001in this meeting hi cara um kelly truchas if she's there melissa naydu um hi to all of you um i've n not only had a working relationship for with many uh people in the danbury public schools but i've also represented many of the professionals and so uh in doing so um i send my thank yous to n.e.a danbury but to danbury public schools rich childbirth uh kevin walston courtney laborious and dr sal thank you so much and best to you and your retirement um the last time that i uh was before board members in this type of situation um it was for 20 years of service and i received this medallion i hope that you still give them out and i still have mine and i never uh felt more valued than when i received
002that and just gave me um the motivation to continue uh kathy molinero kathy i remember when you came as a board member knew you before them but came as a board member to my school just to introduce yourself and say hi to the teachers um you can't even imagine the feeling um that you left with the teachers knowing that you cared enough to come into their building uh madam chair gladys cooper i've watched you from the time you were just attending board of ed meetings to your unwavering leadership now as the chair um thank you all board members for the time that you have put in and for the days going forward that you begin to look at a superintendent for the danbury public school system i just want to leave these with you i
003had this hanging in my door for my students the quote that says everything that is popular is not right and everything that is right is not popular i leave that with you and thank you all for being a part of my educational legacy um i would like to say something um hi and congratulations to dr sal on your retirement as well uh i have been teaching for 38 years um over 29 of them have been in danbury and 23 of them have been in danbury high school this is very bittersweet um i hope i don't cry um and i am truly going to miss every single one of you um i'm gonna miss my children i'm gonna miss the kids that i've been dealing with for so long and working with for so long and
004when i started here i actually started with joan hodge um she she was my partner in crime when i first started in danbury public schools and she was a wonderful woman and she will truly be missed i'm not going to talk that long because i'm not a great public speaker which is strange because i teach children every day but um again this is bittersweet i am going to miss every single moment of every single day but it's a new chapter and my husband and i are starting a whole new life so again thank you everybody thank you to the board for all your support thank you kelly if you're there thank you so much and cara thank you as well we have known each other quite some time and um everybody enjoy good health yes
005anyone else oh okay well don't forget my offer if you guys feel so bad you know welcome back um there's plenty of opportunities for you and we'd love to have you you've made the connections that are so important to us uh madam chair that ends this part of the program thank you uh dr sal since i met him chair could we as board members unmute ourselves and just take a few minutes and stand up and give all our retirees a round of applause thank you you thank you thank you thank you are we going to move on down the agenda yes you can go to public participation oops i think gladys may have frozen um yeah so i'll move forward with the public participation gladys the board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be
006limited to three minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system due to the unique nature of the covit 19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore boe at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you kate uh carol do you want to read the comment yes so we have one comment from kathy snow good evening i submitted a comment at the may 26 board of ed meeting and i've not received any information or clarification so i'm asking once
007again can someone please let us know about the june 23rd board of education meeting is it going to be in person will the public be allowed to attend will the meeting be live streamed if the public is allowed to attend are public comments only allowed to be submitted in person or will you still accept them via email and on a related note will emailed public comments continue to be read next year if a person cannot be at the meeting in person please let us know thank you kathy snow and that for apollo participation thank you carol kate could you uh do the consent calendar please certainly i'll make a motion the board of education approves the item on the consent calendar exhibit 21-87 as recommended promotion made by casey second madam chair okay i heard
008you joe uh are they in a question concerning uh the consequences just one madam chair yes is there an item on that consent calendar considering uh some dollar amounts uh maybe you should be exploring uh export a little further and right others so if you have public there needs to be a correction in a particular dollar amount uh on what particular page oh not not a particular dollar amount there's a okay a schedule a schedule of budget numbers okay that uh that maybe should be a motion rather than on a cassette calendar discussed uh exhibit 2187 okay are there any other questions concerning the consent calendar cm9 uh kate could you do the roll call please sure joe britton aye rachel chaleski hi kate canetta i'm gladys cooper hi joe da silva aye catherine hodgston
009aye rich genelli hi kathy molinero hi al russo nay amy spelino hi thank you the motion is so careful thank you all we're going to move down to um item number seven uh our educational staff representative is the president of the naa here did aaron erin i don't think so okay okay no she is not here tonight okay so we move on down any of our students here we know and our student reps here from the high school or ace yeah we're here uh from dhs okay okay okay uh i believe jake's here as well um so this is our last meeting jake and i we are i guess we're retiring too we're graduating um i just wanted to say our um we've been here for a few years so we just wanted to say
010how thankful we are for the board of ed and everything you've done for us i believe jake and i have gone through uh danbury public schools our entire from kindergarten to i even did um early childhood so since i was three years old to a senior in high school so um again i just want to say thank you so much for everything and we have the new board of our board of governors here as well we did an election and a couple of them are here so in a couple of minutes they're going to introduce themselves as well um i just want to say thank you to uh miss cal fiore she's our advisor for the board of governors and she's also retiring this year and we just want to say how thankful we are
011for her and everything she's done for us so does jake want to take over say something do you want to introduce the new members now yeah if we if jake doesn't have something to say i'm okay because i don't know where he went jake sorry like my what becca was saying cut out so if um i say anything repetitive like that's why but um he was just telling us how wonderful you are and how cooperative i've loved um i guess these are like my like final words so um working with becca has been really great um being a liaison and like voicing the voicing what's been going on at the school and like being that thing for you guys has been an honor um i'm sad that me and becca didn't get to put more
