Cromwell Board of Education Special Meeting, February 3, 6:00pm

001Welcome to our February 3rd board of ed meeting. I'm going to call our meeting to order and Lisa, would you please do the roll call? Thank you, Lisa. I have no um revisions to the agenda and I didn't get any requests for revisions to the agenda. Do we have >> I'm sorry. >> It's a special meeting. >> We can't have revisions to the agenda. >> Okay. Well, it's still on here as item three. So, um any correspondence? Just the thank you card from Mrs. Camelary. >> Oh, okay. We got a lovely thank you card from Mrs. Camelary regarding the dedication of the CMS auditorium. Do I need to read it? Pass it around. >> Okay, I will share it. I will pass it around. That's absolutely beautiful. That was really nice. Okay, we still have

002to approve the agenda even though Okay. Okay. So, I need a motion to approve the agenda. >> Motion, >> Katherine. Miss Lamb. Thank you. All in favor? >> Thank you. Um, shared correspondence. Are there any public comments? Okay, we'll move right along to new business. I'd like to welcome our insurance brokers from Aera Group, Greg Finn and Dave Castlin. And they're gonna talk to us about our insurance renewals. And I don't know, you gentlemen, we're hoping you're going to bring us some good news. >> There we go. Hi, I'm Dave. This is Greg. I don't know if um how much everybody knows about where we stand. So would you like a little review of that? Um coming off of I don't know five or more very very good years where the average increase I think

003has been under 4%. Uh the Sigma preliminary renewal uh came in at 52%. And that is largely being driven by the fact that the loss ratio, the loss ratio in just simple terms is how much money is being received versus how much claims are being paid out. And when they ran the analysis, they're basically have been spending a$130 for every dollar of claims. This is not totally unique uh in the industry. uh that's a little worse than than the norm. But this has been going on for a number of years. Claims have been rising. Even last year when we go back and look at the data from last year after we negotiated a very uh favorable renewal as claims were starting to go in a bad direction. I think it ended up at 7% uh

004last year. Uh it was a 98% loss ratio. So 98 cents on the dollar. This is just claims. Now, some of the unique characteristics uh and I'm speaking about the town and the board of education combined. The um in the last 12 months, there are 73 claimants between the town and the board. That includes employees and dependents obviously with $25,000 or more of claims. 24 of them are over 100,000. This is substantially higher than you know what you would normally find and we could provide data about what Sigma or any insurance company would normally expect to see in a group of roughly this size. But um it's it's just a fact. It is it is what it is. And the nature of the claims uh sometimes is as horrific as it sounds when you have

005a couple just massive catastrophic claims a million dollars or two some horrific situation which might have a beginning and an end forgetting about the personal tragedy of it. It's actually easier from an insurance standpoint often for an insurance company to deal with that as opposed to having a huge volume of, you know, 24 people with $100,000 or more because, you know, somebody's obviously going to come off, but someone else is going to come up on the list. So, there's just there's just a lot going on right now. Uh if you watch TV at night, uh regardless of what news channel it might be, almost every commercial is some extremely expensive prescription drug. They never tell you the price on those commercials, right? But those drugs are all a relatively recent phenomenon. In the last 10

006or 15 years, these specialty medications have come out and everybody's taking them. whether it's the GLP ones uh for weight loss which are fantastic in terms of their effectiveness but more and more of these drugs are available more and more more of them are covered um when I got into this business over 30 years ago the percentage of spend that any given company was paying as a percentage of their overall cost on prescriptions was less than 10%. Now it's 30 to 40% of your overall claims are actually prescription driven. I made the comment to Greg. We met down at the uh the Dunkin Donuts because we were coming from different places on on Shunpike and as I was was driving down the street. spent a lot of time in Cromwell o over my many years

007and I always like to see what's new and I see Texas Roadhouse has moved and fuego there and then I see the new Hartford Healthc Care urgent care center and everywhere that I go throughout the state and I'm mostly down in uh Old Sabbrook Westbrook area um almost every new construction is a medical office building an urgent care center uh blood draw and so again I've been doing this for 30 plus years. I don't work for the insurance companies. I work for you all. We represent whoever our client is. Our client is not the insurance company. Our client is the board of education of of Cromwell, Connecticut. So, I don't defend the insurance companies ever. However, what's happened though in my 30 plus years is we've gone from having about 12 insurance companies in Connecticut

008to four. We've had hospitals buy each other up. You know, Yale's gobbling up hospitals. You know, Trinity Healthcare now owns a bunch of the hospitals and they're banning together like unions and they are sticking it to the insurance companies and the prices have just gotten out of control. And while they plead poverty, all you see is new construction all over the the state. And it's not just in in in Connecticut. It's it's everywhere. I'm not using this as an excuse. I'm just throwing it out there as it's a factor that people never really consider. You know, it's always the big bad evil insurance company, but they're really um held over o, you know, over the barrel in terms of negotiating because you got to have Yale in your network. But in order to have Yale,

009you have to have, you know, Bridgeport, you know, you have to have uh Lawrence Memorial, Westerly, you have to have everybody. And a number of things that are unique also in Connecticut because we operate in many different states. Most places that you go, you have insurance systems where and and this is the way it was in Connecticut, if anyone was around and had coverage 25 years ago, if you were in Bridgeport, you had Bridgeport Hospital or St. Vincent's. You had Waterberry Hospital or St. Joe's. You had Hartford Hospital or St. Francis. You had to your your insurance company had one of the hospitals, not both. But in a resounding fashion, this was rejected by the Connecticut consumer and the consumer wanted more choice, more options. And so now every insurance company basically has almost every

010single doctor and almost every single hospital. And so it it's become impossible to negotiate effectively and get better rates. Whereas they used to say, "All right, Yale versus St. Rays." I think Yale bought St. Rays, um, if it even exists anymore. They used to be able to negotiate a better fee schedule by driving the business to one hospital over another. So all of that's gone. So here [clears throat] we are. This is a preliminary renewal. So every year we're asked even though your renewal is July 1st, we're asked to come up with a preliminary uh renewal and uh the one that Sigma came out with was you know the 52%. We are in the process of doing several things and we've already committed to coming back to your next meeting in a few weeks I

011think it is >> where we'll have um a lot more information. But what's been going on is we've marketed the town and the board all of the data to the remaining insurance companies. Uh one has already passed on the uh prospect of it. couldn't even compete against a 52% rate increase based on their review of the data. Just to give you a little insight. Um, we've actually also gone back to Sigma and asked them for a board only renewal. So, if the board were carved out, would that look more favorable? That's one of the options. We've also presented some very uh rough estimates of the partnership plan and what that would look like. The problem with with this is that we don't have any control over it at all. The partnership has not released their

012rates for 71 2026 effective date yet. We're expecting that that will come out at towards the end of February. I don't know if it will be out uh when when you guys meet again. Um but somewhere towards the end of the month >> uh or beginning of March those will be available. So we've provided some estimates. Uh Greg why don't you speak a little bit to how those those rates work on a quarterly basis. >> So um for folks that aren't familiar with the partnership plan, I'm guessing most folks are. It basically gives board of eds, towns, transit districts the opportunity to to get the same medical benefits and potentially dental and vision um that state employees get. Um to Dave's point, the they come out with quarterly pricing. It's a self-insured medical plan. So

013based on how the claims run from a medical and a pharmacy standpoint, that's how they dictate pricing. Their big renewal is July 1st. So although the April 1st 26 rates are out, um I know that their program is experiencing similar things to what Cromwell is experiencing. So the bigger increase is most likely going to be July 1st. Um they were anticipating between a 12 and 15% increase from 7125 to 7126. Uh but ultimately we'll need to get those rates. That's the one thing that we can't control cuz they'll release it probably end of February, early March. We're going to get analysis on Sigma, all the other vendors. Uh we're also looking into um our team has underwriters on staff. So, we're doing a self-insured feasibility analysis. You're currently what they call fully insured today with

014the insurance carrier. So, you get set rates for 12 months. The insurance carrier has all the risk. We're looking at some different options to see what might make sense given that you have a 52% number. Um, and then the partnership piece would be the last piece where we're exploring that as well. And then the one thing I'll just add from a partnership standpoint is that would be a from a plan design standpoint. The current plans that are in place today are what they call high deductible plans and the board of ed is giving health savings or HSA dollars. The partnership plan is not that set up. It's basically a co-ay setup. So, we're going back probably 15 or 20 years like the $15 co-pay plans. So, very strong plans. It's just a different mentality. A

015lot of people like the a lot of people like the HSA dollars um and they don't have that option within the partnership plan, but given where the experience is and what the potential Sigma renewal is, we're we're literally looking in every direction. And once again, by your next meeting, the 24th, we'll have everything. Potentially, not the partnership updates, but we should be able to have a general sense of what that's looking like. >> We've provided analysis or done the analysis for years now about the feasibility of the partnership versus whatever uh the town and the board had at a given time. It's always been a lot more expensive. though it's not apples uh to apples comparison as Greg said in terms of the benefits. It's always been more expensive. There are some nuances with it

016too because the partnership plan obviously any change opens up uh collective bargaining and all those kinds of things. So no one that I'm aware of at the board or even on the town side uh from an administrative standpoint has really wanted uh to go in that direction. um primarily because it unwinds you know two decades worth of I think it's been almost 20 years since we've moved into these consumer consumer-driven plans. I did want to point out another [clears throat] thing because you know we work with uh many employers of this size and uh one thing that is unique is that going back god a long way you all have um bargaining agreements that come up two year threeear cycles what whatever they are [snorts] and within that you know a small part of it

017is obviously the benefits what the benefits are going to look like you know are there any changes in employee contributions towards that whatever whatever it is I don't honestly remember the last time it changed so unlike you know all of our other uh clients where if we went back three years 5 years one year or 10 years and compared to what they have now there is some big differences in the underlying plan and that just helps you know over time in terms terms of okay, you increased the co-pay that helped lower a cost structure a little bit, you increase the deductible, all those kinds of things. Now, in fairness, the rates have been extremely stable. We've been able to do a very effective job, I think, in negotiating them uh year-over-year. I've been around for

018over 25 years. Uh Dr. Mackey, I think, is the the fifth superintendent I've had the pleasure of working with, and I don't even know how many town managers there have been. uh but a lot uh more than five and we've participated in uh union meetings. We've participated with labor attorneys in terms of making suggestions and recommendations. And I think it's been the case because it's been so stable for so many years that the idea of increasing a deductible or things like that have not really been desirable. and and that makes sense, but I felt like it was at least worth pointing out that the benefits have remained exactly the same while all around us everything else uh is going up. I do know there have been some uh little changes in in contributions towards those,

019but it's it's it's obviously not a lot. So, I'm happy to answer any questions. I will say one more thing about the partnership which uh Greg shared with me the other day which is worth noting is that they're running at an $18 million deficit. Now it's our state so they can just, you know, do whatever they want. But as you probably know, entities that have gone into the partnership since it was uh opened up um have gone in there really for one reason is because it was less expensive. You know, the last I saw I've been working with the city of Bridgeport for almost 30 years. They were one of the last ones uh to to jump in. Huge. But they saved, you know, 10 or 15 million dollars by by moving into that. So

020it's kind of become I hate to use the word dumping ground but it's become the place where uh entities qualified entities go when their underlying plan uh is no longer competitive. And so that's obviously you're you're starting to see an increase uh a bigger increase year-over-year to that program than we saw early on. Okay, >> take questions. >> I'm gonna open it up to questions, but I'm going to ask that we do questions in 10 minutes or less so that we can get to the rest of our budget meeting and get home before midnight. Miss Canwell and then I saw you too. >> Um, yes. So the numbers that you gave over the ne the last 12 months with the with 25,000 or more and the 24 over 100,000 was that strictly for board of

021vet or was that for the whole town? >> The town and the board combined? >> Combined. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Zki. >> Mine's actually for Michelle. the when they talk about the partnership plan, do our current contracts allow for that? Because I know in our contracts there's language that say we have to have if we're going to switch plans, it has to be a comparable plan. Would that even be permissible given our current contracts? >> I think it we would have to go it would be a reopener. So >> So we'd have to open up contracts and if we open up a contract, we open up the whole thing. You can't just open it up for one piece. >> It depend. It depends. Okay. >> So, it depends. I mean, we

022could sit with the unions and say, you know, we're coming together due to the insurance and and see what happens. But yes, you're absolutely correct. >> They would have to agree to open up just to speak about that piece. Exactly. >> So, the unions if we said we want to open up could say >> they could say no. >> We'd prefer not to. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Just so you know, based on um where things sit today, the there probably wouldn't be a lot of push back from the employees because it would probably be the difference between a, you know, a 52% increase or a 25 or 26% increase, you know. So, it's it's a it's substantial and it would check all the boxes for substantially equal or better in terms of

023networks and and benefits and things like that. >> Miss Maddie, >> is this an anomaly this year? You said 24 of 25 people had claims of over $100,000. Now, is that an anomaly just for 24 25 in the past? has it been amazingly less. Um >> the number of shock claimments uh has been somewhat consistent over the last two years in terms of the ones at the top. The the number of them the 73 or the roughly 50 uh that are not $100,000 is the the growing population. And that's where you see very often that could be one prescription drug, you know, that's driving that. You know, there are some amazing drugs that have come out for MS and various different things which are the difference between someone being disabled at home or going in

