001to order 602 with me in Beaver Brook car Teresa myself as committee members remotely is Kate caneta and Wanita Harris is that correct Wanita sorry I was muted I am here okay all right so we got four and that's the so consider that the roll call Kate also in attendance with me here is Mr John Spang Cara casamero and Michael Weaver the purpose of tonight's meeting there was a lot of documentation that was sent to you but essentially the purpose of tonight's meeting is to try to explain solve a mystery that I've been trying to figure out uh between the initial budget of 150 million then it went to 154 then it went back to 150 I'd like the clarity on the transactions that bring it back down to 150 because that's the starting point
002for our difference between what we're doing currently once we go through that and have that understanding John has presented a spreadsheet it's the long spreadsheet where essentially he has classified the $1 million of the S money into account classifications and for clarity purposes our operating budget this year in round numbers would be the $160 million as we refer to as the lights on budget plus the $10 million of the Essa money that's made up of our operational budget this year totaling some $170 million other8 million referred to that as is your operational budget the other $8 million is essentially new asks that that we put on there um so with that I'm going to turn it over to to John a lot of the materials that he sent is for information purposes you could read
003it at your leisure not sure how much of that is relevant to answering the questions tonight thank you Don it's all yours thank you Rich Ken is gonna help me Ken Wallace with uh presenting some of the documents and Ken I'm going to throw you a little curve ball to start with we're going to open up with the second slide we talked about the one that says 2324 Opera yep that's it right there so I think you all everybody has this in their package U so it's what what you have there are we call them the major objects these six or seven categories of expense that's what they're called and in front of you you can see uh three years there you can see the 2122 actual the 2223 budget and the 2324 budget those
004three columns and uh you also see this presentation of major objects each month when we do our monthly budget report you know the first page you see is the condensed line items and that's it's the same thing here so the salaries and benefits and so on and so forth so as you look out at the 2324 column the far right the typical kind of things you see as you go down um one of things that was um a little different last year and we're doing it again next year is when you go down to program Improvement you can see the line in this year's budget shot way up went from a million3 the year before to million and what that was we had like we did this this year we isolated the budget drivers so
005that we could talk about them if we needed to zero in on them it wouldn't be Blended in with everything else and the big drivers uh in the current year budget in that 5.5 million was the S2 that was expiring if you recall there were over 30 positions but a number of um High School teaching positions s two was ending he said here's a driver we want to add that into the school budget we need to keep those teachers in the classrooms and that's where we put it it has a slightly different name when you um look at what we're doing next year but that that those are the accounts that it's in and uh dues and fees and stuff but that undesignated line you can see that's a minus figure it's a minus figure
006so when you add the column down and including the minus figure you can see it comes out to 150 million the difference between all of the Plus numbers and 150 million is 4.7 it was not at the time really based on anything more than the fact that our Target was 150 million last January um and before we get into what happened to that um if you look at the middle column and for those of you uh recalling the 2223 budget uh we did something similar um in that we I isolated some savings down on that line and in the 2223 year there really were two uh things that we thought we would achieve and we did one was about half a million dollars of positions that we didn't need to carry forward at the time
007we saw our enrollment at the elementary school level going down we were coming coming back from Brookfield and we didn't think we'd need as many Elementary positions as we had all the while keeping class size about the same so that was 500,000 of that um and then we also felt and and we had a very different Outlook of the labor market than I think it was more of a traditional we were coming back from Co but we definitely did not see the tightness that we're seeing now or a competition uh for the few fewer teachers who are applicants and candidates that we eventually saw but we thought we would have what's uh some people called breakage or salary savings the difference between people who were retiring and we knew we had an a a higher
008number than normal of retirees just because of covid number of people said were saying I'm not going back that's it you you heard all that so we we knew we'd be hiring Replacements and we thought as we always did we no problem bringing people in at the lower steps compared to the steps that people were leaving at and we figured we'd get $900,000 just from that turnover so what of course what surprised us was the labor market Market that year and I won't go into that but those two things were savings that we built in the budget after the city council had lowered our ask and we had to come up with a operating plan for the year but you see but in the in the year the current year it wasn't based on anything
009other than trying to Target 150 as a goal but we also knew there were a number of vacancies going on at the time we actually put this budget together in November of uh 22 and at the time we had 86 vacant positions I think almost 40 of them were teachers but most of them were Paris we by them were're struggling with hiring them and we figured there would be some savings uh when we closed our books seven or eight months later but what happened uh Ken if you want to go to the next page I here I I listed a few things that during those six months happened that it chewed away took away the savings we thought we'd have in November uh you know we we tried to fill the vacancies and we were
