001I will call this board of education Finance meeting to order um Miss jacinski please call the roll sure uh Mr crippo here Ms ham here Mr Rosen Rosenberg Mr chairman you have a court great uh all rise for the pledge can you see the flag I can't okay indivisible with liberty and justice I think I missed the word you raced through that let's give it I know well it's that all I hear is Echo and I don't know if anyone's saying anything and I don't know I say it Bob's here to testify uh I'm sure Patriot that I am okay okay so here we are okay uh Mr maciano is there any public comment on our finance meeting this evening I do not have any and I will just confirm and ask Carol if she
002has any that sounds like no that sounds like a no yeah sorry no no comment thanks Kyle um all right so we will move on to our discussions this evening uh let's see we have first up was uh food and nutrition budgeting hey Sam how you doing good evening you'll now be accounted attendance thank you I'm having this laptop is a little wonky tonight for some reason so can you hear us I can hear you I'm just hoping you can hear me yeah okay yeah all right Mr grippo you want me to just jump in on the first topic food in the kitchen budgeting go right ahead so the um really what the purpose of this agenda item was to give the finance committee an update on where we are in particular what our smart
003funds as you know we have been providing free meals to all students since the beginning of this fiscal year and that's a continuation of what we've done um the probably a couple of years during the pandemic however this year is different in that the federal subsidies to support free males for all students ended and so the state made available smart funds and what you're seeing you could see the screen where it says smart funds received okay so the Cheshire Public Schools like many other schools that participated receive us received the sum of money called smart funds and now in our case as you see on the middle column there we received 687 772 and the way the program was structured and we can't deviate from that is free meals had to be provided for all
004students we couldn't use this as a as a subsidy offset if we were providing free meals that had to be for all students and so what we've been working toward is managing um to use this money as far as it will take us we had originally explained to the board that based on expected participation rates the money would last us through November the good news is that we then updated based on meal counts and food and labor costs that we can extend through the um through December and so it was anticipated and we had announced to our parents that we believed we would be able to provide free meals through the period of December and when students returned to school from the holiday break in early January meals would no longer be free however we
005do have an update and that's what you're seeing on the screen so if you look at the column that says expended and then across September so in the month of September we expended 160 784 and that left the far right column a balance of 526 988 and then as you continue on in October expenditures were 162 000 then 167 000 in November what we're projecting for the December which is the month we're in we have 16 serving days at eighty eight hundred three dollars per day that's what it's been averaging we'll expand 140 000 and so at the end of December before we begin holiday break we'll still have 56 653 dollars so what we um then did is said okay we will project out as many days into January as possible to exhaust the
006smart funds on a Friday we didn't want to cut the program off during the middle of a week so we selected January 13th that would bring us to nine additional serving days in January that we cover but we will run out of smart funds during that second week in January so we'll expend 79 000 through the first nine serving days in January and you see that minus twenty two thousand five seventy four essentially we will fund that minus balance through the food and nutrition's budget as you know we have a reserve so we intend to fund that twenty two thousand five seventy four so the good news and the point of this slide is just to explain that we will continue to provide free meals when the students return from the holiday break and we'll
007be able to do that through January 13th that announcement has to go out to parents um 30 days prior in accordance with the state requirements for this program so we haven't sent it out yet but we plan to do that in the next couple of days so that is that is the update you know we we've taken this really pretty far a lot of other districts you know did finish their funding in November and or December so we stretched it out as far as we could it's as far as just another little bit of information the 8 800 per day that we're expending is based on our participation rate about 60 percent of our students are taking advantage of free breakfast and free lunch meals the highest participation rate that we have as a Chapman
008which is 78 participation which is excellent the 60 is very good across the district um and I'd like to explain that because you would think that our participation rate would be a lot higher um because the meals have been free for um you know two years plus but sixty percent is where we are as a district so I'll pause there if there are any questions or or thoughts or comments from the finance committee members yes one uh Faith go ahead uh why are down to seven serving days and not tip into the reserve you know we it was just a decision based on not wanting to um cut off like on a Tuesday or a Wednesday and you know we just thought that was better to just announce to parents that you know at the
009end of the week that that ends on January 13th that we uh would stop serving the free meals it was as simple as that just to use some of the reserves um yeah Faith you kind of stole my question there um so yeah so there's a thought to so you could have get you could have stopped the week prior right for five uh four serving days instead of nine right and then you would have you would have did you have the option to give that money back well that's what we're trying to avoid giving any of the funds back because we we don't get to we don't get the advantage of those funds if we don't use them so we thought we would extend it as far as we could and Again part of the