024and and fully functioning. But it's $5,000 a month or $6,000 a month, you know, if there just uh there are drugs that are 20 $30,000 a month, you know. So that's where we see the the largest. So I'm not going to say that the the 24 was 10 last year. We can get you the actual number, but I think it was pretty close uh by the end of the year. But it's the volume of all of the other claimants >> in total. >> So I think along the same lines, it would be helpful if you can provide us a trend analysis so that we can truly understand what the utilization has been and where there have been upticks and what we've been able to do to try to mitigate some of that. Um, and I

025just want to ask for next meeting just to clarify what you're going to come back to us with. You're going to get quotes from multiple additional insurance companies. I understand the partnership may not be available for board of ed separate from the town for the town separate because I'm sure they're going to ask for that information as well. And then if we went in as a combined entity, >> yeah, we are um we will have any option from the marketplace by the next meeting. You're right. And that the partnership is if it's available, we'll have that information, but that part's out of our control. We are looking at uh proposals that would be board of ed only. That's largely driven by the fact that the town is is more likely there's actually push on the

026town union side even before this renewal came out for them to strongly consider the partnership. So the some of the unions have been outspoken about that before we even knew about this uh large increase. So, it's more likely that if it's more cost effective for them, uh, or even if it's a wash, they're more likely to move over. But, but you only know the rates for that quarter. So, you can't really plan for the entire year if you have a quarter of a rate and it could jump up exponentially the next quarter is what? >> So, it's locked in for 12 months. So, they come out quarterly because you >> I'm sorry. Can you >> Yeah, you could join the partnership. um monthly or even quarterly. So they they republish rates quarterly to deal with

027groups that are hopping in off cycle. Their big renewal is July 1st, which lines up with your renewal. So that's when they make their big increases, but they give trend increases kind of throughout the each quarter and then the big increase is July 1st. >> And I wasn't suggesting that they would be moving uh before July 1st. All I was trying to say is that in all the conversations that I've at least been privy to, nothing has come forwarded to me uh of an interest in the partnership, I actually brought it up because of this uh horrific renewal. Whereas on the town, I've participated in three or four meetings with the unions and uh the town administration because the unions wanted meetings to learn about the plan, find out about what the rates would have

028looked like had they gone in last July 1st, what they're trending towards in case it's of interest for July 1st. And all of that occurred before this renewal even became available. So they're a little further down the road is all I was suggesting. So we wanted to have an option particularly if the board only experience is potentially a little better which we have reason to believe that it might be uh what a carveout would look like. >> Have you looked at just so that we can start planning and thinking have you looked at the data to see if the high utilization if there actually will be some benefit if the high utilization is not on the board of ed side and it's more on the town side if we think that that actually will play

029out in a way that will come back to help us. And then second question, Sigma, are you going back to Sigma as well to see if they'll give us a separate to give us additional? Okay, >> we've gotten the data broken out u from Sigma for claims. We already did that. We needed that in order to have any other carrier look at it um and come up with with something independently. So, whatever options that exist, we will have uh for for our next meeting other than potentially partnership. But even at the partnership meeting, we can provide, you know, what we've we've informally given in terms of an estimate. And we were kind of assuming, well, what if the 71 of 2025 rates went up 15%. What would it look like? What would it look like

030for a board cost? What would it look like for an employee contribution? Because it's not the same. One other nuance with the partnership, which is always a kind of a floating thing, is that they have a price for an active employee, a price for a retiree under 65, and a price for a retiree over 65 who's not on Medicare, which you still have one or two or three. Those rates are, you know, astronomical what they they charge. And my understanding is is that they would have to be blended in at least among teachers, administrators, uh because you couldn't turn around and charge one person $5,000 a month uh by charter. So it's not, you know, we do have to do some math in terms of trying to figure it out. And um but many years

031ago there were 25 and then uh I think it was six or seven years ago uh we came up with an idea collectively to do an early retirement you know an offer and we offered folks you guys offered folks uh some money but they had to come off the plan and that began a process of dropping down which was an absolute disaster of claims in this pocket of 85 retirees down to now just a handful. Uh, one of whom has been there for as long as I've been coming around and uh, who's a very sweet lady. But, um, any other questions I can answer for you? >> Dary, >> I'm I'm very sorry and we just haven't had a chance to connect. So, Dave, you said that a company already denied us. It are you

032able to tell us who that was? >> Yeah, Etna came up with a 73% increase or 72% and so they, you know, Was that the board alone or the board? >> That was a combined. Yeah, it was. >> Did you ask them for just the boardment yet? >> We did and they Yeah, they declined. >> Declined. Okay, thank you. Thanks. >> Yeah, >> Mrs. Russ, >> sorry. Uh, so a couple of questions. How many companies do we have that are in the running in addition to Sigma? Obviously, we know now it's not Etna. And uh number one and number two if we opt into the partnership because the rates are locked in as of they'll tell us the rates April 1st for what it'll be on Jan on July 1st. >> They should tell us

033by early March what what the rates will be for July 1st. >> Okay. So oh we have the ones for Okay. So um if we opt into the partnership can we do it for a one year and then re-evaluate or are you locked in? So they have penalties for groups that come in and leave after year one is a higher penalty. Year two is a little less of a penalty. And then if you've been there 3 years, you can leave with no penalty. So you can come out after a first 12 months, but they basically have a formula where they penalize groups. They don't want groups jumping in for a year, getting good experience, and then jumping out to the traditional market. And from uh your question earlier on the July 1 pricing, although they

034come out quarterly with it, um if you come in July 1st, that's locked in for 12 months. So they would have quarterly increases for groups that were coming into the partnership on 101 or 1. But for groups that come in on July 1st, you would have rates and then they would get increased again uh July 1st, 2027. And how many companies do we have? >> Oh, the the outstanding ones would be United Healthcare and Anthem Lacrosse. >> Okay, >> that's all we're down to in in Connecticut now. Really? That [laughter] >> Yeah, that's what I thought. I just wanted to confirm I wasn't missing any. >> Yeah. >> Is there is does the partnership I'm sorry, can I ask one more question. Does the partnership allow you is there like a cap on how much

035they can increase year-to-year once you're in it or can they do whatever the heck they want? Yeah, I mean it's a great question and as far as I know they're going to base it off of how that experience pool is running and we've seen that uh if anyone said five or six years ago that the costs might be going up 15% year-over-year, you know, no one would have ever believed it because it was very very modest increases. But as I said earlier, you know, it started in Fairfield County with places like Greenwich, you know, jumping into this with open arms with, you know, 130, 40% loss ratios, uh, and saving millions and millions of dollars. And if you just think about it logically, you know, you're not going to go into this environment unless there's

036some financial benefit for doing so because you don't want to have to endure those penalties if you don't like it or something changes. Uh, one thing is is that it's it's even out to bid right now. Uh, we don't even know who the carrier is going to be. It was supposed to be announced this week. Uh, but it may not end up being, you know, Anthem, right? It could end up being Sigma. It could end up being United. So, we should hopefully know even that uh when we meet again, but, you know, you might hear that in advance. >> Well, thank you so much. We we hope you'll come back with some good news for us in a couple of weeks and >> I hope so too. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Uh,

037on that cheery note, [laughter] do you have a question, Miss Maddie? >> Um, I didn't quite catch it and I'm new to this. Are they their company is Aya? >> ARA Group. So, they're our insurance brokers. So, they market our business to the insurance companies and negotiate rates on our behalf. >> Okay. So, I just want to share this. Um, of course I am part of the teachers retirement board and I have teachers retirement and as of frankly the the end of last year I thought it was the greatest thing that you can imagine. Of course I'm on Medicare. Oh, thank you. I'm on Medicare and but I also have the supplemental. I don't know if this is a help to know. I'm also on the supplemental um as of December 31st. Uh it was

038United Healthcare. It was excellent. It was excellent um in terms of payments and so forth. Now once that was over we can Connecticut Connecticut teachers retirement board renegotiated and um by law they have to find an insurance company that will give them comparable to what it is that they are leaving and I was hoping that they wouldn't change because United Healthcare I didn't want to leave Etna before not Etna um >> no no it was um Anthem Anthem Blue Cross They turned out to be even better than Anthem Blue Cross for me and it's all different depending upon your medications, that kind of thing. However, they left United Healthcare because United Healthcare could not meet our needs the way it had and they went with Etna. And I, you know, of all the places that

039I've been insured over a lot of years, Etna was never one of them. So I was shocked to hear that Etna would not insure us. I mean they've got we don't go with the um the state employees. We are separate from the state employees. People have asked why wouldn't it be more beneficial. No it wouldn't. We have I think we have very talented people who are negotiating this but um I don't understand. >> I don't know if that's a help to know but now I am being I am being insured by Etna. So, >> no, that is helpful. And I think we've got to leave no stone unturned, which is why unfortunately there's not a lot of stones to flip over as Mrs. Russ pointed out. >> Um, just just so everybody knows, the other

040unique thing this year is we have always always done our insurance procurement in com combination with the town employees. And this year, it was pointed out to us that that's not necessarily a requirement. And so whatever is the best we can get for the taxpayers in the community, that's it's all the same. But if we can get a little bit favorable rate by looking at it in different ways, that's why we've asked them to do that. So I guess we will just have to Do you have a question, Mr. Spowski? Well, I'm just thinking do we we have an open line in communication with the folks on the town side about only because if if we get a favor rate for the you know the board of education employees and that causes the town employees

041to skyrocket it still ends up being either a wash or hurting the potential hurting the taxpayer. So, so Aera Group represents both the board of ed and the town and has always bid the two together, but this is a strategy to say maybe we can do a little bit better on one. If we do a little better here and we can do a little better there or they're very interested in the partnership and we decide that that's not the way that we want to go and we can get more favorable rates. We just want them to look at it in every way possible so that we have as many options as we can to make some decisions about what's best for our employees and what we can afford in our budget. Thanks. >> Okay, I'm

042going to move us on because we have a big big packet of questions and answers from Mr. Butwell. So, I'm going to move us on to our proposed education budget, superintendent's proposed education budget for 2627. And everybody should have in front of them packet with a whole list of questions. I think Mr. Butwwell got what, 60 questions? 70 questions. more if you come follow us. [laughter] >> There's aboutund quite a few. I'm sure there was a lot >> a lot of questions. >> Some of them were multiple parters. So, >> we very much appreciate the time and the >> multiple parts. [laughter] >> We appreciate the time and the effort you put into responding to all of our questions and I appreciate the thoughtfulness that everybody put into asking some really great questions so that

043we can fully understand what's being proposed in the budget and make some decisions. So, I will pass it over to Mr. Bella. >> Sure. And um you know definitely was a team effort in terms of answering all these questions. So I appreciate the support of the entire administrative team. Um so the way all the question we've reorganized the questions Steve do I just um scroll down here? >> the arrow will take me to the next. Perfect. Thank you. Um we took all the questions that you submitted and uh in order to be efficient uh with our time tonight, we reorganized them by um object within the uh budget so that we can kind of group them together and answer them together. So uh we're going to start with certified personnel. Um there was two questions

044here. The first was just asking about the um outdoor track assistant and also another um all school production assistant and there was anou for the track assistant uh due to the high number of athletes in that outdoor track program and similarly uh the all school productions have um increased in size and scope and so having another person for those uh would be beneficial. Um and I can have Mr. will come up if there's any further discussion on that. And then the second question was about >> is memo of understanding or an MOA. So we draft that after um it's on the outside of the contract. It's something that's negotiated um after. >> Okay. And the second question was just about the new uh math positions, the K2 math specialist and the 612 secondary math. Um

045someone asked for an outline of the salary and related benefits which you can see in the answer. The salary for both positions uh for each position I should say is 82882 on the teacher salary scale. The benefits you'll see three numbers. Those are um for single coverage, twoerson coverage or family coverage in that order. Medicare cost, dental costs, again single, twoerson, family. So the total cost for each of these positions could range from84084 if there were no benefits up to 12689 if that person took family benefits. Um and then I'll just have Dr. Mlan speak about the positions and uh their percentage of time working with students. >> So it's hard to say a percentage of time for each of the positions. There are two very different positions. So, the K through2 math specialist will

046work directly with students, meaning that um they have a case load of students that they're working with that are in intervention that they're keeping their progress monitoring, they're um tracking progress. Um and then in addition to that, they're pushing into classrooms and providing support to those students in the classroom andor overseeing the other tutors um that are in the intervention program. So, it's hard to say. It depends on the kid, the students, and the needs um of the students um and what their intervention plan looks like. Um this is a much more direct in front of the student position. Um the 6th through 12 secondary math coach, which I I would argue is is the more important position to be honest, um is not assigned a group of students to work with. This position works

047directly with teachers to help to train teachers to improve their craft with the students. So research tells us that the number one thing that impacts student achievement is the quality of the teacher. And so when we provide these coaches for our teachers, we're allowing them to push into the classroom to work directly side by side. So do they work with students? Yes. But are they assigned a student case load? Not necessarily. They push in, they pull small groups, they model lessons, they work directly side by side with teachers. They also, like in our coaching cycle, what it looks like is a coach would plan with the teacher. The coach would go into the class, observe the class, there would be a post conversation. The teacher would decide, okay, this is something that I want to

048work on. the coach would help them and give them strategies and provide them resources um so that they could work on whatever it is that they're working with. This generally aligns to one of our district goals um andor their own teacher goals which also align to our district goals in a in you know a gen more general way but um so >> I think this is the hard part for everyone. So, we live in a world of data, right? So, the coaches are the ones that have their hands on all of the data. So, even though they're going into the classrooms and they're pushing in, they're working with the students, they know every student by name and what who how every student is performing. So, they know how the teacher's class is performing and they're

049looking at the data of the students and they're providing supports to that teacher based on the data. No one's looking at that data more closely than the coaches who are working with the teachers. >> They're also assessing those kids sometimes. They pull they pull they pull kids to assess them. >> Um, your coaches are your expert teachers. They're the ones that I mean the coaches are, you know, I I came in and spoke about what they do. They do a little bit of just about everything. Um, and they're an essential way to get the things that, you know, I can attend PD, I can do all these things, but to get it out to the staff requires that there are people out there that are going to get into the classroom. The fact that they

050are not administrators is key to this whole process because there is nothing evaluative about it. They come in, they are colleagues, they work together. um unless you know something happens and we say we would we are requiring that you work with a coach which does happen sometimes but not often. Um and so it makes the relationship much more open to to learning and to building capacity within the classroom. So are they actually teaching kids? No. Most of the time they're teaching teachers to teach kids in whatever strategies. >> Dr. I just [clears throat] want to take a couple questions because this is the first section of about 30 million. So, I don't mean to [laughter] cut you off, but I just want to let I think we'll do questions by section so that we can

051get people's questions answered as we're going, but also just I'll ask everybody to be mindful of how much we have to get through tonight. >> Mrs. Russ, do you have a question? >> Yes. So, um the So, you made two you made a comment. It's not required for a teacher to work with a coach. >> No, sometimes they're all required to go through coaching cycles. They're all required. But sometimes, >> but if we put this coach in, are the teachers required to work with them? >> Yes. >> Number one, >> but sometimes we say in like if we put a teacher on a plan for example, we will say you are going to be required to work with the coach weekly on this particular skill so that you could get support for this particular thing.

