0012 on May 23rd I've asked Kate to volunteer to be the secretary um I just immediately want to pass the meeting over Dr casamera and John Spang but before I do that I just want to reiterate what I said last night I think the work that went into this the team that worked with car you man Lor that John had to do with this with Mike was absolutely incredible and mindboggling um and congratulations to all of you for putting this thing together so with that leave it up to you to start sure no I I Echo your sentiment and thank you very much uh the team has worked extensively hard on this this has been non-stop um I I would even go as far as to say that a lot of the work even started
002well before the actual physical act of of putting a list together um I think that preparing early on in in the winter for for what was to come for next year and this year helped to create pockets in our budget that allowed us to save a lot of Staff members as well so I think the plan to say to kind of land the plane and I said this the other night but to land the plane effectively this year financially also B you know benefited Us in terms of um how we were going to handle our 24 25 budget um the extra $7 million at the end didn't um didn't hurt either so um that was great but um John has done a lot of work uh on putting the all the puzzle pieces together as
003a way to articulate and explain where we stand now at this point so I'll turn it over to John thank you and thank you Rich um so what you're going to see tonight are a lot of numbers and if if you know me um Whenever there are a lot of numbers on a page um they don't they really don't stand by themselves they they need what I call a walkthrough so I'll be describing really what they are the columns and the rows and and it should begin to come to life um but before I do and and there it is I like the the phrase puzzle um I think there's some some big stories uh that emerge and particularly what what you're about to see I believe is how we've um how we've landed from
004off the fiscal cliff if remember back in January the message we said to you was uh our Co money is ending we're going to need $1 million just to keep uh what we're doing um and this is how the the story uh is finished and um well what what you'll see in a few minutes is there are there really are two big pieces of state aid that we weren't aware of uh back in January that now we are uh one is an increase in the alliance Grant it brings in $6.8 million for us next year and the second is the um it's called Municipal Revenue sharing that's the $12 million we've heard about early indications are we would get 7 million of that for the the board's budget but the uh that to the alliance
005Grant as as everybody knows that's that's the great equalizer that's that's what the state uh tries to provide they try and um close the gap between the halves and the have kns with the the alliance Grant but what they look for is uh strategies that will dramatically increase student outcomes and um they might close achievement gaps uh but they're to pursue really to pursue bold initiatives that's the whole point of it and uh we have a strategy that'll do this we we call it the academy model Academy model um and as you know um in the fall the academy model will be well underway at the high school particularly for n9th and 10th graders um even though the we're not moving into the new building for a year and what you're going to see is
006um we propose moving 58 the salaries for 58 teachers will be teaching the academy model in the fall into the alliance Grant as a strategy and the one of the re I think a reason I really like it this move is because if you remember when we were at the ad hoc committee presenting and one of the things they asked for was a a three-year budget and remember seeing that that middle year big jump and the the third year was lower uh but be it was because of the move into cars and we I think showed something like $12 million or so for Caris and um what this does is if we take almost 6 million of call Academy teachers put them into the alliance Grant then that jump that we have to take in
007the next budget is cut in half and I I think that makes a big difference as we use the uh use the alliance Grant to pay for the cost of the uh half the cost of the academy um and to be fair the the second big piece of state aid that we now know of and let let's talk about it as if it's $7 million that's um budget stabilization a and it's not in any state budget for the the following year but I would I would maintain that's because there is no budget yet for the following year next year is the second and last year of a two-year budget so why not continue that there you know anything can be put in that year so I'm not willing to say completely that's a one-ear uh
008phenomenal um because it it's not um it's not limited just to us here in danber there were uh a number of uh municipalities that got this stabilization Aid uh I believe we got the most of anybody we got a very large share but so too did some of the other places so I think there'll be reasons to continue that so that's just uh a couple comments I think to me that's the kind of the bigger picture what's going on now that wasn't there in January so let me show you what um what we've done what we proposed everything I put up here is going to be on front of you in front of you on the sheets and I thought i' just the top sheet you're familiar with that that's um that's the budget that
009we passed in February and if you remember uh we used those yellow columns uh we for while we're calling the lights on budget we um said well you know esser's expiring but that's things have been around for a while so we that middle yellow column we said that's really our current programs and services but what this chart did was it then it showed everything that was new after that we call them budget drivers but you'll recognize them the U to open the academy in April uh we also had a proposal to bring uh more bilingual par is in uh some multilanguage Learners uh some supports there um you'll see some of those things in a second but I just thought this chart would remind us how did we get to the 181 million that was
010the budget that was um submitted to the mayor submitted to the ad hog that's the one that's been uh reduced but it's really the next page underneath for I got a question what is the second line where it says the the dollar increases what is well I was just adding over um from the 150 million so in column b or the the board the the city gave us 150 million I was saying the 171 million is what we needed the difference was 21 million then if you added each budget driver going across that's what we added to bring us up to 181 so 31 million is the difference between between 181 and the 150 the 150 not the I got you okay thanks okay but if you look at the second page the next page
011down underneath for a second with this St and that's why I showed you the first page what this does these show you some of the things we we've removed to bring it down and I just they're all grayed out but I think what's important here is it shows you what Still Remains so under the plan we're showing you that middle driver to reopen the academy still targeting April 1st that money is in there um same with some technology money if remember that um those dollars were really for infrastructure to replace servers some of the um switches and things like that that remains we think that's very important and we also maintained uh the Chromebooks and teacher devices that remember did not make it into the city's capital budget this was a ad by the finance
012committee we made it at at um right before we added the budget but we we believe the Chromebooks we have we have to get on uh a regular replacement schedule they're just they're not going to last I think if we didn't put anything in there we'd really be kidding ourselves so you can see those um remain and then uh the far two columns that's what we're going to talk about what I call the operating budget reductions um you've seen you've seen and heard a little bit of that already and I've uh I've shown the the additions uh separately we'll show you each of those in a second uh it brings it down to 161 7100 uh that's higher than if we get 7 million added to the 160 but it's it's pretty close for sure
