001Today is Thursday, January 22nd. Uh this is a special meeting of the board of education finance committee. Um we'll begin with review of the November and December 2025 financial report. Uh Rachel, turn over to you. >> Uh so this is the financial report through December. Uh we do show a positive balance of $486,776. Uh this is a decrease of about $102,000 from the previous report in October. Um, the changes include a placeholder for the teacher early retirement incentive of $200,000. We'll firm that up once we actually have names of those who submitted um likely next uh month. Uh step and level changes for clubs and councils reduced it by 1773. The security assessment came in under budget by 2712. Uh we'll have another secretary in the new salary schedule and that will save a little
002over $4,000. Um we have a couple more par professionals on the new salary schedule and that'll save it just over 15,000. Uh we have some savings in building subs just over 20 and the state of Connecticut released the estimated uh revenues for excess cost and tenatively the reimbursement rate is about 68%. Uh and so that is a increase in revenue of about $56,000 um for a change of $102,000. Um overall the general education RC's are forecasted at a deficit of 90,339. Again, that's largely due to that placeholder for the early retirement set. And then special education is forecasted at a positive 577,116. Uh that is mostly in part due to the savings and out of district tuition. Uh the power professional schedule uh contract uh changes as well as a little bit in excess cost
003revenue. Uh just moving to some of the changes in the RC's. RC3 um as I mentioned building subs show a positive balance of 15,400 and that is again due to some uh changes. some of the building some moved to long-term sub positions and then some had some unpaid days. Um and then moving on to our C24 really where the bulk of the changes are as I mentioned there are new par profofessionals on the new salary schedule and overall that has created a positive balance of $130,000. Uh we have a secretary in the special education office uh that is leaving and the new uh replacement will go on the new salary schedule. for that portion of the year, it's a little over 4,000. And as I mentioned, the estimated revenues for the state of Connecticut was
004published based on the December 1st filing. They're saying a 67.93% reimbursement rate. This will get updated again as the March 1st filing uh is done by all districts. So, this represents a reimbursement of $2.3 million. We did budget a 65% reimbursement rate and a threshold of 122. Tenatively, the threshold is a little over 118,000. So the benefit of the threshold and the slightly higher reimbursement rate is the additional uh revenue that we're forecasting. And then in RC25 benefits um the account shows a deficit of 180,237 and again that is where the placeholder is for the early retirement incentive for the DEA. >> Great. Thank you. Uh I had one question on the the five students who were previously outplaced who came back in the district. what like any without g being specific to students anything
005general about why they were coming back or what happened there >> um so that's really I question anything for Shirley um I mean they always constantly review whether students can come back whether the program's working uh >> right more curious anything else >> the goal is if you have to outplace a student that eventually they would come back at the right time so the special ed department works with the families to make that happen >> got it okay um others with questions. Joanne, >> thank you. Um, so for the excess cost reimbursement, um, do you when you see that the threshold is set differently than where you predicted, does that affect our forecasting in the future or do you stick to the same sort of numbers? >> So the the threshold typically goes up every
006year assuming your budget goes up. Um, so when we do the forecast for the following fiscal year, um, we start with this $118,000 and then we assume uh that the budget that's proposed is going to get adopted and then that creates our new threshold and then there's any changes that happen when we file our uh, EFS report September 1st with the state. That's what the state determines our threshold. >> Um, I have >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Okay. Um and then the substitutes you said that the so in RC3 and RC9 there's a positive balance due to change in staffing. So both these temporary substitutes are building. >> So these are building subs and so unlike uh like a teacher or a non-ertified stiff they don't actually get like personal days or sick days. So
007if they're out it's essentially a day without pay. >> Thank you. >> Other questions? Okay. >> Before we get to the transfers, um >> are you going to talk a little bit about the the school start time study before we talk about the transfer proposal? >> We we certainly can there there are two phases of it. One is the transportation component and that's one specific study and then the other is for the consultants to come in and do the focus groups and surveys with the community. So, we've worked with uh school leadership um who conducted the search for the superintendent role. They do a wide range of services for school districts. So, uh Marty and Reena will be back and they will be the ones uh building out that survey, conducting the focus groups and
008gathering information on the community's uh feeling and thoughts about uh changing the start times and presenting what the different options are. and the transportation consultant will handle the transportation side of it and give us more detail on what it would how it would impact our transportation program. >> Sorry, I I must read from that was more on the board of ed. I just the question I had is on transportation study it says alignment of Darian high school and middle school start time or is this really a a link start? >> So it's a combination of multiple things. One is to change potentially change the start time. What would it look like if the high school was 8:00, 8:15, 8:30, for example, what would it look like if the high school and the middle school started
009at the same time? Um, if you change start times, typically district C expenses uh north of a million dollars of additional buses. If um you align the schedules at the high school and middle school, there's a potential maybe you could share staff. Does that reduce the overall uh cost of a change of start times? So, it's looking at all those. So, we're trying to look at all the possibilities um that could exist and what the impact would be logistically, financially, and practically. >> And the um $40,000 transfer, is that for both parts of the study or just one part? >> So, it's 32 for the transportation portion and then eight for the uh like the focus group. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm sorry, Rich. I thought we were um transferring money away from the
010study. We're we're putting transferring into >> We're transferring in to fund the study. >> Thank you. >> Other questions? Budget transfers. So the transfer is for $40,000 into consultant services and then the uh funding would come from the savings in the par profofessional line item for those paras who move to the new salary schedule. And again, this um study would look at school start time aligning potentially to high school and middle school. Um look at the walk radius as well and whether any changes could be associated with that. Um how this will impact routes. Um how many potential buses more buses you would need um if any of those changes were being adopted? >> Other questions on the transfer? >> Have have we never done a study like this before? >> Not for school start
011time. Um we did do a study a while ago on the efficiency of our routes and whether or not we should reduce uh the walk radius. Okay. >> Um a few years ago, I think it was about five years, four or five years ago, the board wanted to look at whether or not we should reduce the walk radius from 2 miles at the high school and one mile at the middle school. Um nothing was changed after that study. It would cost um we would need additional buses. Each bus is about $120,000. Um so depending on how many buses you need, there's obviously an impact. This has been like a I don't know ongoing for the past I don't know I want two at least two or three years big topic where there have been several
012parent groups who've raised this and um been pushing to understand if this is a potential possibility in terms of school start times some of the other um school districts in the Dur have made some changes here some of reverse back and so the idea is to get the money spent so that we can determine like is this even feasible for deren given some of our restrictions And >> I' I've heard the the parent groups >> with that and >> I attended a conference where I sat next to a Greenwich School board member and uh she filled me in a lot of there. >> Yep. >> Um Rich, [clears throat] the last time they did the study was part of the issue that it was during COVID and so the bus ridership is not maybe not
013what it was supposed to be. >> Yep. So the wrership was a little light um obviously because of the situation that we had. It really stemmed from there was um we have a lot of walkers and so some of the the board did add a bus for like the Fitch Avenue area for the high school and so that's bus 25 and so when that was decided to be added um there was desire to look at like kind of all the walkers um but no changes happened >> and you >> so is everyone generally good with the transfer? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Great. Um excellent. If nothing else, then we'll go to public comment. >> There's nobody in to participate. >> Excellent. So, I'll take a motion to return the meeting. build ran out on
014favor.