052All teachers and they they know, you know, teachers, they're required to do coaching cycles. >> Here's my second question. It should be quick. Do the coaches just work with kids or on issues that um need to get where we need to get students up to grade level or do they work on kids? They're in every single classroom in every single subject. So, um they work with AP teachers. They work with, you know, our content teachers that are teaching at the highest levels and at the lowest levels. They work with every single teacher in the district. >> Mrs. Campwell Mine's for Mr. Butw. I was just out of a quick question. When you were talking about the breakdown for the um benefits for the salary, do we ever as a district, do we ever offer incentives

053like an opt out for a if an employee doesn't doesn't take our insurance? Um is there like, you know, to um I was just thinking about that. Um >> that's a great question. We do not have that option within our contracts for opting out. >> Is that something that we might want to think about in this whole process? Um because I know other places do that. >> We just we just looked at this what last week when we were talking about the budget presentation to the finance committee. Um and and what I think you all determined was that it didn't financially help us because we would then have to pay that opt out money to everybody that currently doesn't take the health insurance. And that would be significant. >> So right now we have about

054300 employees that take the plan. We have about a hundred that do not. So then we would have to pay if people opted out, we would have to pay that hundred that opted out as well, not just the people that newly opted out. >> Uh okay. So, if we give you a benefit of, I don't know, $5,000 to to not take the plan, we would then have to give it to that hundred plus the additional who opts out. So, it actually isn't really beneficial. I'm just I'm just wondering over time if studies ever ever been done on that over time. I mean if you have one huge claim come in for a person of over a 100,000 >> the problem is we >> I mean I know you don't have a crystal ball. We don't

055know right. I know I was just I was just that popped into my head. So no, >> it's such a good question and we did just talk about this last week because we were trying to figure out any other way to try to address the health insurance. So great question. Thank you for asking that. >> Anybody else on this page? >> Okay, we will turn it to back to you, Mr. Val. >> Yeah, non-certified personnel. Um, big questions here just about some more information about the BCBA, which is the board certified behavior analyst and the registered behavior technician, RBT. Those job descriptions are attached at the very back of your packet if you didn't notice. Um they're stapled on there. So if you want to take a quick look at that and we have Mrs.

056Ori here and Mrs. Demorro as well who can talk about um the differences between those positions and then while uh you're maybe looking at the job description briefly, I'll just note that below is uh just the breakout for those uh salaries etc for those two positions. So base salary and then all of the benefits um total cost could be between 38878 if no benefits are taken up to 75 801 with family benefits and then um Mrs. Olier, I don't know if you want to start with just talking about how often those people might work with students and then um there's quite a list of questions in question one. So, I'm not sure how you want to tackle that, but >> um I guess I can answer I know one of the questions was about the

057RBT and the percentage of time. Well, that's question two, but the percentage of time I guess all BCBAS and RBTs work with students. And I would say it's 100% of the time because whether they're training staff, working directly with students, you know, modeling for staff, um, conducting a functional behavioral assessment, you're always working working with students. If you're sitting in a meeting, that's directly working towards a student's, you know, benefit. So, I would say they're always working with students in different in different capacities. Um, the main difference I would say between, and the job descriptions are there for you to look through, the BCBA and the RBT is that the RBT works directly under the BCBA. I know we kind of discussed this um, at the last meeting. and they're really kind of like their

058right-hand man in helping collect data, helping train pair of professionals, um helping, you know, develop behavior plans for students, ensuring that they're being followed by the staff. So, we need it. We need both positions um at ECS and WHIS, you know, especially with the increasing student behaviors and if we want to keep kids in district, um that's our main goal. So, questions. >> So I think it's >> I think it's important to just remember when we say 100% of the time every teacher gets a prep. >> So BCBAS would also get a prep. But you're prepping to prepare for the students. But >> yeah, >> that's what we mean. We if you would ask us if you know does a teacher work 100% of the time with students, we would say yes. But >> just

059remember every teacher gets prep time every day and the BCBA would be the same. >> Yeah. >> I I guess that's the confusion. I'm having is some of it is data entry time, some of it is training, some of it so the I think the question is saying face tof face time with with students how much of a person I think that's what this >> and I don't know if I can actually answer that with an actual percentage and I'll tell you why. It depends on the student need and we then RB an in RBT we don't have yet right the goal is to have that RBT work with the students almost all of the time with the exception of right meetings data collection um but even when you are working with a parah you're

060modeling for them you are you're working with a student side by side um 80% 90 I know that's why it's like silly to have it's hard But I would say it's always working towards the benefit of the student whether it is right during prep or um if not directly with them. >> Katherine, I just want to clarify my answer to you before the coaches work 100 like they are required to meet with teachers with that are in their content area. So like there like so you know like I have an in a technology instructional coach that works with all the other departments but reading and reading math social studies and science are the departments that I'm talking about. >> Any other questions follow questions on this page? >> Yes. >> Okay. Mrs. Lamb and I

061think Mr. Heisman is there um you mentioned this is about keeping kids in district. Yeah. >> Is there a a a a reduction in tuition that you would expect as a result of having these positions in place? >> Certainly. I would say we've already again I don't have an apples to apples comparison, but we already have a reduction in tuition especially at ECS and WIS with our specialized programs that we've been trying to build. Um and we added a full-time BCBA this year um at ECS. And I definitely think that's helping keep students in these programs and they require a lot of support. Um, but I can say with certainty we've we've definitely had reduction in tuition for for that pocket of students and that's great. >> Okay. And and [clears throat] did the tuition

062budget come down the plan come down this year when we put these positions in? So did we account for that? So again, it's not apples to apples because I'm looking at a specific group of students, but there might be another group, let's say, at the middle high, okay? >> Um that we needed to spend money on tuition for. So it's a hard apples to apples comparison to say it actually came down. >> But I would say I believe we're keeping more students in um at the elementary levels due to the increase in support that we're giving the students. All right. Thank you. >> I just shared this report with Dr. machary that was done by the Bergen Commission which is a state commission on special education and it's just showing this steep increase statewide of

063needs of special ed students. So it's very difficult I imagine for you to be able to say we've kept more kids in district the the dollars are going down but if you're keeping them from growing that's that's a win. >> So that's that that's I think a challenging question to try to tackle because you really don't know what it would mean for our particular district. But um I do think some of those I can share it with anybody else that wants to see it, but some of those trends are just just shocking to me to see. I would say our outplacement numbers and I won't I won't give you the actual number just um for confidentiality, [clears throat] but it it doesn't grow. It pretty much every year because we have students that graduate or

064come back to district since I've been here. It always has stayed the same give or take. So that's I guess okay, >> maybe a good thing. means we're doing, you know, doing what we need for the kids. So, >> Mr. Heisman, >> yeah, I don't I don't have a question or a comment. I think this is a great step in the right direction and uh I fully support it. >> Thank you. Appreciate. >> Okay, I think we're back to you, Mr. Bella. >> Okay, two more questions about non-certified. Um, question three was just again asking for the breakout for the custodian uh half custodian half grounds position. So again in the notes you can see the salary the breakout of the benefits and then total costs somewhere between 58689 with no benefits and 95792 with

065family benefits. Question four was just a quick uh detail question. This was about the um in the non-certified salary roster at the beginning of your binders there was just some coding uh near the in the column near the paras and somebody was wondering what that coding meant. So it's just uh codes about higher uh pay rates and hiring rates um for our payroll department. >> You good to move on to employee benefits? >> Okay, >> great. >> Bless you. >> Okay, employee benefits. So question one, um there's this is about uh retirement incentives. There is um in the teacher contract um an incentive that uh in the amount of $2,000 for any teacher with 25 years of Connecticut experience who gives notice by January 15th of that work year um that they're going to be

066retiring. That's the incentive. And I believe we have usually $10,000 uh in the budget for that to fulfill that incentive. And then uh question two was about um the 25% calculated increase for insurance but in the budget itself only indicated a 20.224 increase. And so um the the answer to that question is that both numbers are correct. um this year because we anticipated such difficulty uh grabbing an insurance number. Um Lori from payroll and I we went and really looked through uh each employee, what kind of coverage they were taking. Um and then we calculated the 25%, we put in some flexibility for um new employees who might come in or who might change lanes, meaning, you know, going from a single coverage to a family to a double coverage or to a family coverage.

067Um, and so when we went through all that and calculated our 25% increase, it was only 20.24% more than last year's budget. So we did correctly calculate the 25% increase. When you compare it to the 2526 budget, it was about 20% higher. [snorts] >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> We get to move on to the next section, which is instructional program improvement. Okay. Um, question one was just um question about the total for in the executive summary. Um, was it correct? And the answer is uh yes, it was correct. Um, there was um a formatting issue in last year's budget. This is in the curriculum and instruction uh portion of the budget last year. Um, curriculum and instruction is broken into a few sections just like every other part of the budget. So

068there's 322 which is um services, 330 which is basically like PD, 540 and 690. All those uh all those amounts were somehow allotted to the 322 line. And so um it doesn't change the total amount of the budget from last year but they were all um they were all allotted to the same line. So we have made the corrections but the um for this year but the total amount is correct as listed in the exe executive summary. And then question number two um does the curriculum develop include any new programs for our student services and um the answer is no it does not. >> Any questions? >> Yeah. Oh, Mrs. Russ, I'm sorry. >> We're um we Siri, you had presented um last meeting about new items that you wanted for curriculum and instruction. Where

069are those >> in the budget? >> I'm trying to think what I presented new items for curriculum. Give me a minute. Um >> was it Sabers? Because that's in my budget. Um and that'll come up in another question which is a screener. Uh oh. >> I know. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Okay. So, >> we talked about um at the last meeting materials um training and this was these were things we already have started this year and are going to continue next year. Um and it's in my supplies budget um materials for Spire and Wilson reading um programs. So, that's in my budget. It's separate from um the curriculum budget >> in supplies, not curriculum. >> 611 in student services. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Page eight. >> [laughter] >>

070Okay. >> Good to go. >> Yes, Mr. Ro, you're good. >> All right. Um, curriculum instruction. Um, we had some questions about some of the programs that we're using that I'll um turn over to Dr. Mlan. So, the first one is about Educ Climber. >> So, Educ is a program that we brought on this year. Um it's replacing our um SIMS database. Um it is less this year because um like we don't have onboarding costs, but going forward it will be the um the same amount um or or lower. Um we don't have there is no P school add-on for data analysis or warehousing. Um, Power Powers School did purchase a data management company which we did look at in our um, search for um, data companies. They were uh, both Educ. Um, both Educ

071and the other company came in exceptionally close in price like negligible a couple hundred dollars maybe difference. Um, we ended up going with Edge Climber. We're working on the onboarding now. Um, I want to make sure I answer all the parts of these questions. So, this is the program that does it for us. And we did get rid of a program that didn't do it. The other program that we had was less expensive um but did require more manpower um in in manually inputting things. Um, so there's a balance. And also this program because we are really trying to push our MTSS data, we this program really helps us to aggregate and disagregate that MTSS data um in the way that we need to see it. >> Want to roll right to the next one?