013okay so y um the capital budget for the city included the roof repair for Ellsworth but that's now getting taken care of by the state so that money we had originally submitted for technology copers to the city under the capital budget but that got put by the wayside I assume because of that grof at Ellsworth can we can can we slide it in for the copiers anyway well I um I we we can make changes to this plan sure you know this is just what we're proposing so far the ch's here but there was also the issue of copiers yeah what we uh we think we have a good solution for the copers and um um maybe this a good chance to talk about it so we had uh remember when we redid the Esser
014Grant adjustment in order to provide yes a grant to provide some money to balance the budget this year remember I think I called it a deficit plan or something but as part of that was $380,000 we asked the state if we could move into copers and they said yes oh okay and what we're talking about with our copier supplier is a plan where we would use erer money now get those orders buy some and then for a couple others we' leas purch but we would not have to make a payment for the next 14 months so we could bring in the new machines but we wouldn't have to use this budget this budget's under enough pressure you'll see thank you sorry about that I just didn't wouldn't forget right for sure okay um we should
015probably do a memo on that see all right so here's uh if you look at the next chart the big chart um there's a lot of things going on in the page um up in the box I've repeated uh what the city council has already uh approved for us what we expect uh to come in at their next meeting the 7 million I just thought it was good to have that on the page uh but I want to turn you a little bit to the right and I want to talk about the columns under the million so that I called it Board of Ed that's the same number you saw on the first page that's that's the could call it the adopted budget so far um we haven't made any changes to that but then
016if you remember the sheet I just showed up with the gray boxes what what you see right under that is the money that was there you can trace it to the first sheet I'm taking those out of the 181 so the the high school overcrowding driver so why are you taking that out well you're going to hear from Cara in a moment as to what the plan we have to put things back in there and how we plan to do things uh the Improvement to add all of the Paras I think it if we added 60 pars or something in the plan um that comes out given the the situation the Bilal staff and the multilanguage Learners um a security driver the special ed driver those I took out simply because they were drivers but
017um were I don't think that's a cup I know that's not a cup we can live with um so we're going to have to amend that with something else um but let let me keep going and show you um the real meat of the change are down in these next uh five line items and you you saw a little of that so far and the this I'm labeling them Staffing changes and eliminations and they were in here for you I'm showing them in the five original categories that were in some of the slides that we've shown um later and I think as we maybe go in front of the council or anyone else maybe the full board um we're collapsing some of these in into more general terms but I think for you I want
018you to see the the granular part of it the the transfers to DHS it's a little complicated but six of the staff members whose positions are being eliminated uh are being uh transferred into the high school uh because um well be that's part of the overall plan you've heard of that we saving jobs that's that's a number one goal um the reason that's a a budget uh reduction uh is because the positions that they're leaving behind are going away I think they're three or four different positions uh for those six people but as they go into the scho the old jobs get cut taken out of the budget so we'll we eliminate those positions $268,000 less is needed okay so John can I clarify that the positions that they're taking positions that were already in
019the budget no they're going to be in the new driver you'll see you'll see in a minute um okay the duplicates um we took a did another fine I don't what to call it but when we went back into the budget line by line we found uh three people who were budgeted twice and one person was even budgeted three times so only only getting paid once yeah only getting paid once yeah I'm not not sure how that happened but you don't need that so that that's an easy thing to take out $400,000 that included their benefits When we budgeted someone the benefits Go With It uh the resignations um those are what they are I think you you've seen some of that I'm not going to go into that um in detail but it's primary
020you know we always have turnover attrition people leaving and just to if I could just clarify that's resignations is kind of a a big lump some it's resigned retired redone redone or eliminated Physicians so it's a big bucket of staff that have retired staff that you know when they left the position we said we're just going to close that up um so that just it's not all resignations per se it's a big bucket of of of a about 50 people or so that uh have either resigned retired or we've eliminated the position that was open uh RF or riff uh stands for reduction in force and those are positions that we've removed um you've heard uh the superintendent talk about the shift in enrollment that we're experiencing uh we believe there'll be fewer Elementary sections
021next year uh we won't need need those um you'll find they're counted there as well as some other um really austerity measures that we have taken to you know to live within our means know any other way to describe it but um there are positions that we're going to do without the people who are in those uh have been offered other other slots so that again that was that was our one of our main strategies here as we lowered it excuse me John yep I just have a petty Point could you just put brackets under you next to Rift to what the acronym stand stands for I common to your community but to the outside world could be rest in peace or something like that that's what I was thinking okay um the family liaison
022uh that very difficult U reduction to make they're very useful but uh when you have to make these decisions that was one that that we made uh 571 th000 so those all add up to $ 77.5 million uh so I did the I put the subtotal up there you can see taking the drivers out was $6 million but then right below that here here's really the C change as I'll call it the teachers who will be teaching um in the academy model um they've been identified by the high school uh we went in looked at uh who they were what they were earning what their benefits were it adds to $5.6 million and this these monies get taken out of the operating budget and the staff continues what they're paid out of a higher Alliance
023Grant it's one of the big changes yes just one step back to the family Liaisons I thought that was covered under the leap Grant it is I'm going to get to that in a second oh sorry yeah some of the you know um when I started looking at it it it it it dawned on me you know um it seemed that over the years as we've gotten grant money we've added things that maybe beyond the basics some of the positions that we wanted to have that weren't typical classroom teachers they were paid with grants so as we get back to basics and classroom teachers and kids in teach adults in front of kids and we say okay we just can't afford that anymore it's no surprise that that's where we found the people budgeted that's
