal is reasonable so thank you I know it's been faith I know it's been stated so uh what Dr Solomon gave us for ideas is this moment in time and I at the time today please don't rush it and obviously didn't so those those those are areas today those are probably not the areas to look into in April May um so between now and we have to adopt a final budget you know as you mentioned 210 think
043about what may may not happen with our medical benefits they may Hold Steady may go up a little bit it may save us a couple hundred thousand dollars to be added to it um who knows maybe the Town Council may make another uh contribution to the reserve fund outside his budget which may which may make up this difference we don't know we'll see um we're going to be closing out this fiscal year in June you know we'll see if anything is left over from encumbrances if that can possibly so um I it's not a definitive list is all I want to say so please keep that in mind I'm sorry uh great now um I I I I support what Adam has proposed here and um I just a couple of things to point out
044in uh nothing we can do about it because this is the system as it is but I I really kind of take issue with the whole budgeting process because we're going into this kind of Flying Blind normal um budgets have an estimated Revenue we don't even know our revenues so um we're shooting in the dark here and I don't know how to ever fix it because I know that it's all part of elite you know a legislative process and a charter process but um uh you know as Tony just said it's a moment in time and we you know last year we were looking at 130 000 in snow plowing and we're never going to get a flake of snow watch it snowed this weekend but um but the point is we do reconcile at
045the end of June we do move this money around and and as needs arise there are areas that are not drawing what was anticipated on you know January 31st 2023. so I wouldn't to say that we are you know this is um to hold many of these expenses at the same level as this year if they um it's not I I I don't like it but um I'll go back to my original or refer back to my original point but the fact of the matter is um we do well by our students and I think we even at a 000 reduction from this and and again I'm I would look for more if it were up to me because I still think it's a big ask for our town but um I think our students
046are going to be okay so then or uh doctor are there any grants that we know of or we've applied for or in the hopper that might help to offset any of the increase between now and because we you know I think the public needs to understand like we're right now trying to foreshadow what the budget's going to look like from July 1st through the next year so I mean is there anything that's open now any of the Esther money I mean I see a lot of these have Sunset um but anything to do with learning loss or energy costs or anything of the district might be going after that's in the harbor now or well I'll let then also build on this response because I imagine you know we can talk about HVAC at
047the very least but um our our philosophy has historically been to use grants to supplement the budget provision um I think you know as I kind of Illustrated when we received the Esther money I tried to stay away from creating fiscal cliffs and I think we can get ourselves in trouble when we supplant budget things that should be budgeted with grant money because in the subsequent year it creates a much deeper hole when we're trying to dig out of that when the grant money runs out so you know as recently as Friday Kevin um issued a grant request for thirty thousand dollars for El Services um that would be supplemental to the services that we would provide provide professional development for our staff and how to support English language Learners um our second language Learners
048or dual language Learners excuse me so I mean that's kind of been the philosophy philosophy we've approached this with to not create fiscal cliffs for ourselves but then if you want to talk about HVAC or anything else or anything in addition sure uh good evening everyone the there's no operating budget grants other than the ones that we have in in the revenue in the state and and Federal grant programs the we do have grant opportunities certainly as Dr solimento at the HVAC grant school security Grant but those are going to affect our Capital Investments so there's nothing um Mr Martellus that I I know of now that would help the operating budget that we're talking about and we are anticipating carrying and using the remaining 50 of the rfesser grant in 23-24 and that's carrying
049several positions and some professional development Consulting costs so you know we don't have to worry about that for 23.24 so that's coming up that'll be 24.25 and 24 25 right okay not budget you know to the extent we've had you know positions in the our peso Grant well those funds are no longer available so a decision has to be made what do we do with that so and there's no need to make a decision on that for the 23-24 budget because we'll carry it okay thank you yes Sam yeah I just want to make some a point sort of more generally about um the reasons that our budget is increasing over last year um are are not all bad okay so we are growing as a community which means we have higher student enrollment coming
050in that I'm we've already seen that the past couple of years and it's just increasing exponentially almost so to think that we don't need more staff more teachers more materials is you know we need to think in the way that we need to support population that's coming into our schools um I'm trying to remember the other two big parts of the reasons why our our budget is increasing um we have a teacher contractual growth along you know adding right because we have one more specialized medical benefits and you know natural resource costs so I just wanted to make you know we're growing and these some of this is Growing Pains but the town is also growing so that's the point I wanted to make thanks Andrew Jeff our elementary school population right now 2100. I'm
051just thinking of this I'm just thinking of the school modernizations go up to 2605 or so years yeah so the the actual Vin has always been better at quoting exact numbers than me so I'm gonna pull it right from our budget book our projected enrollment K through six next year is 2240 it's currently 21.67. all right so we're 2100 2200 and then the subsequent Year 2272. all right so five years out we're at 2500. approximately all right so we're looking at a 300 or in the next five years or 300 or so increase just something just another way I'm thinking about this that wasn't no that wasn't my point at all I did hear you say that it was like I don't know if it's exponential but it's big I was like 300 300 divided
052by 5 is 60 right 60 just using 20 as a simple number to keep them that simple as an extra three teachers a year for the next five years just generally speaking at the elementary school level now there's dot in the high school in it as well but the growth is happening and I do feel it's important to also have that in mind when we're talking about you know keeping positions just we we just did school we just approved school modernization so the expectation is that's going to happen I want I want the the voters to also have that in mind that these positions are going to be growing there's I mean I mean unless there's a board of ed that chooses to say all right it's not 20 it's 30 kids first class I