072>> Um so Amplify Desmos is a program that we have been implementing over the last couple years. Um 6 through 8 started. Um so we have the materials for that. It's been in place for three three years I think. Um we have all of the foundational materials and the teacher materials. Um also at the secondary level the materials for students are generally digital and less expensive. Um for WIS we are implementing this year. So we have teacher materials, we have some of the materials. The only thing that we're needing to update are the consumables. Um so that number went down. um and our K through2 number. This will be the first year that we implemented. So, we need all of the teacher manuals, we need all of the teacher um resources, we need um the

073student, you know, like we need the whole package. So, we will see um we will see the cost for K2 go down next year because we won't need like you know those teacher materials and things like that. But when you're talking about K through five in particular, there's generally consumables with any program that you need to purchase yearly. So there is a cost that is reoccurring. Okay. Any other questions about this slide? >> All right, we're going to keep it going with Dr. Mlan and she's going to talk about Parent Square, our communication program. So, [clears throat] we actually started to look in Parents Square um last year at the recommendation of of one of the board members. Um we were using school messenger and um if you remember we had some some glitches um

074last year in communication with um the school messenger that we were using and it was pretty timely that we look into something that was much more user friendly and accessible to more people. Um parent square allows us to do that. It allows us communication with families. It allows us communication with all different families. Um, and it is streamlining communication across the district because we had at one school they were using one system. So now we're all using the same system. Um, some people love it, some people hate it. Um I I from a from a person that you know sends things out regularly, it is much more user friendly um to send out messages and get messages out to people in a very quick way. Um there are settings and and maybe we have to,

075you know, send something out additional to the families to let them know that you can turn off some of those notifications. If you just want to get notified one time a day unless it's a, you know, life or death situation, you can do that. Um, so maybe that's on our end where we can, um, give some, you know, give some people some basic training in how you can kind of shut those notifications off if you if you don't need them all the time. >> Dress, >> you just said that they can turn off some of the notifications and get them just one way unless it's a life or death situation. But how would parent square know that? >> Because we would put it in that way. So when we're sending it out, we say, you

076know, there's a difference between here's the newsletter for the week and your kids are in a lockdown. So we would on our end when we send it out, we would indicate that this is something that has to be pushed out right now to everyone and it's an immediate notification. There are settings that say I would like to be notified one time a day at this particular time and let me know of all the things that happen during the day at this time. Um, so you can manage those things, those notifications that are not time-sensitive or a safety related. Um, but parentsware knows that because that's how we would set it up for the push out. That's great. Thank you. And I do think as a parent, we probably do need some training because I didn't

077know I could change the settings in parent square. So, thank you for telling me. >> Everybody good there? Okay, ready to move on to people services? >> Okay, people services. So, um, question one was just confirming that the excess cost reimbursement was included in the budget and, uh, yes, it was. Um, it's in two places within the the student services budget. Um, part of it part of it is, excuse me, in object 323, and the other one is in object 560, which is tuition. Uh, second question, um, what are some of the, uh, things that cause volatility within our student services? And so, um, there's quite a list there. I think I'll I can say say a few quick things and then I'll let Mrs. Olyri, um, jump on, but just in general, you're trying

078to, um, budget, you know, months ahead of the upcoming school year, not necessarily knowing the needs of that student population. Um, you know, what the needs are at that moment. Um but certainly by the time you get to the the new school year um students may have entered or left the district or students in district may have uh may require additional services that you weren't anticipating. And sorry I don't know if I left you anything to add but >> no one of the big things in here actually that changes too is um magnet tuition is in this um this section for students um that have special education services. We have to pay for their services. So we we might have five students that decide to go to a magnet school that have an IEP um

079next school year, but we don't know that until they've enrolled in the summer and they decided that. So it's very volatile. Um so it's kind of hard for us to get an exact number. Um yeah, thank you. >> Perfect. And then question number three, I'll um go right back to you, Siri. This was just about using outside psychiatrists and testing agents. So I'll let you respond to that. >> Yes. So we um through PBTs and um usually through PPT sometimes through outside confidential settlement agreements that we have with families there's requests for psychiatric evaluations which we don't do in district because we don't have psychiatrists we have um social workers and psychologists who don't do psychiatric eval um and those are more in-depth evaluations um students really high-risisk behavior um assisted technology we outsource course

080are assisted technology evaluations. Um we typically use um one of the risks um to to do those CRE or ACES to do those evaluations or learn um and those are for students that really require um an in-depth um evaluation of their needs. They may need communication devices um or other low or high-tech assisted technology. So we have um contracted with other providers, you know, to help us figure out what's best for the student. And then um neuroscychological evaluations as well. We don't have neuroscychologists. Um again we have psychologists. So neuroscychologists do a more in-depth look um at the brain and um really every facet of a student's learning profile. So we outsource for those too. And they're always very helpful in getting us information that we're looking for for planning for students that we may

081not have already found through our own evaluations. I think the question is about why the jump in this year's budget. So >> the jump, it is a jump. >> I would say um it's due to an increasing need um for students especially that have u mental health risks. We've done a lot of psychiatric evaluations um this year. On top of that, we have had some confidential settlement agreements that had um agreed on these. So those are something that you know we really um have to move move forward with and it's not an option but we always look in district first to see what have we done what could we do in terms of our own assessments. Um but yes it is a large jump and I would say the the price increase of the evaluations

082of the providers we're using has also jumped. When I started 10 years ago here, it was like under 3,000 for an Eval. Like now you might be paying 910,000 for one evaluation. And there's a little wiggle room with us agreeing to the provider. Um but if they meet all of our requirements, we have um independent evaluation guidelines. We we really work with the families to um utilize >> Yeah. Well, yeah. And I was just going to say it is sort of like the insurance conversation too because there is a very small um network of providers that do these evaluations. So we don't have a lot of options to shop around. >> We also like certain people which is a good thing but they may be more money but we like them because they spend time

083and effort and have good rich evaluations. We're not going to pay for something that we are not feeling is beneficial and it's it's a waste of money. So we might spend a little bit more but we know that evaluator and we worked with them in the past and that helps build you know that partnership too. So >> thank you. >> And I can just add to your comment that I recall when we were working on your on the people services budget um we really looked at actuals for this year and we saw that that those costs were trending up and so we really wanted to match our our budgeting with um what was happening. Sorry, there's question three had multiple parts. So the last part of question three, how often do we refuse a parent

084request for an outside evaluation with cause given our own internal evaluation results? I don't know that we're we're allowed to do that. But >> if we refuse requests, as you know, I'm looking at you, Matt. I'm not sure if you asked this question, but we would >> we would have to defend our eval [laughter] >> I think that's pretty clear. >> We would have to It wasn't condescending, I promise. Um we would have to defend our evaluation in court, go to due process. We don't I've never done that here. Um I've consulted with our attorneys and a lot of the time it that's more time and effort. Um and we really try to work with families and we do um honor their requests for outside evaluations. So yeah, but when I do my first one,

085I'll let you know. [laughter] >> Well, we'd rather not spend the money on too. So >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. Question four. Mr. But are you taking this one? >> Sure. Um so question four was um asking about the increased uh cost of um pair of professionals for the um ESY which is the extended school year program i.e. summer school. And um I I can only clarify uh to say that I think um the the number that increased was uh pair of professionals that are working at um with students that are outplaced uh during the summer, not not at our summer school program here within Cromwell. >> That's right. >> Um and so Mrs. I don't know if you can just uh comment on maybe why that is uh at the outplacements. >>

086Yeah, I would say due to an increase in students that are outplaced that have PAR support that attend ESY, that's why that number has increased. Um but if you look at our ESY budget page, which is the first page in our budget, those PARS, you're correct, do get paid that 27 and change an hour. Um but we don't um make up the PAR rate at the outplacements. They they give us the rate and we just put it in the budget. Yeah, it's completely different. [snorts] >> I'm sorry, Lauri. Go ahead. >> I'm trying to figure out if I want to ask a question or not. >> Well, I asked the question, so um yeah, but it it seemed like it was a big it was a significant increase that so it caught my eye. So,

087um, you're saying so, but why is it so much more than last year, I guess, is the >> increasing student need of students that have one-on-one paras that attend ESY with them. >> Okay. >> Right. >> Okay. So, my question, when a student of ours goes to a town summer camp and they have a pair of professional with them, are we covering that cost? Does the town cover that cost? Does it? >> Yeah. Actually, I really only have this um at Camp Cromwell. They actually provide like additional adults or you know college students who are to be with students that may need it. They don't ever we've never paid for any of that. No. And camp Sunrise, we don't pay for that. Um the only thing we do for Sunrise is we provide a bus

088for students that may attend DSY and then go to Sunrise after. We've always had that agreement with them, but we've never paid for I think if I did that I'd open a can of worms providing paras. So Oh, >> thank you. Oh, >> okay. >> Um, was that my >> on to professional technical services? Um, just a question about again from the executive summary uh just confirming if the amount of 521 197 was correct. Um, that number is correct and in the notes I just put the breakout um for each section 330 throughout the budget what that amount is. Um, and that it adds up to 521197. Um, I noted that the the 413497 that somebody was asking about was um exactly 107,700 short. So, I think they may have overlooked the curriculum and instruction

089amount. >> You want to keep going? Maintenance. >> Maintenance. Okay. Um, few different questions about expenditures and increase to facilities. I'm going to um let Claudio uh talk a little bit about this. The first one is about the CMS facilities object 420, the preventative maintenance services. As you see from the notes, the majority the increase in PM services and contracted services um is CMS. We went from a building that had window air conditioning to a central HVA system system. There's several hundred filters alone that have to be changed periodically. So all the there's additional costs with this new building, new technology and equipment that we never had before. And we also have fire alarm inspections. We're tied into the fire department which is a separate system. So to answer the CMS, there is a cost

090associated with having this brand new building. Um, >> I think that rolls right into question two. Yeah, >> correct. >> Uh, as far as question three, um, the building was painted, but the choice for the walls was white, which for a school is not conducive to keeping that clean. Um, even kids just walking down the hallways running their fingers across just getting just as the oil on our skin is leaving marks. >> So, what we are proposing is to paint the bottom half of the walls and the corridors um a gray. We don't want to make it too dark because we want to keep it light. The building looks beautiful, very bright with the white, but the area where normally the kids reach, we want to darken that up and also change the [snorts] type

091of paint to more of a gloss. >> Make it cleanable. >> Yeah. >> Something that we requested. >> Um, >> so all right. Thank you. We appreciate it. Our beautiful new school should not have white walls. Mrs. Russ has a question. I know what it is. So, >> is this something that we requested or our administrators and principles requested and we were denied? I >> changing color. >> I don't know. I'm >> I don't know who who picked the white walls because that happened before I arrived um during part of the design process. So, probably the design committee might have had a voice in it. I don't think a principal would come out and pick white walls in the school. >> Okay. Well, I I think we we're not going to relive it. It's we

092do need to repaint. I think that's why it's on there. And yes, gray and something that is much easily much more easily cleaned. >> Yes, >> good [snorts] idea. Thank you. >> A lot of money on those uh magic erasers. >> Yeah, magic erasers don't cut it. >> Um I think question four, I think is the last one for you, Mr. Rosano. >> Yes. Um ECS continues as an older building continues to need improvements. Um when I first arrived here there was some discussion regarding ECS being a future building project and that seems to have died down. Um nobody has any appetite to discuss it at this time. So we are going to incur costs with ECS building with time try to keep it running until a decision is made what the future of that

093building will be. I I can just add Steve and I are both attended the first townwide facility and asset committee meeting last week and part of the conversation was just looking at our current facilities and what needs to be replaced and and scheduling that out and thinking about repairs versus replacement. So that group even in their first meeting is already having those conversations. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Not that we're ready to replace ECS. That wasn't the conversation, but just thinking about long-term planning for what we need to do. Correct. >> Great. Okay. On to equipment repair. So, question about um do we have contracts for um musical instrument repairs and tuning and why was there such a large increase over the period of a few years. I spoke to um both Mr. Cuckle and

094Mrs. Coachola at the middle school and high school and they talked to me about um how the band program suffered during the COVID uh period and they the programs are now on the rebound which is wonderful news. Um but with that regrowth uh requires repair and um making sure that we maintain all of our instruments to the best of our capability. And um I know CMS, CHS and Woodside are using Middle Sex Music Company as their uh repair place. >> Okay. Want to keep going into Sure. >> Property Insurance? >> Yep. Um, question one was about uh just the culture. Do we have a strong safety culture among our employees? Um, so I'm just going to let Miss Demoro answer that first question about our trainings. >> Sure. So, yes, we do have um a

095strong culture. We have board of ed policies that cover sexual harassment and non-discrimination. We have multiple trainings for our employees such as title 9 DCF mandated reporting, bloodborne pathogen training, PMT training, our employee handbook which our employees are required to view every year and look through and sign off. And every school has also a school climate specialist. Each employ employee also has the ability to report any unsafe conditions to their building administrators, their school resource officers, their director of district operations and security, myself, human resources, and any central office administration uh administrator that they feel comfortable with. >> There's a safety there's a safety issue. We know about it very quickly. No one's shy, [laughter] which is a good thing, right? We want to know and usually we already do know. >> Okay, the next

096question was just about um our workman's compensation over the last few years and how does our budget reflect that trend? Um in general, uh the amounts that we're paying for workers comp um have been increasing about 3% each year. And so, um, when we looked at, uh, what had been budgeted previously, we saw that the budgeting actually got a little bit ahead of that 3% increase. So, we were able to, uh, reduce this year, which is nice. And then finally, question three. Um, I think just some clarification was needed on that question about anticipating safer conditions for the new middle school. So, I'm not sure if anybody from the board can would like to clarify on that question. I'm not sure. I don't recall who wrote it. >> I don't know who wrote it either.