024how they that's how we afforded them in the first place but we we have some ideas that's coming up I'll show you just can yeah just like you to to mention that the the academy shift the staff of the reduction of 5.6 mil is moving to Alliance so therefore later on John will show you what came out of alliance in order to do this but there is a political benefit that I think we should mention here is that this $6 million helps the city taxpayers because the alliance money is not funded by the appropriation of the the taxpayers of Danbury is funded by the state so I I think that shows that again to what we're doing with this plan in addition to saving pink slips right also considers the consideration for the taxpayer with
025Danbury is to utilize our money most effectively uh to to that the other question somebody will ask we talked about because in kosher to put this in there but we'll say you know we'll leave that up to you right so so one of the things is we're going to be working with the state to make sure that we can in fact make this move um it would be considered a old reform Initiative for sure but it does involve existing staff and so we have to be careful not to um to stay within the compliance guidelines of of of Grants uh when when shifting staff from general fund to to the other um one can make a definite argument that if we hadn't done this we would be losing potentially a lot of Staff members and
026so therefore it would qualify but um to be to be safe to be sure we'll we'll get some pre-authorization from the state to make sure that this is in act a viable move um and you know one way or another and if it isn't then we would find other staff that qualify and we would swap we would just swap the groups out so um there's no harm in in at least trying but as a strategy I think it would qualify because these two groups would be also the the groups I say two groups um these this teacher group would be um the group that you would pick up from Denbury high school and put over on the ctis at the ctis building so um it shouldn't qualify and they're actually physically moving location so um
027we'll get back to you on that but I'm pretty sure it should it should app sorry John question um one of the conversations we had is that the alliance funds are only going to grow through next year yes so in terms of long-term strategy what's on the horizon for like we we haven't gotten there yet I'm sure we deing with this but I'm just thinking like we take a and Sh them in there as those groups bargain and salaries increase that may not be may not be able to sustain themselves right so so we've carved some money out of Alliance so through the reductions um you know when you add up where all those reductions where they live where those where those positions live um and that was kind of the digging in work right
028so if we're reducing these 48 positions 16 of them are in Alliance four of them are in title one three uh 13 are in general fund and a few other grants and so what you're doing is you're creating Pockets you're pulling creating pockets of room in those grants with which to reprogram and so so we created a pocket and Alliance so that pocket is kind of still there but in addition now we're getting this additional infusion where it rolls up and so we we haven't outgrown the pocket we still have some pocket after putting this group in and John will'll get to that number but at the same time um this is in my opinion this has got to be it like like this is it and because the next year we'll get a bump
029like another 5 million but we don't want to we don't want to use that 5 million for staff the next year so this really has to be sort of the floor of of where we sto doing then we use the 5 million um in Pro program uh programmable onetime expenses so you can put your Chromebooks in there every year you know you put your other things in there so as that number increases I also do believe because I'm doing a little homework on um and P pushing some buttons on what's going to happen all these Alliance districts when this Taps out are we going to get cost of living increases um you know is there some sort of guarantee I don't think we're expecting any large infusions but are we at least going to keep
030up with inflation and things and so there's some some feedback that that is going to be indeed the case but um I'll believe when I see it and I'll feel better when I see it okay there was a lot of discussion around this whole whole concept of the alliance John has schedules I believe has to do reconciliation with the alliance money so we were very aware not to bump it up so that you know we would have no money yeah we have wiggle room in there for the you know potential increases in cost but car's right I think this is the last time that we can rob Peter to pay pa for this particular aspect I guess what I'm trying to when we're looking longterm ultimately is our goal is is our goal going to
031be bringing those salaries back into know the main op bud that's they can I mean they can be I mean over time if you know if we continue to partner in the right way and we continue to advocacy at the state level and and we're work continue to work with the city um we'll slowly dig out of this I hope and so that it becomes less and less of of an issue but there's you know it's not just the there's you know the resource issue is is is a real one as well where you know we talked about textbooks and things that are just basic supplies that we just can't have a hard time keeping up with here um the pandemic helped us um catch up but now we're going to be back to scrambling
032again yeah will this be a hiring freeze then for the year um so we we yeah we're going to stay within our our limits the only exception would be in a case where uh special ation as always and then of course enrollment so we usually have to you know if we get a surge um or you know one of the elementary schools goes you know way over um we we're usually pretty good at Distributing students across schools we'll have sister AR sister School arrangements so one school fills up we'll we'll bus them um but then sometimes the busing and you have to add another bus $70,000 to the bus so generally those are the only ads we would make is if they were driven by by no other choice kind of ads but yes and
033key to you point if you extended out any of the the the alliance knowing it's going to be capped and fixed at some point in time to to your point we may have to adjust some of the costs that become extra in the alliance course there's no funding back into someplace else but you know that's a little bit down the road I think right now we have to deal with what we're faced with now and like always hope for the best you know and going forward thank you I'm going to uh excuse me excuse before you move on I just saw I might I know we don't have minutes so I just want to ask question might talk about later where are we as a as far as request that we put City [Music] for
034so there's y um there's a milli doll um ask still in in front of the city council we haven't pulled that back um I think if it were to be pulled back that would be a board action we haven't brought that to you uh we wanted to wait uh through next week and take a look okay uh because if we did need some of that money that would be at the June city council meeting it doesn't look like we will um but if we didn't have to make the decision why make it keep it for ourselves so um it may may just expire thank you for bringing that back to my thank you okay you said next week is so that we review the end of the May financial situation so in a better position
