June 25, 2025 – School Board Workshop

001All right. Are we okay? All right. Good evening. Going to call the meeting to order for tonight's workshop. Um, as we do, everyone, please join me for the lunch choice. United States, justice for all. All right. We are here tonight for the purpose of workshop. This is not a business meeting. We have no voting agenda items. Uh just a quick review of upcoming meetings. We will have a July 9th next week finance committee meeting at 5:30 here. That will be in the high school library. July 16th, we will have a school board business meeting at 6:30. The place is to be determined. We're working on it. Uh we will publish that. And then July 24th will be our town budget validation meeting at 6. I believe we were going to do registration starting at 5:30.

002Um so doors open at 5:30 and we will be back here at the high school cafeteria. Um as this is a workshop with a specific agenda, I would ask for comments from the audience um and request they be specific to tonight's um topic. Do we have any comments from the audience? You sure? All right. Um, so old business is um to hear an update on the budget. Actually, before we get into the purpose of tonight's workshop, um, I do some quick housekeeping. Um, I thought we would have po possibly more folks, but we don't. Um, but for those watching along at home, please be sure speak into your microphones. Um, some of them I've experimentally set up on the side of you instead of in front of you. It seems to catch with less having

003to do this. Um, but in this space in particular, it's really important that everyone can be heard. And oh, and we have with us tonight um, Jen Gagnen and David Pascal from central office um, in their uh, roles as administrators for the district. um to help answer any questions that we may have as we talk through um ideas for the budget. So they will uh we may hear from them. They have a microphone as well. And you all know Dr. Turner. I think that is it for notes. And u just as a reminder, what we asked to hear tonight um is a little bit of a review on the process, how we got here, um how we came to the decisions we did for the budget. we put forth and what um ideas and suggestions

004that administrators have for us to consider for our next round of budget proposal. So, all that said, turn it over to Jenna. All right. Our old business is to hear an update on the FY25 budget and expenditures. Um as we discussed in our meeting last week, was that last week or two weeks? That was just last week. Um, we will have some initial documentation for you at the finance committee on July 9th. The intention is to bring you that month end report for June 30. Um, but as you know, it's June 25. So, we have some anticipated or estimated thoughts about where we're going to land at the end of the school year. Um, but believe it or not, a lot can change in uh in just a few days. Um, in in just a

005few hours, frankly. the um expenditures that we have here that I'm looking at to share with you have changed since I left the office um because we had a bill that we've been waiting for come in. So um it it changes quickly um but we anticipate this is about where we're going to land. So in FY24, so not the school year that just got over, but last school year, we had a remaining balance of 2,244,829. We are estimating that the remaining balance at the end of this school year is going to be 1,581,184. That includes 125 that we were instructed earlier in the year to put aside to have available for carryover to defay the tax impact um for next year. Um so we've been very cautious to make sure that we stay above that

006number uh make decisions a little bit differently uh to make sure that we can stay there which will leave us with about $250,000 um wiggle room this minute. I again will say there are still five days left in our fiscal year. Many encumbered costs that are wait to shake out. Um we will share with you more details on July 9th keeping in mind that that will be just a few days after our fiscal year has ended. They probably will be updated even more after that and as we go through our audit um which you are all familiar with but at this time we estimate that there will be about 1.5 million remaining. The majority of that lives in article one which regular instruction. That is with where the majority of our expenses live. So that

007makes sense. Uh we do have 378 remaining uh approximately in special education. Um about 50,000 we believe left over in other instruction. That's about half of what it was the year before. About $200,000 left in support. Um we are overspent in article six system administration. You recall at our business meeting a couple months ago, we asked uh for a vote of the board to be allowed to move um expenses between articles so that uh within statutory limits so that we could cover that expense. That's about $12,000 over at this point. School administration has about a h 100,000 remaining anticipated. Transportation about 180,000. the vast majority of that being positions that we really need but we weren't able to hire for. Um and then facilities has about 132,000. That's a that's a number that's one of

008the harder ones to nail down because we um try to do a lot of projects when school gets out. But what we can do and when we can do it varies a lot. As you can see, we've got an active project. I don't know if you noticed on your way in, but we have a lift and the plans are all out over there. There is an active project happening here at this time. So, um, that one can can, uh, be a little, um, less less regularly predictable. It's not a a regularly timed expense. Um, unlike some of the other articles, debt service is a little bit different. Um, we normally are within a few cents of our budget of debt service. we had um an unanticipated um percentage reduction and so we will have uh

009we think just under 4,000 remaining in that article that we weren't anticipating before. And when you put all of those together, it comes out to the 1.5 million we anticipate or just under 1.6 million we anticipate we are going to land at at the end of FY25. Um questions on that uh so the 2024 number that again 2,2448296 and that is not inclusive of the 1.5 million that we rolled over that includes the 1.5 million we rolled over didn't have that correct gave 1.5 million of that back. This is more of a parking lot question, but you know when you say that we had that left, my impression is that we had that left on July one. Correct. Correct. Right. So, we all know that July one does not end our expenditures on 2024 fiscal

010year. So, despite us having a little bit more than $2 million on July one, I know from experience that we spent a lot more on the 2024 budget. Can we investigate that further? What percentage of our annual budget tends to actually go out the door after the fiscal year ends? If we could see that number over like the last three or four years, I think we'd be really instructive because I think that's where a lot of the public confusion is coming, right? Because if you look audit you see money out and money in and they are only looking at one fiscal year but there is money that has not gone out yet at the end of that fiscal year I understand it if that's the case then we might look like we've got two million

011bucks left over but then over the course of the next nine months we spend another 500 and that's why we only rolled over 1.5 million because we didn't want to get in a place where we're spending this year's money on last year's budget That has always been my impression and I think that's where the confusion comes from because our our bank accounts are not getting bigger. Right? If the narrative as described by our speakers at the last meeting were the case, our bank account would get bigger. We saw in our most recent audit that our bank account did not get bigger. So there is some somewhere there is not something is not correct uh in the in the stories that are out there in the ether. And I think one way we might be able

012to investigate that is to if we could somehow figure out how much of 2024's budget got spent after July 1, 2025 and vice versa. That that's just something that's been rolling around in my head for the past week and those numbers because I know that we didn't throw $2 million in the bank. I know we didn't throw $750,000 bank. I know we spent our bank account down. So something is not making sense. Dave, does that make sense what I'm asking? You were looking at me with lots of brow. It does. I mean, part of what we know, we acrew some expenses, David, get it in there. Those would be uh so what I said was we we acrew expenses and those expenses do hit the year that we acrew them in and then we spend

013after that, but that wouldn't change the dollars. So I'd have to I can't think of what might be spent beyond after July 1st, but we can I think what we're talking about is the encumbered fees. So when we've been talking about our fund balance, we've been talking about we carried over 2.2 million. 1.5 of that went against the tax base. 600,000 of that was encumbered costs that we had spent in the last fiscal year, but we hadn't received the bill for yet. We hadn't written the check. The money hadn't gone out of our account yet. But it was last year's money. So I think if I'm correct, Sam, that's what you're looking to see over a couple of years if that's a thing. Yeah, we we can get a definitive answer for you, but the

014encumbered when I say acred, that is the encumbered amount that you're So I guess that's the question, right? So on the like report that we get at the finance meeting, right, that Hunter had at the last meeting, uh, you know, get that big line item. If we have gotten the bill, but we have not paid it yet, I'm assuming we don't show that money as out yet, do we? It would show on that report in the encumbered column, right? But in this balance that we're talking about, the one point just under 1.6, That would include money that's money that's encumbered that hasn't been paid yet. Yeah. I think we just got to try to get clarity of that in the finance meeting. I want to whiteboard some stuff. Absolutely. Others questions on that or I

015know um they're not final yet so it's a verbal conversation. Are there any that people missed or they want Channy to read again or that you have questions about? We will bring you black and white copies, hard copies to finance. It's just literally this isn't accurate anymore since I left the office. So, I just I'm not I didn't think it was appropriate to give you guys all something that before I even give it to you, it's outdated. Great. Continue conversation. Um I notic in the um financial the um the expenses um we already have the incumbent in there and um so the amount of money raised and the amount spent of course is different because there's an incumbent amount that needs to be spent eventually. Okay. So, I'm not sure. I I think I understand