010thinking that went into this is that the you know we have a fairly healthy Reserve because of the funds that were provided during the federal free mail program so it's a it's giving back some of the reserve that's been accumulated over the last two years and tried to extend it as far as we can we're not recommending to go any further and we don't have to go till January 13th we we can stop on the day that we run out of funds so I'm just curious the implications of you know 22 000 I I can't believe I'm saying this it's not that that much on a grand scheme of things nevertheless the implications of using that for this program and you know where I stand on free lunch is for everybody including those who are
011well in a position to afford making their own lunches but anyway um I just I guess my question is you know we may that Reserve what are we reserving it for and um are there other needs that are going to pop up where we're going to say maybe we shouldn't have done that I I you know I'm just you know they they these could subsidize the cost of a lunch for somebody I mean you know I just I I don't know do you know faith I guess the the use of the reserves is limited to the food and nutrition program in other words those reserved funds could not be turned over to the to the board for purposes other than food and nutrition no and I get it yeah I get that so what we
012would what we're planning to use the reserves to do is buy equipment um do some refurbishing of the um various cafeterias that we have now that we know we are going to be building two new schools that we know which schools they are we know which schools are staying online we've we've had in our capital budget funding um requested that was not yet approved to do a series of improvements at the Highland cafeteria and kitchen so that's what we would use the reserves for but as long as they're being used within the food and nutrition program such as subsidizing for um it's roughly two and a half days of meals excuse me roughly uh yeah it's two and a half days of meals for students this is an allowable use of the reserve uh yeah
013I personally I would just rather it be reserved for things like capital or underrating the cost of meals going forward or something to that effect just for those who cannot afford their meals uh as opposed to those who can but anyway I'll be quiet well so you're allowed to speak but remember that um even though this program ends free meals for all anyone who's eligible for free or reduced meals that program that continues forward and so any student who doesn't have the means to either fully pay or partially pay for their meals their cover which is roughly 15 percent of our student population here in Cheshire so they they won't be um negatively affected when this program ends um so that leads me to a battery of questions um so firstly for the free and
014reduced lunch um do you have to sign up for that and if so have our free and reduced population been identified and already been signed up for and ready to go on the day after of so prep January yeah February 16th or whatever it is they are the the way this year started is that any students and their parents who are eligible for free and reduced had to either submit their application on time when school started and they can submit now even if they didn't um so a portion of our free and reduced comes from um parents completing the application which you could just get online but a portion are automatically enrolled for free and reduced for example any any child that's on husky the medical program they're automatically enrolled and and there are other
015categories that the auto enrollment takes place okay so there's a so a certain percentage of that identified 15 is already or you that 15 is from the people who have already signed up is that where you're getting that correct from essentially correct and you know even though this the females were in place for all for this school year you know our food service director and her staff you know they continue to let parents know about the free and reduced lunch programs that they may be entitled to so we never stop uh letting parents know about that um opportunity if they need it and so there's no like open enrollment period for that program no someone all of a sudden comes on hard times they can walk in the next day and say listen I you
016know we need to sign up we qualify now and you know that can happen like that yes okay um and then so I guess the second question is oh well sort of second quit that's like what question seven now or whatever um so the beginning balance that's 687 000 you know we're using up um and so we discussed I think at the end of last year or during the summer time that our food costs were going up like 40 or 50 percent um and that we are going to have to adjust the lunch prices is that something that we if I don't because I don't remember is that something we still need to establish as far as what price we're going to be charging and how we are financially as far as that goes as
017far as the liability of our program yeah good question so the board doesn't oh the finance committee or the board doesn't have to do anything further those meal price increases that were approved uh which were generally 25 cents for lunch across the school district those took effect October 1st and because we were offering free lunch to all that that cost wasn't absorbed by parents but it is built into the pricing starting on January 13th the 16th would be the first day that those prices are actually charged and when I say that if a student under this program took a meal and then took a second meal which does happen some students do take two meals parents were paying that higher meal price for that second meal it's only the first meal that's free under this
018program as well as a free and reduced lunch programs so no the you don't need to do anything at this point a food service costs they are certainly higher than they've been in Prior years um it's not really subsided all that much although the availability of product has gotten a bit better and those higher costs are reflected in that 8803 per day so then um at our next business meeting then I guess we should remind parents that you know the the full price will be coming back online mid-January and that they should begin to recharge their lunch their child's lunch accounts it wouldn't hurt to do that at the business meeting but just know that we communicate we've communicated with the parents the um increased lunch prices at the beginning of the year when we
019we try and continually do that and we will certainly give them a notice you know that the free meals are going to expire you know January 13th assuming that uh you know we don't change that um so the the parents will will know or they should know if they read their parent Square notices and if not then if when the kids start charging lunches they'll start getting those uh a balance do notices anyway right and then right they'll figure it out I can still figure it out at that point sometimes you know and I I will add this caveat that it's possible that that 22 deficit won't be the actual amount of the deficit it is based on an estimate so for example um we have more students that are not in school and we