010moderately successful as the pandemic Eed uh but we also had to cover the classes the whether they were Court classes or electives and you've heard us talk about teacher overloads that's a the teacher has uh contractually six periods to teach and they're willing to teach a seven we would pay for that extra work and we had quite a bit of it I think it probably was over $600,000 when all was said and done but we had to cover that work work we also what what's called period coverage if you have a vacancy or a absent absence you might just go up to a teacher who has a lunch period or a free period or something like that and say can you cover this class just for one day just at this time and our our
011teachers are always willing to help um but you have to pay a little for that and so that was going on um during that period and we also began to be successful hiring remember we in our minds these were positions and they still are that would last long past June so we that's why I call them their permanent hires um you know we continue to do that so that that took up some of the the savings we had budgeted but it was really the Self Insurance uh claims that hurt us they they jumped up beginning in February and according to Gallagher who's our consultant and advises us they said there's really a couple things going on uh one is they said you have a much higher number of high cost claimants than you normally had
012you ever had before uh they show you know we don't of course we don't want to know who they are but they would describe some of the situations they were in and the cost of their care and how the number of people in those situations um was much more than we we typically have so that surprised us and they also said that what was happening not just here but AC what signis says across their book of business that's what they describe it was that people were beginning to go back uh to the doctors and hospitals that they hadn't been able to go to or wanted to go to uh while covid was peing including some of the elective surgeries that they put off um but also some of the care that they would have gotten
013some of that I wouldn't quite call it preventive care but early care you would get they were now returning to their doctors um a little further along than um was expected and and so here's where being self-insured you you take that risk things are going to be normal or typical and when they're not U this is what happens our our claims went way up compared to what we thought they' be as it turned out the end of the year put pretty close to budget but we had had so even with so many vacancies um it it really shouldn't have in a normal year and I I think that it took us a while to catch up with that I think that's one of the reasons we weren't reporting on this happening with a little more
014clarity didn't couldn't quite figure it out so why are we um why are we so good versus budget but we're hearing all these things going going on and so that the savings that we thought we'd get from the 86 vacancies included Health insures claims but that's not what happened and that uh really hurt us the other things I I put on there uh the right to read legislation that really didn't impact the budget but what we did when that legislation uh required school districts to put in a new Elementary reading curriculum we used our S2 grant that was about to expire we had some money there and the reason I mentioned it was had we not used the Grant I think there would have been money there that we could have used we could have
015moved other expenses in there to create the savings that we were budgeted but we needed to go forward with the reading program that was a couple million dollars um so it was a Factor last spring and then finally we like average homeowners too we were seeing much higher energy costs uh we used some heating oil to heat some of our buildings uh we have natural gas too that was up uh fuel even our electric bills had um gone up like anyone else so several of those were above budget so all those things happening uh cut into the the savings we thought we' get can you want to go to the next oh sure you're the chairman yeah just let me follow the thinking on this because to me it's important I understand the sequence of
016events so you're making a budget of $150 million and when you're presenting and coming up with the the numbers you have anticipated categories or line numbers that you feel are going to be not utilized or you're going to have savings on and therefore you adjust down your however your premises your starting point to a net a net number ultimately you get down to the 150 short time later you realize that the anticipated savings you had was not going to be recognized or materialized and therefore there were costs that were incurring that were offset against those savings that were now in in the red so to say we didn't have any offset savings for that necessitated you to go back and say that we needed 154 and change 1547 instead of the 150 is that basically
017the way it works yeah exactly and that that's the Year we're in now so that that's still what we're faced with a a good example I think is the school bus contract so after we had this plan in place we called in the bus company and we said to them we is there a chance we can negotiate prepaying our bus contract we would pay you in June instead of in September and October because they're on a a calendar year what we would have done was use the savings pay the bus company and then lower the line in the budget for transportation this year because we had already paid it they said they would be willing to accept uh now remember the bus contract is close to $14 million they said they would accept a prepayment
018of $2 million and in exchange they would lower our liability by $20,000 so almost like a a prepayment discount so to speak of 1% we weren't just going to pay them early unless we got something for it and we would have gotten $20,000 savings by doing that um but as it turned out when we got to June we didn't have the two million to give them so the deal never happened we had some other ideas we were going to do something with some of the special education settlements that were signed and sealed we would have had to pay those in September uh accounting wise we could because they were obligations already signed from earlier years we could have paid those in June would have been okay with the Auditors and then lowered the budget in
