June 18, 2025 – School Board Business Meeting

001All right, it is 6:30. I'm going to call the meeting to order and declare a quorum. And agenda item number two is pledge of allegiance. Stand as you can and join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Upcoming meetings are to be determined as per the agenda item later in the evening. And so um number four, are there any additions or adjustments to the agenda? Yes, Mr. H. I'd like to suggest we move um under new business numbers one and two up to this up to this point so we can get new offerings in place. So, Mr. Haramman is recommending that we move items number one and two under

002new business, the election of the chair and the vice chair up to this point in the agenda because it is a fuller agenda than we usually have on this day. Um second from Sam discussion I agree. All in favor? Okay papers. All right. So to elect a school board chair, I open the floor for nominations for school board chair. Missy I nominate Penny for chair. Second. Second discussion. Any other nominations? Sorry, you're right. I open the floor. Any other nominations? Nope. Okay, I close the floor to nominations. Any discussion? Yes. I just want to say that I think that we were jelling as a group at the end of the year and I really think Penny was responsible and I would like to see that continue cuz I thought her leadership was really great last

003year through a very challenging time. Thank you. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor? Opposed? The new school board chair is Penny Collins. And I now turn the meeting over to you. Congratulations. All right. Well done. Thank you. Okay. All right. Responsibility she does. Okay. You talk at the meetings all the time. I know. It's different though. I get it. All right. So, thank you um for that. And now, let's elect a school board vice chair. Are there um any nominations for vice chair? I nominate Lauren Meek for vice chair. Second. I didn't get the nomination. Lauren. Lauren Meek. Does he have cheat? Probably. Okay. Well, I assume it's the same. It's the same. All right. Um, so floor is open for nominations. We have Lauren Meek. All right. So, we'll uh close the

004floor for nominations. Any discussion or is this uh any discussion on Lauren? Uh, I was just going to say um too bad Lauren's not here. I don't know what happened. Um, but uh she's been doing a lot of work with Cole on the personnel committee and we have a uh contract with teachers to negotiate this year. So I think it would be great for us to have a vice chair who is on our what I assume to be our negotiating committee and one of our lead negotiators. I think that shows how important you feel that contract is. Missy, and with her not being here, has somebody disc I assume we've discussed this with her before now and she's in acceptance. Can she accept not being here? Yeah. This is what we did to Gary last

005year. True. Yeah. Don't show up. I'm here this time. Lauren Lauren is open to to doing it. Yes. This would not be a surprise. Um Okay. Adam. Um, so I I worked on the contract negotiations with Lauren two years ago. Uh, and she was great and super helpful. So to go from that and she's also like our kind of lead representative on our new high school safety project and like we met and to watch her like take ownership of it. She knows it like back and forth in every which way and it's it's I think we're super lucky to have her especially in that role and then also um she's she'll be great in the contract negotiations in agreed. Um, I think we also had two new Gloucester leaders last year and um I think

006it would be wise and you know probably a little more appropriate to have where we can a new Glouster and a gray and um Lauren is gray. So great not required but No, but yep. Um all right, any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. We will let her know. Yes. Supposed to make um couple of uh significations. Couple of announcements. Do uh board members don't leave at the end of the meeting. We have things to sign. Okay. Just one thing. Just the one thing. Just one. Okay. Um, Maggie will walk us through that and we will use her pen. Um, the other thing is that we're a little light on our setup today. So, we're using the owl for everything. Those of you who have not met the owl, it is

007listening and looking at you all the time. Um, just because you are not talking does not mean you are not on the live stream. So, control your face at all times. Um, yourself. I'm just saying don't, you know, just know you're being broadcast. Know you're being broadcast. You don't want to get caught, you know, picking your nose if you're not talking. Um, so those were our minor announcements. And all right, so next up is to comment. Where am I? Thank you. Um, comments from the audience. So, anyone who would like to speak, um, we would love to hear from you. Just a couple of reminders because we do have folks tonight, so I assume we'll probably hear from some people. Feel free to step up closer to the the owl um so that you can

008be heard. Um, we do we don't have microphones, so we do ask everybody to speak. If you feel like you're yelling, that's how loud you should be talking. Um, you have three minutes and we would love to know your name and your town. Um, so we know who's here. Anybody? I guess I'll start it. [Applause] My name is Sue Fuller. I am from Gray and I just wanted to talk a little bit about the budget. Um, I just wanted to mention in 2020 2021 you increased the budget $443,000. You spent 26 million and you had 2,118,000 left. That year could have been a zero budget. In 2021 2022, you increased the budget 240,000. You spent another 26,000 and you had 1,697 left. That could have been a zero-year budget. 2022 2023, you increased the budget

0091,27,000. At the end of the school year, you had 1,94,000. That could have been a zero year. School year 23 24 you um increased the budget by 1,764,000. When you finished the school year, you had 2,244,000. That easily could have been a zero year. This current school year 2425, you increased the budget $2 million. In the previous year, you had 2,244 left. So, it could have easily been a zero budget. This year you're asking for another $2 million. So from 2023 24 you spent 29 million. Now you're asking for 35 million. So you're asking for a $6 million increase and that is not acceptable. Last year with the re-evaluation in the school budget, people in town are very angry. Their taxes went up substantially. Increasing the budget $2 million every year is not sustainable. In