020we have seen some illness spikes although it's not necessarily covet so the money May last us the state's money may actually last us till January 13th you know we'll see I like that positive thinking then well it's not so much that I just want to be it this is an estimate you know we do our best but of course it's based on of course the Sovereign suffering of sick children which we don't necessarily want yeah right we don't want that um are there any more questions on this topic uh your muted Faith Sam do you have any because I have one more um okay so then in that bill that passed last week the special session Bill there was an appropriation for 30 million in free lunch do you know anything about that or did
021you say free lunches something like that or school anyway um did you see that in do we know what that's for I believe and I I'm not I'm not certain about this faith I know that there was a proposal to provide additional funding for free meals in that legislative session um I I was talking to Erica be a jetty this morning apparently that did not pass so I don't know um I'll double check that tomorrow but I'm not aware of any additional money being provided for this program okay okay so you but you heard that or that uh it might be 30 million well I looked at the bill yeah and it you know it had all kinds of interesting um Appropriations but one of them was 30 million I'll see if I can find
022it I'll send it to you okay okay that's all okay good closer faith hey mic drop maybe get a little more money who knows um okay see what happens all right uh we'll move on to the next topic which is new program requests that list that you sent to spin uh yes and actually I'm going to start with um just a a quick review of where we are with enrollment projections for 23 24 because that'll have you know that'll weigh into some of the new program requests so let me just pull that up now this this first screen when it appears is really hard to read um but that blue dotted area I'm going to just zoom in a little bit so this blue dotted area shows the 23 24 school year and it's the
023projected enrollment that goes across here and so you can see just very quickly because I'm going to move on from in a minute but Kindergarten for next year is projected to be 307 children and this year as actual is 283. so kindergarten is is going to be increasing and as a general um I'm going to expand this just a little bit more because I just want to show you the total numbers and I don't know if you could see that but I'm focusing here at this number so next next year's projected enrollment from the New England School Development Council is 4201 students that's up from 4160 students that are currently in enrolled in F schools so that's an increase of 41 students however the the key Point here is that in grades K through six
024we're actually increasing by 73 students Middle School grades seven and eight that's increasing 19 students and then the high school is decreasing 51 students so even though the district is going up by net of 41 it's because our K through 8 is increasing but we have a drop in the High School population and that's just based on the classes flowing through at the high school so that's not a surprise however the 73 students k-6 will have an impact on Staffing and that's really what I wanted to focus on so I'm going to just move to the next piece of information and I did send this to the board members I'm going to try and blow it up a little bit on the screen so what we what we have might be a little too big
025so as of right now the the top portion of the screen this upper section we have 2182 students uh we have 116 teachers this is just Elementary and we have Chapman do a little Highland Norton Darcy I know it's a little bit hard to see but we're just focusing on the top line number so 2182 students 116 teachers are average class size in elementary right now is 18.8 students the projection which is the lower half of the screen shows us at the 2257 students uh and this does include the open Choice students that we um you know do allow open seats for we expect open choice to go from 15 students to 17 students next year so we're not expecting a large increase but 2250 students to maintain an average class size of 18.8 we
026need 120 teachers so the bottom line is that to keep class sizes where they are we will increase our elementary teacher of Staffing by four teachers next year from a historical point of view and I'm just focusing in this particular chart from a historical point of view the 18.8 students that we have this year and we're projecting for next year that is a little bit above where we normally are you know you could see in uh 21 22 or 18.7 the year before that 17.8 17.9 in 1819 we were about 18 students you know we have been targeting 18 students per class as the average in elementary a little bit smaller in kindergarten we allow more students per class in the upper grades as you get to you know five and six in particular but
027from a budget point of view you know we will be budgeting uh for for Teacher increase on the elementary size on the elementary side to keep class sizes where they are today we didn't want to broach the 19 students per class in elementary and I'm going to go back um just to this slide because you could see you know some of these classes like nor at Doolittle sixth grade is 22 and 23 students fifth grade is 21 to 22 students you know Highland is 20 to 21 um in fifth and sixth grade at the kindergarten level you know all across the board the most kindergarten students students we have in any one class is 18. um the smallest classes we have are Norton 15 16 and 16. so we you know as we go through
028these projections and try and Slot where our enrollment growth is going to be you know this is a an annual exercise I think we've got it right but this will be presented you know to the board as part of the budget so if there are questions or or comments from the finance committee I will um I will pause here before I move to the to the next piece which is the new program request Sam go ahead then do we have um I can't remember we have classroom aids for each of those kindergarten classrooms we do just in kindergarten we do have a para educator in every kindergarten classroom so that that does help yeah is the point of your question if it increases we'll need to open another section you know yeah so you would