012stuff together for the school this year but i still i love becca so much um she has a place in my heart and um miss cal you stayed on an extra year for us i hope um we did adequate i hope we did [Music] good um i've loved being here i loved being secretary and i loved being vice president and i'm thinking great things to be happening next year um this council has a lot of potential so we leave it to them and i also mentioned um at the last meeting that i'll be going to university of miami in florida so i'm super excited about that and um i think that's it thank you everybody hey um i just want to say i it's been a pleasure working with you too jake i don't know
013if you heard me before but um pleasure these past two years um okay so our new board of governor um our new board of governor officers i believe we have three one or four i'm not sure one of them was driving the last time i was in contact so um i'm just gonna so maybe just go in like descending order just go for president to um uh treasurer and we'll see who's here just say your position name and then anything else you'd like to say um hi everyone i'm gregory parker and i am the new board of governors president for next year and i just want to say i'm really excited for next year okay hi everybody i'm tina go um and i'm a junior this year and i'm vice president and i'm really excited
014to work with the board of ed and greg and scott and jay and everybody hello i'm dre um i'm going to be the new bog secretary you know i'm very honored to you know be a part of this culture and this position like and given this position um you know i can't wait to work with all of you and uh up scott i'm the new treasurer and uh it's just a great opportunity to have this position and just be able to have my input with all of you guys looking forward to it welcome aboard thank you we look forward to working with you come september uh do we have anyone from ace no okay action item a okay students if you'd like to leave this a good time for you thank you thank you bye-bye
015thank you very much graduation yep what time do you graduate uh jake and i are both at 2. okay we'll get a picture dr cell don't worry [Laughter] okay bye bye all right i'll make a motion that the board of education approved the authorization of signature change form for the ed 099 agreement for child nutrition program in accordance with exhibit 21-88 i select that motion made by kate seconded by f or any of the questions or discussion concerning action item a scene nine uh kate could you do the roll call please sure joe britton i rachel chanesky hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper i joe da silva hi catherine hodgson hi rich gianelli hi kathy molinaro hi al russo hi amy spelina hi emotions so carrot uh captain marinara could you do action item b
016madam chair uh may make a motion that the board of education approve and authorize the change to the signatory representatives for danbury public schools on an interim basis to be kevin wallston assistant superintendent and donna coonan assistant finance director second second mahogany by captain segment bye everybody i got that every bun [Laughter] okay okay thank you oh catherine hodgdon hi rich gianelli hi kathy molinero hi al russo hi amy speluna hi mostly so care thank you uh mr ginelli would you do action item see madam chair that the board of education approve and set the budget for 20 21 22 in the amount of 137 million 150 thousand dollars increase the board of education is also proposing to utilize an estimated two million four hundred and thirty seven thousand one hundred and fifty seven dollars
017in non-lapsing funds 17 million three hundred and fifty thousand thirty seven dollars of ecs alliance funding and ninety five thousand in care slash sr1 funding six million eighty nine thousand eight hundred and eighty seven dollars in sr2 and eight million twenty seven 27 464 dollars in esther three slash the american recovery plan arp funds as well as ongoing general grants funds totaling an additional estimated 24 million dollars and various other grants that support district activities and this would be exhibit 21-89 motion made by mr janely uh could i hear a second second manager second by uh discussion any discussion questions or discussion concerning the motion madam chair yes uh just uh one question do we have to clear action items d and e before we can uh clear action item c i'm just looking up
018the next action items um al i apologize are those the exam salaries um d and e yes the exempt salaries and the cabinet i think the contracts are irrespective the exempt sellers were not fully contemplated in the budget so maybe there will be a discussion on that about how that will be included in the budget um but d was is not a budget item necessarily per se okay did i answer your question because we have action item c and then which is action item d is going to follow action i just see the exact answer thank you okay thank you mr russo okay any other discussion on action item c adam chair yes um i would just like to say that i'm i'm certainly going to vote in favor of this budget but um and
019and i understand that these numbers might look large to to folks who are listening at home or listening on this call but i continue to be concerned about the amount that we're investing in our school system here in danbury um i think that's been a topic of conversation around our table for years now certainly since before i was here um and i think that uh you know we just need to keep that in mind as we move forward that you know really we really need to invest properly in the education for our children and that means using community resources and that's our tax dollars so i certainly will support this budget but i just want to make it known that um i i do believe that our students our teachers and our staff members uh
020deserve more than what they're getting thank you madam sure please let's not forget that the state has underfunded us millions for years and that the governor proposed a freeze in the ecs um whether that was a bargaining chip or whatever it doesn't seem like that's going to um be the case this year i mean we're getting our two and a half million increase but really we're not getting our full funding from the state until 2028 still most of our kids will have graduated by then so i just you know if you want to talk about funding let's talk about all the streams madam chair if i may yes um i'll concur with kate and rachel in the sense that i i think it is important to talk about all the streams i didn't agree with
021the governor's proposed budget i didn't agree with the proposal to freeze the ecs increase that was guaranteed back in 2017 with governor malloy's then governor roy's plan i am encouraged by the fact that our legislative delegation was able to fight to get that included back in the budget so we are getting that funding to be clear we need more state funding but to be clear the ball is being dropped at city hall not at the state it is the city of danbury that has underfunded our schools for the better part of the last decade for whatever reasons some good some ill none of them ill none of them for malice for a variety of reasons but the problem is the chickens are coming home to roost as we saw last evening in the presentation from
022courtney the risks in the out years from this budget when the esser funds dry up are pretty significant and i hope very much that the city of danbury recommits to our students in the way they had committed to our students before let's say 2009 2010. that said obviously i'm supporting this budget and lastly very quickly a big thank you to courtney for putting this together this is once again this budget is a very difficult document to draft it is a very difficult document to put together it is very hard to figure out how many angels to dance on the head of this pin with so literally so few resources and we have to stretch it to make it work and she's crafted a really a strong budget a budget that we can go forward with