019the fall for the fall but we were never able to do that either so we had some strategies but we we couldn't enact it I appreciate that yeah and not withstanding uh the strategies we're now left with a budget at a point in time that's $4.7 million higher correct and you and I had previous conversations where I wanted some sort of an accounting of how you came away with um I'm trying to come up with a word yeah came away with a balance of $3 million because I remember at the time there was a lot of H Baloo in the papers and that's when the the 1.6 or the 1.7 here was was uh indicated as to part of the part of the the the cut that left me with two questions one was the
020balance of $3 million what happened to that and then secondly the $919,000 that we have on the other schedule I think can't see but it's School operating budget where it shows the 150 154 the 1.6 uh the 999,000 where it says allocating Staffing to Grants okay that 999,000 if I'm correct was then taken out of the operation budget and applied against some grants the grant grant funding my question is is without getting into specific the the type or what funding it was Etc are those monies that this was applied against there for the current year or is this something that is temporary and we're gonna have to make this up um Ken let's go to the next page and I can answer those the one that says school no the school operating budget page no
021you have one that says School operating budget no keep going I think you missed it it should be back right next to the first the unanticipated expenditures it's right back you have another one there um what comes after that and then what what's after that there it is right there just out of sequence can you make that a little bigger okay um so the first uh so this is what happened um in when we realized we hadn't made the savings that we thought and when June was coming to a close uh we went in front of the Board of Education said um we the plan didn't work and so what we'd like to do to balance our books so to speak y stay on this page for a second is we did two things uh
022first we cut our spending plan as much as we could and there were three areas primar that we cut and you see those in the third column of number there you you see that there's 1.6 million can can you make it any bigger at all K even if we lose the size yeah and go one step either more okay let's try it okay so you can see there those are the the line items we've caught and they came from three areas the first was our the cost centers I'll call them our principles program leaders anyone really anyone who had a budget and we cut back those spending budgets by 30% we we we Exempted a few people of programs we Exempted uh technology that you know such a growing feel we just didn't think we
023could cut there realistically we Exempted facilities that budget has been under a lot of pressure and look at our buildings we didn't want to do any less than we were doing and we Exempted the high school base allocation uh just because of the growing enrollment it it didn't make sense but we did include in the 30% cuts the High School athletic department for example and then all of our other schools and programs we we cut the cuts came to about $800,000 um little less in that as part of that million six that you see there the second thing we recommended to cut should back up we had also gone over and talked with the City Finance director gang barck uh with a rep from the the mayor's office and we said we want you to
024know the plan didn't work um we're going to um try and cut our budget but we can't cut 4.7 million we'll cut what we can but we're gonna have we're g going to come back and ask for something and in that meeting they suggested that we look at our utilities and uh they said you know prices have come down since you set your budget in January February take a look at those and we' also locked in some purchasing with the town purchasing department at prices that were lower than we had budgeted back in the the winter so the second set of cuts were to some of our utilities and I think it was heating oil energy maybe Vaseline I'm not sure I could F those up but that gave us a little more than a
025100,000 of Cs and then the final the third leg is What U Mr janelli mentioned and you see it on the chart there the 900 thou 919 th000 if you read over to the left it would say allocated Staffing to Grants that's the one that got misunderstood that's that's the one uh believe the teachers union thought there were layoffs um it got to we didn't do a good job messaging that but what we uh what we had going on is by July we also had a Governor's new two-year budget and in the two-year budget the alliance grant our our $20 million Alliance Grant was going up to 22 million part of a step up it's going to continue to go up so I think the Mr janell's question was that a one-time Source or do
026we have to make it up we took uh nine positions and put took those out of the budget and put them in the alliance Grant because of the $2 million increase we needed 1 million just to keep the contractual commitments in the grant Zone uh meaning you've heard we have 40 some odd kindergarten teachers in there they all get steps and adjustments things like that uh they they have health insurance and the regular benefits any uh teacher would get here so we needed one of the two million to uh get those U increases but we had another 1 million that we felt could receive um additional staff so the 999,000 you see here represents that decision to put people into the alliance Grant now what I I could have showed it as a reduction on
027the salary line but I thought it was better to isolate it and show it right where it is as allocated Staffing to Grant so we could talk about it like we are so i y That's good in terms of I'm satisfied that is at least an a grant that has is scheduled to to increase in the next couple of years uh so it's not a a grant that's going to be depleted we would have to then take this back into the current year right so that's fine so that accounts for the 1.6 um now the mystery is the other $3 million um I say it's a mystery because I get confused in that um we went before the council we you went before the council and just recently said that we're going to I forget
028yeah condition it and allow us to to draw down on that and it was my understanding that you had mention we expect a a favorable year for I'm not put your words in your mouth but as construed to be almost the break even and if not we'll draw down on on the three million and then Kevin had said we were looking to best case scenario we come up with a break even and again I'm paraphrasing and we were next year we're going to ask instead of for the threee for the full $5 million that correct uh there's an important step that went into that um if you look first before we leave this slide you can see it going from 150 for the second column then there's a million six in cuts that brought it