029see that I just don't remember so I'm going to flip back so just looking quickly if I compare uh Chapman has three classes of kindergarten they'll have three three this year three next year yeah Doolittle is going from two to three um but we're pulling that out of Darcy so for next year we're planning on three Doolittle kindergarten classes that do a little and two at Darcy Highland is going up one additional kindergarten classroom as well as one additional grade three the highest enrollment growth we're seeing is at Highland yeah I see that um yeah and so if we look at it just very quickly Chapman goes from 20 to 21 classrooms next year Doolittle goes from 26 up to 28. Highland goes from 44 to 46. norn actually drops one from 24 to 23
030and Darcy remains at two kindergarten classrooms for Doolittle for next year so that's how the four teachers are spread out so it's Chapman Doolittle Highland and one less at Norton I just got a little nervous just looking at the primary grades and we only have assistance really for kindergarten but even your first and second graders you know you tend to need a few extra hands in that in those rooms um trying to think how else we can assist them because again you know the pandemic has impacted the way you know the kids are interacting they're a little bit more immature so to speak um and the exposure isn't there whether they were pre-exposed to a preschool or or not it's still it's a little concerning that the number's a little high in the first and
031second grade classrooms yeah well first grade I mean on average 17.7 but you get to grade two for next year we're at 19.2 yeah grade three is 18.5 I understand the concern I'll certainly pass it along you know to Jeff and Marlene and I'm sure we'll we'll discuss it during budget deliberations as well but right now the practice is that we provide a para educator on all the kindergarten classrooms and of course the other grades if there's a para educator it's typically for special education purposes in a classroom and then um if I'm looking at this correctly so the the growth is really in the lower grade that's not really at like sixth grade where you like where we had what was it a few years ago where we were able to sort of um
032swap teachers from Dodd to sixth grade and vice versa uh to to accommodate the sort of the population bump that occurred there um so this time it's more at the lower levels where you have to have that specific you know K through five Training and there's really not a lot of uh interrupt the swappability there except between schools right right and so just I'll Focus your attention this is um grade seven at Dodd so this year we're at 26.4 students uh and next year we're 26.4 um you know per teacher that's what this amounts to for next year eighth grade goes from 21.8 to 23.1 I know those numbers are not um displayed here but so the number of teachers we have for seventh grade is 12. and the eighth grade is 14 teachers this
033year we're not changing that next year it'll still be 12 for seven and fourteenth eighth grade um so it's just a number of students that went up a bit in eighth grade that is taking that class size up a little bit higher but you know you could see you know even here in seventh grade the the last three years you know we've we've hit the 25 students plus mark um and in eighth grade you know at one point we were as low as 22.7 we're at 23.1 so the eighth grade has actually been a little bit more consistent the seventh grade class has been growing but not enough that um Jeff and Marlene believe it warrants adding another teacher and and I mean not well versed in how the schedule works but you know I
034know the board members know that the seventh and 8th grade operating teams so you can't just add one teacher it has to be adding a half a team or a team which is half the team would be two teachers so right yeah so right now we're looking steady um so like if we so by the time let's say our elementary schools open that's sort of a little off topic but like I noticed that the that the populations in like the first and second grade are look to be a bit higher than let's say the sixth grade is now um what does that translate to as far as planning for the for uh Dodd on let's say five years when the elementary school's open all right so we're gonna we're gonna look at that um I
035just want to get the columns right so these two columns oh well so those can you see those two columns highlighted in blue I'm going to blow it up yeah those represent seventh and eighth grade and the two that I highlighted are this year so this is Year One two and when I say this year that's 23 24. that's the budget Year we're talking about so it's actually next year so this is two years out three years out four years out five years out will be 355 and 335 so we'll be at 6.90 for DOT um when you get out you know looks like about the eighth year you'll be at 7.73 so we really aren't gonna Peak capacity at Dodd for the next five years I I know long term as those kindergarten first
036and second grade classes as they grow eventually they'll hit the middle school and eventually they'll hit the high school but you know we certainly based on these projections we won't run out of room at Dodd well at least it looks moderately stable and I know that in our Peak Peak years right we got as high as what 900 that's the on the cart years right that's kind of was always referred to right the teachers on carts was when we got to like if we when we see a population of 700 we're not talking about teachers on carts right I don't believe so no okay so and I'm just looking back at I'm looking in the spreadsheet in the early years so here we were 4 13 and 410 405 and 438 so we were just
037under more like 850 and that was back in 2001 and two so I was you know I mean as we approach which is in 3233 we'll be back at where we were in in 2001 2002. so we'll certainly need to be you know looking ahead and starting to make some plans and and deciding what we could do um you know for space needs so we can't fall asleep at the switch but we don't have to deal with that for a couple of years yet yeah we at least again maybe we get through this first project and then we'll start look looking ahead I guess right right okay any other questions on the population not on population we budget 65 000 for salary and 20 000 for benefits so we use 85 000 as a budget
038number and we're assuming that we're hiring the teacher around step uh five so to the extent and typically with Elementary we are hiring teachers below step five and how many years have you ever no they'll have five years experience if they're on step five but if they're on step two they'll have you know two years of experience and you know it depending on the grade and the pool of candidates um it it's not unheard of to hire a teacher right out of school okay and are we going to be um given that the I know that at the high school level the course load is dropping but are we looking to eliminate or reduce positions there well I'll answer it this way we don't have anything definitive that we're going to put in the budget
