001you have a roll call for corn please here I think as we plant Stanford Pledge of Allegiance 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 and good evening everyone tonight is uh two meetings it's uh the first first one is our finance committee meeting at the whole where the finance committee along with uh additional board members can have additional questions on the budget and we're hopeful that the finance committee will move a budget along to the full board to discuss and then following that meeting uh on around 7 30 depending how things go we have a full board education meaning to actually discuss the proposed budget that being said before we
002get into our discussions are there any members of the audience that wish to address the board as soon as there are none and again thank you for being here uh Mr grippo I'm coming over to finance thank you Mr chair um so over a series of I don't know I think it's been four budget meetings we've reviewed uh certified non-certified salaries employee benefits and structural expense support services and maintenance and operations um the uh superintendent during his presentation has asked for a budget increase of 5 million 208 171 dollars which is a um the total increase off of last year's uh approved budget of 6.46 percent um our last meeting we all had a chance to ask numerous questions of the superintendent and staff um I don't know if Mrs Rosenberg did you have any
003questions before we vote on a motion to move out of Finance no I didn't know forward to the full okay very good um so uh we've we've kind of heard a lot of information we've been digesting that information so what we're going to do right now um as you can see uh so the the finance committee will make a motion um and we'll either vote to approve that motion or not um and then that motion will then move to the full board for the full board's consideration um so the motion I'll make a motion um that the finance committee um approve a budget of uh 85 million 872 591 which is an increase of 5 million two hundred eight thousand one hundred seventy one dollars or uh six point four six percent uh for the
004uh 2023-2024 budget is there a second okay there's a second from Sam um uh now we are now in discussion is there any comments or um amendments to that motion no this is for the finance committee so not yet yeah so um last night well over the weekend uh you all received um the questions that I had as I went through the supplemental information and I did not do a last minute check on my computer to see if um if you guys have responded it was a lot of questions delivered at the 11th Hour on a Sunday um I'm sure you were all loving faith and but um can we just go through some of these and just see where we stand okay thanks um so bear with us all so um what positions I
005asked what positions um are or how what and how many I should say are covered under the administrative uh superintendent and assistant superintendent with a total um outlay or budget outlay of 451.046 that would be me and Miss Solano uh exclusively all all-inclusive of salary retirement mileage okay so the chief executive oh you got him okay I'm sorry I'm sorry so then we have the chief executive entry that covers I'm I should know this probably better uh or Chief Operating Officer sorry that would be Mr Messiah okay okay that makes sense thank you um then I'll just go to the you thank you for answering this sure um number nine so when I added up all of the line items for birth to three it came to 438 to 100 438 112. and then but
006the revenue is posted at four hundred thousand so is that we're supposed to be self-sufficient are we not I'll ask to carry that one so yes birth to three is is historically been fully funded and that comes from a combination of three sources the State Medicaid and also parents Medical reimbursements the uh the number that Miss ham quoted 438 000 112 that's that is the total that's recommended in the operating budget when we budget Revenue which goes to the town we tend to be a little bit conservative so we budgeted four hundred thousand dollars of Revenue going to the town because if we don't have this amount of expenses than the town Revenue goes down so we budget just a little bit like if we don't hit this level of expenses we won't expend it
007so that's how we've been budgeting the revenue we always take a little bit off when we recommend to the town what they budget for Revenue because we don't know that we will meet these expenses but if we do it will be reimbursed okay okay thanks um and then um I noticed that we had budgeted for a hundred and forty thousand dollars in overtime for Secretary of clerical and um secretary clerical custodial and maintenance things arise over the course of the year um like different uh events that we may need to expend over time for or burst pipes and various things where we need to employ people on overtime we work diligently not just uh in central office but at each building level to limit the use of overtime to the greatest extent possible but through
008throughout the course of the year across our numerous buildings sometimes that occurs and this is the amount that we budget for Ben can you talk a little bit about where we have historically performed relative to that number I want to say we're pretty you have it actually in the written comments there um oh okay and that's just the longevity payments but where have we performed relative to that number uh in overtime in the past it varies to the budget you know the things that cause overtime include meetings such as this on the maintenance side so the building maintainer does cover these meetings so they are paid overtime and on the custodian side we are typically you know pretty close to budget we don't have a lot of vacancies typically without maintainers on the secretarial side
009where we incur over time does have to do with some of the openings we have and we would prefer to pay some overtime then hire an additional person on the secretarial clerical side so there's a balance but overtime is generally approved in advance for um you know the the secretarial staff where it needs to be approved and where we incur over time for an opening to cover an opening position there's an offset on the other side because there's a vacant position that we're not paying the person for thank you and then um I did have a question about the Quinnipiac program and we were and um ramnan had told us that we are going to be um streamlining it and what exactly does streamlining look like um you know the total expenditures were 100 budget