035to see whether we're going to be black or red um on on the list here in the column uh the next section was was called ads to the board budget I'm going to defer that I just have two pages more I want to walk you through they're much faster um car's going to um talk about that um and then at the very bottom U I think you know we've had discussions with sta a bus contractor and it's not uncommon for a a bus contractor to trade um what we' call a 0% increase in exchange for more years in their contract so we we have a verbal uh agreement to do with them we want to bring it back to the U finance committee before it comes to the board but it would involve um a
036new uh bus contract um we think we they've done a good job having enough drivers we haven't had they've done a good job with safety um there's no I I don't see a reason not to right now so but we'll work that up through the board that would mean the $350,000 of increases next year we'd wipe those out and bring them down to zero so and also Mrs Cooper we were going to add that to tonight's agenda but after thinking about it it would have made the evening too long and this was complex so what I'm thinking is before June 18th is to have another Finance meeting because there's a half a dozen items of which this is one of them that I'd like to discuss independently of the financial statements okay so it we
037absorb the information slowly but methodically rather than Ram it into to one night which becomes overwhelming okay let's do the next page um what you will see there this is the uh this is to your question Kaden and as Dr casmiro mentioned just looks like a bunch of numbers but what it is um when we began the reductions in force as theres was bringing up um some of those cuts were people that were in Grants and you can see exactly how much that was in that box on the right so there was 1.6 million of those cuts uh were people in the alliance Grant now I'll talk a second about the pocket that Dr casemiro was mentioned but there were their positions in the title one Grant that's where the family Liaisons were so as
038you remove those that money comes out some people in the priority schools the title three the leap Grant when you add those all across 2.8 million of the 7.5 were people in Grants so here's where the work um where the work gets real important the rest of the cuts are in that First Column 4.7 million some are resignation some are reductions and force this is where we collapse those sections um so you don't see family Liaisons shown separately but they're in one of these two but 2.8 million came out of Grants so what we have to do the next if if everyone agrees to this the next piece of work will be Define positions in the school budget and take them out lowers the budget that colum we just went through and put those into
039these grants where the pockets I like that word have just been created it takes the burden off the general funds we're sliding them into grant eligible positions we just have to make sure that the strategies align and the grant parameters are that's just the summer work no that's heading into next year yeah heading into next year's budget that's what we're going to do yes so as these Grants open back up for 2425 so right now we're at tail end of closing out the fiscal year but as these open up that's where we'll we'll work the during the summer to identify the staff identify the strategy the appropriateness of the of a of the shift and then again that will open up the general fund relieve the general fund of of those numbers and the continuity
040of the funding in these grants with amount where they should stay yeah they should stay from time to time look obviously we know Alliance is increasing title one is a you know it's a it fluctuates a little bit but it's not but enough to cover it it'll be enough we'll get at least what's there um you know that we that we normally have and if not a tiny bit more because our enrollment keeps going it's when our enrollment retracts that's you know our enrollment ever retracted we have so yes sorry mind if I just add a little bit about the Le Grant because that is one exception to what you just shared that is a grant that we had received um about $500,000 initially the projected number actually just came in this week it'll be
041273 $273,000 it is not yet available to apply for um but that is why you saw the reduction in our family lead on um we were able to support you know close to 15 under the 500,000 and we can do about seven under the 270 gr um so a great resour to our district and we are super thankful for those funds um you know we could always use more like we could in other GRS um but that is the primary reason for the reduction that you saw there not the effectiveness but just the funding that it that was that was a position that did not exist prior to co um and due to the co relief money through the Le Grant um we've been able to to do that thank you clarify forgot about was
042that exclusively through the we grant that those positions were from exclusively through well should at one point in time we we had a couple that we were a we couldn't get them all in L so we found a way to pay for a title one I don't a couple we had we had a lot we started off with full a full compliment of them then we had a couple of resignations so we we were the number that we actually ended up with was like around 14 I think we started around 20 um and so we had some in we had half of them in at least half of them in leap and then we had we had another number in titled one so so between leak title one and I think a few ended up
043maybe in general fund somewhere uh through the rehiring process they get slotted in a different place um so it's a matter of going back and cherry picking where they are all at but that money then becomes available and it's an it's an unusual Grant and that the spend down date is by December 31st um so it kind of runs like mid year you know what I mean it runs the calendar year versus the school year um so we will carry over about $100,000 that we'll spend in the fall payroll and then apply for the new Grant which will go through December the following Okay the reason I'm asking this is I'm looking back at the third page here and there's a notation next to the on for $570,000 right which is a little bit more
044than what was covered by that oh yeah if I understand so if I understand correctly now you're saying that those positions were housed mainly in the leap gr but there were a few that were in potentially in the general fund and some that were in titled one and Grant was higher initially and now it is down it's we're in our third iteration of the Le Grant I want to say the first time we got it off the top I had it was close to seven didn't it's that stev yeah well the I'm not sure actually and the only reason why I say that I participated in a call on Monday with the state and they've actually reduced the fun I think what they're trying to do is get districts up and running and andure up
045practices and then pull that they're adding I think it's another 20 um so I think it's the same pot of money that's being spread thinner so maybe we'll still get it they they'll all have homes though theyve been offered other pair of professional jobs and we had many of them were bilingual as well which is a huge asset and so we have open and available ESL bilingual partions so they've been offered to many of them to slide over so those don't then it's wonderful because they've already built relationships in the district and it's great makes budget so complex is that we have so many I look at it like when into Grand Central Terminal you come in on two tracks it's one out and one in when you hit the terminal and underneath it it's
046100 different tracks going in four or five different stories there it's like our budget here you've got so many sources of revenue that you're taking at this particular Point part of the funding putting it here wherever you could you know manage toze it's extensive um and you know the urban and Alliance districts in particular have to deal with you know grading 50 different funding streams and so when you have a hiccup like this um it's very complex unring that putting it back together and then and then what happened just to go off when you had 700,000 we comfortably funded at least one leis on for each building we went down to five we're like we can piece me this together now you're down to Mid you know mid twos um and you need to make