0102023 24 you had roughly 835,000 left in special education. Last year for uh private tuition you added to special education another 400,000 and you've hardly spent any of that. So special education is way overbudgeted. And Sam at one of the meetings I came to said we've got to do a better job in budgeting. We've been way over budgeting. And I agree with you. We need to do a better job. And travel lines in the budget. There's a ton of them that aren't spent. Um special education again. And then this year you're putting back in the budget $1,250,000. That can be reduced. You can reduce our budget. Last year you gave us back $1.5 million. There's something wrong here. No one else in the school in this whole state is budgeting like we're budgeting. We need

011to figure out what you're actually spent at an increase and budget it. And then if if you want to do some reserve accounts if you come up shot that's that's what you can do. The other thing is if one area is over you can move 5% out of like special educa special education and move it to another category of the 11 cost centers. Um, but you've got to do as close to zero as possible and and if you want to do it, you can do it and it can be done. I do budgets and it can be done. All right. Thank you, Sue. Uh, anybody else? George Colby Nugalosta. Apparently, there's a lot of people that don't remember a number of years ago it took six ballots to pass the SAD15 budget. So, I just

012want to point that out to you that uh it's not always true. Good evening. My name is Alvaro Balisteros. I'm from Gray. I just wanted to say that while we have been increasing the school budget, we have less students every year and the results are also going down. You mentioned when we voted the budget that this school was at the top of the level in Maine, but the reality is that Maine is at the bottom of the level the whole nation. So we think that that should be looked at. Um we think also or I think that the budget should not be increased as it has been explained and we need also to understand that when we raise the budget that has an impact in the taxes of people and there's a lot of people

013who have only one income or a pension and are being actually overt taxed and they have to be uh facing a very difficult situation. So please think about that as well. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Judy Simone Gray. Um, like Sue had mentioned, um, we don't really feel you need to do any cuts. Not one cut. Nothing. There's no area that needs to be cut. What it is is they're over asking every year. And so this year, what we're looking for is $1.9 million over asking uh that isn't being spent every year. So, it's not like we needed to cut any programs. No teachers, no salaries, nothing needs to be cut. No special ed. It's just that there every year there's all this money left over and we're we're using taxpayers money to put in

014different accounts so that you can have it in, you know, the general fund and all these other funds and then I know you divvy it out into those categories, but it's not right to keep asking for way more money than what you need every year. Um, I realized too that, you know, there are departments that have extra money and I'm kind of surprised because like you have transportation that's got money left over every year and I'm like, how could you possibly have money left over in transportation? I sat here a year ago and watched that gentleman come up here from transportation and said how he couldn't hire anybody and then he was, you know, and then the superintendent King said that he was advertising $1,000 a month at the cinema to hire bus drivers. And

015I thought, God, and you know what? I don't think anything has gotten better since then. I don't think any adjustments have been made. There's still money left over. And I hear people on Facebook commenting about the buses are broken down all the time. Their children are not being picked up and there's a lack of drivers. And I'm like, wow, this has been a year and it's still not fixed and there's money left over. I'm like, okay, where's the disconnect here? So, I mean, I'm not even asking that you to cut the budget. I'm just saying, you know what? You're over asking. you got $2 million left over. You know why you keep asking for extra money so you can put in the different piles and use it as you freely choose to? And I know

016that you put it down that oh assigned, unassigned, and all that. Well, that's extra money. That's extra money that was given to you actually over that you hadn't spent. So I look at that and go, you know what, the town did the same exact thing. Town's got seven and a half million. You guys got seven and a half million. It's like $15 million. It's like, okay, taxpayers, that's a disservice to taxpayers. I'm sorry. That's a lot of money to be sitting around in accounts and um you can say, "Well, we need it for this, we need it for that." No, you have your budget. You've got all your budget materials. And I think the real challenge is you budget year after year budget. You don't budget year, like actual numbers and then the budget from

017actual numbers. You're going budget year, budget year, budget year, and you got money left over every year. Instead of looking at like actual money spent every year and what you need for this year, you're actually doing a budget, budget, and budget, which I had sent a message over and asked for that breakdown. Never really got that. Like, how much have you spent every year? And we actually accumul. So we know there's been money left over every year. So all we're asking is is just don't ask just don't ask for that $2 million extra. You don't have to cut any programs. Not one program. Nothing. Nothing. You know, there's not one program that needs to be cut. Just don't ask for 2 million extra. You can do You don't have to do any work. You just

018have to don't do $2 million extra. You don't have to go in the budget go that line item that. No. Just don't ask for 2 million. That's what you What's that? you're there. Okay, thank you. [Applause] Hi. Um, my name is Laura Pock. I am from McLar. Um, some of you may know me because I'm a teacher here at the high school. Um, I also am a resident. I grew up in this town. Um, and so I have a lot of different perspectives and I have a lot of different stakes in this. Um, I just encourage you. I know that this budget only passed by 19 votes or didn't pass by 19 votes. And so I encourage you to remember that is there is a large population of this town that is invested in the