039to reduce yet and we're still working through some of the specifics of the budget so we're not done yet part of the and and I you know I realized that the student population has dropped at Cheshire High School um but but the other offsetting issue is that the teachers used to teach six classes at Cheshire high school and I'm sure you remember in the last contract we reduced that to five classes so the impact of students dropping and teachers teaching less classes does have an offset but with that said they're you know I know that Jeff and Marlene you know have looked at you know whether or not we can shift some of the course offerings that we have if the classes are too small in size it's from most of the high school is
040based on course offerings not on just students per class so that I think that's the the question there and certainly not my area of expertise but you know Marlene and Jeff certainly would would talk quite a bit about that okay um okay all right uh we'll move on I'm gonna stop sharing this so that I can open up one more document okay so what um you should see on the screen now this is the last document I have for this evening by the way and hopefully you can see that large enough what we do as part of our budget process every year is we ask the principals and the department heads to provide in a separate request a essentially anything they need that's outside of a currently funded operating budget line any request for Staffing
041we we do not want them to enter that into their operating budget requests we ask them to break it out in a in a Google sheet that then gets reviewed and when I say reviewed I make a first pass at it then Marlene and Jeff review it in order to determine do we want to actually include this in the operating budget or not and so what I'm showing on the screen that I'll walk through in a moment is the summary by school of all those requests so just to familiarize us what what this document shows in the left hand column we have the school then we have the request the estimated cost and then we do break this out by type of request and then there's initial on this sheet there's an initial decision based
042on the review from Dr Solon and Miss Solano and myself so the first one is a request from the high school to add thirteen thousand dollars to the operating budget at the high school for the software called huddle that's used by the sports teams to review they games that they've played what's important about this is that we have to make those game tapes I'll call them tapes but they're actual digital there's no more tape these days right we have to make those those game videos available to our competitors so we've been the reality is we've been making this investment you know for several years now um but it's being taken out of other athletic budget lines and so it's not been properly funded so this request is to properly fund that so that's kind of
043the easy one these are the ones that are always more tricky these are all the Staffing requests um and so if I just focus your attention on the bottom so based on the requests we received though the if all were added to our budget it's a million forty seven thousand three hundred eighty eight dollars a new Staffing requests so we go through each of these um one at a time and then we discuss them with the school principals or whoever the department manager and ultimately make a decision whether to include it in the budget exclude it from the budget or in a lot of cases that you see on the screen TBD which is to be determined so um I'll just hit a couple of these and then I see Ms Rosenberg has her hand
044up Mr grippo but there was a request from Chapman to add bus monitors on each of the buses permanently right now what we do is we do have bus monitors that we employ we rotate them through the clutches as needed so the determination was to exclude this from the budget and in that decision obviously is never made in a vacuum it's looking at well you know what do we know our budget you know requirements are going to be and is this something that can be supported or not um another one is an addition of an art teacher at the high school um and based on enrollment that one was determined to be excluded and I'll just explain this one and then I I could pause there so at Doolittle there was an increase requested of
045a nursing assistant um now Doolittle's student population has grown this is a request that you know Jeff and I reviewed with Nancy Stanton who's the nursing supervisor for the district you know we believe this is a request that we would probably support and include in the budget when when we you know finally submitted and you know it's the superintendent's budget that he recommends to the Board of Ed and then the Board of Ed you know has an opportunity to make changes as it sees fit so that is an example of one that we would support and there's a few that are tbds that we're still working on so I'll just pause there to see if there are questions as we move through or before we move further Sam go ahead no I think you already
046started and I would just love to hear the rationale for these line items you know um for reasons of exclusion or inclusion in why justifiably we should you know I don't know you started a bit already so yeah so and these you could see that these you know these requests for a staffing um for the most part come came from the schools um and so there's you know discussion that has to take place some of some of the requests like this one there's an additional grade one and grade two shared uh this is para educator for ELA and math support that's a request that came out of Doolittle yeah um and Marlene marked that as to be determined because she thinks there may be other ways that we can provide that support not necessarily through
047just a para educator you know we do have you know other supports like the reading and math specialist that may be able to help we also have um the possibility of using arpesser funding yeah yeah so that's why that one's marked a TBD um there's these bottom four these are all requests that came from the pupil Personnel Department one is to increase the bcba for the district from a 0.6 to a full-time uh the second one is an increase from a half time to a full-time speech language pathologist for Highland another one is to increase by one full-time teacher at Cheshire high school for special education um and actually that's uh the second full-time teacher request is for Highland the justification for the request is based on on Staffing enrollment I know specifically with those