047the reductions otherwise you're going to have to pay out of General funds which we just don't have I'm going to do one more page and then turn it over to the superintendent but it's the alliance reconciliation um rich I don't know if I said to you but Rich has thought this would be a good idea to do it and I found it very useful after I did it I mentioned it to um Dr casemiro so uh quickly uh what you see in blue is is what's going on this year it's a $22.5 million Grant um I broke it down into three categories uh using your label brid uses of funds um this is what we're paying now in salaries benefits and programs and services that's an important number to keep in mind um I'll show
048you in a second those are all the other things uh Power School is in there there's technology uh so many initiatives impr are in there it's it's it's great and then what I show is how that uh entire Grant is going up by 7 million next year it's different from the 6.8 you heard me talk about you'll see that in a second so what the state is approving for next year is down at the bottom there 29 m562 835 so if you go over to the yellow and you say well how are you going to spend that with all of these mov moving Parts these trains coming into the station um you can see that the very first thing is really um adding more capacity carage term adding a pocket remember the page I showed
049you right before by making some Cuts there's 1.6 million of capacity that we're going to have that we we don't have right now so that you you add into your what you have but to get the cut in the operating budget to get that 181 down to make those reductions remember to make that 7.5 million that I showed you uh we have to take people out of the budget exactly to Teresa's point and put them into the alliance Grant those we haven't identified who's there yet but that becomes a wash as far as the grant is concerned so I just want I call them replacement staff it's they're not replacing anybody there are people that are here now but um they're they're replacing their their spot in the gr that replacing the money so to
050speak then what I did was I took the salaries this year and projected them up into next year it goes up from 15 million to 16 and that's Kate you were saying that you know we need these monies keep going up this shows you how much it is this year benefits will be higher um but look there at the programs and services that number actually comes out more than we have this year and this why I found this useful rich is I thought we would have less money after all of this to do things but we have a little more than we did so it it worked out um what I also showed there I don't want to get too off the point the alliance Grant itself has a car Val I'll call it um
051the diversity in hiring Grant itself you have to use your alliance money for that they make it a separate Grant I should say have to you it's great to have but that's why you're you see me saying we're adding 7 million but there's really only 6.8 of new money coming in because that's that's spoken for but to to show everything they needed in there and then you could see uh I just call it the Academy of 5.6 million being used next year in the alliance and this is where that first point comes into play The Alliance is going up we're putting Academy money in not only does it help this year with the budget cut but it helps with that future three-year budget it brings that second year down that's that's again why I like
052it and so you can see the bottom there adds up but it's very different picture next year than this year there a lot more things going on so I thought that was a good tion and the other point is I don't think at least in the history that I've been on the board that we've ever had any type of discussion or analysis as to what went into alliance it was always in terms of I I I was here when we first got the funding for Alliance so if we got 500,000 went in and and then it built up to what it is today with monies going in and out depending on who the director wasn't superintendent but this is the first attempt that we have to know what's in there and my suggestion to John
053is in the future hopefully next year is that in addition to the operating budget that we have similar budget for Alliance so that it becomes something that we could monitor as well and have a handle on on our uh and our our funding sources so we're getting a lot closer to understanding you know what is involved in in a lot of the numbers other than the operation budet and we'll and we'll continue that I mean I think it's it's good for everybody to know you know I think there was a you know my I think I said this at the ad hoc that that was been a kind of a pet peeve of mine is that people really didn't understand Alliance and so there's an assumption that's this kind of free credit card that the
054district gets and it's in some ways it is our credit card but but that um there are parameters around what it's supposed to be used for and you know we have we do have a heavy operational Focus um I think it's also worth noting is to give an explanation as to globally what ECS means today what it did 3 four years years ago when we thought of ECS is one funding stream and Alliance is another and then a couple of years ago I guess they lumped everything together in terms of ECS but basically the increases or Alliance well yes and no so that so the the ECS is um you know obviously the the town share Alliance is supposed to sit on top of that so it is a form of ECS but it's supposed
055to sit on top of so it's supplemental to um um because we are an alliance we are designated as an alliance District it was much easier when it came directly to us to be oh the whole right so now we have to wrestle we have to wrestle to get our you know to get the sh that's what I was getting out is to parcel out the two St and I think I think would be highly beneficial it's just my recommendation that we bring in then Erica Haynes from the Connecticut Finance project to speak with the board I think it'd be highly educational for everybody every time I listen to her I learn something more um and it really helps it helps us to formulate The Voice we need to advocate for the things that we
056should be getting that we may or may not even know that we're entitled to um and I just think it's something that um you know we would want to consider in the future's name Erica haes from the Connecticut Finance project like she had mentioned to me in one of my conversations that she's amazing she is it's a small amount of money but it she informed me that effective October hers you get the funding Rel to the the enrollment on that date but then subsequently during the course of the Year there were different points at which the the enrollment let's say increases in our case here but there's additional funding that's applicable to to that correct and and but it comes in part of the next year but we should be entitled to get it you
057know as part of the current year yeah so it it's it's uh it helps every it helps um do you want to show some of the ads now switch a little bit oh sure I can I can speak to um just the ads so just so there's no confusion you know on the first page that John that John showed that was our original kind of planogram if you will of how we arrived at our budget numbers and in there you saw the DHS overcrowding and what that what that was for was the you know the enrollment numbers the enrollment Staffing that that um Dan would need um among other things um the instruction Improvement security technology MLL support staff and so while John kind of pulled those categories out of the budget if he showed