029down to 153 K if you look at could you pull up the slide I think it's right before it says budget balancing there it is and make it a little smaller that's just a summary of the the two uh strategies you can see it adds the 4.7 million it was a combination of those budget cuts I said of 1. 684 and drawing down our reserves of 3,44 th000 now to get to the point that is still pending in front of the city council um at the ad hoc committee I I think we made good progress they've asked us for some more information about how we're doing this year but it seemed like um the door was was open a little bit to uh continue to seek these resources now the step if I could the
030step that um about it turning to be a better year than we thought back in July was based on a strategy that we felt we had to take we have to take and that was to take even more positions that are in the budget and expenditures that we've made and put those go into two grants that are expiring one is the sr3 grant itself our projections show that if nothing changes between now and June there could be in the vicinity of $900,000 unspent and we think it's partly from uh vacant positions not not just positions that uh we were looking for necessarily this year but it goes back to the original plan it was laid down in the summer of in August of 2021 some of those things we we put in there remember it
031was a three-year uh plan we're going to do this this and this over three years and as for $ 25 million and now it looks like we're going to spend 24 million in change three years later there was some capacity there so what we have planned to do is take almost a million dollars out of this three million and use the S Grant to pay for the other thing we've noticed is in our Title One grants and particularly what we call the carryover Grant in in your title one Grant ours is close to $4 million um if you don't spend it by the end of the first year you can uh spend it in the second year with their permission and our car the carryover amount that we thought we would that we set up
032to spend this year we have not so what we'd like to do is the same thing go into that Grant move some salaries out of the budget and use that and we also see some money in the original title one Grant itself the one that if we don't spend it this year we'll be able to carry over a little next year we want to spend it this year but we'd rather not carry it over if we can reduce what we're asking the the city for so with those strategies Excuse me yes we have numbers as to what that would be that you allocated to the carryover approximately or I think it was a million4 Mike Mike do you remember what we did were there were it was going into two grants remember that okay the
033total was about 2.4 five million including yes so the balance and my question the estim money I assume is my understanding is that 900,000 comes back in in the $10 million s that's correct exactly right the the the other two grants the title one whatever you put in there is that something that additional Title One money coming in in the in the next year would be able to cover for what you put in there or is that somehow going to come back in the current year and the ask Opera well I think there's a little bit of boat um it's always nice to have a carryover grant it's always nice to carry some over at the end of the year for unexpected things um you know we're not going to have that that cushion most
034districts have every year including us uh that'll be gone we're using it for this um and from my sense is that the title one program has changed a little bit even in the last couple years uh from what we're doing with that so um I don't I don't know on that part but I I can say that all of our needs for next year are either in the lightson budget or in the drivers we're not expecting any um overspending in the grants or things that are not typical I hope I'm answering it no it's not clear um let me rephrase it again unlike the the es money the what I'm concerned at is is is the balance the 2.4 versus the the 900,000 that money that went into the title one whether be the carryover
035or the grant itself in the current budget that you presented to us of the 178 million are those costs incorporated in that number or is that number going to be hypothetically 179 million because we don't feel that these grants are going to be sufficient to cover what you put in there I'm trying to make sure that 178 is a firm number or is it 179 the the title one grants been around for a long time and it's It's Not Unusual to see someone based on what they're doing they're uh paid out of the title Grant every year based on what they do it' be here a long time and when I see when you get to almost February and there's monies that that's not spent and the programs being carried out it tells me that
036that's a safe place to go um otherwise I think we'd be doing you know trying to fill it and things like that so I'm I'm comfortable that because of where we are in the year that that Grant has the capacity and given the situation we're in it's a it was a choice we wanted to make you know I think it's a fair question it's because the superintendent here we're all talking about justifying 178 and it's you know I don't want to bank on a gamble that we have another million we may or may not have if you're I am it's going to be in here but and and also we we needed to do some some things we needed some strategies in case the city council money didn't come in they they the ad hoc
037has looked at it twice they haven't moved it out um we ALS we need to get ready for June no I understand so that was part I understand what you did and as I said it was pent they're like and the inter I kept talking to Kevin I said you I hope you're not going on spending at the rate that you anticipate getting the free Mill and he had said no he says we have taken taken action to reduce that so I I can't argue with the strategy this fills in at least my void of the missing three and of that how much is coming back uh I don't and I'm going to pause here for a minute I can't see Teresa said she had a question is that right no okay Kate I can't
038see you know hands up if anybody has a question so far so if they do could you just tell them to speak up sure is there anybody who has a question so far I mean to me this is clear but my way of thinking somehow is a little bit disjointed I go around a block to get to get you know to the store so to say but uh I'm comfortable with the explanation that was given me because I was troubled by the $3 million thinking it was going to come back to bite us somehow and not knowing where it fit in into the 178 Rich Wanita has her hand up Wanita uh thank you um Rich um I just have a question um John on the School operating budget projections and reductions if um K