016what you're saying. It doesn't really make a difference in the bottom line because it's already been raised and spent. Even though it hasn't gone out of the checking account yet, it still will be. So, it doesn't matter if it's paid next year. Now, my question is, will we have a handle on how much that percentage of or even more accurately how much of that will be income for this coming year? on July 1st. How much? See, we should we should I'm sorry. Am I speaking? All right. I don't think it's I don't think it's picking you up. Pardon? I don't think it's picking you up. Okay, good. So, okay. I don't need my computer. Um, there you go. Okay. Sorry about that. Um, so but June 30th, I guess, is the uh incumbent amounts. Do

017you have a good idea of what won't be paid until after uh June 30th? That was already asked for and raised to tax dollars. We will have that for the finance committee. And so we we've identified or we're working on identifying those um situations where we won't have paid the check and we'll have that number Okay. All right. So, I think we're good on that for now. Um, I I did like what Sam said though, if folks can keep in mind like white board for finance committee. What what sorts of things do we hear that we want to make sure they dig into next week or that we wish we knew more about or you know that we can make that keep that going tonight? Um, okay. So, next is an updated budget. Oh, excuse

018me. Oh, you wanted some more suggestions or you're looking for a suggestion of what to have prepared for next week. Um, specifically an account. One of the things I'm looking at is the library. I'd like a breakdown of the library expenses. Okay. That and that already shows up in the budget or no, just numbers. So, it it will be in the expense report. It's just it lives under each um each school. Oh, that's so it lives in, you know, it's much like our staffing lines and it it it under our chart of account system cost centers, it kind of lives in a couple different places. Um, but we will look into um I always like stress around giving you guys too much information over less information. Um, we could look at how that's organized. I

019know that's been um some feedback. We generally do that by the chart of accounts. We could pretty easily also do that by article. Do you like how I make suggestions and hope that they can deliver? Um, and and doing it by article might get at that a little bit more closely. I've got the breakdown at each school, but I don't know what it's paying for. You know, it's just lines that really doesn't say. Oh, okay. So, you'd like to receive a report as to exactly what Okay, this is crazy. I know. of exactly what the expenses are within each of those. Not every dollar. I'm I'm looking generally speaking like how much total books do we buy? How much total do we pay for wages? How much do we pay for whatever else we pay

020for in the library? you know what if it consists of to as an example of one of the ideas that Jim had more recently of we don't see how some of these things they're spread out along um and we can't get a picture right of excuse me and you're referring to the actual expenses for FY24 is your question around the library or are you asking for FY next year's budget. Yeah. What cons what does consist of the budget for the school for the um library? For instance, I have library to total. When I did the report, I had $454,000 from for all the schools. So, I'm looking at getting a more um idea of what that buys in the budget. Yep. What that buys. Okay. So FY25, not FY FY I know it's more now,

021but that was when I did FY26, not FY25. Yes, just want to make sure completely understand. Yeah. Okay. Um so another uh thing that we had requested or that I had requested that we revisit tonight is um number two moving forward. We're looking at that. Okay. Is some overview on you know we're starting this process over. Let's get ourselves settled in what is the process? How do we get to this point? Um what sorts of things are done to um do this. We're compressing our whole budget season into this month. Um and we also have a new member who wasn't u with us from November to all of this. So um Chanda has put together some information for us um on how we got here from a procedure standpoint. Um and I think then we

022also get into some ideas and feedback on Yeah. proposed changes. Yeah, I think what we heard um last week were kind of some continuing questions about how it is that we build the budget. So, we thought it would be a good opportunity to get more into detail of that. We tend to have shared just the ex, you know, the face, the part that faces all of you, the data reports, the staffing reports, all of that. Um we thought it might be helpful to pull back the curtain as the process that happens in our office. Um so, we've kind of given you an overview of that. We have a handout. Jen's gonna um there should be enough for everyone and I apologize we didn't get it too in advance. I was working on it an hour

023ago. Um we are also working on getting it on the website so I apologize to folks joining us from home. That will be up as soon as possible. Um I think it is. It is. Is it up now? Okay, great. It's in tonight. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. When I left the office, it wasn't up yet. So, thank you. Uh, and that's a huge thank you to Jen Tesa who is on vacation today and yet is doing this all from home and I told her not to, but she did it anyways and I will say thank you. Um, just a tough time here. And then um, so I'm going to give you a second to read it, but I'm just going to kind of go over what's on here and then go over in more

024detail. The front page is really like the in the weeds of how we develop a budget um, of of kind of just some key areas um, but you can kind of extrapolate to all the different areas of what we do. And then the back side is to spend a little time going over our budget history to kind of help understand um how we budget, why we budget, why we report the data that we do, and then to get into a discussion of what we have already reduced in the budget, and then discuss some um thoughts that the team has had around additional reduction opportunities we may have um depending on where the board wants to head. So, I'm going to give you just a few minutes. I know I provided this last minute. I apologize.

025few minutes to look it over and then I will go over it as well. Yeah. Yep. Um and uh for those watching at home, this handout is in tonight's um materials folder on the website. most everyone has looked up. Yeah, I don't want to rush anybody. As you know, giving you documents of last minute is not my preferred modus operandi, but here we are. Um so looking at the making of a budget um as you have seen me present more times than most everyone at this table could stand is the process by which going back to November um how we built our budget. The piece that it doesn't cover is there's this like stretchy thing in the middle that kind of says ongoing is department you know line level meetings. Um, and what occurred to

026me and and Penny and I chatted about it also is um just some really powerful conversations I thought last week about zerobased budgeting and um maintenance of equity and you know how we build a budget and some and some I think wellfounded confusion about how those things interact. So I felt like it was worth taking a little time to talk about how we build that budget. So I've given you a few examples of kind of the biggest areas that tend to come into question or or our biggest staffing is our biggest area of expenditure. Um we as staff when we are building that budget we always start with enrollment and student teacher ratios. You have seen those presentations those have been in many packets. We look at how many teachers do we need to educate

027the children that are going to be with us. We review IEPs to determine shifting needs at each school. Uh so for example, something you've seen in this budget is um we have a group of students who are you know leaving one school and going to another school that mandates we move staff around a little bit. Um we might have new kids move in with significant needs. We might have a kid leave with significant needs. Um all of those things come into play when we know it. So we're reviewing IEPs to shift needs around. Um we're reviewing department metrics. So for like transportation is a great example. We're looking at how many runs are we doing? Are we most effective as we could be in transportation. Do we need all of these open positions that we

028thought we needed? Um, and making adjustments um as necessary. Um, and then we're looking at what are the programming needs. Again, that's part of those presentations we shared with you around what are the needs in each department and what are we looking to add in future budgets as well as eliminating in places where we um where we where there is less need. And so, you know, kind of from the question of do we budget just on budget, the answer is no. um do we budget from zero? It's not entirely true either. It's something a little bit in between where we're really looking at what is it that we have, what is it that we think we need to run the school, and how should we either increase or decrease that to really um meet the

029goals of the district. As we're doing that, we're budgeting based on the pay of the actual people that are likely to be in those positions. So, we're rolling them forward in the actual um salary. So, if um not budgeting teacher positions based on an average amount. We're saying if Mrs. Smith was on step 10 master's degree last year and Mrs. Smith's position is likely to be maintained, we are going to budget for her at step 11 for next year because that is her contractual increase. So it's really, you know, important that these these are not theoretical numbers generally speaking that we're using. We're using numbers based on the actual people that we currently have. Now when we have open positions we do use um you know industry averages and hope that we uh as we

030hire we bring people on some people come on higher some people come on lower I will say in the hiring we've done so far this spring um we are just about right where we have budgeted so far we then look at um in addition to that we're then looking at tuition and other benefits again by person and predicting their use. So for example with um the tuition benefit that we use We literally looked at every person. We said, "Oh, we know this person's starting a master's degree. We should make sure we budget for that. This person, I know that they're doing this other program that's different from tuition. So, they're not likely to use that particular benefit." So, we don't think we need to budget for them. We are literally looking at every single person

031employed in our district, what their um benefits are, and making our best prediction of how they're going to use that. We then in addition to all of that review three years of actual expenditures. So, as I shared with you earlier tonight, what are those actual expenditures for last year compared to or two years ago compared to the year that's ending right now? We look back three years of what was actually spent in every single line in that entire budget book and we make additional adjustments um to align with spending as needed. So, you can see we do that across supplies and other related expenses. Um other special education costs is a difficult one. You'll see we have some recommendations on that. We try to predict our out of district placement costs, transportation, equipment and supplies.