058you that on the largest page there with the red you know the less the drivers at the top where it says uh Boe February on the right hand side um it's not that we eliminated those it's really that we Cherry Picked and repackaged and reclassified put positions and things from those drivers so the driver the entire driver themselves didn't rame however um we did have add-ons at the bottom so beyond the lights on budget which we needed to handle our enrollment and the original for the original Quest we had 3, 195,000 um and change there and so what those were and before the 7 million fusion um the anticipation of that money we were really only able to add about two teachers to the high school level uh which was concerning because that was not
059going to meet their needs um so um with the 7 million um and we'll talk about how we how that was broken up to a third third and third we'll get to that we were able to fund some of the staff um not all of the staff not fully but um a good portion of Staff where F be okay up there um in terms of his uh the course request an Ela three science teachers a math teacher the bilingual Paris which were part of the original request um we couldn't get them the three safety Advocates but we'll get him one additional safety Advocate um the assistant um for the Academy the teaching grade five at Ellsworth Avenue we our enrollment increased at Ellsworth um Elementary Bilal pairs there are two places in the district that
060are legally required to have bilingual PA as a result of numbers and Pockets that have grown um and then we have a couple of um we have a tech Aid position that needed to be filled and a map position at Region Endeavor um in addition to that um we had some program changes where certification changed so it's not really an ad it's really more of a changing of position so we eliminated some at the elementary but then we repl them here with different certifications um and then some other adjustments that we put in there were around Subs um having a few extra building Subs to especially beginning of the school year I think I reiterated a couple times that I'm a little nervous about the start of the school year and having the appropriate Staffing
061so we'll have uh some funding for building Subs to make sure that our classrooms are covered and across the district as we settle into this new um into our new Staffing uh and then we had some a little bit of funding in there for the teacher stiens um to that was that K12 initiative to have a some teacher leaders across the 12 in each of the each of the buildings so um not necessarily knew other than what the board was mainly aware of in terms of the staffing needs but Cherry Picked from those columns um in individual positions that we collapsed so not the whole thing of course but about 3 million of that Restorations the Restorations okay so on the to the last page very last P yeah the very last page very last
062page so we've been asked how how are you using that $7 million and I think you know we wanted to be very careful that we weren't heading into another um use of not sizable amount of money to float staff that we couldn't afford the very next year so we wanted to be very considerate about using that funding in a way that met the kind of the the request of hey save as many jobs as you can but also use it responsibly and so the planed Restorations if you remember we had um some staffing that were originally on the proposed cut list um we had technology needs and of course we have um staff these so this basically breaks out to not quite a pretty third third and a third but pretty pretty close to that
063so if you look at the um the top um top third of the planed Restorations we about 37.8% or 2.6 million to replace some of the technology and infrastructure so that's that 785 so that's how we're going to that's how we achieve that number is by using the 7 million and then the teacher devices that um John referenced before which are also part of the original driver we're going to offset that cost with 7 million these are onetime non-staff Staffing funds so the the the majority of the of the group is in this area of non Staffing and under the technology bucket and so the next third if you will is really around the instructional Improvement and so this is where how we were able to provide some of the Staffing the additional Staffing uh
064that is needed at the at the at DHS um I would say it's not necessarily west campus but but more but more related to the high school so probably just make that edit John on West Campus it's really just DHS um and that we had added about $590,000 there um there were some U John had mentioned before that we had an adjustment that was needed for the as magnet school so that's kind of a one- time cost we hope um we think that that was a good use of that um I'm sorry the enrollment is down below I jumped ahead of myself John so we had um the the GSS campus is the the move to yeah the Boe move that over there I'm so sorry and then the last one was was actually the
065enrollment which is the 1.3 um we the last third which is 31 .7% of the money or about 2.2 million is where we restored the position of a media specialist across the district where we originally had previously cut um along with six instructional coaches so we were able to return those positions back into our staffing um we are still obviously concerned about that for the next year just as vulnerable um but but overall we have you know think that we have a plan here to address not using the entirety of the of the $7 million for Staffing um that we you know for the 25 26 school year that was going to be problematic yes I understand you're also going to cut the uh security uh security head position and can you give us uh
066a listing of the duties that came with it and who's going to get it yes so Mike Mike can probably speak to this best but we're consolidating some of those roles and responsibility Mike is going to pick up some um and then we have a lead security Advocate safety Advocate I should say that will pick up some and then some of the keying and the the carding and um sort of technical aspects of the work will be will be kind of divvied up amongst several people so I don't know if this I covered everything M but that's most of it and then there's certain things like ordering uniforms things like that that I'll I'll absorb so might as well take on Hing yeah iring as well um yeah you know as we've created this sort
067of reor and we're kind of tucking things in in different spaces just absorbing them as long as something gets dropped no it's always a concern you know safety is number one and you know we'll we'll have to we're going to live with this for a while there's certainly other areas that we haven't back filled we have tons of positions that we're not backfilling and so a lot of the work will be to um we're we're kind of Waiting to Exhale a little bit here tough and I feel to see where all this let lands get through this process determine our budget and then this summer will be to really sit back and say this is what we've done now how are we going to how would we move forward and open up the school year
068and make sure that everything that needs to happen happen so there's a lot of work ahead with that but um safety is number one and i' like to call your attention to the last three items on the schedule which are basically salary items so they're not one time spending and and again we have to be aware of the criticism that we we took relative to the eser monies in applying salaries to onetime monies we're again doing a similar thing with a little bit more understanding as to us being able to support it in the Future car from saying things that are wrong just let me know but the the three items that we have on the bottom best case scenario we we feel we may be able to to uh compensate for that money next