023and do as best we can what we have to work with and thank you very much courtney that's it man i'm sure thank you very much thank you thank you any other comment thank you oh i just wanted to say thank you to joe for saying that and i also just wanted to thank cabinet for you know sticking through to put together the plan because it it took a lot of time to look through all the different funding sources i was really inspired by you know kara and kelly's commitment to um thinking about it strategically and kevin and dr i just want to thank everybody and and thank you board also okay thank you okay i don't have to mention sorry gladys okay you know as far as our legislators go you know i certainly
024thank them for you know pushing you know to continue on the the increase with the new bcs formula but we had a bill we had a very strong bill that many of us on this board and um you know administration supported and advocated for that would have fully funded us today now we need our our state funds now not 2028. thank you thank you okay okay if there's no other discussion i'll move on to roll call please okay joe britton hi rachel gillespie hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye uh joja silva aye catherine hodgson hi rich genelli aye cathy molinaro aye al russo hi amy spelino hi motion so carrot um joe britton would you do action item d please i sure can i move that the board of education authorize the superintendent to
025implement contracts for cabinet members as proposed okay a second motion move by joe segment by katie and discussion on action item d we had a full discussion last night oh i have another i have another discussion another yes yes mr russo thank you madam chair uh again uh contract raises we are we are going through a covert code pandemic and again our citizens ability to ability to pay notwithstanding that no other union the city of danbury is taking a raise above zero percent july one and yes that includes but not limited to uh public safety police fire public works uh city hall park and wreck so that part of it doesn't doesn't seem fair now action item the two action items between for the cabinet and non-exempt uh it's been noted that the cabinet's only
026about 60 80 k 80 000 but you put that with the other action item would not exempt employees now we're over 200 000 now the comment has been made that 200 and 150 million dollar budget is insignificant but in tonight's agenda 24 million at is what we call cliff funds expiring funds so all we're doing is raising the cliff for people that can't afford to pay it and if we have the money in our budget that extra 200k in our budget already let's put it back to the students and consider the the needs of the many the students over the wants of the few i do not dispute that all of our all of our employees deserve a raise and they have worked very very hard but not only the school folks public safety city
027hall public works and they're taking the zero because the city can't afford our revenues are down and i would like to defer any raise until at least january 1 2022. thank you isn't this motion just for the contracts not for the salaries it's just an extending their contract this this oh it's a three percent raise that's 3.1 action item d yes the cabinet members contracts uh wasn't that a three percent 3.1 percent raise well no protect hypertechnically i believe that's part of the schedule that's e d is just whether we extend the third year yes yeah yeah well then the point is still yeah the point is still i believe valid the point would be valid for the next item do you the question is do you have any objection to the adding the third
028year at a 3.1 raise no no that's a different motion okay then no i have no problem extending the motion item d and my comments if you'd like me to reiterate them again i'll only say it back you know any other discussions no move on uh kate do the roll call joe britton aye rachel charleski hi kate canetta i gladys cooper aye joe de silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich genelli aye cathy molinaro aye al russo aye amy smolino i'm not funny motion so you do action out of e yes ma'am chair here i go again item e motion that the board of education accept the exempt employees salaries including cabinet for 2021-22 as recommended now al now somebody has to second it somebody has the section i'll second it the other joe thank you
029well here i go again what you said before yes the the citizens ability to pay the city of denver tax revenues are down people are people on my head that a hill are struggling all right and then no other no other unit bargaining unit that has uh j a contract expiring june 30th is taking a raise july 1 of 2021 and so that hardly seems fair they all deserve a raise you all deserve a reign police fire school personnel shaft cabinet you all have my admiration but thank to two hundred thousand two plus put it back into the kids and and defer a raise until 2022 all right you know and again i've been told all the 60 000 or the 200 000 insignificant with 151 million dollar budget but 24 million of that is
030not cut is going away so all we're doing is creating a bigger cliff so it's not only fair i say defer it's not that i value you any less i admire you all i also don't think that two and a half three percent well in corporate they're lucky to get that but people aren't getting raises so i i asked i asked you as a board to uh reconsider making this an automatic deal and deferring the raise to 2020 thank you any other discussion concern thank you mr russo for your comments any other discussion about action item e yes yes uh briefly um i'm not personally aware of the machinations of city other city bargaining unit contracts um it's i don't know exactly what which contracts might be ending june 30 as opposed to contracts that
031may extend beyond more importantly i don't care about the city of danbury countries i do care because the city of danbury workers as al just said are entitled to a raise and they probably are working very hard with very little because if our if we are bare to the bone on the board side in terms of employees both in schools and at paper brook the city of danbury is just as short they've been left just as short by the pin areas budgets over the last decade that said i can't we can't control and i can't i can't vote on city of danbury raises or raises for anybody else in the city of danbury what i do have what we do have in front of us and what i'm voting on and supporting are the issues
032that are before us that we control and the employees that we hire now i agree with al generally i do believe that we should be putting things into kids and funds into kids and i believe this budget does as well as we can with that i also believe that the administration that we have in the cabinet that we have which by the way as we discussed last evening is smaller than many of the cabinets in many of the leadership roles in in jobs and positions that other districts have meaning our leaders our cabinet our administrators our exempt employees at paper burke are doing more jobs than they would be in comparable positions in other towns and by the way are making less money than comparable positions in other towns as well so while i do
033agree it is important to invest in kids i believe this is an investment in kids what we invest in our curricular director or our special ed director is an investment in kids it's an investment in leadership it's an investment in making sure we're doing a good job and serving all of our all of our kids so i think this is an investment in kids maybe it's not a direct investment it's not something that's going to be yielded right in front of a blackboard showing my age blackboard in front of a whiteboard but as a practical matter i do think this does invest in kids and invests in the leadership of our school uh i think they they are earned i think they are within within a reasonable range and in a in terms of the
