001okay seeing none we'll move on to the next item um so the finance committee is considering uh the superintendent's proposed budget um i guess i'll begin by making a motion um and then we can discuss the motion we'll go into discussion after that um a move that the uh that the finance committee uh submits to the full board of education the superintendent's proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 2023 in the amount of 81 million four 114 twenty dollars an increase of four million one hundred thirteen thousand three hundred sixty eight dollars over the current budget do i have a second a second this is him okay now we'll have discussion uh would anyone like to begin comment no comment at all well go ahead mr rosenberg thank you chair um i i definitely support this
002budget my only reservation is i wish well let me just start by asking dr solon um in the area of the what if do we have an alternate plan because the water seems to be the plan to advance the district so can we consider something else like i wish that you would have placed that 912 curriculum supervised in there and it's and and the professional development in there because going back to our consideration of the mental health i just would love like to seen the professional development which i was thinking it included the program that we discussed or that was discussed in the correct film committee the teen mental health first aid yes so first of all thank you for the question and you know i i appreciate you know the the desire to continue
003to extend what we're providing to our students and a big part of that is obviously through professional development the um there is professional development already that's uh you know in embedded for next year through that bounce forward plan paid for by federal money and really frankly we only have so much time in the course of the year to be able to provide uh even more so we feel like we're in a really good place with respect to the acceleration component but you brought up the teen mental health first aid which was a piece of our curriculum committee meeting and a desire for those who aren't really necessarily familiar we've in the community both in the cheshire public schools the the town of cheshire has trained a lot of staff in youth mental health first aid
004basically what that is is you know destigmatizing mental health being able to recognize when somebody is in crisis and being able to provide that person in direction of support team mental health first aid is for individuals who were trained in youth mental health first aid and it's provided now a class for sophomores at the high school level to do the same thing to understand uh mental health destigmatizing the the issue and being able to if you're a student recognize and provide not counseling but connecting that individual with resources who can provide support so that we we consider to be a really high priority and we have been working with the town through cheshire uh youth and social services as a matter of fact dr gad miss solano miss kerry and um miss piccarello the youth
005and social services director met was either this week or late last week and have a plan it was this week thanks that uh to move that forward uh hopefully accessing town uh federal funding so we are you know really in a good place i think with that as well with respect to the k-12 or the excuse me the 912 curriculum coordinating position that's something where i think there's really good value there it would be another really positive step forward for us that you know certainly you guys have the authority to add but with everything else that we are moving forward i just you know i tried to to balance it thank you no i think this and then i i want to thank both you and and then because i feel this this is a
006very responsible prudent budget request um i just was hoping that we go beyond just maintaining and advancing i feel like we have an opportunity here to advance further and some of those what-ifs do directly and will directly impact students and will get us to the level we would like to see ourselves in so i'm just hoping that any of those waters that again allow for classroom support and quite funky support of all the um the mandates coming down as far as curriculum i just hope we would consider that later on in a year somehow or there's enough of a contingency fund somewhere that would be able to support you so but we've been you know really sensitive in how we manage the federal money as well um we want our goal is to stretch that
007as long as we possibly can and as i said you know uh it was last year that our goal is to use that as a resource to bounce forward to take that federal money and then when it runs out we want to be better than we were when we got that money uh and you do that through improving the capacity of the entire organization which is where we're really focused on spending that money of course you know omicron threw a little bit of a monkey wrench and we spent 180 000 on tents this fall it's a huge chunk of change but it allowed us to keep kids safely in school every day so it was you know that was the priority so i think we're doing a prudent job and you know with vin and
008marlene and our administrators guidance on what what will best support you know obviously first and foremost health and safety during the pandemic but then uh organizational growth with that money after the fact thank you yeah go ahead thank you very much um thanks sam for bringing those up because those are exactly the concerns that i would have pointed to as well so um i would just like to thank mr solon dr solon for um explaining what i know to be um continued very creative responses to our to our budget over the past and your explanation of where we do find money outside of our budget to cover these some of these priorities is um i know that we have done a lot in the past that way and so i have a lot of confidence