019future of our children and to not cut this budget more so that like all of those people and all of those children don't suffer. um because we're overcompensating um and thinking that there's a vast majority who does not want to invest in our schools because I really think that there there is a lot of people that really want to invest in our schools and I know that there is talk that we don't need to cut programs but I I do my budget for my program and my classes every year and I spend all that money every single year and I know and I think others know that we use the money wisely um as teachers and um none of it is wasted and I and I see um I teach specifically kids who have kind

020of fallen through the cracks in schools and those are the kids that are impacted when we cut positions and they're larger class sizes and there's not resources for those kids and we can't go on the field trips and we can't do um um give them supports. We don't have a budget to do kind of the fun extra things or even not even the fun extra things, just the baseline things of providing education for these students. Um, I see the results of that in my class, in my program. Um, and so I really encourage you and I also as a parent I see um what happens when things get cut. And so, um, I just really encourage you to not kind of like sway too far the other way. I know that you have a mandate

021and I respect that. Um, but, um, I also know that there are a lot of people that are really invested in our kids and in our community and I know taxes are are tough on a lot of people, but this is our future. So, I hope that um, you can find a balance in that. Thank you. Hey everyone, I'm Laura Peterson. I'm from New Glouester and um I'm here to encourage you all to keep cuts as minimal as possible to lessen the impact on our students and teachers. Um, I think that over the past couple of months, there's been a real strong push out of gray to uh really kind of politicize the school board and students and teachers and our whole school system. And it just doesn't need to be this way. Um, seems

022like there's a lot of talk about the budget being padded and I just don't see that. I see that this is a really diverse board. There's a lot of different perspectives and backgrounds on this board and this is the board that came up with the budget. Um they worked together. I mean even at the candidate forum for um new board members, all board members including some sitting here said that there was nothing they would change about the budget. Um, I'd like to point out that for our school district, MSAD15 has one of the lowest per pupil spending averages. Um, we come in around 18,515. That's um, in our region, we're one of the lowest, but the state average is 20,139. I think that we have a history of trying to be very conscientious that we

023know that there's the pool on both sides that we do try to or the board tries to work with both sides that it's been really tough and gray. We get that. We see that. And I know that I'm not in grading, so that could be immediately taken as a tick against me. But I would like to think that one of the most important areas is to support our students, to support the future, and to not be putting all of our energy into taking down the budget and taking down schools. Um, every year parents with students still in school are very familiar with the needs list from our school teachers. We are asked if we could pitch in crayons, pencils, sanitizing wipes, tissues, even snacks for kids that don't have them. And we know that teachers

024reach into their own pockets to fill those needs. They want to make sure no child goes without. And so when we put all our energy into not collaborating and working against an entity like our school boards, we're not using our our voice and our energy for good. We're we're taking everyone down a peg. And I think that our community needs more of the positive energy. I just know that growing up, my family, my parents didn't have to go and try to get people out to vote for the school budget because it was just a given that that's something that we support with. We use our tax dollars to support. And um I just think that every generation needs to reach behind and find a way to do that. And of course there's a balance and

025there's give and take in everything, but I think every generation needs to do that. And I appreciate all your time and thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? My name is Andrew Fuller. I live in Gray. I'm a retiree. I'm on a fixed income and I don't think my budget can afford a $500 increase. So, please consider that because I don't know how many retirees of fixed income people are in, but uh take that into consideration because it's a big hit. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Um I appreciate everybody's time. I know it's um I know it's difficult. The setup is awkward. You say things and we don't really get to say anything back, but um it'll be in the minutes and several of us are taking notes and I um will encourage the board

026to um think of address or speak to these concerns as we tackle um the next round of budget. So, as this comes into the agenda, you know, maybe we'll be able to pick up some of those issues. So, thank you for that. And do know you can always email us as well. It doesn't have to be here. It doesn't have to be live. You don't have to stand up in front of everybody um to be heard. All right. Next, we have uh I hear a motion to accept as printed the minutes of the June 4th, 2025 regular business meeting. So moved. Second. Anyone see anything in those words? All right. All in favor? post. Great. We have uh no recognition on the agenda tonight. We have no old business. We have taken care of some

027of our new business already. Um now we have the very formal um computation of the results of the budget validation referendum that was on June 10th um as certified by town managers I pray and Gloucester. So, this is where we formally say and Maggie what we will be signing tonight um that we approve we accept those results where everybody has we've done what we needed to do and we move forward from there but we have a very particular motion if someone wants to make that I move we compute the results of budget validation referendum June 10th 2025 is certified by town names of gray and the blaster be had voted that the computation and declaration of vote votes dated June 10th, 2025 and attached hereto be approved. That the computation and declaration of votes be

028entered upon the records of the main school administrator district 15. That the foregoing computation and declaration bill shall be signed by a majority of the school board. And that these signatures may be made electronically by execution of counterparts or in person at the convenience of the members of the school board. Second. questions or discussion about that. All right. All in favor? Great. Any opposed or abstensions? So, we accept. Um, do you want us to sign that right? Do you want to send that around right now? Then we don't have to block the doors at the end of the meeting. Um, trouble. And while we're doing that, I think this would be um a nice time while going along with the formal acceptance of the vote. Um we know several of us are are returning, but