039can can we go back to that on the screen right there thank you and can you tell me uh John which [Music] line I missed it which line did you say was the um was the 30% reduction to the schools was that under supplies most of their uh Cuts you know we asked them what what they would cut and predominantly it was the supplies so that well uh also has the utilities in there here in Danbury energy is called a supply so the 140,000 that we if I remember right that we took out of utilties is included in that 549 okay I I just want to be clear that number doesn't sit right with me I don't know why but you're saying the [Music] 54911 includes the total 30% reduction on the um the per
040the pupil all ations relations the principles and program leaders uh also cut other line items uh for example you can see there uh dues and fees U staff development there's 16,000 there purchased Professional Services uh that was cut by some people as well so um there were you know four or five different different line items that were picked but the Lion Share was supplies okay I'm not I I don't have a clear um understanding of what you're saying so I'm I'm just gonna go back again to the people that are on the um Zoom I have uh before me um the budget by locations the base allocations for each of the schools and there was a 30% reduction to each of those um locations and I am trying to find out where I I need
041the uh the total that was saved I know it's broken down in line items but each of them were given a reduction 30% reduction from last year's Al ation to the upcoming years's I'm sorry this year's to the upcoming Year's um allocation and I'm trying to figure out John where on this screen I I assume that you're saying that those reductions are split between the line items they are yes um can you um if it's not too much in our next um board meeting could you please give us a copy of the uh by the budget by location based allocations the one that you've submitted to me can that be part of the package of course um did we get around to you yet the answers to the questions from the last board meeting I
042I think we might have sent that on Friday too for Wednesday night and we did put some information in a couple of the exhibits about that but I'll go back and see if it identifies the cuts and and see maybe you could too and then give me a call see what else we can provide that's okay um well if you yeah because I do have it in front of me what you supplied for me um and so I would just like the other board members including the finance committee to actually see that document I I had planned to walk through those U exhibits on Wednesday night but again if you think there's something not in there that helps tell the story just let me know and we can add to it it's it's not oh
043and and we can add it in well sure we can give it present to the board yeah of course wonderful okay thank you so much John okay sure sure so you're said so rich you essentially asking the additional $3 million if it was rolled over into the propos 178 million is that correct that's correct and the answer to the answer to that is no because it was absorbed in I'm sorry of the $3 million approximately 900,000 would be rolled over into our current budget because it the Suppy gets the s three grants which are completely wiped out so that the 900,000 is part of the1 million exra money that we're looking to provide in our current budget the other monies the other $2 million are in existing grants that that like the alliance Grant would
044have funding in it to take care of that those those costs so then what is the $3 million ass that we're asking for the city that was the confusing part at this point as I said was my understanding and that ad hoc got meeting got very confusing because kin and John went in very clearly saying we we're not asking for the three we'd like to have an authorization or you use the word condition a condition we'd like to have a condition so that we can draw down on it and again I'm paraphrase because we don't feel we're going to be $3 million in the PO but best case scenario we think we're going to break even and if not then this whatever is is over we'd like to draw down rather to come back to
045you to this differential they felt so Kevin was saying we felt comfortable that we are going to have a good year that next year and he was for warning them we're not going to ask you for the 3 million Reserve we're going to ask you for the full $5 million we said and and then it got very confusing and and it went nowhere so but ultimately they stated their case correctly and then through addition an hour and a half of other conversation somehow got lost in translation so I don't know where it is now except giving him a lot of work you know for for nothing one one more question uh on the salaries are those that salary figure is for people we actually have and the benefits this is not uh pending more hires
046at this point the 83 million right okay um last November as we build the uh preliminary budget uh what we do is we take a snapshot of everybody who's work working um and a snapshot of the bacon positions maybe that haven't been filled yet and for the people that are working we look at what bargaining unit they're in and what step they're on and we look at the collector baring agreement if we have it for the next year move them up a step see what their salary is and that's what we put into the budget if there's a a vacant position and there were there were plenty last November uh we make sure those are in we decide on what we think we can hire them at and that also goes in under that same
047number yes however so what you're seeing there in the 83 million was everyone was called on the on the payroll in the in the school budget but we did the same thing last year we're doing this year there were people in Esser to last year and you remember that night Dan Donovan was here and the the high school teachers um we calculated what that would be salaries and benefits but we isolated it down here on this enrollment impact line so there's $4 and A5 million dollar of What were new positions for us last year so they you know the answer your question is it 83 million um it's 83 million plus the people that came in from about four and a half so to bring us more up to date a couple of weeks now