097So, if anybody wants to ask a followup, that'd be great. Um, I will point out your answer to question two and a response to the question one. So, 3% workers comp increases pretty darn good. So, if that is reflective of an organization that values safety, workers comp claims and workers comp renewals are not as bad as health insurance, but they're they're pretty high. So, 3% is great. Anybody want clarification on question three or explain question three? Okay. >> We don't know who I don't have them in front of our list either. >> Oh, okay. >> We felt that it was answered by >> we We have talked in the past about there were so much there were so many things that were unsafe about the old building, right? We all know it. We we made

098sure we kept it as safe as we possibly could with as little money as we could, especially towards the end with bandating everything. Um, do we feel that it's safer as far as absolutely it is? Um, I would say that it is, but does that mean that someone is not going to get hurt? they they could but yes we do believe that that it is a safer it's just if you just think about the central air alone and what and changing the the air filters it's safer in that aspect just alone so yes I would say that it has made a tremendous impact kids are happy [laughter] okay I move on to travel co-curricular >> okay the first question was just about um for the high school about the CAA supplemental. Um CAA we is

099the Cromwell um athletic account. It's an account where money uh collected through sports ticketing sports tickets uh for games is collected and um I think for quite a long while uh as long as I could find going back into previous budgets um some portion of that money has been um added to the um the athletic travel account to help supplement those expenses. So, uh, currently for this year, it's 14. I'm not sure where this number came from. 14,810. It's very specific. Um, was added, uh, towards the account. And I think, um, in talking to Mr. Cuckle and, uh, Mr. Lame, uh, we just wanted to, we had room to increase it a little bit, and so we just rounded it up to 15,000 to make it a little bit easier to work with, but it's

100just a supplement. And then the following the follow the second question was um just about was the budget amount for all that transportation correct and it is correct and I think um where there may be an issue is remembering that that $15,000 for the CAA it's it's a a credit so you're going to you would subtract it from the total amount. >> Okay. Any questions on that? >> You can just keep going. >> Okay, >> you're on a roll. >> Some of these are quick. >> Yep, they're quick. Um, so advertising and printing. This was about postage. Um, postage was actually kept flat because um we can pre- purchase postage. Uh, we have postage machines and so we pre pre- purchase postage. Say that five times fast. Um, and so it rolls from year to

101year. it always stays with the machine. So, we have a good amount um at each of the schools and so we were able to keep our postage increases really flat because we want to spend down the amounts that we already have existing on the machines. No need to increase. And then secondarily, I think the amount of things that we're mailing probably is decreasing as uh we see more things uh being communicated electronically. >> You okay, I think you answered some of these tuition questions earlier, but um >> Sure. I'll just touch on them quickly again. So, um, so for the VOAG and the magnet school tuition, we did see a large inc large sorry a large decrease for those amounts and um, really for two reasons. One, we are seeing a decrease in the number

102of students that are um, enrolling in the magnet schools and in the VOAG programs. And then secondly, um recently the last year the state um started they changed the the financial structure for the magnet schools so that um the cap that districts pay is at it's capped at 58% of the tuition. Um and so that those prices actually went down for us, the tuition prices. So, um, we were holding the budget line steady there for a while and then, you know, we started to see the decrease last year and so this year we really, um, did a deep dive into what was happening with that. So, we were able to make some nice reductions there. Uh, the second question is about um the Central Connecticut Transition Academy. So, I'll just let Mrs. Oly talk about

103that. Um I don't want to put an exact number because it could be identifiable, but approximately 10 10 students at a time, give or take. Um plus or minus a few. Um so I know like this year we have a few graduating, but next year we have actually a good number that we're um recommending to go to our transition academy. And we split the costs with Berlin. Um they have a whole breakdown. They bill us, you know, quarterly and it's for the salaries, um the rent, the um the van, you know, maintenance and all of that. That's included the um the utilities. Uh so we split that. It's about 200,000 each. Um give or take sometimes a couple thousand dollars more, but um yeah, it's a great again great program. I always talk so highly

104of it. So yeah. Okay, any questions on tuition? Okay, 580 travel for personnel. Um, the question was, are travel expenses paid as incurred or paid as a stipen? And the answer is both. Um, administrators and individual contracts are paid by stipend as part of their contract and all their staff are paid as incurred. 590 other purchase services. Um the question was why was there an increase? They there was a note in the executive summary. Why was there an increase of about $63,000 over the current budget and um what services are being purchased and why the large increase? The primary increase there um was from the systemwide uh technology which that rolls right into question two. Can you explain a significant increase in systemwide technology purchase services, specifically the Palo Alto networks? So, I'm going to

105turn that one over to Steve to just talk a little bit about what's happening there. So the uh with the addition of the with the new middle school uh a second Palo Alto firewall was purchased for the new building giving us the capability of having uh both firewalls running in high availability which is like a cluster fail failover uh redundancy. It's our single most important piece of equipment in our infrastructure uh because it handles all our internet communication and traffic. Um, every year since I've been here, more services have been moved to the cloud, including our email such as Google. Uh, our phone communications now mostly uh have uh voice voiceover IP. So, it's very critical that we have uh the redundancy in place and that's largely the increases. Also, uh Pow Alto like every

106other company is raising their their fees. They've changed their structure. Uh it used to be the modulars the modules we use in the Powalto for web filtering and uh other services uh used to be modular now they're part of a package that they make you get um and has also caused part of the increase. It's just a change in their their structuring of their pricing. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And question number three. I'm going to have Mr. call come up please to just talk about um I don't even know if you say is that score Andrew score college admission program versus Navviance. >> Yep. So just to answer the question that's it did replace Navvian um it connects to the common app. It has an AI feature in it for our uh students where

107they kind of fill out a survey and then it gives them an idea of what colleges would fit them best. Uh so it is a great program for us. It did spike up in price. Um but Naviance uh is gone and long gone. It was not a good program for us for our students uh for secondary post-secondary um you know plans and SCORE has been a good replacement for that. Thank you. Okay. All set with purchase services. Okay. Rolling into instructional supplies. Uh just the first question was about um headphones. Um and I did talk to Mrs. Dutuno about um ECS students. Uh they are purchasing headphones for the entire school and I can also speak from my experience at Woodside that um we go through a lot of headphones when you have a school

108of 500 students. um they're absolutely necessary for um for daily work and of course for um assessment situations and so uh the kids need them and we go through quite a few of them and we're happy to do so. So um >> just think we're spending less money on Tyonderoga pencils and more money on headphones these days. [laughter] >> I think the other thing is um we have tried some of the real like low bargain price headphones and I'll just say you get what you pay for with those. um they don't last, they often don't work. And so um you know, I think we're in sort of a happy place with um moderately great headphones and providing the kids as many as they need to succeed. Um question two was uh about instructional supplies at

109CHS and um you can see from the notes there, Mr. Cuckle noted that um there's some increases in classes for art and woodworking. So those supply lines have um gone up and also testing supplies uh as a result of the PSAT now being given at two points during the year. >> Thank you. >> Good flying through this. >> All right. Uh question. >> Mr. Paul, I'm sorry. I missed it. >> Sorry. I was trying to throw something at me. I'm sorry. >> I was I would never >> You were waving but I didn't see it. I would ask you maybe to throw a cookie at me, but >> No, no, no, no, no. >> Um, I apologize. I I I did I I actually meant to ask another question about the the the um Palo

110Alto networks. I think two of us had asked about that and >> [clears throat] >> um there are there other companies that provide the same service because I I just I took a quick look at it and Palo Alto is from what I saw kind of like the the gem right of the group. I get that they're probably if not the best one of the best but there are a number of companies that provide that same service. Have we done a cost analysis to see what other companies could do? Could they do the the same or similar at a lower price? Like Cisco I know does stuff like this as well. Just I'm just curious if we've done a cost analysis and if not >> it's difficult because the reason if we de there is

111another product that we use for our endpoint security called Cortex XDR which is also by Palo Alto. So what makes them uh why we went with the project originally was if you've ever heard of the um the magic quadrant they are the leaders and innovators in the technology and uh we thought they were the best you know one of the best products on the market at the time. Um we also bought purchased the firewall and then later we got their endpoint security replacing our older uh endpoint security with the cortex product. um the two work in conjunction. So if we change the firewall, we would or we change the endpoint security, you would lose um some of that benefit. Uh it would be difficult to do the analysis. I mean, you probably could save money,

112but again, at the cost of the security and capabilities of the firewall, being able to do the what's known as the wire wildfire analysis as uh threats come in on our end devices. So and and our firewall actually does help protect like student personal data and stuff like that, right? Especially in an age where these things are under attack. >> Yeah, there's there there are yes, a lot of capabilities. Uh >> okay. So really if we change from Palo Alto to something else, we probably have to change at least one or two other systems we're operating. >> Also, you're saying they're integrated. >> We have also >> Go ahead, Dr. Mer. um experiences over the last couple of years where our students have managed to break into the firewall and cause havoc when we did

113not have Palo Alto. >> Oh, correct. They didn't break into the firewall. >> Well, they what did they do? They surpass whatever you call it. I just so fixed my Well, listen. He loves what I say. Someone just spammed me. He's like, "No, it's called fishing." Enza. I'm like, "Oh, Steve, whatever it's called, fix it. [laughter] Go ahead." >> To give a brief history of what Uh a few years ago we had the high availability uh we had two firewalls running conjunction um in high availability mode. Um we had an incident where they were overrun with traffic and couldn't handle the capability. Uh we could not afford to get both another two firewalls of a of a of a beefier spec. So we have the one up until recently when we got the new building

114and got a second one. um which now we we're we're better protected from a a denial of service attack such such as what we encountered back a few years ago. >> The the amount of money we spent on unraveling that situation probably has in staffing and then working with the probably has paid for itself twofold in this in this situation. Um and it's been scary without having two systems. We used to bite our every day we'd be biting our fingernails. So, yeah. Can we Yes. >> I want our stuff protected. I'm just saying like we need to protect it with a Mercedes or can we protect it with a Chevy? >> Yeah. Yeah. I think we had the Chevy and it scared the heck out of us. Um and I think we were like, "Okay,

115we need to really look into something a little bit better." >> This is Russ. >> Thank Thank you for revisiting. I appreciate it. >> It's like a key a car with a regular key that's easier to steal. But if you have a fob and you don't leave a fob in a key, that car is a lot harder to steal. Probably the best analogy. And it was four years ago that it happened. Know the student know what grade they're in. [laughter] >> Okay, moving on. >> Well, when they talk about >> instructional supplies, Mr. Potwell, let's keep going. >> Let's talk about the Kogat, shall we? >> We're going to ignore the [laughter] right. >> Thank you for letting me go back and revisit that one. >> Okay, question. Question three was about um in our

116student services there was a large jump uh for the cost of the Kogat um and I'll can speak basically about that cost and then if we need to add on we can have Mrs. Olri or Mrs. Bennington speak to it but uh basically the Kogat is um a screener that's given to third graders at Woodside. Um, and up until this point, we've been using the paper and pencil um, version of it, which um, includes a lot of bubbling and a lot of um, old school, shall I say, filling in, um, which is quite tedious. >> Fill in the bubbles. >> We're looking now for the um, the online digital version, which would uh, better match what's happening with other assessments such as the ESPback, um, MClass, etc. And so um that increase um is really

117for the the newer digital version and leaving the pencils and the bubbles um to history. Um and then secondly, one cost that we didn't um have we haven't factored in, it was super expensive for us to ship those paper tests back to the uh I guess the data scoring center wherever that is. Um it was quite expensive for shipping and and postage etc. So that's something that we'll be reducing to help offset the cost. And um I think that's about it. So Mrs. You have anything to add to that? >> No, I think um Miss I'll Mrs. Barry, I'll throw you under the bus for a second. She asked for the last few years to get the online version and we kept saying no. >> Superintendent kept saying no. >> We kept saying it was

118too expensive and then we bit the bullet and we said okay, let's do it. collaborated. [laughter] >> I know. I'm just being silly. >> Well, thank you, Mrs. Sperry, for getting us back into modern day. And we're not bubbling with number two pencils. >> Hanging on for >> And the the the reality was that kids didn't know how to bubble anymore. So, it was it was Miss Bington and Miss Barry who was bubbling and that takes a lot of time. They need to be >> they were bubbling for the kids, >> helping bubble and erasing. >> So, we talk about efficiencies. This is an easy one. Thank you, Mr. B. >> It's an efficiency for sure. Wow. Okay. >> Okay. And then uh >> keep going. >> Question for Mrs. Olri. Could you just speak

119about Sabers and the replacement of >> DESA? So we had DESA in the past. If you remember, we did have a discussion about the social emotional screener that was provided by the state. It was free and that was DESA. We used that for a number of years and we brought it to the board um to explain what that was. and it's a screener really that catches students in um different areas to ensure that we're not missing anybody that may be exhibiting um you know mental health crises um and so on. So because that's not free anymore provided by the state DESA was um I would say astronomically more money to pay for than Sabers. I'll thank Ashley because she did the research for Sabers. Saber is also um so it's a social emotional screener but

120it's under the Renaissance um platform I would say where um edge um edge climber is. So it's all going to be under the same um system which is also nice that we'll we'll have it all there. Um and again it collects data for us provides um lessons um for the teachers that they can focus on. Uh and it's again significantly cheaper than um the DESA would have been if we have to start paying for that. Mr. Liry, is this the one that the prevent that Mr. Kowalsski presented on >> on the prevention side? He came in did a presentation with youth services or is this something different? >> No, I don't think >> No, this is different. This is um this is something that's mandated um by the state of Connecticut and for the first

121couple years they gave us they had a partnership with DESA and they gave us the assessment for free. that three-year I think it was partnership ended and then we as districts we had to find something to replace it. I don't know what he presented on but it wasn't this >> it was another screening tool that we had to asset >> that was the youth yeah that was through youth services we had a grant um to collect data on >> it was similar topic but >> similar yes >> okay thank you >> okay we're going to move on to energy and utilities um so I'm going to turn it over to Mr. The first question is just about um $161,000 increase um related to electricity and gas and let's have him talk a little bit about