029this is still a new board year and we are welcoming a new board member as part of um our declaration here. So, why don't we uh go around the room and introduce ourselves again for um Hunter, maybe your name, where you're from, how much you love being on the school board. Fran, you want to start? Uh Fran Monroe. Um this is my second term. The last term was for two years hot from Gray from Gray. And um um what else? Basically, that's who I am. Awesome. Um, I'm Misty Pulage. Um, I live in New Glaster, but I have properties in Gray and New Glaster. Um, I own two businesses in town. I have three kids in the school system. Um, and this is my third term on the school board and I enjoy it very

030much. So, welcome, Hunter. Hi, Hunter. Do you want to tell us about yourself? Uh, who are you? I'm Hunter Johnson. I'm from Gray. I've lived in Gray for the last 21 years. Um, my brother went to school here. My mom's a school teacher in uh, Bonham. Uh, big sports avid sports person. Um, I'm just really excited, you know, want to make a difference in my community. So, that's why I'm here. Great. Glad to have you. Welcome. My name is Sharon Mory. I've um, I'm in my last year of my first term. Um, I have a daughter that attends the school and I actually am myself an alum of the school. Gray love school board. Oh, I don't I'm from gray. Did you just say gray? You did. You were listening. I live in India. I

031grew up in Ray. I apologize. We cannot hear. You don't have to speak up. Be louder, man. Live in New Glouster. Um, I'm Penny Collins. Um, I live in New Gloucester. We have two kids, one at the middle school, one at the high school. Uh, my husband and I own business our business in Gloucester and we've been here 20 years this summer. I'm Gary Haramman from McLouster. Um, I'm in the last year of my sixth term on the school board. I know. Wow. My son's a 20 2014 graduate of Brandon Glouester. He attended all his school in this district. Uh, we've lived here, I don't know, 26, seven, eight years. Um, yeah, that's me. Uh, I'm Sam Fifel. I'm in the second year of my fourth term. um eagerly awaiting Gary being done so that

032I can be the longest last. Going to be so exciting. Um my uh my daughter graduated in 2021. My son just graduated uh last month and uh I have loved my time on the school board and we're going to celebrate 25 years in Gray next summer. Hi, I'm Jim Manzer. Uh, I've lived in Gray since the early 2000s. I've been on the school board for about 5 years. Uh, my parents have owned the property that I mean I family has owned a property that I uh lived on for since the ' 40s. So, I'm pretty familiar with Gray, its history and such. I got on the school board because I was concerned about the uh test scores and the cost and it seemed like they were going in the wrong direction. My turn. I'm Teresa

033Lacodi. This is my second year of my first term. My son just finished his freshman year in high school here. Um, I'm in the community almost 20 years. I'm from Massachusetts originally, but my husband's from here. So, after getting married and moved here in 2005, and I wanted to make a difference, so that's why I went on to this school board, too. And I'm looking forward to it this year. See what we can do. Oh, hi guys. Um, for Hunter's benefit, do you want to say who you are? Sure. David Pascal, director of finance and operations at the school district. This is I'm completing my first year here working at the school. Maggie Humphrey. I am the administrative assistant to superintendent. So, I met earlier, too. All right. So, that's uh that's the team. Welcome.

034We're glad um that you're here. So, we've done that. Now, we have to um for better or worse look at the calendar to set dates for summer schoolboard meetings. This was a little bit on the fence and now we for sure have some work to do. Uh I'm just wondering if we're putting the cart before the horse. Are we going to discuss the meeting schedule before we know what we have to do? That's fair. These are not voting items, so we just swap them. Would that be all right? Just because uh I I've been on the board 10 years. We've never had a budget not pass. I think I know how it works, but I think it would be good to just talk about what we need to do and then we can talk about

035the schedule. Does that make sense? The last time flip-flop talking about what we got to do next and then put it on the calendar. Well, I I I when I read this, I I I figured that's the process that we're going to have to go through in order to um present a budget to the public again. Is that what you're talking about, Sam? Right. I'm just saying we're about to look at like meeting schedule. I was just thinking before we talk about our meeting schedule, let's talk about what we have to do and then Oh. Oh. Oh. And then we'll figure out when to organize. Yeah. So, we're just flip four and five. It's okay. Yeah. I got you. Uh thank you, Sam. I think that makes a whole lot of sense. Um, no matter

036how many times you look at the agenda beforehand. Um, so let's start with that. Um, ask Dr. Turner for an update and some feedback on the next iteration of the budget. Then we'll set dates for how we going to get there. Excellent. Um, so, uh, it has been a long time since we have not, um, passed a budget, so this is should be new for most everyone on the board. Um, so essentially there are the rules that govern the situation are in statute. So this there's some discussion we can have about what we're going to do and when we're going to do it, but it's mostly governed by statute. So the process that we need to undertake is much what we did already and we're going to do it again. Um, we will need to

037I will develop a new budget proposal that will then be recommended. That will be my recommendation to the finance committee that will now be formed by the chair in a slightly shorter order than usual because we don't usually need a finance committee in the summer but this year we will. Um so I will recommend that to the finance committee. The finance committee will then need to make a recommendation to the full board. The board will then vote on a recommendation to go to town validation. We will then have another town validation meeting. um what comes out of the town validation meeting then goes back to written ballot with me so far? Um under statute we have 45 days following the failed referendum to have the budget validation and then by statute we have 45 days