069year in other ways to Comm in to to replace uh to add to to the reoccurring salaries any event that doesn't then I asked Cara the question the people that were hired and I think she said the last two buckets or whatever they were informed that there may be a possibility that the job doesn't exist the following year so people took the positions with an understanding as to what's happened the most critical salary we need is the one above it and that we feel worst case scenario could pretty much be absorbed in the overall scheme of our budgets uh that that we're dealing with so we're doing something that we're accused before of doing but I think we're doing it a little bit more pertinently with our eyes open as to to have understanding as
070to how we're going to cope with that that differential if it's a worst case scenario right yeah because I I truly feel that's going to be a criticism particularly on the council they they were very some people were you know adamit that that we use the onetime funding we're doing again although in this case here we're probably get applo because we save so many jobs but after that applo where down the very next day they going to shoot you in a court to say that but you did the same thing again so so can I ask a question then to follow up on that we're looking at about 3 and a half million in positions is that right so when we talk about the alliance funding that's going to be bumped up next year conceivably
071we could be having this conversation again of restructuring those positions and so that was you know that was a you know met with with the staff that was involved in the original proposed reduction you know we very happy to be able to get back on to a zoom with that group and say you know we had a last minute Hail Mary here with some funding but but please know that you know we're right back in the same position next year and so I think people are well aware that the positions that were on the Block this year will be the same ones that will likely be on the block again next year so at least there's some information there and um you know unfortunately it scares you know this scares people off right so that
072was you and you heard that information um you're likely out there right now looking for a different different job you know you're giving yourself the grace of the year to find something different so you know that's that's a sad thing but at the same time like we will likely not be backfilling some positions if they you know folks do do that um so you know it is it is what it is um it's the enrollment you know we those are those are numbers that somehow some way we have to we'll have to cut other things but to preserve the classroom teacher in front of the in front of the students um and that and to make sure that the supervision is adequate is really important so um you know by funding some of that now
073it helps to take the bite out of the funding for 25 to 26 so you know if we hadn't done some of this and I I do I feel confident that there are lots of people working um on our behalf right now to to to make some of the funding that would come to us more permanent so I do feel good about that um we're certainly working very hard and I'll continue to work hard on that on that front as well so and getting creative you know one of the ways to when we got this Congressional appropriation and we're starting to plan out we'll talk about this during the curriculum committee um a lot of the workers around Academy and the programming um How could you use some of the the funding there to to
074to offset some of the stff that might have lost at least for another year or two so using grants that come in and continually to to kind of um pursue grants at a rigorous Pace to help with the problem until the city can help help us catch up to a more sustainable level is there any way we can do a three or five year projection we'll get there yes we we have one and and with this I think it's it's out of date now it's time for another one yeah that's going to be part of the project when the budget put together to reflect the 167 that will accompany with the both thee budget so we can talk to to that there's two other points here I asked Cara to just be aware of the
075a question indicating the initial difference after we presented the 181 and got the appropriation is is the publicity got of the 100 people being laid off Etc so maybe at some point you could indicate some sort of a breakdown as being slips as to how many people were in a budget that were just positioned so that there's an understanding yeah just mean for the record we had about 50 of the positions that we that we closed that were either resignations or or retirements or open positions and there was another 48 that were actual reductions so people that were in position that were reduced and then they were able to take other open positions in the district so we have only two true layoffs um out of all of those positions so it's 50 positions closed
07648 people in the in other positions reduced and only two true two true layoffs I think that's an important recap as well as the other question I ask you to do is as you did with the ad hoc that very last page sort of gave you the academy word where it was the impact I my feeling is that this is something that it's more complicated the most complicated reconciliation if is would you know the difference or reconciliation between appropriation and the board budget but people have to understand that this is going to impact education all right that we cannot continue to go on and have people the next day say oh you know they they made it work we gave them this money and whatever their thoughts are and you know it's going to be
077back to normal we're going to get great great scores Etc I think there has to be a reality check Dr casm that with these reductions there's going to be some sort of impact on the quality of education and that I look at at it is that we use this year as a building block saying that you know this is it we are down to the foundation you know and and even below the foundation and from here we've got to now restore and that's where a threeyear or multi-year budget come in we then have to show that this is what we're looking to project to move this District ahead in the future and then advocate for those funds we we can no longer tolerate the differential between what we come up with and what the Appropriations
078are so it's a whole different concept and I think your explanation to the public and making them aware as to what's going to happen I I think gives them a reality check I I would agree and and I also believe that the the multi-year budget um helps to tell that story it helps it gives people plenty of notice to help prepare for this it's really about creating that the transparency around what the needs are so that we're not in a you know a an April May holy cow situation every year where um that you know that those the thought process the way that Capital money is used the way that um that the city is interpreting the fundings that they're receiving and identifying the projects where that money may go to so we're not included
079in that mix because there's not a transparency around the need and that we're you know we have to continue to keep the um to buzz in the air um to let folks know what what it is that we need because I do think um I saw a lot of of you know eyes opened up I think in this in this last last attempt to to communicate our story um and I just think it's a matter of it's a matter of transparency communication so um you know he certainly do that I also feel good that the member of one of the um ad hoc committees reached out to begin to set up uh to have a small group to start to meet to articulate those what is it that you're going to need in the next
080year or too so I feel good about that um that hasn't necessarily happened in the past so um so yeah I think um I think it's really about the communication piece telling the story and and having a Some solid numbers for people to work with that they can the dialogue like you said very very quickly as soon as we redo this at the board meeting It's Quickly after is is to with the council so that it we start the flow of information currently and not waiting for the last you know the 11th hour we cannot continue to do things in in April and then invent the wheels so this presentation should be made to whomever committees or whatever body they they want so that we can follow up and tell them basically what we've done