032The challenge with that is um when you when you get into out of district placement, one placement difference can change the budget by 100 to $200,000 depending on the placement. So a child coming in with a placement might add 200,000 in expenses. A child moving out might decrease by 200,000 expenses. So we do our best to predict that. It is unfortunately a by nature unpredictable number that h can have huge slaves. So we review the IEPs, we do our best to predict um we do our best um I won't continue to belabor all the points because you can see it's kind of a similar trend which is analyze what it is that we need based on the metrics of the area look at three years of actual expenditures and then make adjustments as we move

033forward in our actually proposed budget. Let me stop there for a second and see if we have any questions. Questions? Uh, go ahead. I'm thinking about the three-year. Uh, I didn't know that, you know, I think the public has asked for a three-year comparison and I I suspect the board has too. Um, so we can history what's going on to help us, you know, we don't meet the budget, but at least they know what's kind of going on. Um, so I I I didn't realize you were doing that. So, is there any way um we can redesign this um you know, the reports to include that? Um, not three years. I guess that but at least I'm not sure. I don't have a I have just the budget in front of me. I don't have

034expense report. Um I know can be a little clearer. Do we need to have all these columns like this? Can we have a little more? How much does it really cost us each department? You know, that's what I'm looking at. You want actual expenditures. Yeah. When you're doing comparison to make a budget. All right. So, what's really happening with the budget it the expenses itself? Don't forget the revenue side too. We keep forgetting to mention that, but that's important as well. But I'm wondering um if there's some way of redesigning um the reports so that we can see a little more information because I'm going to tentatively tell you yes and then ask you to say more about what the specific information is you'd like. I just don't want to spend time creating something that

035then is like this isn't at all what I wanted. Right. Um I I think we've mentioned it uh around the way just in passing but um you got uh two years of expenses um for comparison and then you have um what was budgeted and um we should see the two-year budgeting as well so we can see how this is flowing at least for two years. you have the three years in in in on in your staff, but the public should be able to see like, you know, at least two years worth of that kind of information because when you're looking through the expenses, you don't know how much was uh spent the prior year. So that's missing. So the report only has one year and I don't know, would it make it a little clearer?

036Yeah, the budget document has last year and then the proposed. So you're looking So you're thinking like every single line item of the budget with those four columns essentially. Do we need all of this? I mean you have to have the cost center. You have to Oh, you have to have the cost centers. Oh yeah, definitely have to have Sam. Oh, yeah. There's an expert. So maybe Well, um I do think there is some kind of alternative uh document that is between the thousand line items and the piraphph, right? I think that's what it's coming down to is it's hard to see where we, you know, we know that we uh have leftover money every year. It's hard to see trends in that to be able to be confident in adjusting our budgeting because I'm

037I'm of two minds uh of mind. One is that it doesn't really matter on some level, right? If we need five math teachers to teach all the kids. But last year, one of the math teachers uh got hit by a bus and we had a sub instead and we saved $20,000. I just don't care because I still need five math teachers. I still know what those five math teachers cost. I don't want to adjust this year's budget for last year's bus hit. However, if we saw that we were conservatively uh budgeting for fuel oil three years in a row and we were 20% high on fuel oil three years in a row, maybe I would say, okay, why don't we sort of budget a little closer to the vest on fuel oil, right? So, I

038think there are places where it can matter. I just want to manage expectations because we know that so much of our underspend is salary and we know that we need those people. So, you know, I don't think it's a great idea to be like, well, we've, you know, over the last three years we've only spent 85% of our salary, so let's budget to spend 85% of this salary. That is a recipe for disaster. Uh because we have to make sure we fulfill our commitments to our staff. Um, so I I just want to caution, you know, I I just don't want to set up some sort of expectation where I do think in the private sector, right? In the private sector, if we had budgeted three years in a row and we had underhired and

039we came in 20% high on salary three years in a row, absolutely the CFO should recommend that we budget lower. But this is different. You know, we are these are public employees that we have contracted obligations to on some level. We cannot tell the union, hey, we know that we have a hundred of you hired, but we're only going to budget for 95 because we think some of you are just aren't going to happen. Like, we can't do that, you know? Uh that's so much of our budget. So, maybe not by line. I know we we've already started to build it by article because that's part of what we intend to bring you on the 9th, but perhaps something in between those two levels of detail. Uh further on that um staff piece too is

040we have also heard from the public in emails at our meetings no matter what their their tone on the budget is. We are not asking to cut staff. Do not cut teachers. Do not cut programming. How do we illustrate to people what that really looks like? And I want the that to be very clear um you know how it adds up, what part of our staffing um is our budget and this idea that well if you have money, how do you have transportation money left over and you need bus drivers? Just hire a bus driver. Um the reality is is that we can't hire bus drivers. If we could hire a bus driver, we would. Um and I think there's a little bit of confusion or misunderstanding about the the very real um essentially job

041market for us is and what if they change the rules for a CDL next year? What if they open a new program and suddenly we actually could hire three bus drivers and get our roots back and get kids off the bus for these hourlong rides and we say actually we can't because now we had to go back to voters and explain to them that we actually do need that money and we're not going to you know I I'm reluctant to think we would get it. So Gary, I agree with I agree with Sam on majority of what what he brought up and um I'm talking right into it. Nope. No. We're probably going to return these. I have never been told I couldn't be heard. We're going to get you guys once pinned to you.

042I think um my thought is that uh we need to improve the narrative that goes along with the budget for for public consumption in that um more detail isn't going to help I don't think in many ways because without a narrative or without context it doesn't mean a lot. And I've looked at a lot of these for a lot of years. Um, so I think if we if there was some kind of way of like Sam said, something in between that maybe had more narrative to describe what's included in that because my other thought on this is that if we were making a widget, we could predict our cost, but we're not. And our our product is dynamic. We don't even know who's going to be here for kids next year. I mean, we we've

043got a pretty good idea. the ones that were here, the 10th graders will be in the 11th grade, but are we going to gain two special needs kids? Are we going to lose three? Are we going to I mean, you just don't know. We're going to lose a teacher or two over the summer and not be able to hire and then we're going to be jamming them. Um are we going to have an opportunity come up to enhance some or hire somebody that that didn't seem to be available in the spring? I mean, this this industry is so much more flexible and dynamic than if we were providing a widget. And I think it's important. I don't I'm not sure if you haven't served on the board. I don't think it's easy to understand that.

