001advocate for making sure we have more teachers in classrooms the reality is however is that we we have brought in more teachers for classrooms and and so right now what i'm trying to do is get additional teaching support student support specialists at our schools which is what um john was talking about those even more teachers in the system who would push in and provide intervention um making sure we have professionals provide even another layer of intervention for for students these will be bilingual paraprofessionals where we can get them however with these additional layers of teachers also requires administrative support across the system observations and evaluations but with the with the meteor student population also requires additional support for staff because they need to when they pick up the phone they need someone who's going to
002be there to answer and so you know we have all of our elementary schools who have grown in staff from our high school who has grown in staff middle schools have grown in staff uh edmund has stayed stagnant throughout this process and all of the staff right now is needier and needs support okay i think i've answered you've answered my question did i the administrative staff is alliance fund which will continue to be continually funded by the state of connecticut the yes sir money was put for the extra teachers which is let's say one time or three after three years this estimate is gone so okay so in three years we'll have to reallocate additional funds to pay for the teachers but the administration's administrators will continually be funded basically through our alliance allotment correct
003yeah and so i i think it's important that i do speak to the additional positions that we've added through essa and so um certainly we're not in a position to do that next year um but certainly year year three um in year four meaning next year and the year after 22 23 23 24 24 25 um the expectation also is the needs will not be the same in the system right we we're not expecting to continue to be in in post pandemic mode in terms of staffing uh for the remainder of um and so the idea is through attrition we begin to start to fold those positions that we've hired through esser and we fold those positions into the general budget as staff begins to retire right and so if we've hired 15 additional teachers
004last year and so maybe next year we don't do attrition replace but certainly 22 23 i'm sorry 23 through attrition we hire 30 30 plus elementary teachers every year right in a non-pandemic year and so we start folding those positions into operating budget instead of us finding a new teacher we pull from the teachers behind where that's the funding and slide them into operation so our expectation is of course this is assuming we don't experience considerable growth as an example south street elementary school for the last couple of years has had three sections in every grade level um ais elementary school has had about three sections at every grade level if we maintain those numbers when when ais you know they lose staff because of retirement we would pull one of these esther teachers who's
005funded through esser and slide them over to ais the same thing at south street um again this is assuming that we don't experience growth at those levels so that that's part of the plan that in that regard to address those questions about the financial cliff because we know they're real um and this is why we have john and eddie to to help us with this plan well done sir i appreciate it i get it thank you thank you mr thank you so kevin's do me a favor scroll down a little bit to the bottom i see the 200 you know and staying on on the alliance there should be a total on the bottom or something oh okay you want me to grab the these numbers you want me to totally sum up those numbers
006right now i could add in my head i mean that's okay i was just trying to see right so at least in this braided document we have 320k planned against the 17 million if you want to call it i don't recall okay um all right so essentially what you're saying what's bothering me here is is the i from memory i thought we had put in the use of of these these these monies in certain categories to to total down to to the totals on the bottom but i right and we i'm sorry mr jeremy it is but the point of what you're saying is is that now we have a redeployment of the the alliance money in in terms of more specific uses than what was generally outlined a number of months ago as as
007things progressed to more realistic situation currently you're redeploying the alliance increase as opposed to a conceptual issue you had back in may when you're putting this together and you didn't know what the impact does was of this covet on all these other issues is that correct yes and thank you for saying it that way so we john i think we submitted the the grant maybe september first or um it was definitely the beginning of the school year right well after the budget was first measured right right and um the increase you know that that 2.5 million dollar increase that john and i were talking about the the board has not at least in my short time here um has not seen the detail in terms of that submission to the state right and um what
008we're sharing this evening is uh we knew we would get an increase because we have annually from alliance every year um we plan for that two 2.5 million budget in which about six seven hundred thousand dollars for salaries with contractual obligations uh many of those seven hundred thousand dollars had to go to contractual obligations maybe not all of it um i don't know the exact number uh but we landed on about 1.8 to park for staffing we just didn't have the specifics on what the staffing would be um and asked the state for a couple of months to uh figure that out so in the meantime we had submitted um teaching support because we knew we were going to do it uh we're modifying that uh submission uh to reflect the intervention support that we