053don't see that happening anytime soon but um just as a general thought we're probably increasing about three Elementary School teachers a year for the next five years and then it's gonna I think it I think we actually the increase goes out more than five years anyway but that's just to keep it relatively close in time that's all Samantha yes yeah I just I agree yes growth is happening but we also don't want to lose sight back with growth comes the diversity with the diversity comes need we don't know the demographics of our growth and therefore we do have to prepare in advance so to speak of you know maybe of the 12 increase for next year half of them may be special needs children that we have to consider those services for too so I
054just you know we're looking at numbers I really don't want us to just look at the numbers I want us to also those numbers come with faces and needs as well too foreign if there are no further comments I'll try to say a few things so uh I want to act again it's not over but there's more comments we'll continue on um but I do want to say again I want to thank everyone for the input into this budget which I know we almost started well before January and just remind folks I think we talked about it last time you know about the sewing uh and the entire team you know I guess the original request when it came in were was much more than 5 million I think it was up around 8 million
055and change and that was just about the time when finance committee and planning were meeting ahead of time too to try pair for this year so by no means this is this budget anything that just uh popped up uh three weeks ago and we finally got to it so there's been a lot of work to get it to where it is uh and honestly without just someone presented I uh by no means do I think he patted anything nor did I think uh he has any audacity to try to hide stuff I know that was mentioned earlier that's not the case and we know better um so a lot of work went into this and you know again I I I get it I've been here for a long time I understand the details we're
056an interesting situation uh we haven't been accustomed to which was when we're in growth mode up until about a year or so ago we weren't in growth mode we were in the although that's going to argue that the budget still maintains but we are growing the schools the population some of the program you know we're not investing a lot into program with this budget I suspect future budgets will change to invest into more programs as Samantha mentioned as the more diverse population of our school children and there's our schools I suspect programs will follow in future years um and that we're able to augment not maintain what we have today but also additional offerings so so for me it's not just planning for this year when I look at budgets it's looking out at least
057three years the best that I can of what's coming what we need to plan for and when I do look out that far um I think we'll be making continued Investments of this size or maybe greater in the next couple years in one year it may not be staff and a future year it could be additional programming at the elementary school but we are growing and we want to continue off in quality education and a quality experience I think so long as this board or any future board can articulate what's behind the numbers and how to add value I think we'll get through it I am concerned I usually how to say this not sounding uh I do take everyone's input into this process and how everyone's affected whether we have adults in town that
058have students in school system we're not retirees um you know I don't necessarily look at the final movie from the town when I make a decision because our focus is on education but we're all inclusive enough to keep that back of our minds as I just mentioned we just uh successfully passed you know 160 million dollar capital budget a capital project which will be start paying for in about a couple years we have this budget operating we have another capital budget that we're going to talk about soon for next fiscal year so I look at these things in total and look at where we need to be um I don't want to scare off our taxpayers I want the ease them into where we're going and I think this budget helps with that I will
059support Mr gripples reduced increase I would not go below that um for the reasons that we're we don't know what our medical balance is going to look like at the end of this fiscal year even with fingers crossed Anything Can Happen uh we're not done with the current school year so as much as I think we may have some encumbrances uh that maybe in past years the superintendent is able to expend during the summer for projects that may not be the case this year that may not be a buffer so I don't think the 514 000 is irresponsible I think it certainly challenges the superintendent a bit um but I also don't think that's going to be an end of it so I will support this um yeah I I can't really I have no
060arguments with any board member here we all share passion for what we're trying to do I I definitely you know I I understand and I I agree we're in some aspects you know I do appreciate the fact that you know we want to see details of where the reductions and the increase ultimately come from um but I do appreciate Mr grippo uh you thinking about the line items at least trying to quantify um the numbers I know in different Boards of Ed in years past we've had members just you know in some cases throw out numbers and not able to stand behind us I appreciate your reasoning but there's a lot more to come between now and in April and like I said you know we will wait to see what the town manager has
061to say about the budget and I'll be a Town Council I'm sure going to have much deeper discussions with the Town Council in room 207 when time comes on this and depending how things happen we could make a case to change it then too so uh so I will support this and you know Dr Solomon you know I do support you just because I don't support the other 500 14 000 it doesn't mean all not all Indian you know uh coming from so so I will support this amended motion that's where I stand but we can continue discussion if the board still chooses okay if I got my numbers right the amended motion on the table is to increase the fiscal 23 24 education operating budget by four million six hundred ninety three thousand seven
062hundred and one dollars for a total budget of 85 million 358 121 dollars which represents a 5.8187 increase over current budget am I close enough yes the percentages will throw me off but I know numbers are accurate yeah yeah I'm sorry I was trying to be you know finite finite like Mr grippo uh all those in favor please raise your hands and support yeah one two three four six all those opposed we have one opposed the motion passes [Music] so I again thank you everyone um in case somebody's looking I'm looking at our just dedicated Educators here so I appreciate we all appreciate time you spent these last few weeks uh I'm certain you'll come back once we have some more news from the town side so please don't go away anytime soon that being
063said I do want to thank the board for all your time and effort and questions and discussions and thank you for reaching out to Dr so in the last few days Dr Solomon team thank you for your sponsors I I know we put a lot on you um but we'll find a way to make this work uh that being said I asked for a motion to adjourn Mr grippo is there a second Tim all is in favor this meeting is adjourned thank you