044I mean, you intuitively know it. I mean, these are kids learning. That's our product. But it's hard to measure. It's hard to predict and we do the best we can, but we know a lot of this stuff. We know what we need to support who we have. But that can change so quickly. And the numbers every look comparing this year to last year without a narrative doesn't mean a lot. because that budget line may be different solely because there was a kid or two or a teacher or two or something happened or we had nine school days instead of two so suddenly we had subs or people who couldn't come in or we had to go remote or we had you know without a narrative you're looking back two years on a budget line who

045knows what that means so I just think that that what the for me the piece we're missing is the explanation of what some of these things mean um because the questions again in our public meetings. They don't want us to cut anything, but they don't want us to have any money left. But I think there's a misunderstanding of how much money we've got actually got left. So I think that narrative explaining in a s I don't want to say softer, but in a less number heavy document way might explain how the how this mush we deal with every year works. That make sense? Does that make I don't know. Get halfway into that. I'm sure I'm making sense anymore. It may also be valuable to have the finance committee get in the weeds about the

046various uh models we can use and what makes sense. Um to me we need some wiggle room. We have it and then if you look at our estimate we're essentially planning on giving almost all of it back all of our float back next year in revenue directly to the lower the taxpayer. So, I feel like in on paper that should be reassuring. We we need some room to make sure we get through the year. We budgeted. We did a really good job. Some things were not as expected. And okay, of this money, we're going to use some of it to seed next year. And it it seems to be unpopular with some folks. Um and are we not explaining it well? Is there a different path? Is there a different model in which we can

047Sam? Well, so there's some people for which that particular explanation is always going to sound bad, right? Um so you know I for instance as a self-employed person uh I choose not to uh estimate my taxes quarterly and I pay them all at the end because I don't want to give the government $1 more than I have to. I don't want the government to give me money back. I'll hold on to my money and I'll give it to you when I need to give it to you. So, there are some people who are philosophically opposed to the idea that we would collect a million dollars too much and then roll it back into the next year, right? And I think we have the narrative that I agree with with Gary the most about is why

048we have to do that, right? There really is not a way for us to be as accurate as the public commentators would like us to be because a because of the you know the 5% that we can move between articles is really not that much. Uh and b it's just the nature of like Gary said that unpredictability right. So I do think you know I I believe a statement was made in public comment that we're the only ones who do this and I just don't think that's true. We have heard like I am pedantic about asking our auditor every single year do we look like every other district. Every year our auditor says you look just like every other district. In fact you have way you know less debt. Um he has never once professional

049nerd said you know you guys really hold on to a lot more money than most people I watch. Not one time. Right. So if we were doing something wildly out of character for school districts, I think our professional auditor who gives us no notes might say, "Hey, you guys are really outside of the norm." Right? So maybe we need to say, "Look, Cumberland rolls over two million bucks. Yarmouth rolls over a million and a half bucks. You know, Madawaska rolls over $57." you know, like I may, you know, maybe that has to be part of it because I do understand this. I don't want to give the government more money than I need to. Like I get that sentiment, but I think, you know, we have to show that in this case, you know, we

050don't have a lot of choices. You know, we would be really hamstrung if we didn't do it that way. I think this might be an interesting time to uh report to the board. We'll talk about it more in depth at finance, but the legislature did approve to permanently change the maximum percent to that um school districts can um what's the word I'm looking for? Have in the bank have in the bank to 9% from 3%. So you may recall they moved it up to 9% during COVID. Um it went it was due to go back to 3%. Um they have voted to permanently till they act again. uh leave it at 9%. Um and and if you're interested as to know why, there's a lot of testimony around kind of those margins that school districts

051are expected to operate within and that 3% is not a realistic margin to ask um school districts to work within. And so 9% seemed more appropriate to those legislators um that voted it in. So it it's not officially enacted yet. Uh the has the 131st legislature closed yet? When I checked yesterday, it hadn't yet. I didn't check today. No, they're close. They closed. No, they're close. They're close. I thought you said they're close. I'm like, they closed it. Um, so we won't have an official enacted date until they close, but um still appropriate. Very close. Yeah. So, anyway, 9%. Okay. So, I got comment. Um, so I'm in contact with different people at different school districts and they these people I apologize I didn't take that off. Oh, and so anyway, uh the point is

052that they um they um I'm in the same boat. People from Yammed, Cumberland, North Yammed, you know, all these people are just regular every day. all they know and all they can see as well as the people in greater Nebraska that they are going to be forced out of their homes. So they have to now we have to look at you know what we are doing to the community just as all other schools should be doing. We're not the, you know, you're right. We're not any different than any other school district be, but they're doing the same thing and forcing many elderly and and whatever um from paying higher taxes. I mean, $400, another increase for me this year, 500. I mean, it becomes, you know, so we have to be very careful with every

053dollar. Um, things that are under contract I don't really look at because that's up to the contracting committees to take care of all of that. um and to recognize, you know, the needs of the community. But I'm looking at other areas. For instance, I think Sam's example of 20% increase each year. Say if it was oil, okay, have we um we stay with the same company and we're paying the 20% increase then all of a sudden the oil goes down and we're still paying the 20%. I trust the staff has taken care of all of that. And it's not, you know, saying that they're not, but I give an example of what I think people want to make sure their dollar is being spent um for the benefit of uh the community and not wasted.

054So if you didn't renegotiate with someone else and save some money because that's a big bill. Um you know, are we doing our job? So I'm looking at that from that side perspective. You don't want to be with these people who are from um Cumberland who put in a $3 million turf field every single time. That's all they talk about. So very angry. Very angry. So I I think we have a responsibility to I'm not nitpicking the budget, but I think we have to have an overall feel of what we are doing in the community as well. We want kids educated being able to go and get jobs or go on to school. you know, we want that's what we all want and how we get there. We we really should be taking a deeper

055look into how we're getting there. So, I mean, that's just maybe it sounds like a philosophy, but I mean, I listen to this all the time. And um you know, but and these people, by the way, are just regular every day. They're not board members or anything like that. Yeah. I I'd love to just um bring up quick I think you asked a great question which is you know how do we you know budget and plan for those kinds of things and and I'd like to just take the opportunity to say that yes not only do we constantly look at can we do better with different companies looking what we put out to bid when we put it out to bid we work with a collabor we all also try to work with a collaborative

056so whenever we can we try to pull with other school districts to increase our buying power to lower our expenses so that's a lot of what we do with the greater sebago Education Alliance is we sit around the table and we say what are our expenses around um fuel. So fuel for our our bus station. We do collaborative buying with the Greater Sebago Education Alliance in order to um have a bigger buying power in order to lower our our cost. So um we are constantly looking at that. I'm not insinuating you weren't, but you know that's Oh, yeah. I just seemed like a great opportunity to plug our work with the Greater Sebago Education Alliance. So it's okay. Glad you did. I think Misty had something. Um, I think that the people that are voting

057no just there regardless of what we do here, they just don't want a tax increase and I understand that. And then those that are voting yes want to support our schools. Not that the nos don't, but you see knew what I'm saying. I think that it's hard in where we're sitting and and right in our shoes because we have to balance both worlds and do our jobs and finding that happy medium for everybody is impossible to do. It's the matter of fact is that we need to get people out to the polls to vote and that's where we're lacking. I think that not only do we have have to have the conversation about the budget, but we also need to figure out that angle and why aren't people coming to vote because I feel like

058with 19 votes, there's such a small number. We know that we have the majority of people in our towns that want to support our schools, but where are they? And you know what I'm saying? Like that's we don't know that. That's the thing we don't know actually. That's why we vote. We hope. Right. I know. but that the number of people that actually show up to vote compared to the the voters that we have is is vastly different. And so that's where I think the missing piece of that pie is. I think that we need to do this here and analyze and and count our pennies and our dollars because it's important. And I mean I own five properties in Gloucester. I have the biggest tax impact of probably everybody. I mean but I want

059to support our schools and I know that we do a great job. Our budget presentation is amazing every year. I we have increased 3% over 10 years. Like those are the numbers that are people not listening to that. Like our increase compared to all of the other districts is down here, not up here. And all of and I don't know if these people just aren't hearing that. And I don't know how we get it out to them. So they do understand that or they just don't care and they're still going to vote no. So that we are in a just a really tough spot. Um because there's since the last PE budget when the vote failed um that people are like, "Oh my god, I can't believe that it failed." Well, did you come vote?