034cabinet alone it's sixty thousand dollars that's less than less than half of one percent of this budget so in that regard i'm supportive of it i i respect exactly what i was saying and i'm not suggesting that he's wrong at all i'm suggesting i think this is investing in kids these are warranted and if the city of danbury is falling down for its employees then shame on the city of denver thank you thank you madam chair okay any other comments yes i would like to say something yes um you know my initial my initial feeling was to absolutely support this and you know i'm going i'm i'm voting with my initial feeling i i was um you know frustrated with technology last night in our discussion so um was would have liked some more more
035discussion among the board members i think three percent is is a little high um but it is it is very very deserved um they wear many hats all of you know we all do we all wear many hats and they work so hard they work around the clock um and especially this year they've they've built something from nothing essentially so that our kids could keep learning all year long you know back in back in march my kids were still doing work those few there was first few weeks when we didn't have distance learning yet but there was something for them to do and many districts did not have that and then you know to to put together you know several learning models um and i don't know if anyone's taken vacation i you know i
036don't know how you could have so um i just i i can't say enough that i i support this and i'm sorry al i know it's i know how you feel and we've we've discussed it at length um and it's it's very it's very difficult in a in a pandemic year um you know but i i'm i'm supportive thank you thank you any other comments staying nine okay could you do the roll call certainly joe britton aye rachel celesti hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye joe da silva catherine hodgson nay richard genelli aye cathy molinero hi al russo sorry al you were muted i'm so make sure they're on record thank you amy spellino hi thank you motion so carried thank you uh rachel would you do ask some item f please action item
037f i move that the board of education suspend the purchasing policy policy and it's implementing regulations temporarily in order to waive the bidding requirements for the student transportation association contract this will enable the board of education to extend the contract by four years under negotiated terms to include a suspension of contract increases and the purchase of 10 additional buses this motion is allowable under board bylaw 3-5 permitting the suspension of the policy provided that two-thirds of board members in attendance vote in support and prior notification of such proposed suspension had been described in writing made by rachel i'll second that second about kate in a discussion cnn kate could you do the roll call certainly joe britton aye rachel chaleski aye kate canetta i gladys cooper aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgston hi rich
038gianelli hi kathy molinari hi al russo hi amy spelino hi thank you all emotions so careful next is the presentation dr sam yes thank you all thank you for the budget thank you for your comments uh as i leave the end of the month i thought last night the conversation of joining some kind of a joint meeting with the city to look at us strategically in a in a collaborative way to get to some al point and everybody else's to really lay out their um the issues and maybe that will be something that would be helpful so with that i'd like to um have jeff ziploc report by the transition you all know what we've been coming through guys i'm sorry i'm going home and i'm the only one had to rush home uh but
039i would like jeff to present tonight he sent you a brief outline uh courtney and her team and kim and her team have been like you said it all 24 7 on this so and they've been uh guiding and helping and you know moving us through and but tonight he has an update for you so jeff can you please uh take it from here sure do do i need to share my screen or does everyone have that and the document in front of them would you like them to share the screen how would you like to do that yes let them go ahead and share the screen document okay can you do the go ahead can we do that please or do you want me to share my screen i have it open yeah it's
040better for him to share his own screen okay and let me know let me know when you can see it hopefully you can good so um madam chair and and uh the rest board members thank you very much um i promise you i i will not be too long but i did want to give you uh an update on the infinite vision and you're going to hear me say infinite vision or iv for short as you're aware there's a ivy as being which is a financial management software system is being implemented as we speak from a background in history perspective danbury school district originally had the phoenix financial management system they had it for a number of years and the the short of it is the phoenix system was actually purchased by sunguard which was
041then purchased by powerschool and then powerschool made a decision to no longer support the application and so as a result of that danbury and many other communities within connecticut decided to change their financial management system some some of them did move to infinite vision as well so infinite vision is a software product by tyler technologies and it was deemed an appropriate solution or replacement solution for the original phoenix financial management system so essentially just because of the timing of everything the m berry created a two-phase approach phase one which actually kicked off certainly before january 1st of 2021 but essentially it was to implement um basic coa stands for chart of account so you're that's your general ledger as well as payroll and human resource operations and so essentially danbury was forced and had to
042expedite the the payroll implementation process going from phoenix to to ivy and then phase two um which will um be rolling out in july so just you know a few weeks away is to implement the rest of the general ledger and put in place purchase order purchase requisitions and accounts payable modules and the goal is to be going live with with that on july 1st so um so that's a bit of a background i wanted to share with you a couple things so um item b on on the list is payroll in human resources um phase one as i mentioned earlier was implemented as of and payroll was implemented as of january 1st there were a couple of payroll payment issues they were identified we all believe that at this point we've identified any any
043issues and reset uh the resolutions to those problems are being taken care of right now there has been a more or a detailed payroll reconciliation um and it seems like we've identified the i'll call it the snafus that we had uh in the beginning of the year um we are in the process right now of setting up fiscal year 22. we've got folks within courtney's team and within kim's team who are working together to set up the salary schedules the something called the calendars and as well as the rest of the tables and including deduction tables so we're still or the the team is still working out the kinks we're getting any information set up for that as you can imagine the district has um a number of unique contract agreements that need to be