048four Marlene Jeff and Robin and Carrie the director of pupil Personnel I'm not only looking at dolls but they're exploring opportunities to make some reductions in some of the other programs that we provide Jeff mentioned you know one of the programs that we have running at Quinnipiac that we might be able to take back in-house or find a a better way to address the needs of the students that participate in that program um this request for at maintenance a supervisor position for buildings and grounds that one you know I'm discussing directly with our facilities director rich clivette I'm not sure that we would do that one this year um he does have retirement on the horizon but he's not quite ready yet so he wanted to you know start laying the groundwork for his replacement
049um this is uh the one at Highland I'm just trying to hit some of the highlights although it looks like I'm going to wind up explaining them all so this is just a premature list and then it still needs to be teased out with discussions for each department and so forth yes I was just like specifically for PPS like is it because it's an increase in caseloads that we're now needing the additional Staffing yeah I mean that that is the that is the justification that was provided you know on that those two requests and also same thing here at Doolittle the part-time School counsel or social worker has to do with caseload and so all these are being examined further to determine you know do we include it and try and come up with a
050budget that has a series of trade-offs that the superintendent is comfortable with that the board will then need to look at and determine if they're comfortable with it you know then if I could ask um just uh if um the uh special education Staffing request you go through if we could perhaps get an analysis of what that caseload increase looks like uh just so we can you know make a better informed decision on stuff like uh you know because these are these are basically permanent positions we're talking about right so you know we just want to know what we're looking at there you know I will just make uh you know one comment you know based on my experience here well every year we get requests for Staffing technology and there's one more paycheck I'll
051show you um and you know we negotiate them back and forth and and you because I know you've been on the board for several years Adam we don't typically ask for a lot on the Staffing side unless it's it's required my comment is that this is probably the highest I've seen in terms of Staffing requests and I do believe part of it certainly has to do with enrollment and caseloads in the area of special ed so we'll need to work it through but there's no doubt in my mind that we're going to have increased pressure to increase staff just because you know enrollment's growing and how we manage that you know may not necessarily be only Staffing increased requests you know can we offset some of the increases with decreases we just touched on the
052high school as an example maybe there are some reductions that can be made there to try and and you know submit a as fiscally responsible a budget as we can while making sure we provide services students need you know along that that line um and I don't know if we had completely flushed this out or not but since you know with the new the the North End School that will be developed and you know that's going to be picking up a lot of the um or all the duties that that Darcy was going to be you know that does currently um is there going to be like any of the special education duties that occur at other elementary schools are there are there going to be any like a I don't know a center of
053excellence or something that would also be there where we could achieve maybe some more efficiencies for it's system-wide or is the thought that we're going to continue to have um services for for each school like you know for instance I know that like um certain case loads go specifically to Highland or we have the bridges program at at Dodd I mean I do a little um so is there a thought about you know achieving those some more efficiencies at the new facility or are we going to sort of keep going where we're just going to kind of Shuffle uh staff around like we are we didn't get into that level of detailed yet Adam I know when we were developing the Ed specs for the new North End School where Darcy would be located we
054did we did look and talk about can we either relocate some of the programs that we have to the new North End School or do we leave them at Highland we do get some efficiencies in the programs you mentioned right so at Highland we you know generally speaking students that are identified that are on the autism spectrum they do go to a specialized program at Highland regardless of where they are in the district um do a little is is more of a behavioral program and students that are identified from across the district they attend the do little Bridges program and you mentioned that and you're right because we do have a Bridges program at Dodd as well although um you know there's I believe there might be only one or two students in that program
055this year so as we continue forward as we design the schools and we get you know closer to when we got two years out from opening that school I think those discussions you know will will be occurring and you know that we will be redistricting once all the once the three new excuse me once the new two schools are online so in that redistricting we can move programs or establish a program if it makes sense to do so well that's that's good news and you know that's sort of the point of why we're having these these Finance meetings before the finance meetings was to sort of sort of talk about these these types of topics to just to sort of start thinking about things uh as our school system you know gets a little larger
056and we're going to have these new facilities to be able to maybe use more efficiently and kind of look at how we're growing and how we can maybe transform a little bit yeah um is there uh let's see oh uh Faith go ahead so um assuming these these Staffing requests they're coming in it you know basically one million a million dollars um those do not include the four positions that you're asking for right so we're really looking at 1.3 what is this 1.3 almost 1.4 million dollars in new Staffing yeah but I I didn't mean to call you off faith that's okay I doubt that we would request the million dollars that you see here I I'm confident that's going to be reduced you know just based on some of the ones that already excluded