060And well, no, I couldn't. I had this. I had that. I had this. I didn't make it out to the polls. Well, here we are. So, I think it it's both things. We have to do our job here as we were as we're going to do. We also need to work on the other side, too, is we need to figure out how to get more people out to polls. So, just my two cents. Um, anyone else for now have totally lost track of where in this conversation we are? We're still talking about how we build a budget. All right, we're still talking about how we build a budget. Should we move into page two? Page two. So, one of the things um I feel like we heard last week and we have sort of had

061some cheerful debate about semantics and what does this mean? Um, so one of the things we also wanted to talk about tonight was how um it's built versus whether you call it a maintenance effort, whether you call it zero budgeting um and how we got to the proposed 5.93% that failed in June. Are there do you want to read through that or do we want to just take questions and conversation about it? Whatever you prefer. Is anyone stuck on that or want to talk about that more I feel like you got into that on the I think we covered that earlier. Okay. Um and then moving on, sorry I'm taking over your show. Um I think that moves us to reductions and dep prioritizations. Yes. Um so in this table you'll see on the left

062um that proposed budget that was approved at validation but failed at ballot included the a number of eliminations. You guys have all seen this um in many many different documents. We're now looking at what else can we move? Um and I wanted to kind of give a little bit of an overview. I tried to kind of I'm trying to, you know, I we heard a couple of different things from the community last week and from you all around wanting to be thoughtful about and and emails we've received from the public around um trying to keep the impacts as far away from kids as possible. So I I kind of tried to categorize them. It's my opinion about what is least impactful to students up to the closest impact to students. Um but it's my paper

063so I decided what went where. Uh so what that looks like at this time. So in that group of least student impact that I would recommend that we move forward with the first is um bond interest reduction um we were able to uh secure a lower interest rate on the borrowed money for the air quality project than we anticipated we were going to be able to get. We're going to be able to save about $35,000 in next year's budget with that secured lower interest rate. I preview to you all. You all voted to support uh moving forward with a private paid family medical leave provider. By moving forward with that um with that plan, it will save about $40,000 in next year's budget. We had at one point reported we thought we could save about

064$80,000. Um that was we we had included um teachers in that in that savings and um the teachers will not be part of that until they renegotiate their contract. That's part of the law. Um so that was an error on our part. Um but it still would represent about a $40,000 saving in next year's budget. The third is around the superintendent's contract. It was budgeted based on um not knowing who the person was going to be in the position at the time. We had to present budgets. Um things were not finalized and um based on the predictive compared to the actual there's about $25,000 savings in the budget that we can make there. We also um are listening to our uh to our community who talks a lot about that outofdist placement. It's also often

065referred to as tuition, which gets confusing because we also have college tuition for employees. What we're talking about is tuition. When we have to send when we aren't able to educate a student or meet their full needs in our schools and we have to send them to another setting, whether that's a day setting or a residential setting, um we have not spent all of our budgeted funds for a number of years. And that is one of those um data points that's brought up fairly um fairly frequently. So, we really dug in on that. Uh, we looked at lots of different options. There's there's this is one of those areas where one student difference can change $200,000 one way or another. Um, so we always worry about um lowering those expenses too much because those are

066expenses that we are legally obligated to have. Um, we cannot, you know, as part of the IEP process, if that is what is determined, we have to pay for it. We don't have a choice. Um so we we are always a little cautionary. There are a couple of different ways that you can um you know you can do that. We in the past have budgeted for it and then when we didn't spend it we put that into what we sent off you know deferred off the tax base in the next year. Um we can do it differently through a couple of different options. What we are going to recommend is that we reduce the uh the tuition or that out of district placement funding in next year's budget by $200,000. and instead we look to

067use local entitlement and other funding sources to meet those needs instead of having it in our local budget. We believe having looked at a lot of different options, we think that that makes sense um and would be an appropriate option moving forward. We also dug in deeply on health insurance. Um we are looking at um we were looking at a 14% increase as you know 12 is what we had budgeted for 14 is what it came in at um but that's on a bottom line that you then add in on that what do what do people take for insurance when we are building our budget we don't know the answer to that um we make our best prediction as to what we think they're going to take based on looking at the last you know

068three years of spending how FY25 spending is starting to land and what we're seeing for what people are electing to take in insurance for the coming year. We think that we can reduce that um expense in our budget uh by 35 to $55,000 um and still be okay. Again, that's one of those things where we are obligated to pay it by contract, whatever the expense may be, but we do think that reducing that budget by that amount would would still be safe. So, if we were to take those reductions, it totals about uh $350,000 and it would take the increase last year to this year. It's very weird to talk about it when you're in June, last school year that just ended to the school year that's starting, the increase would then be 4.89%. So,

069down just about, you know, a little bit. It's basically a percent. Every $300,000 is basically a percent. That's significant. Looking at that next line with a little bit more student impact. Um we dug in on unfilled edtech positions some more. Um as you know we have run about 12 open edtech positions give or take um at all times doing some more analysis on where those are and what the needs are, what the IEPs are. Uh we think we could potentially um I don't I don't love it. We will likely have to move people who are currently employed around um the district. We may need to do that anyway to meet the needs. Um if we make additional um reductions, we certainly are. We think we could potentially do without an additional three positions, which would

070save about $150,000. And then we um did some dig digging deep on co-curricular and athletics. Uh we looked at again three years worth of spending in that area. Um and we're finding that there's about 40 to 50,000 except one anomaly year that hasn't been spent. As we dig into that, it kind of comes down to those um clubs or athletics where we we aren't able to hire a person. We had so we had student interest in a chess club and a math club, but we weren't able to find an adviser for both. We had someone that was willing to do one but not the other kind of thing. So, we try to, as you can see in how we build a budget, we look at what's the interest of students. Um, what do we think

071we can support as capacity? We budget in that way. But then sometimes we aren't able to fill all of the positions. So, kind of looking back over time, we think we could potentially we already reduced that by 10,000 in the original proposal. Uh, we looked at uh, for example, the Dunchool kayak program. We haven't been able to fill that since before COVID. Um, so it was time to perhaps think about letting that go as a stipend, but we believe that um we can perhaps reduce another 25,000 out of that budget and not necessarily impact what we're offering students. We'll continue to follow student interest and offer those um those clubs, activities, and athletics that have the most student interest. Um but based on what we've been able to fill, we likely can reduce that by

07225,000. um without offering fewer choices for students. They might not have all the choices they want, but we would be able to offer potentially the same number of clubs and activities we have offered in the past. Um so it would be kind of more of a case where if an if the high school or middle school were looking to add something, um we would be looking for them to then not do something else more so than perhaps we have in the past. So, it takes away a little bit of that flexibility in co-curricular. Um, but as I said, it it comes mostly from unfilled things that weren't running. So, if we add that second layer of more student impact in, we're up to about a total of $500,000 of reductions, which would bring the increase

073to 4.36% last year to next year. Then if the board was looking for us to go further than that in what we pro propose, we are into student impacts. We would look at moving forward with a hiring freeze, not filling open positions and then um if we had to eliminating positions that exist and instituting reductions in force if we were to have to do that. That is not my preference. Um but if that is where the board would like us to go, we can talk about that more. Um specifically, um an example, we uh do have an opening at this time at the high school in the math department. Looking at that and discussing it with the high school. What would it look like if we didn't fill that position? Um they would make it

074work because they are professionals and that's what they do. But I will tell you, we will not have as many math offerings at the high school in the past. And what we will have to do is we would focus on those that are necessary for diploma and then fill in those that are for IB next. and then other advanced from there. But the likelihood of us being able to offer more kind of specialty high level mathematics does go down. Um, and that's just the truth of the matter. It's I don't mean it to be a threat. I don't mean it to be, you know, but it's just it's the truth. You know, we have a schedule built to meet the needs and interests of kids in mathematics. If we had one less position, we would

075find other things for children to do, but there there would be fewer math courses offered at high school. So that's an example of an unfilled position that we could consider should the board want us to. Questions on that last bit percentage again that last percentage after the 500,000 4.36 MD and then Gary what was it? Um thank you for that Chanda. Um I think looking at these points are really important and I think this the least impact obviously is uh where obviously I hope I fall. I'm not going to speak for anybody else but um and then I think that I don't I don't I'm not comfortable with reducing the edte positions because I think that those are really in need at our schools and if we can find positions people to fill them I

076think they're really important helping our teachers out. Um the co-curricular you know do we the kayak I agree with you know chess and the other things like that I mean if it's going to save a little bit and making that one I would be okay with that one but I don't think that we should be cutting edtech positions I think that would have an impact for sure but just my opinion Gary uh first question well first comment I guess I'll make comment first um I will never support hiring freeze or eliminating positions I never vote yes on microphone microphone. Um I will never vote yes on that. Um that we're in a place where we're not happy with student outcomes now and we start taking away incentives and we start taking away electives and we