038from the town validation to hold um to hold the vote. So that those are the kind of guardrails that are non-negotiable. We absolutely have to do those things. So for us, um those dates are um yeah, I thought I wrote it down here, but I didn't. It's July 25th and then um I think September 7th. I want to say it's Saturday. Um so we made sure in what we proposed that we were kind of within those guidelines, but um that's the statute piece. Um the other note that I made um something just for you all to consider under um state law similar same law but different section um if the district does not have a budget approved through the ballot the budget that was most recently approved at town validation becomes the operating budget when

039the new fiscal year begins. So as of July 1st, that budget that was voted at town validation but failed at ballot becomes our operating budget so that we can continue the business of school up until we have a ballot approved. With that said, we need to be sensitive and careful to the fact that what is likely to be approved is going to be different than what our operating budget is on July 1 and we'll be operating accordingly. Anything else? Question. Yeah. Questions. Questions before I keep going. Is there any state statute that says like by a certain date we have to have an approved budget? No. So we have to because it would just recycle. So we have to have a validation meeting within 45 days. Then we have to have a new ballot within

04045 days. So that potentially could be voted down again, right? And then we would do it. We would be going off of again the most recently vote supported budget would be the working budget, which is the one we have now. And then we would have another 45 days to have a new validation meeting, another 45 days. So every 90 days you'd have you'd be having an election until you had it right. I just didn't know if it said like by October 1st you have to have Okay, that's all I was curious about. Um, so I'm looking at um um I I understand part of this is in the law, but is it also um necessary to have a um uh finance committee uh meeting? Is that required? I in the law itself because I think

041all of us have been through the budget. We probably know all and we know probably where we're going to stand. Uh I'm not sure having an extra meeting would make a difference. So that's that you know would be time you know taken away from you know activities for the so that's one question I haven't answered after. So the process under statute does not require anything that up to the board recommendation. The board has to vote to recommend to town validation. That is what's absolutely required. How we have operated here in the district is through that process of having a opportunity of budget workshop so that the board can talk more informally and then have the finance committee do some work that they would recommend forward to the board. Um and then this group and part

042of the discussion tonight is you could opt to not use that process that you have used in the past. The second comment I have is regarding the August um the validation meeting July 24th. Um that is um the holiday weekend, the start of the holiday weekend and um August 26th. I apologize. I'm on August 26th. Is that's the holiday weekend in the past? Um No. No, we looked at that. I think it's the following cuz we were trying to avoid weekend. It's also It's right school. It is the day before school. The 26th. Yes. the day before school starts. Yeah. And that's just the deadline. That's obviously uh that's the date that we've recommended. I believe September 7th is our drop deadline. Um we did chat with the town a bit cuz as you know

043um the town of Gray's budget also failed and the new Gloucester town had you know so we talked with town offices about you know we're going to have to hold another election and did they have any thoughts or feedback about that? We were kind of looking at like this is the date range we'd be looking at. Um their thoughts were exactly what you're saying is we shouldn't do it that Tuesday right after the holiday. That's you know pretty challenging for them to make a ballot happen. Um I felt like we could be respectful of that pretty easily. Um so their recommendation was the 26th. The other thing um in talking with the town of Gray um because their budget also failed um it will require some new work and some new voting but that does

044not go to physical ballot. So we don't have to necessarily align our ballot time with them. I was worried we were going to have to. Um I am, you know, I haven't actually talked to Mike in about a week, but I I am going to try to make sure that when they're doing their big meetings and votes that it's not the same time we're trying to do it so that people aren't aren't trying to be in two places at once. Um but last I talked to him, he didn't necessarily have any dates on the calendar yet. um process uh statute wise. So we have any more questions or discussions about about that? I know that some of it is leading to the calendar but um no I think I understand it. So the um recommendation

045from Dr. Turner is that we follow our process as we would um just in a expedited fashion where we would have our former committee have the finance committee meet um have the full board meet and then do the the meeting that we normally do. Um Fran had some thoughts on that maybe being um too much too much. Does anyone else want to weigh in on following our process? Sam um I have liked the process of the you know board workshop where we can give highlevel sort of opinions right like I value XYZ program I don't value XYZ program I would like to roll over more but not roll over. Um, and then the finance committee gets into the actual number crunching and putting up the spreadsheet on the wall and looking all that sort of

046thing. Uh, similar to why, uh, I like us doing, you know, word smithing in the policy committee just because, you know, it's the difference between 11 people, you know, chiming in and four or five people really, you know, doing work. Um, it doesn't take a bite of the apple away from the full board. The full board still gets to weigh in. I just think, you know, having a working committee that are familiar with the LD279 and, you know, uh, have been versed in, you know, sort of the raw numbers of it rather than the sort of priorities of it. Uh, can come back and say, okay, you know, here is the actual numbers. And then uh you also generally have the chair of the finance committee is able to explain some of the things. Well,

047you know, we heard from you know a lot of people that we wanted to do X Y and Z but you know that we we found we looked into uh cutting the healthc care insurance and it's just not possible or whatever. You know it allows the finance committee to do a little research as well. So that's why I've always liked that process. I don't think it's mandatory. Um but uh it's just two kind of different approaches to budget discussion in my experience. Um would the um finance committee have the uh year end um uh revenue and expense report so that they can take and see what's really so that would be prepared for that meeting. Exactly. it is my intention and that sort of thing like line item examination is a is a great finance