044put in place into those um into the payroll and hr modules to in order to pay people correctly but um it is a work in process um i can tell you that uh monday and tuesday of this week um members of kim's team and i think of courtney's team but certainly of kim's team we're working with the tyler rep to get things um in place and they're again it's a work in process they're still working on it it does need to be tested um and we're gonna go through and i know courtney uh and i have had some conversations about um testing the payroll and making sure that we're in good shape and so we're moving to that um we're moving to that goal uh in the next couple of weeks from a purchasing and
045accounts payable perspective um the the workflows um have been set up and it's been completed all the vendors um have been set up and and tested uh check printing is in good shape the purchase order and prick was a purchase requisition training process uh is underway so i think we're we're pretty good there item d which is the general ledger and and financial reconciliation so um the gl accounts are all in place um you know assets liabilities revenue revenues and expenses where we're still working on are the monthly reconciliations and and one of the things you have to imagine is that we're really working off of two systems right now we have the phoenix system which ultimately is going to be the system of record for fiscal year 21. it will not be and we'll
046be using ivy for fiscal year 22 but we're running um our operations in two systems right now and so one of the things that that is being worked on is to perform monthly reconciliations between the phoenix system between ivy and then right now courtney is putting together financial statements in excel and we're trying to reconcile all of that and put that in place um the last time i spoke with courtney and her team is that they've reconciled um through february of this year and they're they've completed the bank reconciliations through february again of this year but that is a an ongoing process i believe within the next week no more than two the rest of the months of the year will be reconciled and we should be in in really relatively good shape um the
047the one thing that i i think we do need to be aware of is that um the financial statements um we just need to be mindful of the fact that um because we're working out of multiple systems right now and the reconciliations have not been completely um finished um our financial position may look a little bit different from where we are right now from where we will be in the next couple weeks just because of the reconciliations but i i think we'll be in in pretty good shape i'm going to stop there because courtney i see you nodding your head i don't want to put any um undue pressure on you but did you want to make a comment on this you know where i am right now yeah no no thank you jeff yeah
048it's been really helpful to have your feedback and the help of lindsay as well and lynn boyce faire um we're yeah we're up to i think april as of now for reconciling so essentially um um ford what we're doing is um we were marrying the two systems because we've got a new chart of accounts um together by like a look up on an excel sheet and then putting them together so you could see what the year-to-date expenditures were for the non-personnel um non-salaried accounts the salaried accounts as well as the encumbrances for the grants and for the general fund um we've now um input all of the information which includes the opening trial balance from the accounting term and then all the detailed reports for each of the months for both of the sides of
049the possibly accounts through i believe april and we should be able to run a clean general ledger from um um tyler which will be our system of record for this year um and uh within the net the next week or so um and as jeff said so we're feeling um good about that and as jeff mentioned um on the accounts payable side we did a training with secretaries today we have another training tomorrow and we're going to be holding a session in person for secretaries to come in make appointments with us if they have any extra help that they need next week or after school ends the two days after school ends because the secretaries are still here in order to get all their requisitions into the system for the upcoming fiscal year we're getting
050ready to do our last payroll of the year all of our accruals have been set up appropriately in the system and then um kim's group is setting up the which um we did earlier but now hr function is doing it because it's really an hr hr function so that they're learning to do it to set up the calendars the salary schedules and the deductions which get married together so i'll be doing the testing on that their deadline for completing that was this friday and so i'll be able to do some testing on making sure that our first payroll will be a successful one on july 2nd and thank you so thank you very much courtney so it's we're still moving forward from a systems configuration perspective we we have all the administrative security access rights
051in place um confirmed uh roles the security four roles and responsibilities and gina the the i.t director has taken over the administrative management of the system and so that will allow us to to ensure that people get appropriate security rights and there will be good segregation of duties and responsibilities as well the last item here is staffing moving forward with the new system so phoenix has is an older system it was configured in a particular way and now we're moving to and upgrading to a brand new system so there has been some uncertainty as to the roles and responsibilities of payroll and hr and it has changed um over the over the past few weeks and how we're configuring and who's responsible for what um again that's that's a bit of a work in process
052but we're we're working things out and and um identifying who's going to be responsible for what aspects of both payroll and and certainly the the hr function um i neglected to mention and and i really didn't give anyone any background about myself but um back in the beginning of may um dr sal and i think even courtney um asked for some help and support in overseeing the project and so um they reached out to to myself um uh at clifton larson allen formerly bloom shapiro and so we've been involved in a lot of implementations over the years and so um both myself and my colleague lindsay and tray were asked to participate and and work with dan barry to just be an independent observer and try to bring some some good project management skill sets
053to the project we were also able to um get a person who is actively using ivy um down in um gosh east brantford i believe if i'm not mistaken um lynn east haven i'm sorry um um lynn um over i believe and lynn is um uh has been a finance person down there and they recently implemented ivy and they actually went from phoenix to ivy and so she's got some really good experience and she's been helping out as well i believe and hopefully she'll be coming in on friday to again provide some support so we are we are moving forward um things um are still a work in process but we're getting closer to that completion date of july first and um we will be having weekly meetings with the tyler representative just to confirm
054open items that need to be completed in order to meet our go live production date of july 1st so with that i know i was a bit long-winded i apologize i didn't know if anyone had any questions that you'd like me to answer so um you said something about quirks in in item a and in background can you give an example of what what are you talking about the corpse and the other question i have is um you alluded to there will be some changes in how we see our balance sheet at july well actually june 30th there'll be some big differences at least that's what i'm that's what i'm surmising from your comments well the the um as you can imagine the phoenix system um was configured and set up with one chart of