122that. >> Um as you can see from the numbers the total as you can see from the numbers the total increase in utilities is 161,000 which about 130 is from the mil um is electricity about 26,000 from natural gas and about another 56,000 for water for the fields around the middle school. Now, the conversation regarding the PV system on the middle school is still conjecture. It hasn't been bought yet, hasn't been installed yet. We don't know exactly what's it's going to take time for them to program it before we even determine what kind of savings we have. um an engineer that says we should recoup about 50% of the electrical cost. And if we're if they're on Tiger, we're looking at about $10,000 a month in saving in electricity for the middle school. So, as

123far as how you want to fund it, I'm going to leave it up to you. My recommendation is to leave it in there until we have it running, until we know what the actual savings, and then we can properly budget next year. Okay, thank you. You're >> welcome. >> Um going to move on to instructional equipment. Um so just a question was about the increase for CMS instruments and although it's a different object the related music textbooks and um I spoke to Mrs. Coiola and as I mentioned earlier we're really growing our music programs. So, uh, CMS needs an additional keyboards for their general music classes. They have 11, but they need 21. And, uh, in terms of expanding their band program, they're hoping to purchase instruments, some of the pricier ones such as a

124tuba or euphonium for the band. And then regarding the music textbooks, um, they're looking at Soundtrack Trap for Education, which is a program that will help build their general music program where students can actually compose and produce music. Any questions about that? You're >> like down to your last three slides. >> Okay, here we go. 7:39. Okay, non-instructional equipment. Um, I'm going to have Mr. Cuckle come up, please, just because a lot of these uh items have to do with the high school. Um the first question just talks about all of the items that are on the 739 uh list for athletics and um I'll let you respond, Mr. Goggle. >> Uh yeah, [clears throat] so the items that we listed there um predominantly they're the windcreens. I believe that that stood out on that

125front and the golf cart. Uh the windscreens are uh just something that you essentially see uh at most high schools uh and certainly Shoreline high schools when you go to play them. They are that that screen barrier for wind, but also it's just it's a it makes the facility look nice. Um you know uh it is something that draws attention to it, makes it clean, makes it look good. Uh we used to have one that the baseball boosters paid for for the baseball field. Uh that has since deteriorated. So, we wanted to have one for the baseball field, softball, and track uh and field area to put those windscreens up. Um, and then the golf cart, I think that ties into the second question, but that was another larger ticket item for us. Uh, that

126golf cart is older. Uh, it does not cost much to maintain. In fact, we've even had Mr. Boura work on it a few times for us to do some basic things that it needs. Um, it is nearing the end of life. We can certainly um reach out to other uh places to see if they have one available for us. Uh but what we use it for uh is our athletic trainer after school, especially in the fall and the springtime. Uh that is what he he does. He is outside. He is bouncing from baseball to softball to wherever. Um he's able to respond for injured athletes because that golf cart has the back that you can put someone on who is injured. Uh so quite often it's used to transport people to their cars, maybe after

127a game, a student athlete who is hurt, uh or possibly to the ambulance. Um and then we also use that golf cart uh at graduation time to help uh grandparents uh and whatnot just get around and and you know cuz we always host it on site uh our graduation. So it is a multi-use golf cart. It does not cost a lot of money to maintain. Uh but it is nearing its end of life. Uh and then the other thing was the career center. Um that is right behind you. Uh that is that new space that we have. Uh and we were looking for flexible furniture and we can obviously look and and have uh and reach out to the community and see if anybody has any contacts on that front. Um but we were looking

128for a sizable investment just in the furniture for that space. Um you know and we can of course look at other options first for that. >> Mr. We will gladly donate. The board of ed will gladly donate these tables to your career center. >> I love these tables. I don't want Yeah, >> we do not. So, you can have them. >> Yeah. [clears throat and laughter] >> Well, don't worry. We're have we have someone coming in to meet with us. >> The key word is flexible. So, like these you can throw out your back moving these. That is part of the problem. But yeah. So, >> all right. I have a question. Is the 23,700 specifically for the windcreens? >> No. Uh the I believe it adds up to about uh Yeah, it would be

129windcreens. um windcreens cuz there's three different ones on there. The golf cart and then >> there's a um a lineman sled for the program and as well as the practice goalpost. >> The goalpost. >> So all of those athletic things um are needed. >> You say a sled? >> Yeah, it's like a lineman sled. >> Oh, >> yeah. [clears throat] On the ground three-point stance. >> Too much snow. My head's thinking about [laughter] snow. >> I think it's current the old one. Did we get rid of the old one or is it still over there? Kind of just >> I think the old one is still there. >> Yeah, >> we got rid of the older old one. >> Yes, >> there was still but yeah. [snorts] All right. Thanks, Mr. Cuckle. >> Um, and

130then one more question about non-instructional Whoops, sorry. About non-instructional equipment. Um, this was based on the executive summary. just wondering about um the overall increase and I think we just covered a lot of the um a lot of the where the increases lie with the the CHS budget. Um the question was just asking about was there a correlation between an increase for CMS and a decrease with central administration. Um, so just um a caveat to be careful with um you know when you're looking at the executive summary, it's best to just kind of jump in and look at each of the separate sections within the budget um because it was noted that there was a 67% decrease in the central administration non-instructional equipment. However, that um was really just going from $1,500 to $500. Um

131so the percentages there are a little bit misleading. So, um, you know, when in doubt, kind of jump in and look at the, um, individual sites for each, uh, to get a better picture of what's happening there. Hopefully, I answered that completely. All right, we made it through there and now we're on to other. Um, the first question was just about what is the status of our overage from 2425? U, it's still intact. The uh just as a refresher, the amount that we that was set aside was 577577,517.71. 201,570 has been earmarked for the track project. And so that would leave a balance of $375,947.71. And then question two was, has the surplus from last fiscal year been incorporated into this budget? And um at this time none of that surplus has been uh incorporated

132into this budget. Uh question three was about a sensitivity analysis. Uh has that been completed by the town to talk about the impact of the increase? Uh Dr. Macker and I were not aware that any such um survey had been done. And then um question four, I'll turn over to Dr. Macker about uh contingency plans regarding the budget. So, of course, I'm always looking at um the entire budget. Sadly, I know when we spend 20 $20, $4,000, and 200 million uh dollars, I'm sorry, $200,000. Um we all know that there is about $200,000 in other of the 2.6 2.4 is salaries and benefits. So, we could get rid of the golf cart and the goalpost and all that stuff and we're going to get about 10 $15,000. Now, that doesn't mean we're not going to

133look at it. Of course, we are going to look at that, but at the end of the day, it comes down to um positions, salaries, and and benefits. So, we talked to you a little bit about um new salary uh positions, and a total of those of the salaries of the new positions that we are asking for are a total of about $250,000. We don't know what the benefits will be dep because it depends on who takes what, right? So, um that's really where we will have to look and dig deep. I know enrollment very well. Myself, uh Dr. McClean, Mr. Butwell, it's nice to have um principal in the building. Um we look at everything all the time. Can we condense classrooms? Can we? Should we? Will we? Um those are all questions to

134be answered in the future, right? We have to really get a number on um our insurance. We have small class sizes and I I don't I feel like we need small class sizes because some of the social emotional needs of our students have just grown tremendously as we've spoken of. So, if we could provide the supports um that the kids need when they're younger in a smaller class size, then there's a greater chance that they will not need those supports as they get older. So, I'd like to keep them that way. Um but we are closely monitoring enrollment numbers and looking at where we can possibly combining classes if we had to. Um, other things that we've talked about like some of the opportunities that we offer our students, do we have clubs that are,

135you know, not as many students as as we would like it to be? Yes, we'd have to look at those, too. Those are stipen positions. Um, but at the end of the day, the biggest is the big one is salary and benefits. So, we have to look at that. Now, we also, Mr. But we'll just talk to you about the $375,000 surplus that we have. Um I I do have an idea. We can get to it later of of and and you have to have a discussion. I can give you suggestions clearly. It's up to you as to what how you want what you want to do with that money. We know um for those of us that have been here uh we it's been very difficult with special education over the years. This year

136has been a very different situation. It's probably never going to happen again. Um, so a lot of other districts keep that money on reserve for special education, capital improvement plans. Um, so I could talk to you about that. We could talk about that a little later of, you know, I have some ideas. Um, if you want if you want just to know where what I'm thinking. Um, the $375,000 I don't want to see the entire thing go, but we have about $85,000 in capital projects now. not CNR, but capital outlay projects. It's about $85,000 if you look to that page in your binder. Um, we can pay for all of this and get started on it immediately July 1st, maybe even sooner, right? Because we can use that money in the reserve and then we

137could take that out of the budget for next year, which would then we'd spend about, like we said, about $85,000. So then we'd be down close to 290, 290, 295. That could mean one student, that could be two students with special services. It's nice to have um not a pit in your stomach and know that you can go somewhere. We have had years where we've ended with $1,400, $7,000. It's it's scary to know that we don't have anything to fall back on. Um especially with what we're seeing right now. We we also have no idea also um you you heard from the presentation this budget right here with a 6.61 is with a 25% increase. Right now we have a 52% increase with Sigma. That's where we're at if they don't come back with a

138different number. Um so those are the reasons why I'm skeptical. But I also think that should we use some of the money? I do think we should use some of the money. At the end of the day, that's really up to you about how much we use um when you vote on your budget. Um because right now it's just my proposed budget. So, with that being said, you know, you have a lot to discuss. Okay. Interestingly, there's a chat in the CAB um board chair chat about what to do with reserve fund accounts and how important it is. the consensus is maintaining some of that is very important because you never know what is to be down the pike with um any kind of major capital project or special um services for students with special

139needs. So it's it was very timely interesting chat that I shared with Dr. Mack because lots of districts are trying to make some decisions around that right now. And um I I guess I'll open it up at this point. Well, first I want to say thank you very much to Mr. We have just one one or two more other questions. >> Why did we stop? >> There's one more. >> Two more. >> It kind of felt like we were done, but we >> I'm sorry. Mrs. Lamb has a question before we jump. >> Yeah, those those were some of my questions around the sensitivity analysis. Um given given the 52% or the 73% that SE Sigma was looking at, who knows what these other numbers are going to come back like? And the town, it

140sounds like they're going to be in the same situation. Um maybe they've never done an assessment like this before, but I mean that's that's pretty significant. You know, is the board of finance looking at doing uh like for I mean the impact is across the whole town, all of the town employees. So what if it's not 6.61? What if it has to be 6.8 or seven? Like what is that? Yeah, the the town usually when the board of finance looks at the budgets, they usually say, you know, if we accept this amount, then we will have to increase the mill rate. Like that's they do that every single year. They >> is that what you're asking about? >> Sort of. >> Because if we our budget goes into the rest of the town's budget, so

141that would in that would factor in when they look at all of those pieces. >> Yeah. So I I know they do that after the fact, but if we put 6.61% forward, that's what they're assessing when we might actually say, "No, we need it to be seven because of the insurance and because we need to sustain the district the way that we're running. We need to support our students." What we would really say is we need 7%. >> Like a what if. >> So we won't vote whatever you all determine here, right? And then Tony presents uh town manager Salvatore presents his budget >> and in April when we present ours to the board of finance. So whatever you vote here, right? Um then the board of finance votes in April and then that goes,

142you know, out to referendum. And I think honestly people make a a decision. Do they have a discussion as to how it's going to impact everything? They do at that for that that very long April meeting. [laughter] >> It's it's so fun. >> Well, that's very sensitive. Yes. >> Yeah. I'm just thinking more proactively that way. >> Yes. No, I think it's more Exactly. >> We have to wait until we decide what we want to put. >> Yeah. And then >> Yes. And then they have that discussion that evening, that very long discussion. [laughter] >> Yeah. Okay. No, >> which makes sense. It's a lot of money. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But well point. A good point. Well, >> my apologies, Mr. I got so excited I thought we were done. So, two more

143questions, I think. >> No problem at all. I think um Dr. Macker is going to be tackling these as well. Number six, she kind of already addressed uh just talking about do we have a breakdown of student population by grade and class size, etc. Um so, that is something that we're monitoring carefully. Um, >> I'm sorry I asked that question, but I think I'm looking for a little bit more like a range of 8 to 18 students. That's a big range. >> That's for I that was my answer for special needs. Um, >> special needs. >> So, I broke down and maybe we misunderstood. I'm sorry. I did. So, I looked at that second question about the average case load for related service, but I also broke down um teachers 8 to 18 for special

144education students. I know >> that wasn't that that wasn't what I intended. I just wanted to know overall what are our teachers h >> how big are our classes >> by grade and what are we looking at in terms of case loads and you you mentioned if we had to consolidate classes I just don't know what that looks like. So that's the question if we have classes of eight students a piece that's pretty small. If we have average class sizes of 17 18 students a piece that seems like it's pretty large. So I we just looking I was looking just for some information on what that looks like. >> Focusing on special ed. >> I didn't mean it for special ed. Sorry. >> So reg because it depends. Right. >> I appreciate the answer but

145um regular education right now we are looking at in um at ECS class sizes between and 18. in K12. So, do we have some move do we have some room for movement? You could determine what you you know what you think because when I made a determination out loud a few years ago, I almost got my head chopped off. So, I'm just telling you what I'm just giving you the facts right now. Um, and >> that's that's I'm asking you to make a determination. I just wanted to know the information. [laughter] >> I almost I almost lost my head of your head. >> Yeah. I was like, I'm not saying we're cutting anybody. I'm just saying or cutting positions through attrition because that's what it would be through attrition, right? We know who's retiring. We