048the mystery of the 150 154 solve we could move on to our current budget that going to talk about on Wednesday couple of weeks ago I met with John and asked him if he could present a the Esser of the10 million the in a format that that that combine not not combines but mirrors basically what we're talking about in in our budgets by classification and that's how he developed this schedule this is a long schedule which he breaks it out in total and then he breaks it out in in terms not only by by classification of account codes but he also breaks it out into it history mean no no it's a long spreadsheet long so he breaks it out not only by category but by you got it yes he breaks it out by
049by the the classifications as well this is saying the same thing as we have and I pulled out my my budget book in in the in the budget presentation we had slides that went through some of this but the slides are good but for our purposes I'd like the I say the accounting in more details so he already had the schedule perhaps he can go through this with us because this now is going to be the comparison next week when we start talking about or Wednesday I'm not sure when Wednesday when we start talking about the differential between our budget and our budget is 178 million versus 150 million the only way I looked at it was because it was such a big number ini this year made up several components unlike other years where
050I kept referring to the lights on budget that we hadn't talked about yet of the 160 million and then building on top of that the $10 million of eser money and then than the other $8 million of basically new asks so you know there are different ways of looking at it however I think this completes it and and puts it in the line number or category so that it's simpler at least for me to understand and it completes the picture um could I walk through now go ahead okay Ken you have two charts those ones we were talking about with the yellow columns didn't show up and what people have but I'd like to go to the second one and for the rest of us it's the one I sent around uh singly uh maybe
051a half an hour before the meeting started it's also called um 2425 superintendence budget Ken has it there now the difference between the two charts is one column that appears under the word superintendent there's a new column that I've added and it's called current programs and services and I I'll tell you I'll explain that in a minute but that that's the right one Ken's pointing to it so what you have here the numbers in the first two columns uh should be familiar that's what we just talked about that's um the the budget as adopted and then the budget without the savings 150 and and then uh when we built our lights on budget it came up to a 160 million that's uh you see under the column that says carry forward and it's just those
052seven or eight line items being uh projected forward using some of the technique I described um on salaries and some things like that but one of the um one one of the things you see in there if in that third column if you go down to that line item I was talking about before in Roman impact equipment and I told you last year it had five over5 million look at what's there in the lightson budget it's not there anymore because those salaries are now up in the salary line where they belong those High School teachers might say well John what's in the 1.2 million why is it still so High um the big thing in there is the repairs from Rich jalbert's facilities budget remember we started adding think it's about $800,000 for repairs that
053are not part of the city's perview that we want to do this will be the second or third year we've done that you'll see those on Wednesday night but what I just want to show you to start with is you see that number dropping way down so um as you go across you see um in in in that when we did that we needed 160 million that's 10 million more than 150 of course and that's a 6.99% increase let's call it seven but of that seven 3.15 of the seven 3.15% is making up that 4.7 million I'll say it again because see that's not there anymore it's blank so if the 6.99 three of that three of the seven is making up the money that we don't that we had the year before but uh
054the rest of the lights on budget here is up just under 4% and that that's what we're going to talk about Wednesday I'm going to show you uh what we've done for uh in energy for example that's one of the reasons it's down uh what we think about health insurance transportation and so on and so forth now together there's $10 million and we um we met this morning and I think well let me just walk you across quickly when you go from the 160 the next what you see going left to right are the different drivers we really have emphasized in our two workshops so far you'll recognize these number there's the sr3 that's expiring 10 point almost 10.8 million the high school we're calling it The overcrowding that's the the nine core teachers app
055five elective teachers some more buses and uh classroom f Furniture uh opening up theems and as as you go across the list you're seeing the money that we've propos and at the bottom what kind of percent that is say adding to the 7% just for um discussion instructional Improvement that's the the last thing we put in uh you heard Mr Walston talk about uh the Paris that would go in the classrooms the kindergartens all that that's that one um security and Technology uh is there the special ed five teachers we need and the the support for the multilanguage Learners you add that across here you can see $18 million of increases bringing us up from 160 the 178 you can see compared to the 150 there's the $28 million and the messaging we've had so
056far what the point the main point we've been trying to let people understand is that the Esser 3 is expiring call the fiscal cliff whatever that is a big uh mover but as we uh talked this morning we realized that we we really can't let people think that if we got 160 million it would be the same program and services next year that we have this year it's not I I think Kate you might have been the one that first brought this up that you know the the sr3 people are here that's part of the programs and services you know to have the same thing next year that we have this year without any improvements without thinking that the high school enrollment is going up we really need 170 million we we we have to