009that we'll be able to cover um some of these items with alternative funding in the future so thank you for explaining that [Music] faith i saw you first just a a couple of points um in the last meeting i had indicated i was going to have questions for van um regarding the back section of the book and i did speak to him and um it had to do with the supplementary salary information um and i'm not it's you know i don't normally take a deep dive into this but i did and it had you know kind of confusing and that so thank you for the time you spent with me into heather um but i know that there are probably people out there who are watching or dumming into the budget as well and wondering
010what those numbers mean because there are a lot of parentheses there and i was just trying to figure out where who's losing their job especially at 160 000 a year or whatever excuse me and um and you know in the explanation of how actually what we're seeing there are monies that are being credited or debited to an account based on where the teachers are teaching um you know it made sense you know in a business every business segment has to be apportioned it's it's it's cost but but what it struck what really hit home for me is just um the demands put on our teachers as you guys explained it to me and at one point one teacher was doing point two two percent of her time at norton point two percent of her time
011at chapman point two percent of her time they're all over the place and so you look at those numbers and you realize um this is a very fluid staff who is called on to do um a lot of work uh not just in one little classroom but in every school in this district so um i just raised that for people who um you know look at those and say what's going on and just how hard does this dev work i can once you understand those numbers you realize it is uh quite an accomplishment um so the only other thing i wanted to ask and we talked about this but i so we do hope that the town council will approve whatever budget we send to them um likely this one but we also know the
012history of the process and the demands on other demands in town on town's resources so there's a very real chance that this is going to come back to us with a [Music] smaller increase than what we're asking for it's just a real possibility so i've asked this before and forgive me if i'm doing it again but uh if this is the case where do we go to accommodate and are we getting to the stage especially with these fixed costs which are consuming so much of the budget that it's going to really begin to chew into some of our most cherished programs and by that i mean music and sports and drama and because that's my fear uh we're already seeing with a zero increase in instructional expenses what goes next and um i'm just wondering
013if you could address that sure i mean that's certainly a fair question i think it you know obviously reflects that you've been paying attention to the the town council budgeting process for the last several years and um it's always challenging and i open my remarks usually each year by talking about the fluid process that is our budget and the fact that it's not just you know one point in time by the time april comes around and we're discussing this at the the town council level we should have more information around medical benefits um we should have you know firmer uh other other contracts that aren't necessarily settled you know things like oil we might have a better sense of to allow us to determine what sort of flexibility if any is there when we have
014to start getting into account areas you're absolutely right i mean we when you're looking at instructional plot supply lines that are flat we may have to you know go into that area that there's another alternative is you know you mentioned that we have really tried to avoid in the past and um may have to look at revenue at that point uh things like activity fees for play or for parking but those things generally represent very small incremental increases and don't generate a ton of revenue usually you have to look at other places we are a people you know business and that's where the most we believe the most bang for our kids buck is is to have those people that that are there with them but unfortunately where we are in terms of our supply
015lines and everything like that now we would have to look potentially at staff which is you know uh unthinkable at a time when we're increasing enrollment so you know there'll be a lot to consider come april okay andrew okay so i'll be supporting this budget um you know at the on the surface when you see a 5.3 um increase um you know it's it's kind of shocking at first but when you actually look at where those numbers are being allocated and how what percentage that actually equals you know when most of that's going into the medical benefits and you know we provide an amazing education um to the students here in cheshire and especially the value to the taxpayer and especially for the derg b you know we're the highest performing school district and we're
016one of the lowest expenditures per pupil um i went through the budget book there's nowhere that i can see responsibly to cut i think we value our class sizes we value the education that is given especially in the in you know across the board and i think it would be irresponsible for us to cut the budget um because there's not a lot of places to cut especially at this juncture and since being elected in 2019 being up here i just pray that in the next year moving forward we can get out of this pandemic and we can start focusing on moving the district forward i know we've done a good job a great job um arguably one of the best in the in the state throughout the pandemic but i just hope that our conversations
017could start focusing on moving the district forward and just normal board of education service which i don't even know what that means at this point um but i'll definitely be supporting this i think it's responsible and i appreciate all the hard work that you guys have put into this so i know excuse me this is the finance committee portion of the first meeting but i'll just get some comments out now i'll save the rest for the next meeting just to talk about so dr song going back to samantha's comment earlier about the what ifs um if i read between lines correctly it's not a so much a matter of um not being able to do those things for a lack of money but if the board was even able to add the curriculum coordinator security