048committee thing and it doesn't keep anybody from coming to the finance committee it just makes it a little bit more head down and mundane yeah we should have that we should have that for this schedule we would have that Gary I I just think it's the process we've used as long as I've been on the board this has been the process we've used the process we understand um and are comfortable with and it has always served us well I don't have And you know, changing whether or not the finance board meets in the interim doesn't change the dates. 45 days is 45 days. Just means there's a finance meeting in the middle. Um I think I I I would prefer we just stay with what we understand. We don't have a whole lot of time

049to be changing anything. I agree. All right. Anyone else? The only thing about the August thing again I don't know if two deep two two weeks would make a difference in that but you know that uh room is very hot uh in the summer I would think and it's going to be very difficult for um um well actually anytime in the summertime it's going to be kind of difficult. So what that's the question what kind of arrangement will we make so that people who want to attend the um validation meeting won't be you know overburdened with heat that's something we have to consider. Yeah, that's just the reality of the buildings that we are in, which is the buildings that we have. You know, we did the bond we did the bond public meetings through

050the summer. It was horrible. And you know, that's just that's just the the reality. I think July 25th is our condition space. Yeah. Our July 25th is our is our statutory deadline. Yeah. Yeah. And so we we're we're kind of stuck with, you know, any space that we have as air conditioned is not big enough to have a town validation in. Can we at least have some fans that, you know, circulate some of the air maybe? Mhm. So, we have an air handling system that we usually have on. We have some big box fans. We try to move the air as much as possible because we do have to we have like our new teacher orientation and and we have staff in in the summer. We do our best to keep it cooler. The um

051balance we have to make is for every fan and air movement system you add it makes the hearing difficult more difficult and hearing people in that you know generally is is already a challenge. So um that that is where the balance then comes in. Um it would be difficult. We will do what we can to keep it as cool as possible but um it's it's going to be hot. Dress accordingly. Do we know if this space is compromised by the HVAC work this summer? Um whether we have to move it anyway, I do not believe at this time it's an issue. Okay. But we got to we'll have to that is a constantly developing situation in our schools changing dayto day. So it might be in a different space. Um who knows potentially. Yeah, we

052may have to move to another school if um if the ceilings are opened in there. Best of both. Well, I mean there was standing room only at the last meeting too. I mean, we've kind of maxed out the space. So, if we had a bigger bigger space, I don't know if we do, but that's going to be even worse. That's worse than sound. That's an older think is a bigger space seating wise, but we've got No, no, I don't go there. We've got a big spot. We got 45 days to figure that out. Yeah. I mean though that's a good point Jeremy potentially maybe we could get creative and see if there's a um community's got they might be able Yeah. I mean, I think our high school is kind of our biggest Mhm. biggest

053space in town. But, um, does New Glass have any air conditioned large buildings that we could use for that? I don't think New Glasser has any large buildings. Nope. Whatever there is, right? Yeah. So, um it's good. It lets people um understand the reality of our building. This is true. I think that they should come on down um and see what what it's like. So, okay. So, July in July 24th, the reality is hopefully we get great participation. I think it'll it's just a tough time of year. Um you know, a lot of folks aren't even in town. So, um it would be nice if it was standing room only, but u we'll see. Oh, I'm sorry. Um this is a process question. Um so, uh I think we talked about this briefly on the

054phone when you told me the results when I got back from Iceland. But I want to make sure everybody knows there are some things that passed at Oh, yes. the validation meeting that are already set. Right. So, for instance, the vote to move money out of the capital reserve fund is still good, right? We don't have to redo that. Um, so that money is available to us as revenue for the budget upcoming. Um, the vote for uh adult education, I believe, is solid is solid, right? That's not part of the ballot vote. So, that's already through. So, that won't be part of the number. correct that we create. Um, is there anything else? Those are the two things I know for sure. Is there is every other article back on the table or do we

055still have to like vote on debt service at the town validation meeting even though you know we passed that unanimously. So articles 16, 17, and 18 require only town validation. It does not require secondary backup from ballot. So, article 16 is that authorizing the expenditures of grants and other revenue receipts. Article 17 is authorizing us to spend the adult education funds. And article 18 was that capital reserve expenditure of up to $800,000. So, all those three can go forward. Um they were approved as of the town validation. Um and I think that's an important point. Um we did um recommend an increase to adult education. So that has been part of what we have talked about all along in our increases. That will now drop off the conversation because that piece of the budget has

056already been approved. It was it wasn't on the ballot to start with because it doesn't go to ballot. Um it's just part of our conversation at town validation. So as we move forward in our process, um I want to be very transparent that um you know it it's going to look like a reduction, but it wasn't really a reduction. It's just that that piece is already approved and now we're looking at what remains to be approved in the process which are articles 1 through 15. And so can I ask a follow-up question to that? Um as part of our presentation [Music] uh we talk about how much uh money we are willing to contribute as revenue from our general fund. um we don't technically vote on that in the uh articles, right? Because we still