057you know what is ultimately going to be in there we don't know yet but it won't be that million forty seven thousand the four teachers for elementary based on classroom requirements that that will be included I don't see any way of getting around that at this point okay so that's 72 and one 70 so 240 plus 340. so we're looking at about 500 at least realistically 000 Plus for new salaries for new positions that's a good back of the napkin estimate for now just don't hold me to it faith oh my I won't I promise I won't I won't okay but again the process is the superintendent will make recommendations and then you know we'll present to the board and the board you know can add a deep add or subtract I mean that is
058the process and we've done it before but there'll be pressure yep if you're good with Staffing I have one more page it's easier yeah go ahead okay um so there's part of the request that we receive from the principals and the department heads offer replacement and new equipment which we asked for them to carve it out if it's something special and you could see you know some of the larger ones you know do little needs replacement student desk for class for grades two and three that's about twenty three thousand twenty four thousand um privacy room dividers new iPad cards for kindergarten classrooms so these after reviewing them for the most part we will either purchase these as we get into April May when we know where our budget stands and if we have sufficient funds
059we can make these purchases to replace classroom desks rugs tables those are pretty straightforward one of the things that also winds up in this bucket is Chapman for example added the addition of a sixth grade teacher well that was based on the principle there Diane Burns she assumed and I think rightfully so that sixth grade class size was increasing but we don't add it from this process the Staffing for elementary that comes from that enrollment sheet that I showed you so there's a lot of things that wind up in this category that will either purchase at the end of this fiscal year but we won't be budgeting it into next year's budget and those total 423 843 but again a lot of those are coming from addition of a second grade teacher at nor an
060addition of a fifth grade teacher all of that is determined through the enrollment projection process so I don't want to bore you with all the details of this one this is just straightforward you know replacement technology and new equipment that um you know we'll we'll deal with that side of next year's budget request so then um you're saying that if what was it right now we're at 40 percent yes uh of what 40 percent of non-discretionary right that's right yeah non-payroll expenditures we allow that we have been allowing the um principals and department heads to spend 40 percent of their approved budget we're actually going to raise that for 50 we did a budget review um this week you know through November things are holding just fine you know not surprisingly as the board and
061the finance committee knows you know our energy costs are up um but you know certainly within sustainable levels so we don't want to wait we don't want to hold up the expenditures back too much that you know would cause um you know discomfort or an inability to buy the things that the that the principals feel they need for students so we'll be a 50 um in December and then we'll hold there until we get another couple of months of budget under our belt so there's a possibility that a lot of the uh items on this list as far as materials go could potentially be purchased five years then correct is that okay all right well we'll keep an eye on that then I guess um any questions for this list besides that okay all right
062um I think we have uh bounce forward Staffing phase in so that one I I spoke to Jeff about that a little bit um and I think the the thinking on on that particular item he added to the agenda had to do with what happens when we're through and we've expended all the oppressor funds and does it make sense to start phasing in some of those bounce forward costs into the operating budget that we're preparing now and just to be clear the bounce forward expenses that we're talking about are staff increases we added 1.4 yeah um Elementary principle assistant principles we added a math culture thought a math coach at Cheshire high school and a reading and math specialist for elementary so those are the positions that when the RPS of funding is exhausted will
063need to make a decision do we continue on and include them in our operating budget or do we eliminate them and that decision hasn't been made yet but the really the simple answer is if we start incorporating those into this fiscal budget for next year we actually won't wind up expending our passer so we have enough another way to say this we have enough our professor funding to carry those positions through June of 20 um 24. so it doesn't really warrant us starting to phase anything in now we don't want to give any of the oppressive funding back well I I think uh Jeff had explained to the explain this to us a few meetings ago where essentially that the all of the the math interventionists and the reading support folks are basically permanent employees
064at this point right yes so they would have to be essentially uh laid off right and then would they be enjoy uh Union you know bumping rules and stuff like that at that point so it's not as simple as just like you're getting rid of a consultant or something it's you know it's this is being like an actual almost like a full teacher position correct yes those types of yeah so the math coach uh Todd the math called Cheshire High School those you know our our full-time teaching positions and so if we decided that we would eliminate both those coaches um you would not actually eliminate those individuals you would eliminate the lowest person in the math department that's certified whether it's at the high school or the Middle School right so I I understand
065the the I know Jeff's concerned about that but there's really nothing we should be doing now I think we should need to continue to discuss and the phasing in doesn't help us it doesn't soften it might soften the budget blow but then you you're not using the art best of funding and actually if the deadline for our best or funding is extended because right now it expires in September of 2024 if they extend that deadline we may be able to get you know well into 20 24 25 with that funding if if we um use it appropriately well that's good news I guess appropriately I didn't mean that we're using inappropriately but you know we could stretch it out by making sure that we use those funds for Staffing unless for some of the you