009talked about plus the forces and principles okay all right so it's just the increase because i know 100 at least my thought process is 100 of the kindergarten salaries are all funded through alliance um so the six hundred thousand that you apply to would have to be for the increase in contractual obligations at least for those you know for the the the k through five or the kindergarten uh the kindergarten course but okay i was just surprised you know again it bothers me that the details i don't know how i tell you the truth i don't know how to let it slip by because i'm a nut to to like to see these totals foot so some reason slipped by me but uh all right as long as we have the understanding that you're redefining
010and reallocating the the increase in the alliance money in accordance with your current needs and demands are yes yes okay all right and so and last but not least because i understand there may be questions about all of it so i'll share everything with the with the committee and the the second part is i just want to walk the committee through positions that have been budgeted in a district i mean in terms of um how i am seeing the needs along with feedback from my cabinet how i'm seeing the needs for district office i want to remind the committee of some of the positions we had budgeted prior to this school year and so during the 2021 school year in the spring of 2021 prior to courtney leaving us we had a presentation for the
011budget and we had talked about pulling uh facilities and operations out of the finance department and and basically i think south's point was the district has grown the district is too large for facilities and operations to live in the finance department and so at that time we had budgeted going into budgeted in the spring for a chief operations officer in addition to the new and at this point courtney had already resigned um and so we had budgeted for chief operations officer and a chief finance officer right and so those are the we were basically budgeting for pulling out facilities in operation and chief operations officer was budgeted prior to this school year started so i just want to start there right and so that that's one position and then of course uh with me being
012elevated to the superintendent's office that left my office open and vacant i also want to remind the committee prior my first year which was 2018-19 i started when i started there were a number of new positions added to the district it was supervisor if esl k5 that's tammy swift there was a position of curriculum administrator i'm k5 that was dr anaraco and then of course there was a director of curriculum instruction and that was kara dr cara casamaro and so those three those are three new positions that were added to the curriculum um the curriculum uh resource center anna rocco's position was budgeted out of title one and tammy swift and kara's position was budgeted out of operating fund you might also recall that the principle that king street primary was moved to a central
013office position [Music] was then paid out of alliance i i don't know if you hadn't knew that level of detail but he was paid out of alliance he's our srbi coordinator this left and remain budgeted in a rocko's former position of curriculum administrator this is my long way of saying we currently have budgeted a curriculum administrative position in title one paid out of title one my position my old position still budget assistant superintendent office and operating in a chief operating officer officer position that sal recommended before leaving and we had budgeted for with those three those three budgeted positions one was one budgeted out of title that was ann rocco's old position one budget on operating funds that was my old position and one budgeted uh prior to the start of the 22 21 22
014school year that was the chief operating officer position i will look to use those three budgeted positions to help outfit district office moving forward and i'll have some details for you on wednesday night and the staffing chart right because when you say stuff hard to follow absolutely i'll have the detail absolutely pictures pictures graphs and well not pictures and graphs well it will be pictures i don't care houses i don't know you know definitely you know we need we need uh who reports to who absolutely kevin i thank you for your transparent this new level of transparency sir that we were not used to under the previous administration well thank you sir appreciate it says you mr russo okay is there anything you'd rather i'd rather be ignorant than not ignorant [Music] not knowing i
015could retain some of it kathy may ask a quick question rich yes kate please um mr wilson can you remind me i know we had it had this conversation at one point and and i certainly hear mr russo's concern about making sure we're keeping our teaching staff numbers up but um there was a a recommendation at one point i feel for um and i can't remember you know what the cap number was or what the recommended number was for when you the point at which you institute an assistant principal at a school so there were different numbers recommended i believe the number we had used was 450 when making those presentations in the spring last year okay that's what i was wondering about thank you and i'll take a look back at the powerpoints because
016i i think courtney and i when we making those presentations we included that number in the powerpoint so i'll take a look while we're talking that's okay and kevin it's my understanding we just completed you negotiate salary negotiations with what for assistant principal and the upper level administrators yes your numbers do your numbers today do they reflect uh those increase in increases that uh are they are we using you're using last year's numbers you salaries are we going to need some additional funding yes that's a good question so the the actual numbers is a number we will have to negotiate with um with the union interestingly enough at the elementary level we have one assistant principal but she was actually placed um she was actually placed she was formerly a principal and she was placed
017as an elementary principal um and so we actually have to negotiate on the assistant principal's salary with dsaa that's my long way of saying we actually don't have a negotiated number for a system principle with the unit uh so even though we have one position that person was placed in that position we actually have to negotiate the salary uh with with the unit uh and agree on a number thank you and kevin for the record historically we've never had a budget a detailed budget comparable to the operations budget for the makeup of the alliance money no funding the funding in that account had always been lump sum funding and then with conversations relative to physicians uh as a general statement when it first came to us it was all kindergarten went in there and then