057have to raise the money even though we are contributing more money. Mhm. So we could contribute more money. It would mean that the articles remained the same but the tax impact would be lower. Right? So that's still an option for us. We're not like locked into anything in terms of our revenue creation opportunities, right? Correct. Okay. Yeah, that would go back and generally speaking, we've done that as a vote at finance committee. And so that would be part of the work. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that. And we'll be talking about the um process of that day meeting at a different meeting than this one tonight. For instance, um um we had some problems at the last validation meeting. So, we will be addressing those at another time or um we can do

058that. I would love to get things out on the table right now if we if there's feedback, concerns, questions, like this is we have the time tonight, so let's do it. And then, you know, we can move seriously into this schedule. And so if there's things people want to talk about how to improve the process this summer, great. Let's talk about it. Well, um, one of the issues I I I think was we we hired someone who was professional uh to to lead the meeting and yet there was some uh lagging um information um you know uh wasn't quite sure in some some instances and when we've hired professionals in the past I mean they were right on the money they you know they they knew everything inside and out. So, um, prior to one

059prior, um, but anyway, we'll forget about the other one. But this one here, um, I I I didn't think he was rounded enough to to handle a particular now. Maybe he's great elsewhere, but we're unique. We're gray and newer, so we're a little unique. So, maybe he, you know, wasn't, you know, but he should have been prepared. All right, that's number one. Number two, speak to that real quick. Okay. Just cuz I'd love to keep you all updated. So, um, Greg M, Mr. Im is usually our person and he was not available this year for our date. He had another, um, prior commitment and so, um, we work with Mr. Stockmire who who does this work quite a bit in other towns. Um, but we have already been in conversation and Mr. We have Mr.

060We have Mr. M tentatively booked for the 24th pending our meeting tonight. Um, I will call him at the end of this meeting if we confirm the 24th is our date and make sure that we're on schedule with with him. Good. Sorry. Keep going. Okay. Also, um the matter of voting was um um I don't think I've ever attended a voting meeting where we did a doover and um I I I it it's just beyond me that something like that could happen. And so, um we need to address that issue. I don't have Can you elaborate for the vote? Remember the first vote and we had to recount? You mean? Yeah, they had to recount. And um so you we didn't hear the first results so we don't know which way. And then what happens

061is people didn't change their minds on the second vote. It's only natural. But my point is that and maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Point is that we can't have that. That's that's that's totally unacceptable. So um I'd like to address that sometime along the way. We all think about it and maybe we come back with some some ideas about that. Um because I certainly wouldn't want that ever to happen again. having to recount. No. Yeah. When they did the recount, Yeah. they they didn't do it right the first time, so they had to recount the the ballot clips, you know, and and and that's, you know, I think the problem was is that the moderator tried to separate the room up differently and then they already had it planned. So, that was the issue.

062He tried to change the process they had already planned out. So when he changed the this the layout of the room and cutting up the room, there was some issues with the counting process because he changed things. The clerks had it already lined up how they've done it for years and it's worked, but he wanted to change it. He broke the room differently. So they were counting differently. So I think he was the issue and then they put it back. Then they said we were going to do this and he said, "Oh, okay." Right. Yeah. Right. They had it figured out. He wanted to change it. That that that's what the confusion. We have received some feedback from the clerks on how that went and we will Yeah, we feedback. That's right. Feedback that discussion.

063Yes. So that honey and I have had long talks with both and some plans to do it differently so that they're supported to be smooth and just be transparent like let's have the moderator tell everybody what the process is going to be. invite the clerks up, you know, so that people um feel they have conf we need folks to have confidence in that in that process. Y so and there's a process in place where people can make motions and vote to have it be paper ballot and that is the will of the meeting. So Oh yeah, that's part of the process. Sam, um this is a question I don't know the answer to. We've always um had a superintendent present the budget and then we go and start voting on the articles, right? Um and

064every year it happens that by the time we get to article 13, nobody remembers what the superintendent presented and it's like what's article 13 again and why was it bigger or smaller? I can't remember. uh which is fair uh because sometimes we've had two hours of discussion between. Is it allowable to have a brief presentation before each article or do we have to do it where it's present the budget and then vote all the articles? I do not know. I have no idea. I don't I just don't know if there's like some rule about that because it might just it might make it go, you know, I remember when we got to the debt one, I got up and was like, "Guys, we're voting on paying off our debt payments." And everybody's like, "Oh, thanks."

065You know, and then we voted for it and it was no problem. Um rather than have confusion, you know, maybe it would be helpful to talk this one's going up 5% because the healthcare went up $500,000. there's nothing we can do about it. Um, you know, I I'm making things up right now, but that might make the discussion more informed. I don't know. Yeah. Or align the presentation by article and then keep it back. Pull it up, right? Yeah. Even if just the slide was sitting there for each article. I, you know, I was, I just felt like as we got deeper into it, it got more confusing as to what we were actually voting on. And it had never really occurred to me until that meeting that, you know, maybe there's a different way

066to do that. Yeah. And we did have paper handouts of the articles, but they weren't quite making it around. And then there was like a pile of them unused, but other folks didn't have them. So, you know, we make a point to get that out. Can we hand them as they check in? As they check in. I handed out those those sheets that you had. I think everybody got one that came through the door. Okay. So there was I heard from quite a few folks that they didn't they didn't have it but I thought I got everybody but okay um one more thing. Sorry. Um when uh if there is a paper ballot we need to have more boxes available um for people to vote to put the ballots in. Having one box for everybody

067to circle to do is is you know uh delays the process. If we can have maybe suggest to the uh town clerks that they have more than one ballot box to put the belts in like one on each room or one side of the room. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Each clerk make the process go quicker. Well, we can certainly bring that up. I'm not familiar with their rules and regulations, but I can certainly make that suggestion. Um, more thoughts, questions, opinions on the I'm trying to just actually get reoriented where we are, the process that we're going to follow, how we might do it better. Um, we can Do you want me to move that we set these meetings on the calendar and then we can have discussion on any specific things? Yeah, sure.