055account um ivy has and is being configured with a a different chart of account will it still have balance sheet items and and the like yes but the account um the account structure has changed and i i don't know courtney if you want to go into any more detail of that but that certainly is a um i would say a significant change of where you were on the phoenix system as to where you will be in ivy yeah that's what's concerning yes sure yeah just briefly so um right now the way that the structure is set up in um phoenix and the way our chart of accounts um worked was we we had it was very odd we had a ledger and assets revenues split out separately and we were doing instead of doing due
056to do froms we were counting it all like we would do a check like a purchase order if we were doing a payment to the grants and a payment back to the general fund we changed that to align with the proper accounting structure it's called this brahmin structure so all the object codes conform with the state and now the city the city adopt this structure along with us standards so essentially all of our general expense category codes are of a 5 000 series where they didn't align like that in the past number one the dollars the and number two a big change was also um in the past all of our grants were um showing a location code of 80 which meant that any assumptions that we had about the grant spending would have to
057be would have to be a prorated or pro allocated share when we were looking at finding where the spending was occurring we pulled that apart and now we aligned it directly with the actual location and there's a grant code that follows at the end so there's two different fund codes 2099 and 1002 now general fund and then grants fund and at the end it's showing like for example 014 is alliance 080 is cares funding so we will be able to drill down on a more granular level on the spending um but the crosswalk will remain the same you'll see it in the old reporting way as well as the new reporting way so that you can see the total dollars and you can see how it spreads out the other little difference kathy is also
058at the end of any fiscal year there's a bit of shift that happens on our grants funding because we want to spend down all the grants appropriately and because this year was a unique year in that we had alliance carryover we had title carryover we had coronavirus relief funds that weren't awarded us to us until later into the fiscal year we have peers one and cares two funds that were awarded to us a little bit later in the year as we right-size all those grants and make sure that we're maximizing the spending there is a possibility that it could leave us with a little bit of city surplus that we weren't anticipating that we have agreement from the city that we could put into reserve if the board should vote on that so when i
059spoke to rachel at the last meeting saying that what i'm showing you is the real grants budget right now because it looks like a few of them were expending at 114 for example we're shifting all the expenditures to the correct category codes so that we're again maximizing the grant funding which could result in two things happening and we'll know more in about a week or two once we get every expense what are those two things that will be happening i mean other than that that you're putting them into the right the right places they should still balance out i mean if you're if you're taking 100 for 100 from this account and putting it into this other account and whatever it doesn't matter to me but what i what i want you to assure us
060is that we're not going to have a deficit but you might have a little bit additional funds this year that we did anticipate that would be a nice surprise yeah yeah and and you know we'll know that before the next board meeting and even before that i'll be able to send out that budget report um so yeah yeah but there might be a little bit of a city surplus and there might be a little bit more than what i reported on the cares one amount tail that's available for next year's spending thank you thank you so i would i would share with you that this is a high priority and and since we got involved we you know we want to make sure the board has the most accurate financial statements and we don't want
061any i call them surprises right um and by the way surprises and deficit or surprises or vice versa yes exactly exactly and so um we've been having conversations with courtney and i know her and her team have been actively working on it and as she mentioned they're they're up to april right now so um we should be hearing you know uh uh more complete results within the next week i would imagine well thank you for your help my pleasure have any other questions for board members and a question please yes um i just want to go back uh because i'm seeing under b2 there's there's this concern about some contract agreements um and how that's been input in the system um and that that needs to be addressed or worked around in the system um
062so i'm just kind of i'm i guess i'm a little surprised because if those things need to be worked out for 2022 are things how are things operating with the current payroll system given that that's still being adjusted well there you know we want to make sure that um everything uh all the contract agreements and and it's really coming down to the payroll configurations using the contract agreements as the baseline if you will are are in good shape it's not just there's tweaking that needs to occur in order to make sure that we're that the payroll matches up the way it needs to and so it's just a matter of of running some sample payrolls and making sure that the the agreements the way they're configured in the system are are matching up appropriately did
063that make any sense it it makes sense i guess i'm just concerned because we're obviously running payroll on the new system um so i'm just concerned that it's going to be hard for us to ensure the accuracy there if if this piece is still being reconciled well that's why this is uh to be quite honest this is a hot topic right now and needs to be completed in a week so that we can go through a very thorough testing of of payroll and not just one or two people but this has to be a much broader sample of payroll to make sure that it it's in place yeah okay sorry go ahead no you go ahead jeff i'm sorry um one of the reasons that we're hoping to get um lynn out here on friday
064is to do and take advantage of her skill set um from east haven and make sure that we have things configured appropriately so that we can you know test things should be easier if you will okay and that's that's what i was going to follow this just just to act just to make sure you're confident that the system is adaptable enough to address this issue oh it's it's very adaptable um and there there's some tricks that we're going to learn from win that will allow us to do this in i think a bit of an easier way and you know she's she's dealt with connecticut school districts and um you know various you know union contracts and so i'm i'm very comfortable that you'll be able to provide some of those tricks and how to
065work with the system in a a more efficient way we also want to make sure that we're taking advantage of all the capabilities of the system phoenix again it was around for 25 plus years it it really lived a very useful life but it was old and it didn't have a lot of the configuration capabilities that these new systems have and we just don't want to just take what we had in one system and just throw it over in the new system we want to be able to to take advantage of the new system and all the features and capabilities so that when we roll over um for the 2023 school year we're gonna have it'll be much easier we'll be in a much better position it'll be it will be able to do so