057have that those Esser staff members so on the chart you see that column we put in uh current programs and services um I'm adding into the the original 10 million the 10 million for essers so um I think we could maybe call if we were going to call that the lights on budget but I think the second message we want to start carrying is that you know to keep things the same we we we need both so that's kind of a that's a new way of looking at it um maybe Rich I'll stop there and yeah this going be occurred before go back okay um you mentioned the the the 6.99% yes then you went on to say a percentage approximately half or something included the 4.7 um well yeah I I gotta find the
058right choice of words I know after I said that yeah I mean should only be I mean right should only be a million dollars the stuff that you didn't transfer out right stuff that you didn't transfer out to Grants the the lights on budget here the Third that's 160 million it's going up 10 million right and you can justify the the reasons for it but you know I want to make sure that you know the statement that this includes the $4.7 million that we were short when we just accounted for 2.4 million going to to the Esser the title one grants and plus another 900 ,000 going to Alliance that you know you can't have it back in here say it's like double dipping right so um want to make sure that this is not
059over stated or or it's your statement testing correct that it includes right 4.7 I could understanding if you putting back in your presentation here the numbers on when you have the the school budget where you show the $1.6 million uh everything on there came out of the budget with the exception of the 919 that was transferred to Alliance but the others if you're saying we're going to make that up and put it into this year you know I can understand that but I I think the way you see that um you might say why is why is that operating budget up so low why how could it be under 4% and one of the reasons is some salaries have gone into alliance some salaries have gone into the title ones so they're they're there for
060good this is what's left remember our our labor contracts um really because of inflation and and some of the needs we've had to find people they're not they're not twos and threes anymore they're threes and fours so if anything the budget should be a little higher than that but we've done these strategies to help they're L they last maybe that's question just yeah just so long as the 4.7 milon do not include the duplicated in year right okay that's fine understood that and so the Teresa these salaries this is as was presented previously there's no new I saw something about site administrators now for the new uh the new building I didn't call site administrators to let alone one so uh those positions are if you look in the column that [Music] sayses kind of
061in the middle there's 200,000 uh that number has been the same since the beginning uh but what we' done is uh we didn't think those were labeled correctly when we first put it out um we we actually think a better title might be program administrators um and we've had a number of discussions what will the work be who will they report to um so this is really money for leadership in both buildings um planning before July we don't have um exact on those if I may some of that also is subject to negotiation with the unions and so I I think the site administrator title evolved out of your original inquiry around you know too many principles and it's confusing and so in reflection of that we did have some conversations about the titling of
062that but it also is subject to to bargaining negotiation and then of course the organization itself of the high school to the new campus you're welcome the salaries that have changed since we first presented are in that one driver that one Improvement um that we're calling instructional Improvement that's the the 2.6 that's mostly par Educators in the classrooms with teachers all grade levels so the in essence I I just want to say that presentation you gave here on the spreadsheet so my I like it it makes sense come Wednesday we're going to have to now dig through and defend I'd like to use it could yeah defend the difference between what makes up salaries and the components and how it was derived that but at least we have the understanding as to where we are
063we confirmed the 150 this has a nice breakdown to it um and we can take it from from here the other thing is the other schedules that that are attached you know there's a lot of information I think you could read at your leisure unless you have questions on it the the one I think John may want to point out had to do with a projection he did because I keep complaining about a multi-year projection and he says hey you know somehow we listen to you but and we had done it I had it here for a minute so if you want to explain that John U Ken the one that says fiscal year 2122 could you just go to this yeah the next page after that this one is I I'm amazed at this
064every time I look I remember looking at this when I first got here and um boy it means a lot more now I'll tell you so in June of 2021 uh the U my predecessor along with with under Mr janell's leadership uh put this multi-year budget together and it it's really good and I I won't go through everything um but the page that you're looking at there what what it did was it said if the city doesn't in start increasing its contribution um our costs are going up and we're going to be losing ERS so this big gap is going to happen um they called it a a cumulative variance was the name they gave it you can see it right there it's small um but as you look at it and you go over
065to fiscal year 25 the fourth call remember they're projecting three years ahead of time they showed that cumulative variance after you've lost the Esser of the city not really ponying up too much of $24 million boy that is awfully close uh to do three years ahead of time and it and then it goes on to say um here's how much more the city should be putting in so that um we don't have these things happening um so that was uh I'll just read it says um even with the Esser funds to offset some of the cost through 2025 the Board of Ed and city of Danbury will be left with a great Gap or clip in fiscal year 26 if we do not keep Pace with it so and so forth that is a amazing
066so you know we came up with that Cliff slide last year we call we've seen a couple meetings you know we oh hey we we told you last year here's how we told you we we put this out several years ago uh and told the same thing so I just wanted to share with I'm sure many of you saw when it came out good piece of work I'd like to take time to to make an editorial comment um we should never do again what we did what was done historically in terms of using funds to to this magnitude that we don't have insurances for um I look at it as taking out a debit card and having no way of paying it back or gambling and not having it to debt but not to say