066know the items I would expect we will be able to stop doing like you know using Consultants to help address learning loss and and professional development right um Sam I think your head your head you're right now we don't have to plan yeah for the cliff right because of potential positions yeah your audience going crazy yeah this laptop I have to see Scott uh well okay well Sam has figuring that out or maybe you want to type it out Sam's uh Faith once you go ahead no just this is more it's probably more a curriculum question but um you know okay um um it bounce forward uh you know I as I understood it it was to bring kids up to Snuff what was covid um and we you know did a decent job keeping
067our kids in class and and yes we've seen some learning loss do do we have a plan I mean is this what we're saying we're going to work these people into our permanent staff are we gonna forever and always have bounce forward because I do remember at the time when we started bringing these on and and a couple of us asked are these going to become permanent positions and we were assured no they would be temporary uh you know I just I I obviously we do what we have to do do to get our kids is you know back to where they were I guess but when will we know when that we're there and um this town's being asked to bite off a big hunk of change and I just uh I get a
068little worried I guess and I this is the Forum to express that concern in fact I understand the question I would rather that Jeff and Marlene address what the needs are the only thing I will say is that the learning loss you know at some point some of the I certainly think some of the learning loss that goes away because we've addressed it and we through several years of schooling some of the desire may be though to keep that staff on because enrollments increase so right I think you know my point tonight is it's it's a discussion worth having but it's not going to impact the operating budget for next year because you know even though there may be a fiscal cliff it's not next year so we have time to to discuss it and
069as I said if there's an opportunity that you know our professor deadline is extended we might be able to you know to continue with those positions using our besser eventually though that runs out and so the question has to be answered do we keep you know these positions in the operating budget yep okay uh Ben did you see Sam's comments here or do you want me to read them or can you see them or do you want me to read them yeah when these positions end up being in the operating budget eventually if we decide to keep the model of support the answer is is yes I'd also love to see some data to support the effectiveness in keeping the model I will pass that on to Dr Solon and Miss Solano that's a good
070question yeah and then Sam said she definitely appreciates the early planning for when the fiscal cliff does occur after 2024. so this issue doesn't go away it's it's going to continue to get you know discussed I'm sure I don't think I disagree with anything in those comments [Laughter] that that all sounds like uh excellent suggestions and presumably we're going to keep you know keep these Finance you know committee meetings going so we can keep this item on the agenda yeah and yeah and that does seem that the first comment there about the permanent positions that that like you said that does seem to be the case where if we you could eliminate the positions but you don't eliminate the people and therefore to keep the people and their uh let's say seniority status and so
071forth that would affect uh a teacher somewhere else in the in the same uh area right because you said there are some interventionists at the elementary and at the middle school level correct there's a middle school and high school middle yeah there's a ram it at elementary and coaches interventionists at the middle and high school right they're all being supported by our professor funding so we have three basically three Administration isn't treated the same way or is it do they have the same rights oh you're talking about if you eliminated the position it actually doesn't work the same way with pumping well because there's less administrators right but I mean but the bumping rights aren't treated the same way uh and like do the do ministers even have bumping rights are they I believe they
072I believe they do I'll double check the contract but in this case the last person hired is the least senior person anyway that's in that role right right well these are all things to be considered because I know that did happen once right we did have to uh reduce again I think it was back to the population bumper we switched T where we switched teachers around but it somehow affected uh this because the seniorities a teacher I think lost their position somewhere you know if I recall um just because of you've moved to a different school or something something weird happened so these are things that we'll have to account for yeah the only time it's not just titles on on sheets of paper or actually maybe you know as you understand it yeah yeah
073ah okay um so is there any so yeah so we'll leave that as a step basically I think a standing agenda item because that's that's going to be a a big issue to keep an eye on yeah uh okay um so is that is that what we have for looks like that's what we have for agenda items I believe and that is and so if there are any other additional questions so our first uh official budget meeting is in in the beginning of Jan or at the middle of January right if I wanted to call I believe it's January 12th the 12th yes is the Board of Education that's when the superintendent presents his budget okay great we'll we'll get to see what made it and what did it it'll be very exciting but it
074looks like you guys are going to have a lot of hard decisions because what was it 1.5 million faith I think there's gonna have to be some uh looking at those positions pretty hard because I think like Jeff said and I'm sure Vandy you're thinking too you know with the approval of this new school project uh I'm not sure if he used the a word austerity uh or not but uh I think that's the right word um but uh certainly fiscal Prudence will be in order uh in this coming budget as we you know the town's folks uh come to the realization of paying for this new project so yeah we'll all have to be very aware of that um if there aren't any other questions I will um entertain a motion to adjourn so
075move Faith or faith second and Sam's good all in favor raise a hand I'm sure yeah second seems good all right we are adjourned thank you VIN all right thank you thank you Carol thanks Mike good night everyone