066in a you know much better and easier and uh um more it will have the integrity there as well if i might just add where you were so it is very great system and it it forces you to do things correctly and so if you're incorrect in the way that you present the salary schedule and the contract and the hours and the rates and the contract the system is going to tell you that so that's one of the challenges that we we just needed to work through um because there was an inconsistency that didn't bear out when you put it into a system that forces the rules so kim's team is looking at that to make that correction and make that adjustment okay thank you are there any other questions from board members yes two
067questions first is to kim and then two to jeff kim is there a way that an item um classification b item two two a was the the the subheading indicates that we have some unique contract agreements is there something in the future that we could do to clean this up and going forward is to maybe not be so creative that we have to you know go around the around the corner to to calculate something and it becomes more standardized i know things currently over the last number of years you know are done and changed to accommodate things on the fly um but is there any way to bring things more in line and be consistent with other other contracts yeah so there really aren't any twists and turns to any of our collective bargaining agreements
068that create problems with getting it entered into tyler um there just aren't any um the only thing that we have sometimes and we only really see it in the teacher's contract is that mid-year step you know so you you advance a step in january but again very simple and easy to set up in tyler um i think what this is referring to is um they need to look different for july one um because what the way that they were in before don't that we were trying to match up the salary amounts to make sure that they were the same so that's what i think we're talking about making tweaks but the contracts are all there are there are i believe eight of them they're pretty straightforward um so i'm pretty comfortable my team has been
069going in to do the salary schedules and to make sure the calendars are correct for next year so i'm really not too worried about anything unusual the the only yeah the only piece that has been odd and it's been odd for a hundred years longer be than before any of us got here i think um is that we do annualize some hourly folks and that's really predominantly the peras and we're looking at how to get that fixed but i think it's we we decided as a team that was too big of a project to take on for right now we'll look at that for next year okay thank you i'm sorry no that's what kim hit it on the head that's what i was kind of referring to in this paragraph here so one thing
070i would just suggest since i'm i'm leaving but you might want to look at some other districts because they do have much more streamlined contracts than we do the volume of calendars and salary schedules that we have and the the workarounds that we have to make because of that i think um could be improved in my opinion okay and jeff mike my question to you is july 1 is around the corner and and yet a lot of work has to be done i'm sure there's there's more training and you've got reconciliations that have to to to be done so are you comfortable that effective july you could actually make this conversion and transfer to the new system and then secondly the are the the staff that that's remaining there are they they comfortable as of
071this point to continue uh i'm a little bit concerned in in the absence of not having a finance director but we'll deal with that on an ongoing basis and i think having yourself and lynn overseeing this adds a lot more comfort level to us but um are you comfortable that july 1 is a realistic date for us to to go live with the complete system absolutely yes okay i'm not i you i'm one that will pull the panic button um if i believe we need to so i want to be very clear about this i think we've made some great progress um over the past uh you know three four weeks we've made some really good progress kim and her team have done an awesome job this week of of really pulling together and and
072you know there's everyone is is starting to pull together as a team and i i think we have um uh we have um not only an opportunity but we have a a good game plan to make sure that we're in place by july 1st i'm going to be very honest about one thing we are not going to force fit it so if we come down to the last week in june and we don't have green lights from everyone we are not or i'm gonna i will make a very strong recommendation that we do not move forward and we continue on phoenix for another month or two whatever it is but this is not something we can um force fit and we need to make sure that you know we have it um place um i
073you know it might not be picture perfect but it's going to be damn close it'll be perfect we can't run payroll on on phoenix anything i didn't mean payroll but yeah i'm actually very comfortable to be honest with you about ap and purchasing will there need to be some ongoing training yeah i think so because let's not forget you know the school year ends there's a bit of a hiatus and then people come back and they're going to need some additional training right but we're going to be planning for that yeah i agree that goes without saying and the unresolved issues in terms of responsibilities i would hope that would be resolved prior to most of them most of them are resolved now okay terrific all right thank you very much i appreciate it my
074pleasure um i i think we're done with our sector right and we'll obviously keep the board updated yeah thank you thank you and thank you thank you all very much thank you thank you so much have a great day everyone and evening bye-bye bye okay superintendent's report is [Music] just to let you know we you know we we had three openings well two but when we're doing an interim for principalship when you get to my gosh um michelle tarcy who was at mill ridge as an interim she's just done a wonderful wonderful job as a leader of that district through these difficult times she's um oh she's a jewel and so she will continue as principal there we're very fortunate uh in addition you know we have the brookville center we were putting in an
075interim this is janet says she's been she's been a um district at various levels so she will assume that position she'll be working with the transition with the kindergarten so we have one more job to fill um and that is um hayestown and we'll be uh working on that but um right now that's uh that's a report and just to let you know about graduation tomorrow's all set and um that's it unless uh kevin or kim want to add anything to uh to the statements about the principles i just want to say a quick thank you i know um so many of you been participating in a lot of different things lately um interviewing for principals interviewing for superintendents um also negotiations and those are starting to amp up as well and i know you
076all have day jobs and lots of other things going on so i just want to say a particular thank you because you all have been i've asked you to be and it's been really helpful so thank you for spending your time doing that thank you kim that's all madam chair okay thank you dr seth um before i give my report are there any uh commission report or any reports or someone like to bring forth at this time liaison for the board um and i was at the opening of the educational workspace that has just been purchased by uh ed advance um in collaboration with uh ces which is the educational risk for uh the lower region of fairfield county um and i just want to share that with the board and with the the group