010expenditures and 195 945. what will our savings be there when we streamline I assume and I understand too the transition program um in our obligations there our legal obligations if you could explain to me the involvement of Quinnipiac because I as I understand the transition program it's you know it's a transition into life as opposed to I just read this as are they going to go to Quinnipiac if you could enlighten me and help me on this one yeah it would be it I'll certainly ask Robin to elaborate a little bit further but basically there are two programs that we run out of Quinnipiac one is a more of a life skills uh based program where we're teaching students self-sufficiency and uh holding down certain jobs and being able to do things like you know
011run on a routine on a schedule follow directions uh do jobs that are like basic clerical sort of work or retail skills things like that that program will be sustained at the level that it it's currently operating at the other program when you talk about supporting students to move on to college at Quinnipiac we've we've had students actually go through that program and stay at Quinnipiac to earn a degree that is a college preparatory transition coaching really around executive functioning skills and supporting students in that respect that's staffed by a special education teacher and a para Educators based on the number of students that we have enrolled next year we have very few students enrolled we have very high end for special education service support at Cheshire High School so we're taking the teacher who
012was at Quinnipiac for the last several years in shifting that person and IA we have numerous IA vacancies right now shifting those that person and support staff to Cheshire High School to address the demands that we have there Robin I don't know if you wanna oh Robin's not here yet but um you know that I think that pretty much covers what we to Robin can elaborate at 7 30. okay and and then just with regard to all right so the transitional program um is there is there uh would it be is it something that could be taken into Cheshire High School um and out of Quinnipiac and would it be more efficiently and less expensive to run in the high school as opposed to at Quinnipiac we've looked at the costs of of Quinnipiac versus
013what we can provide Quinnipiac in terms of what it offers as a college campus and their physical therapy graduate program that exists there we receive a lot of benefits from that program at no cost so our students work with their graduate students and benefit from that resource there so it really is a mutual benefit so we don't pay what we would pay if we're just sending students to Quinnipiac per se and they have access to college dorm space and things that we use to coach our students on those life skills with so in evaluating that it is returning a high return on our investment there where we didn't feel it was was given the reduction in the number of students that are doing the college transition program the cost outweighed the benefit and that's where
014we made the adjustment there so we're constantly weighing that based on the number of students involved in the program okay I'll learn pressing ones but I'll look at the others thank you for your time on this um Ben I just had a quick question um under um maintenance and operations um line 410 which is I guess is like the first page there um under that Public Utilities that increase of 155 000 is that supposed to cover our um uh uh anticipated increases in electricity and fuel for the District this coming year it's that line is electricity electricity only yeah there's other items in there but the bulk of that increases electricity other items are water sewer those we're not anticipating increasing so the bulk of that increases electricity and then heating fuel is in the
015620 account which has an increase of the 133 000. so it's those two accounts that are going up due to their anticipated higher energy costs does that also account for the um contractual increase in our um energy contract for the lights is that in there as well or is that yeah the energy performance contract is actually one category up in Support Services Under Capital audience Support Services okay yeah so that's 38 162 is that increase okay and the reason it's budgeted separately is because that thirty eight thousand one sixty two has to do with payments we make on the contract we have with ameresco so it's not directly a utility cost okay all right um are there any other questions or comments from the finance committee members all right um seeing none I guess uh
016we'll take a vote on the um uh motion that's uh before us which is to approve a a budget of 85 million 872 591 which is a uh an increase of 5 million two hundred eight thousand one hundred seventy one dollars um over last year's approved budget um all in favor is unanimous okay fantastic um so that well what we're going to do now is we've passed our motion so now the finance committee will adjourn and then that motion will pass now to the full board for consideration and then there will be the board as a whole so why are we not just that right unfortunate the motion just passed so I can't we were told because we were told that only the finance committee was asking questions during this meeting no that was never
017stated it's just like all the other fine-speed meetings anybody can ask questions it was stated so I'm sure my home but I was told maybe my knee I may have been mistaken on that I apologize Ian for that um but we did just pass the motion and now what I'm going to do is adjourn the finance committee so that that motion will now pass to the full board and then all board members will have the ability to ask any questions they wish per the Chairman's Direction um so um that being said um I will move ask for a motion to adjourn uh the finance committee so moves there's second great all in favor all right Finance committees adjourn at 7 20. thank you Mr grippo and thank you finance committee for moving that forward to
018the full board for consideration our full board meetings schedule start in about eight minutes so we're going to take a quick break just in case folks need to show up or have any other questions uh cleaned up for us so we will resume in about seven minutes thank you