077take away and that's that's what happens when we eliminate staff. They proposed a certain number of full-time equivalents in every department because that's what we need for the programming we carry. All of that programming was was um approved and supported by this board. So, it's up to us to preserve it. Um so, like I said, I I will never uh go along with that because I just think that damages and once you once you lose, it's so hard to put back. So, um I've fought in years past to get get greater electives and more opportunities, especially in math and science. And to go backwards is just awful in my opinion. Uh I agree with Misty about the uh edtech positions. They're they're not proposed because they're nice to have. They were proposed because this what

078we need. Uh we have a hard time filling them. That's just the world of education. It doesn't mean not filling them doesn't mean we don't need them. We're we've been asking staff for the last five years to work with less. not because we haven't supported them, but because we can't find the people to fill the positions. But that doesn't mean that the design of the educational curriculum here is designed to work best with those positions. And I I just think again, we approve the curriculum, we approve uh what we do, we approve contracts, we approve all that stuff. And to start narrowing all that, I just think it's a mistake. Um the least student impact I can go with that. I do have a question about district placement. Does that include superintendent agreements? I didn't

079hear the question. I'm just wondering if the out of district placement include is affected by superintendent agreements. No, the assumption on this. This is just special education. This is just special education. Superintendent agreements are just dealt with um at state level for funding in the state. Um as long as they're reported correctly gives us the proper funding for the students that we receive and vice versa. So no, this is simply a special education. That's just a wash. We don't have the child so we don't have the money. We would yeah we would see that in the revenue side not side. Well that yeah uh I didn't know if that that somehow was reflect ended up being reflected in that line or not. So okay that's separate that answers that question. So that's my opinion. Do

080we before we um go down the uh chiming in with our opinion road just for clarity any other clarifying questions on the material that's been presented? I have a clarifying question just on the positions in regard to our negotiated contracts. Do our unions not have uh any say in these uh position reductions? I thought some of them would be considered reductions in force because there would be like seniority would come into play if a certain position was not going to be offered and all that sort of thing. and we haven't seen or heard from a union representative in quite some time. U so I was just wondering are they're just cool with all this? Like I'm kind of surprised they're not a little louder at this point. Yeah, I mean I think they um of

081course would prefer to have more people in their buildings over less. I'm speaking on their behalf with them not having shared that opinion with me, but from what I know of them, I would venture a guess that that would be true. Um, so far any position that we have proposed to eliminate are open positions. Um, and so that is part of the educational plan. That is not something that is contracted and negotiated. If we were to get down into that third area where we're talking about eliminating positions that do have people in them, then it would trigger a reduction in force um, conversation. back to your point about seniority and making sure, you know, if we eliminate this person's position, they're still owed a position and where they go. And that is a very um

082proscriptive process in the contract and in legislation that we would sit down and do with that um with that organization. should we um should you all feel you would like us to move forward with that kind of third area and we started looking seriously at at um reductions that would include reductions in force, I would be having that conversation with the union presidents prior to bringing that to all of you so that they understood the process and were able to help us make sure that we understood the process um and to make sure we're following all laws, rules, and regulations related to that. The other piece that comes into contract um gets back to kind of what I was saying before where um where we have the people, right? We have positions, we have people

083where we have the people and where we have the positions. Um we may based on our staffing, we may need to move some people around. We try to do that voluntarily first. We ask people, you know, can you would you please be willing to do that? If they do not opt, if we don't have folks opt for the voluntary, we would have to move forward with involuntary transfers. That is um scripted in the contracts about how that works and we would work with the unions on that um should we need to do that process. Fran, um again, we're here to make sure that the kids know math, reading, science, history. Uh, I could no way support a hiring freeze uh to fill. Is this a question? Oh, um, no, it's a comment. Okay, one just

084one sec. I'm going to we're going to do the go around. So, sorry. But I just want to make sure everyone has their questions answered should it impact their sure uh little little speech that we're all dying to give. Um, Adam, is that a hand? Please speak in your microphone, sir. Do we have a list of the like three-year average or how many how many unfilled edtech positions we've been carrying? Uh and what that balance has been on the low end. Um you know what I mean? Like what's the least amount of unfilled edtech positions we've carried type of parking lot? I don't know. That's data we have at our fingertips. No, I think that's finance committee. But yeah, we need to know that number for sure. Okay. I I can tell you that, you

085know, anecdotally from because I look a lot um it runs 12. I think I've seen it as low as eight. I've seen it as high as 14 over the last couple of years. Um that is my top of head answer, but we will add to our list to bring. We have nine right now. Thank you, Jen. Uh we have nine right now. Uh so we will bring that unfilled edtech position specific to edte. Are you looking for more job categories than that? only ad text because that's all that was we will pull that data together for you and you said the propo potential proposal was three an additional three we already have five and just to build on that clarifying question are I think by the math we are like sort of rule of thumb

086an all in an allin edte about 50k a year is that about right Yes. A little bit. Sorry, I thought you were reaching for the microphone. Um, a little bit more than that when you you said edte. Yeah. Just make sure I had the right one. Well, I've tended to think of an all-in teachers at about 75 and an all-in edte about 50 on average. I mean, I know that's very error bar heavy, but I think that's about right. Jen, say tell us. Yes. A text in the range of 50 depending what they choose for health insurance coverage. Um teachers I air because they're um the salary for edteex is closer in range. So it's really um insurance dependent. Teachers uh depending on what degree they have and what they come in at have a

087very very large variance. So they can have easily a 20 to $30,000 salary swing and then add health insurance. So I usually say 85 for teachers um trying to just give a little bit of a buffer. some teachers with a higher degree and taking health insurance can cost up to 120,000. So, just to give a little bit of a variance there, but yeah, you're right. All right. So, I think we've got all the questions for now. titled to ask questions at any time. But um so from there, I would love to go around um and take sort of a temperature um get everyone's two cents. What sort of things particularly if you're not on the finance committee? Um would you u you know set them forth with next week as a reminder? We hope to

088have the finance committee end that meeting with a a new budget number that they voted on um and comes forward to us for a vote. So, while there's always room for conversation, like let's get as much of that um kicked around tonight in terms of what we want to see or what we're going to support so that we don't have a big surprise from there. So, Fran, do you want to kick us off? Okay. Um Okay. For the first 350,000, um I I I you know, I I concur that that is uh good start and you're right, it's the least amount of impact. and um the uh edte positions I need a better handle on how many and that type of thing and what is their real duties you know I mean that there's like

089one edtech for one student or there's like one edtech for maybe five students to help in the classroom I'm not sure how that system works so I personally uh just need a handle on that but as I was starting to and the extracurricular uh curriculum athletic um that you know when you have to look at um um looking at cutting teachers versus having athletic type um clubs or whatever they're called. Uh I mean the clubs, you know, I I wouldn't you go for that. I would, you know, keep the teachers. We we can't we can't uh um just uh even though we haven't filled the position, we still have to make every effort we can to fill the position. That means a hiring freeze. I would not support a hiring freeze. Um and uh no

090matter you know it it and when you mention math mm- no you know that that's what we really need teachers for is math especially and reading's next but then you got your science and everything else. So I wouldn't uh be in favor of high freeze. So, uh, or eliminating positions because I do know even though you've covered, um, you know, some of these items, I think I have other suggestions when we have the budget committee, I'll have some other suggestions that, um, we can look at, you know, and look at those numbers and see what they look like. Thank you. My turn. Um, I can live with the least student impact ones. They make sense. I think it was a pretty good chunk like France said, the 350,000. Um, the edte I'm concerned with because

091I know that there's they really do a lot of one-on-one with kids. So, and I know we can't fill them, but I don't want to just eliminate them all together, but maybe if we have to lose a couple, you know, I could deal with that. Um, co-curriculars align that a little bit more, that's okay. I totally am against a hiring freeze and again I'm against eliminating positions because we I think we're right sized for our class sizes to be manageable and to have the right offerings and I would just be afraid that if we lose one we would I don't know how that would ripple through the system. So that's where I'm at. Um again is that first section you said 4.8 brings us down to 4.8. Brings us down to 4.8. Yep. love that.