077this is a space that was located in bethel connecticut and it was put together originally as sort of a a resource for home school families who maybe needed some additional um you know tools for their kids and wanted to sort of round out the education so it has things like a maker space it has like a sewing area where kids can put together costumes um a theater it has a garden a community garden it's got um 3d printers it's got a bench and workshop it's got a whole bunch of stuff it's a 30 to 32 000 foot square foot facility and it's also available for board retreats and things of that nature so i just want to share the the news of that purchase which took place at the end of april they just had
078their open house they are going to have some additional open houses in july which i'd be happy to share information with any board members who might be interested in checking out that facility but the intent i think is to start to create programs in conjunction with ces um and hopefully some of those will be available to our danbury students thank you kate thank you for being wrapped for uh the board and bringing back the information to us any other reports or comments things yes rachel um kate al and i sat through three very warm oh and and dr sal and kevin and and cara and kelly it was great to see all of you today but they were very warm but very great middle school promotion ceremonies very nicely done um exhausted so i'm like
079stumbling through my words and also uh we are having a policy committee meeting on tuesday that was requested um you know to continue our discussion of pog and the impact on curriculum um maybe we can you know review the equity policy um to drive that discussion cara casemiro i don't know if you're available but we would love to have you there to help us with our discussion um and also you know i don't want to um you know harp on the the cabinet's work this year but um on top of everything kovid we had portrait of a graduate which um was no easy feat and was you know many years in in the works um stemmed from you know the beginning of my term here where we were looking for you know to redefine the
080vision and mission um so i just i don't want to um you know miss that um the opportunity to say you know that was um consistently presented with enthusiasm and passion and um on top of everything coveted so um and also our policy audit that's just you know forever ongoing so again thank you thank you for all that you do for the district thank you right uh i'm just going to go over briefly the timeline for uh ray associates and we all have that it's posted on our website and board members received information that ray had emailed me today and looking at the timeline there probably will be some type of communication from him for us as a group on this uh the 22nd uh but to just uh be very clear today was the
081deadline for all applications and we can go online and see what's you know what's the next step for ray and associates to do when they receive those applications and then he will be meeting with the poor and i i received quite a few emails and communication concerning people and i also thank roy for uh you know he put the application deadline and his notification today and he also noted that please do not contact the board or the district directly that means individual as far as telling me that mary john is the best person mary sue is better than someone else i've been knowing them so if you have that type of information just forward to ray associates if you need the information you contact um our superintendent secretary and they will give you the information
082and i'm quite sure ray uh email and all the information how to contact them is on the website so that's really all that i have to say about the superintendent search we're moving along we're moving along okay any other comments questions anyone need to ask me seeing none if there's nothing else to report oh before we move on i don't know if ogre's going to be with us i think oprah has done an excellent job in putting the minutes together and it's no easy job to to sit and try to put the minutes and not make any mistakes and i really appreciate her doing uh the minutes for us uh and i think the last thing i uh i want to say is thank you so much okay you're welcome on the 23rd we're having
083the uh going away party for dr saleh and my understanding if carol is there to correct me if i'm wrong we will be having at the black box theater we will be uh wearing our masks we will be keeping our distance we will be having kate only and um also kathy adele if she's on line two can sort of help me out with that and we will be like i think kathy two feats part uh when we come to going um yes good evening everyone um yes so for the seating um it will be uh two seats apart and every other row um certainly if someone comes with another member of their household they can from the public um they can certainly sit next to each other but for everyone else it will be two
084seats apart every other row uh for safe distancing so uh kathy again we can't have any open refreshments or anything like that so what about a lot of water small bottle of water well um i i consulted with kara prunty um on this and you can certainly have water available there if you know someone really needs a drink but um we've been asked by the department of health to continue all of the practices and mitigation strategies that we've had ongoing um through the rest of the school year and in consultation with kara she felt that um just the cake would be um appropriate and not a lot of masks off and drinking and things like that okay okay i hope you know everybody listen to what you're saying and say well you know we want
085to bring everyone and we can do this and it's smoking yes open to the public but we still have to follow the guidelines correct and be careful madam chair are we going to um um just have a few people there i mean is it by invitation only well how is this and the black box doesn't doesn't hold a lot of people right so we um we decided that um the max capacity for the public would be uh set at 50 people how many 50 50. so 50 is the public capacity that's that's the number of members of the public not including board and staff and cabinet my understanding is that the board will be on the stage okay and the public will be um in the auditorium seats okay okay any other questions thank you
086again so very much kathy thank you i'm sorry madam chairman i asked a question yes maybe well on the calendar it's just it's booked as a board meeting are we having a meeting or are we having a party we're having both okay we're to start with the party then we're going to meet and then we're going to go back to the party gotcha okay sounds great it's always a party what that's not motivation enough for a short meeting i don't know what is right thank you thank you amy for asking that okay okay and i just want to say you know if i don't get to say this again i have enjoyed working with this board this past year and i really appreciate um and i know all the time that we don't agree and
087i i don't say agree on everything but we try to talk it out and be rational and respect one another and to me that's what it's all about okay and your commitment to education and to our children here and to our staff and and i just want to say thank you thank you so very much uh this board has has really shown to me the leadership uh why you were elected to the poor and i just want to say thank you if there's no other questions or discussion about anything i'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting so moved moved by mr smith seconded by al russo good night all see all those tomorrow at the graduation thank you good night good night you