146know what's happening at this this point in time. Um when we're looking at WISS, we're looking at class sizes between 18, however, slightly higher um as we go up grades to about 20 and then maybe in grade five, 24. um being our highest at the end of January. So WHIS is at capacity and we need what we have right um with third fourth fifth grade >> third fourth sorry Woodside intermediate yes so do we want to go up do we do we want class sizes to increase by three four kids my answer is always going to be no c can we look at some situations that we we where we may have to because insurance is so high. We might have to. That's the reality of it. Um it's also uh we look at what

147we're offering at the you know at the high school. We may have um and and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Cuckle, Miss Coachola. Uh it's not actually it's just the high school. We may have an English teacher who has 26 students at one point, but they may have another 26 students in one class, but they may have another class where they are servicing five or six kids and that could be their lab, right? So, they're providing more intensive services to those kids at that time, but then our classes are bigger because of it, right? So, we would have to lose a lot of students to decrease some of our class sizes at the high school and then we would have to offer less. Is that something that we really want to do? It's definitely

148not what I want to do, right? Um, but would we look at that? Yes, we are already having conversations about everything that I just mentioned. It's everything right now. Um, do we have ideas of where we can go? Of course we do. you know, you give me a they you give me a number, they give me a number. Board of Finance, we do what we have to do. Um, that's the bottom line, right? And I will make it happen. And unfortunately, it's always going to be, we always know, and it's my job to tell you that it's going to be at the expense of of students and their and their needs. And I'm not talking about students with needs. I'm talking about all students because all students have needs. Miss Matt Matt. Oh, Crumbl Middle

149School. Miss Mattiey's asking what the class sizes are. >> It's pretty. >> What is your class size? I would say 6 17 18. >> What? >> Okay, that's >> 18 to 21 is what you're saying, Miss Koshil. >> Wait, can you can do you mind? Cuz I can hear you, but I don't know if everybody else can hear. >> The only way we could really change the middle schools if we didn't team. And we don't want to not team. We have about 18 to 21 in the content areas. That's your math, science, social studies, but you're going to have bigger classes within your specialists classes. So, some right now currently have up to 30 kids in specials, music, gym, those kind of >> correct. We have no wiggle room at the middle school if we

150want to maintain the team philosophy. Now, remember, we just built a middle school based on the team philosophy and the steam. We don't want to mess with it. It's going well. So there really is no wiggle room there. Where we could look more closely are the other areas that I talked about. Okay. Now I'd like to thank you for putting together. >> Hold on. We have just one more. Come on. Sorry. We did. We have question five. You went out of order. You went out of order. >> I'm sorry. I was trying to link. I was trying to go back to previous answers. >> No, you [laughter] can't. Could you just be a little fresh? Okay. I >> We're film. So, you can be fresh I suppose or I was trying to >> so Larry

151can answer and save Dr. could answer the question and and at the end of the day, yes, it is correct. We would be investing in people that we we may lose and the chances are are good, right? Because like Matt brought to everyone's and you it's not a secret. You're a special education teacher. You you could go wherever you want, right? Right. This today, not at the end of the year, not you could be right. You could pick your school. There's such a shortage area. So yes, that could possibly happen. Of course it can. But my response was kind of being a little fresh with Dave Castlin, right? If I have a heart attack and I need to go to Middle Sex and Middle Sex doesn't have someone who could perform heart surgery on me

152at that time, I may die by the time I get to Yale. So [laughter] that's my, you know what I mean? Like it's I always put everything in medical terms. Our kids need it. They need it now. This is what they need. Do we train people and then they leave? Yes, that could always happen. >> Mrs. Canwell has a follow-up on that. >> Yeah, that's not a reason not to train people. So, our students need what they need. Yep. >> We train people. You can say that about any profession. Any profession, any job that any of us do, you you get training at your job. You could leave at any time to go to another place. So >> yes, but if certain professions pay for certain certifications education and you leave within a contract, >>

153I was talking. >> Sorry. >> Anyway, my point is that is not a reason not to not to train the people the uh the students need what they need. So we need to train the staff period. >> Can I piggyback? I think I had mentioned um in the last response about this last two weeks ago, we really try to strive for the positive culture and climate too, which I think if you're investing in people that also helps show that you care. And yes, they may look elsewhere because they're paying $10,000 more dollars, you know, at a neighboring town, but the grass isn't always greener. And the hope is that yes, people want to stay, but do they always? No. But we don't know anything. So, we do what we know now, right? And we know

154that the teachers need the training. So, >> yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Okay. Mrs. Lamb. >> Sure. This was my question and it was it was not whether we do the certification and training. It's it's if you are training the teachers, which we want to do, that means they're building experience. How do we keep them around and build the experience and and that's what we actually need for the students? So, are there ways to keep those certified teachers here? That was really the genesis of the question. >> So, I think that's a Miss Mrs. Demorro question >> about incentives because I think this is all tied into our contracts. >> Yes. So, um, basically our incentives are all included in the collective bargaining agreements, but, um, I think professional development is one of those

155incentives, right? Constantly training and if you're stagnant in a position, you're not learning, are you really going to stay with that district? Because if they're not um, they're not investing in you, right? So, I think it's very important to invest in your employees and provide them with professional development and growth opportunities. Um we do a lot in our district to try to retain and we try to you know look at our climate and we do meet with staff >> and the state does require us to do exit surveys when staff leave. >> Um many it is a very competitive market in in the state [clears throat] of Connecticut. I think we talked about this before where you can kind of go if you're in a shortage area, you can go wherever you want to go,

156especially down in Fairfield County and make really uh really great money and there's no competing. Um so I think many districts do get some big huge grants um like alliance funding where they can give bonuses. We as I think Dr. Carrie Mclean uh talked about the grants that we get in the district were very limited. Um, so we have to be creative in what we do for our staff. Um, one of the things is when positions come up early, we need to post as early as possible. So having an approved budget as soon as possible is very important because that gives me the opportunity opportunity to go out early and attend all these colleges and recruitment fairs. We need we need to get them as as soon as possible and as fast as possible and

157sign them on um to bring in talent. Um, and when we do post, we do get a good amount of applications in. So, um, we we I I'd like to say I don't the positions that we just had vacant in our last meeting, we are filling them. So, it is happening. Um, Croml is a great district where I think a lot of employees do want to come here. If you haven't visited the HR site, please do. We have a great video that we had a Cromwell High School student create and it was the why of why do you want to come to Cromwell and we have a lot of staff um that actually talked to why they first came to Cromwell. Um so I think that that's an important reason too. >> Okay. No, I

158absolutely agree. It's it's it's not any one thing. Um all of those are very important to um you know attracting talent from any any sort of skill set to the district. I was purely reacting to we had a very deep discussion on this certification in the last meeting. So I wanted to make sure that that was something that we would focus on but thank you. Also, the other question was a question about, you know, there are districts, so for example, Alliance school districts, um, bigger inner city districts that offer, um, tax cuts on their, you know, your home or you could get a mortgage. Creole is not one of those districts. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I don't think so. >> You have to be a title one district. >> You have to be title.

159Yeah. And >> you need a good idea. Yeah. No, I appre I appreciate the creativity and how we can try to retain all those employees that we invest so much in, Miss Maddie. And then I want to thank Mr. Butwell. So, I'll let you ask your question and then we'll say thank you. >> We don't get anything. >> I have to say this as a former teacher of almost 35 years who was wooed to a lot of school systems and I never left my school systems because I just was too loyal. It was my community. I couldn't I couldn't leave my school. Not for 20,000. I know it sounds stupid, but I guess I thought I was going to be independently wealthy when I finally retired. Um anyway, but I do know of things and

160it's and it's one of the questions or a couple of the questions that I was asked by the um I don't want to use union because it's the association I'm sure here at Cromwell. Uh but the um the head of the association sent both of us um the new candidates questions about education and and how we felt about education. And one of the things I wanted to make clear from the get-go was I love the fact that you that you publicly to the tune of about an hour um of our time here, which is I'm not saying anything about 10 o'clock. I didn't think I and I stay up till forever, but for all you people go to work the next day, holy moly. Um I think that's wonderful. But I think that from the

161few people I've spoken to in the system, um who are very loyal to the system, who love the people that they work with, um who really would not easily give up leaving. Um, those were the people who said to me, "We just want to also be sure that we're heard." And what I made clear, I hope when I answered some of these questions was the fact that I think first and foremost teachers who are on the front lines of these battles and some days they're horrendous battles, but they are stalworth these teachers and they handle things without getting the administration involved so often. They want to know that their principles, their administrators are listening to what they say. And it comes down to sometimes something as simple as okay, you know, we were building this

162new school, Cromwell Middle School, and I don't I don't know how the teachers were involved, so I'm just using it as an example, but I certainly know what happened at at Kaggenchog when they were just refurbishing Kaggenog and our teachers went to give input. And you know what? There was a lot of yesing but in the end it wasn't done the way we thought would be most effective and frankly those people who are in the classroom they know better than all of us they know exactly what they need just the way you said about teams middle school has been set up for team teaching team learning they know how that has to be run in order for it to be effective so that's the first thing it seems to me that those teachers have to

163know that what they are saying is valued that they don't have to be afraid that there going to be repercussions if they say certain things. Um, and I think that's how you keep that community going. Um, I went to I I had kids at home. I went to every single basketball game at Kaggen High School all the years I was there. Um, I did the same at Old Sabre when I was single. I loved it. I felt it. And those kids who are now and I've been meeting with them because one of them happens to be just had a stroke and she's 58. So, a whole bunch of us got together to see her in the hospital or in the not in the hospital in the convolescent home. What we what we talked about was

164the fact that we did feel like a family. And all these years later, they treat me the same way. And they look so darn old. I've gotten old, but they look old, too. And I still think of them as kids. And I think that that is more important than money or anything else. I'm not that's not to say that the teachers don't have to live. They certainly do. But you have to the administrators, the principles have to let them know especially in those in those uh uh faculty meetings that you want to hear what they have to say and you value it. I think that's the most important thing and that would keep me and most most teachers who remember as I was told by a man who was very difficult to deal with at

165Kogen but he was so right. He used to say to the female teachers, "You female teachers, you are a detriment to us and to our negotiating >> because your mothers who go home and you don't stay for the you don't stay for the um union meetings to find out how much money we want for for our next contract. You have to go home and pick up the kids from dance, from sports, >> yes, >> I'm going to stop you. I'm just saying >> I'm going to stop you because not that I don't care, not that I'm not listening, but I You're the one who told us 10 o'clock at night, so now I'm watching the clock. >> I know. I'm just saying I think that sometimes we don't realize what all of us together have

166to do to make those teachers feel valued. >> It's a very good comment about culture and the importance of creating a welcoming culture and a sense of community. So, thank you for the point. Well done. Okay, I would like to go back and just acknowledge Minister Broughtwell and all the work that he did to thoughtfully and thoroughly answer all of our questions. >> Thank you. My pleasure. >> And and the team that supported. So, thank you very much. Okay. >> You guys want to know? >> Oh, yes. So, Dr. Macker pulled together some information based on um I'll just share uh John Ireland. Dr. Mackey, Mr. when I met just to start talking about and thinking about what this ultimately looks like as we present to board of finance in a couple months. They don't

167have a date yet. Um sometime in April and so we we were looking at some comparable data which I think is really helpful for all of us to have as just a perspective. So I'm pass it to you. So as superintendents we share um what we're proposing as a superintendent's budget. So, Durg D um just to let you know we're and I we don't have all the numbers because some people are different, you know, different times. Uh Newington 9.8, Rocky Hill 8.9, Shelton 8.81, Southernington 6.89, East Lime 6.79, Cromwell 6.61, um Clinton 5.62, East Hampton 5.41, Brford 5.2, 2 Windsor uh 4.97 um Weathersfield 4.5 Milford 4.3 um and then we have some just surrounding you know in our area districts I tried to just look at other so and and some are I I

168want you to know that uh we have Andover at 6.1 and we have Bristol at 11% and we have people saying It's less than 10%. They can't even get a handle because most of it is because of special ed and um >> benefits. Yeah. So, uh East Lime 6.79 um Hebrin 5.9 just to tell you that there are other Greenwich 3.13. Well, we all know the MBR is really high there to begin with. So, um just to give you ideas, Nagatuck 7.92. So um it's everywhere and and we have had conversations about about this that those are the two you know the two big reasons why this is happening. Okay. So, we're falling somewhere in the middle of what we think our um other communities are coming in with and they probably don't have their

169insurance numbers completed as well. >> So, when I talked to them, um Newington is really trying to wrap their heads around what they're going to do with special education. some of the things that we've already done they and they've done other things as well um in house um Rocky Hill my conversation it's it is what it is with special education and benefits um everyone else got a good number I will tell you my conversation with East Hampton they're fully they're self-insured um or I'm sorry either self-insured or in the partnership plan and they don't know what the number is going to be. They haven't gotten that number. So, they are going in um guessing that it's going to be similar, but like you just heard, we don't know because they even they went out to

170bid. So, uh you know, it's not um this isn't an easy year for we would have been so good without this problem with with benefits. Um, we have been asked, uh, so I want you to know that you will get March 10th, just to review for the in the March 10 packet, you're going to get an updated, um, presentation that we're going to provide to the board of finance. I have always provided the board of finance with the same presentation that we have provided you. There are some things that um, they want less of, then they'd like to look a little bit deeper into. There are things that I don't know right now that they'd like to know and you don't know. So, I always want you to have the first look. So, on March

171uh 10th, whatever we bring to you on March 10th, unless we have a special meeting because it's burning and I have to change it for the board of finance meeting is what I will present to the board of finance. So, I just want you to know that we are looking at ways to show um the return of investment. You know, what is so we're putting this much money into this, how are our students performing and such because they're not at these meetings. So, I just uh want you to know that we are doing that. We're going to be we have a meeting first thing Thursday morning of starting that presentation and we'll we'll keep you updated. Any other comments? I know this is a lot to digest. So, and I think we will probably save