092Um, again, getting rid of clubs that we don't fill, I think, is not um getting rid of clubs that we don't are aren't filled. I think I'm okay with that for sure. Um, I don't want to touch edte. Um, this one behind here on the screen has an edtech. Um, because she's a lot. Um, so I'm just being honest. Um, so this is the kind of kid that you're going to impact by not having that person in the classroom. Um, so I would be against that for sure. Um, but first section I think a 4.8 number um, revised budget I think is a great number and then taking out a couple of the clubs we're not failing would be a little bonus but okay. All right. I I generally agree I'm probably a little I'm

093going to encourage you to talk into your microphone. Sure. I generally agree. Uh, great. Uh, I I am a little bit more I mean, edte, don't get me wrong, they're uh quite cost-effective. Uh, they they do they do a good job. They're much more uh, you know, one-on-one, but they're they're fairly a good a good investment for the most part, but u I think uh it's good to have flexibility if u if they want to uh have the flexibility to eliminate a position. I'm I'm okay with that. is somebody who's been laid off more times than I care to publicly divulge. You know, getting laid off is not a death sentence. Some of the best opportunities I had came after I got laid off. So, uh it's not I know it's kind of reluctant to

094do that, but it's not the end of the world. One thing I do want to point out is um the the budget uh local contribution and I think this is might get to the heart of the matter and I know why it's the numbers are the way they are but it still doesn't I think it it hurts us. uh Gray pays almost 67% of the local contribution and New Gla pays 33 and roughly the amount of students or are you know not nearly that out of balance. So, I don't want to create a we they gray new Gloucester uh feud here, but I think that's a big part of the the resistance and why it failed in Gray. And there's not much we can do with it given the uh the formula that calculates it

095that we're saddled with, but I think it's a problem. All right, that's it. Um I already said most of what I was going to say anyway. U so you already heard it. I was just going to add that um my problem with losing the unfilled edtech positions is that the kids that are getting services are getting them from somebody. You know, if there's no edtech available, then we're filling that position with people who should be doing other things like the teachers. Uh well, if if it's especially if it's a special ed one-on-one kind of thing, then you've got other people who should be managing edte or department heads or whatever filling in for edte with those kids because that's what ends up happening. We don't have a choice legally. We have to provide services to

096these kids. So the ripple goes out. It's not just the edte position. It affects the others around them. um as our former curriculum director will will attest during COVID when she was doing health screenings. Um that's the way it ends up happening. So I as much I mean I I will defer to the professionals we hire who make these great decisions that if they want to eliminate a couple I understand on the co-curricular side um I think it's good to align that we should be looking at that anyway every couple of years and aligning that I think with actual use. And the other part of that is that any one of those stipens could be added back in on a short notice. And the chances are if you eliminate eight eight positions could for lack

097of interest, well, there might be enough interest for one of them to come back next year. And we can certainly find the money for one stipen. Um, so if it saves, if it gets us, if it's a good show of faith that we found found dollars and we can cut that, I'm not concerned about it because I know we can we could if there was interest because I always my feeling is that if we've got 15 kids who have a common interest and want to do something, we need to find a way to make it happen for them. Um, because for some of those kids, it's the only reason they come to school. Uh, so uh anyway, so yeah, I support the top part, the least student impact. I've got problems, a little bit of

098problems with the middle, but I could support the co-curricular re realignment and the third part. I'm a hard note. All right. I am in a similar boat. Um I really like what's on the left is a good reminder. I do not support eliminating um all of our unfilled positions. We have already the budget we put forth already eliminates five edtech positions. So maybe over a couple of years that it's steady that okay, we we're getting by, we don't need these. I don't know why we would go from having 12 unpaid positions to zero. That seems, you know, a pretty extreme move to make in a year and they'd be hard to get back. Um the lease student impact options gets us below a 5% increase, which we had talked about as a very magical number

099earlier in the season that we felt that was hard to get to. Um, here we are working with with more accurate numbers later in the game and that number has appeared. I have zero interest in impacting students any more than we already have. Um, that's our least student impact, but the we already have uh made some changes that are going to impact students. Um, the co-curricular if it's aligned to to what's reasonable or what we're using, that's fine. I don't want to cut, you know, 40,000 out of a $ 35 million budget for to make a show of it and then have kids not have what they need. Um, I think that our job is to be uh good stewards of the community. Um, but really what we're put here to do is to serve

100and run the school district and to put forth a budget that is less than 5% increase in the current economic climate that includes significant and appropriate uh staffing increases. An increase of our health insurance and is still below um the rate that everybody else's household is growing uh is reasonable. It is in it is just inappropriate to think we're going to have a 0% budget. um we are not fulfilling our duty to students by claiming that that's going to happen. So I think that is my two cents for the finance uh committee right now. I'm uh like well I'm going to repeat a lot of what others have said least student impact that um I can be on board with um all of that and I do appreciate um folks digging in and really refining

101those numbers for the more student impact. Um, I I could be on board on reducing the positions of both edte as well as the co-curriculars in that it might it will be aligning with what's out there in the job market. However, I would still want to make sure that we are stressing flexibility um on the co-curricular and the athletics to meet what is the student need at you know for that year and and what they're wanting to desire. So um showing that we still have flexibility in in providing those services. And then um going back going to the next one that most student impact you know hearing that you know a possibility would not be um would be to not fulfill a math um position at the high school. You know was it last year

102or the year before that our high school was ranked number six in the state. think about it what it would mean if we can't fulfill the the needs for for math. And um I just think that that would be incredibly tragic. That is not something that um you can reverse in a year and would show um a trend, you know, a negative trend I would think on the quality of education that we are offering our students. So, um I am a a hard no on the hiring freeze or eliminating positions. Um I would support the least student impact portion. the I think it on the unfilled eggtech positions. It's kind of based um around the clarity we get in the finance committee about what kind of average are we carrying for unfilled versus what we

103currently have. Um I could support it if the balance was a high enough number that admin was semicomfortable with. um it's pretty clear the co-curricular you could cut all of them and it wouldn't make that much difference. So to echo um maintaining flexibility and kind of a dynamic landscape and on the co-curricular like like the kayak program east the esports one that we added probably wasn't even a thing then. And so if we're we constantly have eyes on that and we're adding and subtracting as needed, that's how we should be looking at co-curricular. Anyways, um yeah. Um I'm basically going to repeat what everyone has kind of said at this point. Um I would support the lease student impact items. They they bring us below the 5% that we've kind of talked about in our

104meetings. Is that better? Unfortunately, it works best when you don't even try to look at anyone else and you just Okay, I'll just stare at the mic. I'll break all the public speaking rules ever. Yes. Um I'm I don't think I can support uh the additional removal of the ed texts just because we've already eliminated five. Another three seems like a lot. And I know we've had a lot of vacancies, but to me there's a lot of value to what they add in the classroom. And I don't think we would ever want to be in the position where someone wanted that job and we didn't have an opening. We there's a need. Um I think it makes sense to align the co-curricular activities. You know, if something hasn't been filled for a while, then it's

105probably worth removing. We can always add it back. Um, I am definitely a hard no on a hiring freeze or eliminating any positions. I would not support that at all. Uh, I want to just uh a couple comments, you know, from a 30,000 foot view before we get into the specifics. Uh, I fundamentally reject any idea that we are like overbudgeting or wasteful. I'm sorry. Uh, we deliver the sixth best high school in the state by spending the least amount per student of any district in Cumberland County. If that makes us wasteful, I don't understand your logic there. Uh, I think for the past 10 years that I've been on the board, we have fundamentally delivered amazing results and bang for the buck. Anybody who argues that, I think they're not paying attention. I I

106think they're disingenuous. So that I'm just that's all what I'm saying. You know, all my comments are viewed through that lens. Um by the same token, uh we had this situation with the bus drivers two years ago. On some level, it is irresponsible to budget for positions that we don't believe that we can hire. Right? So, if you try to hire this position for three years and you can't hire for that position, it's time to stop budgeting for it. I think that's only fair. Um, I personally think David should get half of the percentage that we saved on the borrowing. I think that's only fair, right, David? You know, that should go into your pocket, I think. Um, but otherwise, I support, you know, that reduction. Uh I don't think there's anybody who doesn't support