018manager and the list of folks is it safe to say that given everything else going on with covet and other priorities you know adding that extra layer to you know it it's it's probably something you're very responsible not to do at this point because you can't quite get there but maybe that's what you do in the future is that is that fair to say i mean is it i think you know if those resources were provided to us we would ultimately find time over the next year to to access them but you know right now certainly we have other really pressing priorities uh during the pandemic and managing our enrollment and school modernization do you and i know the answer is yes i'm not trying to put in the spot by saying this but i
019know when you put this budget together we you know and i have been watching the finance community last week so you know i couldn't be there but going back to your first budget presentation um you know you you definitely clarify the fact that um what you're proposing is not simply to worry about a budget number i know that's in the forefront being the concerned increase and that while you know this may not necessarily be implementing new programs this is your your best attempt to be strong enough to come out a pandemic with a strong support budget so that we can get to that point in the near future where we can't start adding um some things but kovalev so you know as long as you're in in other words your mind hasn't changed on the
020numbers since we started this process you're pretty confident that the if you had if you have this it's a fairly safe budget for you you've got more it's better but any reservations about what you presented since day one so i again i really appreciate the attention the everybody uh that attention and the fact that you're just watching but the the depth with which you reviewed everything uh and considered what i had put forward back on january 13th and obviously we've done a lot of evaluation since then um and we've done a lot of reflecting being our administrative team and looking at this continuing to look at it from different angles and perspectives including things like trying to pursue uh federal money through the town for teen mental health first aid at the end of the
021day you know we consider all the factors particularly enrollment and the fact that we're still in the pandemic we feel really confident that this budget uh will continue to move our for our district forward that we will continue to now with the additional resources be able to sustain the high quality of service that you know we all expect and so yes and i appreciate you asking and i think we all feel confident that this puts us in a good place and then maybe post pandemic we can look at some other options down the road but for today i feel real confident about where this budget would put us thank you that's all i had adam um [Music] before i comment mr white did you have any comments or we're just discussing the motion on the
022on the floor right now to move the superintendent's budget forward to the full board of education i'll comment in a few minutes okay great um so uh for me um i support this motion to uh move the uh the proposed budget uh forward to the full board um uh as uh mrs rosenberg said it's a it's a prudent budget um it's it's a a large number to move forward uh but as mr martelly said it the the you know a lot of it is as is our our medical benefits are our you know our fixed obligation costs right now is is very high uh hopefully we'll be able to find a solution to to that going forward working uh with the council to to see you know if there's a better way to do this
023or just to prepare for it in the future um i guess with that said um the the other thing uh and i'll i'll discuss this with the chairman to kind of flesh this out but um i think uh going forward um i would like to use the the finance committee as almost like a a research arm uh to to identify and prioritize you know prudent investments uh in in our in our school system that way you know because right now it's like you know we find about find out about it you know at the beginning of january we only have a few weeks really think about it where if we took the you know the year prior to really you know think about the cost and the and the importance of any programs that you
024and your administration might think of that we can really kind of get used to the thought and to and to know that what might be coming for you know not for us but what what uh programs you may want uh in the next year and we can really flesh that out so that's something that you know because i talked about you know uh at our last meeting about how our budgets are very at least i feel are reactionary and i think now is the time to be able to to to plan for the future and invest in the future um i mean where you know as you see all these people who move into town it's like you know when when you see when you talk to a lot of them especially if they're my
025age or younger it's like the number one reason they're coming here is because of the schools and so we have an obligation to to you know once we get out of this this survival mode to be able to uh to start investing again uh in in the future because you know we're like i think even ann has said this in the past we're kind of we go off our uh our reputation from 10 15 even 20 years ago and so it's it's time to kind of build a new reputation so uh hopefully uh after this um we can uh kind of start doing that uh that being said i'd like to uh call for a vote uh would would you like me to read the motion again are we all comfortable with that or good
026okay oh yes and just as is this a vote for the finance committee this is uh for finance committee yes thank you um so uh there's emotion on the floor um all in favor it is unanimous uh thank you um i have nothing else on the agenda for the finance committee motion for german second okay all in favor great thank you finance committee is adjourned