172most of our discussion decision- making for next meeting, but open to comments or any additional questions or thoughts on how we move from here. And can you just remind me what we um what was our percentage last year? >> I can't remember. >> Was it just under six? >> That would almost get to Mrs. Lamb's question around appetite for increases is what what have we historically passed? >> So last year, sorry. >> Oh, 6.03. Okay. So pretty pretty close to where we are now with this big question mark over insurance. And if you I listen I I could defend this budget till the death of me, but if you think about it, we had our biggest negotiations this year. We had our teacher negotiations. If we give you a flatline of where we would, you

173know, where we would be without this, we'd be very we'd be in a really healthy place. Um, but yes, and the suggestion that I made to you about perhaps paying for $85,000 of the capital outlay, I know that they always talk to us about MBR. So, that would decrease the MBR, which is a savings to the town. These are things that you you and and you have to discuss. uh uh maximum uh my god remember um basically what you get once you give us a certain amount of money you have to keep giving us that amount of money forget what the actual word stands for myself now Chris do you remember >> like the minimum minimum budget requirement >> budget requirement I'm sorry I was doing massive reimbursement >> reimburse yeah they have to give

174it to us >> there's maximum budget >> okay >> any general comments thoughts do you do you all want to think on this and then we can come back next meeting. Is that how we want to approach it? Or any other ideas on I'm seeing some head nods. Okay. All right. We do have an action item. We need to approve the minutes and motions from our January 20th regular meeting which is reference A in your packet. Can I get a motion to approve those, please? Thank you, Mr. Schuman. Thank you, Mr. Zowski. For the second, all in favor? >> I. Anybody opposed or abstaining? Okay. Um we have no reports. I just need to figure out if we are going to meet for we have to figure out um scheduling for policy and facilities and

175technology for the 24th. >> And then can you also let me know do you want to have a regular meeting? We we'll have an update for obviously the budget of where we're at right now, but then what kind of meeting would you like for that so that you have enough time for discussion? Do you want are we going to have policy or facilities that we just need to know? >> Mrs. Camel, >> so are they they're coming back again to the next meeting? Are they going to come back? Yes, they should have they they truly believe they're going to have numbers for us. For me, I'm like skeptical of it, but if if they believe it, I want to believe it. Are you kidding? Great. So, they're going to come back with numbers for us.

176I hope that we'll have a conversation before that. But knowing the way this works, they may just be getting put putting so much pressure on these companies to get those numbers like that morning. So you may be hearing it at the same time as I'm hearing it. But yes, I could I could have them come back. I think it's important. You really can't move much until you know have that number. The the other scheduling challenge I'll just point out is that the fire commission's election is the 24th and it's only for 2 hours. It's from 6:00 to 8 which will be right in the middle of our meeting. So, um I know probably some of us around the table want to be able to vote. So, that's also some of the challenge. So, I was

177um Okay, Mrs. Russ has a question. >> If they're not prepared to come back with an actual number because they said the end of February, beginning of March, what do we do? >> Do we not have our meeting in February? Do we push it to March? >> They they told us the 24th. They told us by the 24th. We're the ones that are skeptical because that seems like a very quick turnaround for these insurance companies to evaluate our history and give us an estimate of what they think it would be. So, I think we have to trust them at their word and then if there's if it's coming close, we'll have to keep it uh we'll have to communicate that. Mr. Zowski, >> I think they could they probably can turn that around pretty quickly

178because all they're going to do is take the numbers and plug it into a program probably by Palo Alto. Um, [laughter] and that and that's just >> Yeah. Or or or Gillingham and and then that's just going to spit out the the assessment that they're going to make the decisions on. [laughter] >> Oh my god. >> So, so they will not have the state partnership plan number until March. So, we'll have other estimates, but if the other estimates are better than where we are with our current 52%, it'll at least give us an ability to start making some other decisions around the budget or at least getting closer to making some of those decisions. But I would like thoughts on what do we do about this scheduling mess we've gotten ourselves into because we have

179not had policy committee now in several months and I know we have Dr. McLean, we have policies that need to be approved. We also um had told at the facilities and asset committee meeting that Steve and I attended that we would be having our facilities and technology committee meeting on the 24th and invited them if they wanted to come and be guests and listen not participate but listen. So we've made that commitment and we have the election. So I am open to ideas on how we navigate being all of us being in multiple places at once. As far as the election, if we start at 6:15, I think I think it'd be fine. I mean, I've done that election and come here within like 10 minutes. So, you know, that goes pretty quick. But just

180as far as a start time, 6:15 might be the way to handle the election itself, but the other two meetings, could we do two meetings at once? >> Mrs. Campwell, what do you think? Well, h I guess my question is how many don't we have some do? We Last time you said we couldn't do that because we had uh overlap. >> I'm the only one that goes to both. I'll just walk back and forth >> and we can have it right here in the same room. >> So, are you So, are you saying the regular board meeting wouldn't start till 7 then >> and then I think we start at 6:45 and give ourselves 30 minutes to do those two meetings. And it also depends. I don't know how many policies we have to review.

181So, if you could give us >> There's a million. Um, >> can you prioritize? >> I wish I wish I had better news. >> Otherwise, we have to come up with a special meeting date. I mean, could we maybe do is five too early for everybody? Might be. Yeah. >> Unless we just pick another night. Like, do we have like an hour's worth of policy? Yeah, we do. I mean, we could work to I we could try and pick another night. >> We could have a special night for policy. It doesn't necessarily have to be in Well, I just feel like we're trying to cram too much into one night. >> Sorry again. I'm I'm I'm just thinking outside the box and Katherine's gonna yell at me, so I'm going to do this. Who's on

182policy? Who? Uh Lori, Donna, Katherine, and Jess >> and me. >> And you. Is it outrageous for us to have [laughter] maybe find [snorts] a time that we could meet in the morning or during the day on a different day for a special meeting? I knew Katherine was going to say no, but >> I'm sorry it's not. >> You know what I mean? Like just to try to >> figure it out. >> Can I would do whatever you guys wanted to do. >> I think that's really hard. So, I would suggest we look at other I know this is another night out for you, but I think we looked at other evenings. So, if we typically meet on Tuesdays, maybe we can just look at a different Tuesday night and have a hourlong meeting. I

183also there are a million policies and we're ready to go with them. None of them are flagrantly urgent. So, if we had to wait until March, it's not the end of the world. It really isn't because then they would they would still all get through the the is they would still all get through the process before the end of the school year which is all that really needs to happen. There's there's no legal or compliance issues that you're waiting on for us to approve. Mrs. Campwell, >> sorry I just I mean if there's no urgency, we are we have very productive policy meetings. we get a lot and this is the last bunch like so there's no legislative session that's going to come out that's going to give us more before the end of this

184school year so this is what we have to deal with I have a sense of urgency because I've got a pile this big that I want to get done but that is in my head that is not >> I have a sense of urgency because I we live on policy right it used to be policy and and when we make decisions we make decisions on those policies and we're making decisions based on the policies that are in the packet right now unless I mean in in the booklet right now I want to make decisions based on the policies that we should be making those decisions but >> I don't think there's anything that's back to us I think it's a forward pol like I don't think we're back >> you're saying there's no substantive from

185this you guys didn't behind when I got here [laughter] >> that's not going to happen >> okay so I I think we leave it at Dr. MLAN, if there's something substantive where you feel like we are either out of compliance or at risk because there's something that we are holding up the approval process on, then I think we need to schedule a special meeting. >> Does that make sense, Mr. Camp? Otherwise, I would say we can push our policy committee meeting to March and then Steve, I would agree with you if we can do a 6:15 start for facilities and technology at uh for the February 24th because we've already committed to holding that meeting and we're in that process of going through developing what that group's going to look like and how we're going

186to inform that group. I think that would be a really important thing for us to have. And then can we keep that to 30 minutes and then start our meeting at 6:45 on the 24th to allow us even an extra 15 minutes of budget conversation. >> Can you guys let us know what you want? >> Would we be having those gentlemen start again? Right. Go first. So >> I think we should invite them first because it colors the entire discussion. >> I mean yeah so they would they would start at 6:45. They'd probably start at 650 once we do our roll call and everything else, but yes. >> So, >> March February >> February February 24th. I I'll do it again. February 24th, facilities and technology 6:15 to 6:45. Board of Ed meeting 6:45 start.

187The beginning portion of the board of ed meeting is going to be the presentation from the Aera group about where they've what they have for us on information on our potential renewal options. Then I think we get into budget conversation. So I'll ask everybody else think about what was presented this evening and I think we need to come to that meeting with some of our own thoughts about where we would like to see us head. And as you're doing that thinking, I think you need to think different scenarios. If we can't get it any lower than a 50% insurance renewal, what does that look like? If we get the 25% which is currently what's presented, how do you feel about what's there? And um are you comfortable with what's presented? Do you have additional thoughts

188on what should change? If we do phenomenally well and we get a 15% insurance renewal, I don't think that will happen. Um, what would you like to see in the budget? This is, as Dr. Macker explained, this is the superintendent's proposed budget, but we have to create our own budget proposal that will go to board of finance. It's usually based off of what comes from the administration. Does that make sense? Does that work? Okay. So, are we having a real So, am I are we cutting the rest of the agenda for that evening or are we going to have a real board meeting? So, are we going to have updates from students? Are we doing celebrations? Do you want all that or is that going to be cut for the next meeting as well? >>

189I think just because this is such a difficult conversation and it will require so much time and attention. I think we and I hate to do it because I love to celebrate our students, but I think for the February meeting, we should probably not do that and make it a focused meeting on budget conversation. >> Got it. It has >> everybody okay with that. Mrs. Russ, >> does this make it a special meeting since we're changing the time? Does that mean I thought special meetings meant we have no public comment. Is that correct? >> No, we can have both. We can have them at vote. We can >> agenda. >> You could you could decide if you guys don't want public comment. I personally it's up to you. You're the board. But to me, >>

190if you have the budget on the agenda and the public wants to come public, >> right, me too. [laughter] >> That's what I think. >> No, I wouldn't limit public comment, especially in a budget meeting. But can you Lisa, can you just describe to us what does it mean if it's a special meeting if we change the time to 15 minutes earlier? >> Yep. So, oh sorry. So, all it means is that you cannot make any changes to the agenda. So, what you have what I send out that's the agenda that's it. We can't make any additions or like say oh can I add on you know this presentation you can't add anything or subtract it has to be exactly what that >> so if we put a on they have to present but if

191they don't come we could still have the meeting there's nothing we could do in that >> if they came didn't have their information you know we would just notate or I would just notate it you know did not show for meeting they will show at the uh March 10th meeting with their updated presentation So, I would mirror the agenda we did tonight to allow us to have primarily conversation about what we want to see in the proposed budget that we're going to present and even what the presentation should include so that we can think that through, including some of the comments that Dr. Macker made and um suggestions about use of surplus funds from the past. We've really got to figure out what we want to do with that. And we won't have we won't

192have the presentation for you that we're gonna have to the board of finance probably until March 10 because we have so much work to do with this. Is that okay? >> That's fine. I'm not going to give it to you until then because things could change >> and we need the we need the time. >> Chris needs to sleep. Um we need the time. >> Mr. Mr. Could we just have the students submit it in writing their updates? >> Oh, that would be nice. >> Just to hear what's going on. We can read it so they don't have to present it. Just >> submit it. And Mr. Cochel, did you get that? Just that one. >> And please tell them we're very sorry. And it isn't because we don't love their presentations. We absolutely love

193their presentations. We just want to spare them from sitting through lots of budget conversation and be respectful of their time. It makes it it this kills me because I love love the student presentations and I love when we can celebrate our students and our staff. But um I very much understand how late that would put us into the evening. >> We will celebrate them and we give them a good budget and we get what they need. [laughter] That is true. That is true. Okay. Are we we good? We have a plan now. All right. Um the topics for future agenda are included in your agenda. Um comments, updates, announcements. Anything from board members? Mr. Heisman? No. Mrs. Lamb? Shout out to the indoor track team, both boys and girls, for winning Shorelines. Congratulations, >> Mr.

194Zki. Yeah, just honestly um as the probably I think the board member who may have submitted the most questions about this budget, my a my apologies. Uh but b be my thanks. Um I really like to have a good understanding what's going on and you provided some really thorough answers even if I didn't like them. Um but I do appreciate all the efforts that the team put in on answering all these questions. Thank you, >> Mrs. Russ. Okay, I have nothing else. Mrs. Canwell, Mr. Shaman, >> do we vote on the uh facilities? We didn't. >> We vote on it. >> No, the minutes. >> Oh, the minutes. >> The minutes. We didn't skipped over that. >> Oh, good catch. Thank you. >> Oh, no. You don't vote. >> We don't vote. No, that's just

195forformational purposes. At your next meeting, facilities, you'll vote on it. That's >> the facilities committee votes on it. Got it. >> Thank you. >> Good thing Lisa is here to keep us organized. Thank god. You're not kidding. >> Okay. Um, M. Maddie, any announcement? >> Just want to say that um I really thought this was again wherever it is. I've probably put it away right here. Incredible, incredible amount of information. I appreciate it. And I also believe in as small classes as you can possibly get. And most teachers would probably say that was the number one thing they wanted. And it's so much more effective for students. >> Thank you. Okay. May I please have a motion to adjurnn? >> Oh, Mrs. Maddie. >> [laughter]