107uh the reductions we find when we sift through even further. Um but you know I think we do have to consider uh Misty's suggestion that u you know when you lose by 19 votes it's not exactly uh an imperative that you just go back to the drawing board. Right? Uh we didn't lose 6040. Uh we've passed Gary says he hasn't uh doesn't remember a loss. So we've passed uh 17 or 18 budgets in a row. Uh I just think it's really hard to characterize us as irresponsible or not knowing what we're doing, right? So um I think it's possible for us to tell our story better. Um, it's possible that some people, you know, I was playing golf with Mark Wilson the other day and uh, he admitted that he was unable to vote and

108I know that he is a, you know, voting citizen. Hi, Mark. I beat you in golf and now you also owe me, I don't know, some amount of money for not voting for my budget. Um, I think there are a variety of people out there who took for granted that of course we pass a budget. That's what we do in Granite Gloucester. And now, uh, they've had a little bit of an awakening. And I hope this is an awakening for them. Uh, I despair that they even know what happened to tell you the truth. Uh, I think we have an information deficit. I think there are many, many, many people in the town of Gray who have no idea what happened with our budget. Agree. Uh, and I think uh, it gets to even larger

109goals that we have with our strategic plan surrounding uh, communication and and getting much deeper into uh, the community. And so you know 50,000 view 100,000 foot view we have lost some fundamental piece of trust and cooperation with our community members when we are delivering the results that I know to be true and we are having uh a majority maybe a small majority but a majority of people come out and say no you've done a bad job go do something else. So, I agree that, you know, if we can cut $350,000 budget uh relatively painlessly, of course, we're going to do that, right? I don't think there's anybody who's like, "Oh, no, we got to waste that money. I want the kayak club." Um, but I want us to resist this idea that we did

110a bad job, right? Of course, when you go and throw, you know, a bunch of six-figure administrators at a problem, they're going to go find a couple more shekels, right? That's going to happen. Um, but there is a cost to that too, right? What what could Chanda have been doing for this past two weeks? What could David have been doing for these past two weeks? What could Jenna have been doing for these past two weeks? These are incredibly valuable people whose labor is incredibly valuable and we have just squandered huge amounts of it over 19 votes. Right? And so I'd like to think what is the opportunity cost of going back and finding that little $350,000 in a $35 million budget, right? Let's all think about what is the opportunity cost of forcing people to

111come out and vote again, right? What's it cost? 10 $15,000 per election, something like that. Apparently, we're not worried about saving that, right? And let's think about how completely and totally intellectually dishonest it is to talk about a 0% increase for a $35 million budget when you're employing 300 people. If you think that we can deliver a 0% increase, you are living in fantasy land. It's not a thing that can happen. Your health insurance didn't go zero. Nothing in your life went up by 0% this year. and to come at us with this should have been a 0% budget. I'm not going to listen to that. I'm just not going to do it. Thank you for being so eloquent, Sam, and saying what I meant to say, Hunter. Um, I'm happy to see the start

112in the decrease. Uh, so so far we're at that 4.36% with what I feel comfortable with. I also in fact do not support a hiring freeze or um eliminating positions. I think that would be a lot worse for us. Um I would like to see maybe, you know, our average is a 3.92% increase in the budget uh for the last several years. That's the average. I'd like to maybe see us get a little bit closer to that. Um, I think that'd be a little bit more comfortable, you know, if that's the average that has passed and like Sam is saying or hasn't failed in 17 or 18 tries with that increase. I think I would personally feel a little bit more comfortable cuz, you know, I would like to employ, you know, finding as much

113as we possibly can now, or else if it fails again, we're just going to do this all over again. And I at that point think we as a board are wasting our resources when we could be focusing on more important issues. Um, I would also like to see, you know, the edte year-over-year, maybe the last three to five years, how many have we kind of had unfilled and kind of look at that and see maybe or not there might be some we could remove from there because if you know the number if the report comes back that we per say carrying 10 unfilled positions for the last 5 years, well, maybe we can cut just a little bit more because, you know, it makes no sense to keep carrying that 10 10 unfilled. That's just

114a number. I'm not entirely sure that's the number, but um you know I just want to know what percent do we feel comfortable with passing and you know I would like to see us maybe as the finance committee find just maybe a little bit more um because I would honestly feel comfortable under 4% um since that's about our average. That's about it. Sure. Um, I just as an alum that attended this school, the budget didn't pass for a long, long time. I don't actually ever remember it passing the first time I went. So, I'm going to reach out to those who did attend the school and still have kids in the district. We do know what it's like. Our school was definitely not number six in the state when it failed all the time. This

115is when we need the support. This is when we need to get out and vote. Anyone else want a second second go around? Um I have one comment. Sure. Um when the budget passed by nine votes last year, that should have been, you know, a handwriting on the wall. Um that, you know, people were um not supporting 100%. we should have sharpened that pencil a little more. So this year when it failed again by more than it won by last year not these numbers are so small it's not even you know worth discussing except for the fact that that's what happened and so um you know we I think Hunter's point is well taken we we we could find others without hitting the staff and stuff like that. I I I believe that. So anyway

116that's all I had to say. missed anything, Gary? Um, but I also want to remind you that over the past 10 years, we've only gone up 3%. So, we are keeping low. During COVID 2021, we had a very low impact. We didn't want the taxes to be impacted by our our constitu the public because we knew we were going through tough times. We did very well back then and being mindful. I feel like we're still very mindful over a 10-year period. we are at that number, below that number that Hunter is looking for. Um, and I think that over the past couple years, we've been making cuts like to facilities when we shouldn't have been. So, I'm so glad we're putting money back into that this year. And it's like if you're neglecting your home

117for five years, guess what? Those repairs don't go away. And that just means they cost more the next time you by neglecting them. So, we have to keep in mind that yes, we've had made some cuts over the past couple years, but now it's time to make those repairs. just uh clarity sake. Um when you look at our average over the last 10 or however many years um if you throw out a couple of outliers COVID year where the percentage was almost zero and then 10 years ago about when we had contract freezes and conting and state curtailment so we had to cut money we were at 0% also. So you've got two years out of 10 there was zero that'll that won't be repeated without a pandemic. I mean, that's what allowed that to

118happen. So, if you actually average the eight years or however many you want to go back, it's way higher than three and a half on average. That average is affected by those two years that were at zero. Um just for clarity Sam and uh one other thing is I really think the finance committee needs to dig into the revenue side which we you know I really think fundamentally the criticisms of the budget were revenue related um but they were sort of talking about them as expense related um and you know if we have money left over we need to make sure we're telling the story of uh how we are rolling that from the general fund back into the tax abatement perhaps in a better way because you know you didn't spend $500,000 last year

119therefore we should cut it this year just doesn't work. Um you didn't spend $500,000 last year why are we not getting that back rolled over or where is it? That's I think the story we need to tell. Anything else? Anyone want to revisit the We've We've asked our questions. We've made our passionate speeches. We know we're going to send this to finance. Uh any last things that people want to encourage finance committee to take a look at who are not on finance committee? Um also folks are welcome to attend. um you know your members of the board. If there's a committee that's of interest to you, you can come. You can't vote on it. Um do you sort of ride it a middle ground between being on it and being a member of the public,

120but those meetings are open. I can Yeah. as a person that was on the finance committee that um I know that the I can assure you that those discussions throughout um of having the budget barely passed last year that was a message to us and something that while we were developing the budget this year always have in mind what's what is going to be capable of being passed. So, um I would say that our administration did have that in mind and we did challenge them. So, I would like to I appreciate um Sharon's um you know saying we need to get more people out there to vote. So, um and find where there is the or demonstrate that value um of our education system that that this school district is delivering. Thank you. I have

121one thing. This room is very comfortable tonight. I came in expecting that I was going to be, you know, oh my god, you know, overwhelmed with heat. So, I I thank you for this u comfortable um um setup. Thank you for sharing. We are trying to decide what to do. Yeah, this is a good place to meet instead of the library. But anyway, all right. Let's adjourn and uh send it to finance. Thank you everyone. Thank you.