081as well as what the impact is and then work together to move ahead as as basically a team I think they were very clear at last that they you know two councilman plus number they're very willing to work with this Administration and the suggestion was we going to look at starting talking about the bu in September and that was that was came so I [Music] think if we only have two lay off we only have two lay of all this been going through as Poli how many open positions and you know are they certified open positions we have quite a few we have quite a few so um so that's was 50 positions that we closed um are kind of here in this bucket but then there's a whole another list of open positions so
082um we're getting a lot of resignations right now okay um normally we get them this time of year retirements resignations um I think we'll probably see a few more than we're than we're used to seeing as a result I mean this is this scares folks off um and so making sure that um you know we we continue to fill those open positions over the summer is a priority so that we you know we're hiring and onboarding and making feel making staff feel connected to to our school system immediately when they when they come to us that we can we can hold them here so we do have a lot of open positions and uh most of those are now are posted there'll be a few more things going up um over the next couple of
083weeks okay so there's not but you there's a number and my final question as I was looking on this last I think it's page number okay as we get go all the way down to the bottom K since January 2022 and we have assistant IT director and I'm going to know how many people cuz this under technology how many people are structured under technology and if we we havek I call Gina is the overall director and I know bar works on technology how many people are in that group so now you going to bring in another assistant IT director to assist grou so so this the this is really the position that um I don't know if you remember who La was but he was our network was a network administrator security network security yes
084so he when he vacated um he left he left us for position um similar position making three four times more um this the position itself was severely um not appropriately salaried for the work um so when we went to reapply when we went to kind of re the position again um in particularly in light of our large security breach that we had over the summer um we booked up this position and gave it a title so they become more attractive and added a little more responsibility to it as far as Barb Barb Sao Barb Barb's position is um what what's her latest Google specialist she's Google specialist and she has a few others but she's not necessarily she's not a director she's not an administrator she's more of a technology specialist as opposed to a
085management um Personnel I add I just think it's important to so Barb tends to focus a lot on our staff right so anytime someone's hired they need credential to get in they need a computer set up they need access and log into a multitude of platforms um she also runs like um Security checks on our system those types of things and as we've moved into a very digital world every single program that we launch has some type of digital component so when you figure 12,000 students even if we're doing it at one grade level right a thousand students they need usernames they need logins they need you know software downloaded and so we are finding that the the student we've been okay to staff the adult piece even as we've grown but it's really the
086student centered work we do so much digital platform and learning right now we're doing our state assessment for example the browser has to be personally downloaded on every single student device before they can take the test and so those are the types of things just to give one little example that it it that department I will tell you is in my personal way under s for that the needs of our kids and our adult Learners so again you don't number yeah we could get that to you and just to clarify this is not a new this is not a new person it's a um it's a it's a salary adjustment on the person that that left so so that we can hire someone people more willing to stay and take on the responsibilities of measure
087with the with the salary five people I think yeah I think we only have like five people it outside of the tax out tax of the building tax the building and I put my last com and for me and I know I've been around a long time but I think for us to as board members the information that we receive when come to committee meetings and just like this information when we sit and talk and decide that we want to support U the superintendent budget we don't understand all the pieces that go into and the job that people do to make on B those position and sometimes that get caught up into our attitudes and how we think and about so I just I I think the questions are helpful to help describe like you
088know because we live in it so sometimes we just assume right that that people know and understand I did count up Miss Cooper the openings we currently have 52 certified teacher openings in the district um now I'm sure as I say that it will adjust and change um as hiring reports are coming inations are coming in but around the low 50 gu right now are there any other questions that board members would have um just a question before I call motion to recommend it to the full board when we present this to the full board I had asked them to come tonight so that we save time and have more conversation and more time to do it so unfortunately it didn't work out at the board meeting are we going to reiterate all this in
089detail again I H for um I I just leave it up to to you for the presentation um as to you could you could certainly walk through walk through it again and I think it's probably needed this has been big big budget years a lot of pressure on this I think it's important everybody understands it I think it' be important to at least to to go through it because we could just indicate briefly a summary of the minutes and stuff like that but this is too complicated and I say it's really a piece of art and I think people have to understand it and appreciate the work that went into it and uh so I it's also important for all of our conversations going right if folks don't understand the foundation this year when we
090have this conversation next year it's just sometimes that's not a fact or reality though question this is a favor will you get big spreadsheets like this can you do it with the grid I have a hard time going across yes thank you me too thank you it's getting harder and harder last to make a motion that the finance committee agreed to recommend this to the C board at the next meeting for adoption second all favor I I and with that final statement would be great great job and I thank you very much for your your time and your presentation it was extremely coherent and and and understandable put it that way that it was just for such a complex I remember you know when we first started it gave me a headache to see oh
091we have a headache but it just boiled down to something that is is and I think the important thing we tried to do was to keep things in the same format that we originally were presented so that the original budget of the 181 million you know had this chart with the what I call the storyline on it and I said continue that with the reduction so that there's a continuity um I've always felt that in in the past you know we we've changed the formats and that it led to a lot of confusion perhaps thisin so um I think we're doing a whole lot better to to I want to say thank you all I appreciate your time and your work than you thank you yes