018as we went along it was used for for other things so there was never really any breakout and i repeat myself now this is something that my suggestion would be in the future is that you have a budget comparable to the operating budget you know i don't care if you do it in line numbers or however you do it uh so it makes things comparable and that's why i think we were taken back because we never got into the level of detail in in the alliance as to what went where and and and things like that uh but uh so if you just put that on your note and to to at least make things comparable so that you know we're more informed as to what the budgets are and what you're looking to have
019to spend it against my suggestion would be for each of those buckets you know do the same thing so that we know that of the x number of dollars in these budgets in these buckets or or funding sources another way of putting it it is that there is a definitive concept as to what the money is going to be used for to totally agree um and john ed and i it's something that we've been working on the poor guys since they've been here and so our our goal is to make sure we can present out on our bigger grants the same way we present out on our general budget i mean i think that's what you're getting at mr j so yeah the reporting on the grants have been historically poor i mean absolutely poor
020we had no reporting on the grants and and when you talk about the grants you know it's talked about lump sum lump sum numbers of some 35 forgetting the the care's money but some 35 thereabouts million dollars of which you know 14 or 17 is made up of alliance and title 1 and all that stuff but nothing more specific than than that and these numbers are growing and there should be more accountability at this point here and clarity is to what we're spending money on [Music] yes that that is definitely our intention um agree with you it's so you know it's not a it's a constructive criticism that's all it's in it's meant to be you know but okay anything else kevin that's it from from me i don't know if john or ed had
021anything else to add no well great job i i will make sure um i reiterate these things on wednesday evening but more importantly have the visuals and the presentations just kind of support what we're talking about tonight okay good any other committee members have any questions before we i have just a quick question rich and this is kind of unrelated but i was contacted by someone who is asking um there was a grant that was won for ais for um from the connecticut office of the arts and it was intended for what they call higher order thinking activities i guess you know because the schools were closed last year that this grant was not used and i'm just wondering if it's still available for use this year okay if if it is i i have
022to look it up and so it's easier for me to see um grants that are in what we call our e-grant system the higher order grant is not one of those so i'll have to ask tomorrow and see where we are with with the high grant and see where we landed just in terms of its expiration and uh was that carried over because of the pandemic um i i'm not sure it's a smaller grant so i absolutely appreciate it thank you if i made you a liar they all count though we we like all the grants coming in sorry mr oh no i apologize sorry it's the zoom if i can go just go off script for a moment where are we as far as getting an assistant superintendent to take some of the load
023off your shoulders sir yeah thank you i appreciate that question um and so part of um the presentation for reorganization on wednesday um i i will share out our thinking my thinking on how to how to restructure us um and and just a little snapshot of the thinking is uh turn my office my old office into um specific support for k5 and 612. 12. and we've we've had a consultant now prior to prior to my arrival as an assistant superintendent who said that the district should have two directors a k-5 and 6-12 and then we had the most recent consultant which i'll be uh sending to your attention this evening um say that we should have direct his recommendations actually assistant superintendent of elementary and secondary um but but the overriding uh recommendation is making
024sure that you have support for these two levels um and so that's my long way of saying mr russo i'm i'm going to recommend on wednesday support that looks a little bit different than how my op than how my office previously supported supported schools um one at a k5 level one at a 612 level and i'll have some more detail for the board on wednesday evening just just to make sure that you show up on wednesday um so i'll make sure i have that detail for you but i uh it's really connected to the challenges um that we've and this was long before the pandemic jonathan costa from ed advance recommended directors k5 and 612 this person our most recent consultant he actually recommended assistant superintendent k5 and 612. i'm not going to recommend that
025a little different but i am going to recommend support for those two different levels and turn my office into a little different position i'll wait till wednesday night thank you i don't want to get trouble with the full board telling the committee everything for wednesday okay okay but this is your you know it's great and i like your future vision that's your job and a responsibility um i'm going to ask on wednesday if you would also in addition to the verbiage as kathy had mentioned just have some sort of a an organizational chart so we can follow who's on first and then again a visual is always good with your new positions to see who reports to them etc all right i appreciate it mr j thank you good okay with that if nobody else
026has any questions uh i'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second thank you okay so this committee meeting has been adjourned i thank everybody for their attendance and we'll see you all on wednesday thank you everyone have a good evening thanks