067that the district needed that money in order to function the difference in terms of you know having hindsight and not being there it just put you in the B but point being we are faced with the same challenge right now with regard to the academy there is a budget that presented in the presentation to us or I think it was there of some $13 million maybe $2 million or maybe a million dollars was expended another million or million and a half I think is in the proposed ask of the new ask of the 8 million but it's leaving somewhere about $12 million we have a a structure that is being built that is anticipated to be open in what 24 or 2526 the entire city of Danbury is you know has their ribbon and the
068wait for ribbon cutting to to do that that money was already provided for by a bondage you know that the city paid what they neglected to do was to give us the money to fund that District to open it up with the staff that needs and we cannot continue in next year to go through higher people in Cur debt without the guarantee and I use that word guarantee that that money is going to be here for us um otherwise it's going to be chaos and then the superintendent is is going to have a difficult time trying to to maneuver and fill that building so it's just we we've learned a lesson in the past we have to I guess what I'm saying is we now have to start working differently than we've worked in the
069past we have to work closer with the city they have to be part of our operation we have to understand what they are you know it's it's important the days that we were asking for two three four million dollar it's totally gone we're talking telephone numbers now in double digits we need a yeah we we need a collaborative effort you know on the city's part to understand this to make sure in order for us to make plans as to what we're going to do so the method of of operating has to be changed and and it just we don't want to repeat the same mistake but with that being said I'm satisfied with what was being presented to what was my thoughts and what we'd accomplished tonight on this particular agenda does anybody else have
070any thoughts on that okay seeing that I would like one of the items I think the last item on the agenda I don't have my glasses but I had asked the committee members to it's not that John doesn't have enough work is to come up with three reports that they would like to see furnished I don't care and then you could put on there whether it be a quarterly monthly or just leave a blank and we can discuss it different types of reporting that you would like to to see if you would email me that how they consolidate it and one of our committee meetings we could talk about it and prioritize it and then maybe put counter the dates on it um and the purpose of that is I think there are reports that
071should be eligible for us to see that that we don't get for if we get them we get them one year you may not get them the other year so we can decide that this is a regular routine uh the type of reporting as well as what the district wants to present to us um so if you just send me those emails I'll consolidate it and then we'll talk about at the next meeting yes has stus a I don't know yeah I I have no still so no there so there are two things um explain them quickly when the city publishes its annual report called the caer they take the financial results and they show them two different ways one's called the budget basis and one's called Gap generally accepted accounting principes and the difference
072is when uh when you do on the budget basis um anything that you budgeted is shown as an expense on the Gap basis and this is just something the accountants do for the report um if bills are not paid even if they're budgeted they come out it's to make the statement look more uh familiar and friendly to investors in our bonds so that they can see things the way they're looking at corporate annual reports which are on a gap basis and really what they're looking at is if you have enough cash flow to pay down your interest on your bond so they they don't want to know if it's budgeted they want to know what's there so about a week a week ago Mike we got uh we heard from the audit manager that they
073wanted us to restate our grant fund on a gap basis which never done before we always just send things over but we did it think it took a day or two and then uh today there was an email that said we want you to go into your general fund and restated for this Gap basis so we said we do it and we did and then they said well we want you to do a journal entry now and we we actually having the city do it it it's all it's new stuff that we've never had to do before um but because they asked for it we're doing it I wish they could have asked for that a month or two ago but that's is there anything else that's the whole list right no we've submitted um
074everything that they've asked for originally and they're doing their subsequent testing so right now it's down to very GL things they want us to pull they want us see copies of people's uh pay St they want to see the the payroll register um they want to see the contct that so is that for 622 or 23 summer summer summer of 21 well that's sort of a late time to request that's usually done way in the beginning this is ridiculous can I ask is this still by zo everything zo yeah they have a portal and we uh drag things into the portal but those requests are done early in the initial part It's like grun work you know it's like a you your account and checking off Bank ear agents to make sure it's done three
075times we've had at zero and then they come back for more this is I think there's a lot of items items left for the city so while the city is preparing those items I figure you got nothing to do yeah they'll do that which is um I don't mind well um I'm acquainting myself with the software now in 22 pulling the the same data for 23 so that in a few months when they come in after for 23 where I I would imagine um if you could keep track of their all the requirements and doing that and this is what you did this year you do this year you know 22 this is we're following what you did for so I I can't believe these people they're nuts Kate if it's okay then could I
076ask for motion to adjourn so moved I get a second by Teresa all those in favor I I I okay thank you I thank you all for your participation I hope you found it informative and satisfactory and