068Uh I move that uh we agree to meet uh um on the dates as outlined in the attachments to this meeting uh including June 18, June 25, July 9 for a finance committee meeting. July 16, July 17 is when we would post the warrant artist with town who wouldn't meet that day. July 24 we'd have the validation meeting and August 26 we'd have the budget referendum. Second. All right. So, we have the this proposed schedule on the table. Everybody has it in their materials. Anyone following along at home, it's in our um documents for this in the meeting folder. Questions, thoughts, feedback on this schedule. This has us pretty much repeating at pace our usual. So we would get together again to do um a workshop where we can kind of all dig in together.

069Um hear from admin, kick it to finance, um come back for a full board meeting, sign the warrant articles, um host a validation meeting. I have a question. Yeah. When are we going to know what committees we're on? Because I already know that I'm out of town for one of these. Um well with luck tomorrow. Okay. Tomorrow the next day. This week. Okay. This week. So um what's the what conflict do you have? July 9th. Okay. No, excuse me. Excuse me. Wrong date. July 24th. We're out of town. It's kind of long. I know. But we're out of town. Are you going to try to come back, but Okay. Actually though, that's a good point. That's that there's 11 of us and that's what makes this board great. But are are there any massive Well,

070just to that one date point, um we always do things on you know this is a point of contention for me uh in the annual calendar is that we meet every Wednesday and then for some reason the validation meeting is on a Thursday. Um could we do the validation meeting on a Wednesday which is the day that we all have set aside for school board? That's still work. Well, I know that. Why did we skip to That's a good valid point. Was that we always done it on a Thursday? Hold on. Let me just make sure there wasn't. Wasn't there a reason? Is that a town clerk reason? Well, I think the annual reason it's on Thursday is because it's set in our bylaws that we have our town that we have the validation meeting

071on the third Thursday of May or whatever. Um, but we don't have to follow that now. All right. Yeah, good point. I don't know. Wednesday just seems to be the day that I'm like, I'm going to go to school board, you know. Yeah, me too. The only reason I picked that date is cuz we we've always did on the 23rd. Selfishly, it would be more convenient for me. That's all I'm saying. What a birthday present. Thank you very much. Oh, all right. We'll bring you cake. I had I had wondered if it was falling to Thursdays because that is that a late night for the towns where the clerks are, you know, a night where they work at 8:00, but I don't think so. You guys know their schedule 3:00 in Gray. Okay. So, that's

072So, that's no matter. Um, I thought there was a reason at one point, doesn't it? Well, but now we know it's June's birthday. I would feel guilty. I I I can be there on the 24th. I'm not I'm just saying consistency like big summer, you know, Wednesday night is a thing that we're going to Well, it's not not summer. No, it's summer time. They go year round. Well, they do have practices, but they can't make them. Oh, community. Okay. Okay. So, well, so we stick with the Thursday and it's a weird day, which is less great for Sam. Or we make Jim do this on his birthday. Yeah, my baby. I'm fine with the 24th. Keeping it on there. Let's give that your birthday. The 24th is his birthday. No, the 23rd is your birthday.

073Okay. No more Garcia. Ah, all right. It's already It's already typed out. Okay. It's already typed out. Yeah, it's downloaded. All right. 24th. All right. We'll remember your kindness in gym. You owe us for happy birthday. All right. Um, anything else on that on the schedule? Um, I personally think it makes sense to take advantage of having a finance committee meeting. It we're not going to change the whole timeline um by not doing that. Um, so I would be in favor of keeping that on. Yeah, I think that was and we can have the owl and it's a public meeting and all that sort of thing. It doesn't change the nature of the public of it or anything. So So tenatively 6:30 at the cafeterium until unless we find a better condition space for when

074it says 5:30 for the 24th for the for the validation. Actually doesn't have a time. We didn't put a time. We wondered about trying to make it a little earlier in the evening. Some feedback we got from some folks were that it would be nice to start a little earlier in the evening. It would help those with I noticed a lot of families leave at 8:30. Totally get that. And still have bedtime. So 6:00's good. I think that is what we had kicked around as maybe being splitting the difference. Sometimes we have meetings at 5:30, sometimes 6:30. 5:30 might be tight tight. We kind of talked about 5:30 sort of the earliest we probably go through, but what about like start at 6:00, but people register at 5:30 so that we can start doors open.

075You know what I mean? Like the meeting starts at 6:00, but people come ahead of time to get signed in. I like that. Yeah. Okay. All right. She feel good about that. Yeah. Okay. Um, six. Anything else on the motion to use this as our timeline? All right. All in favor? Great. Any opposed? All right. Happy uh summer, everyone. Look forward to seeing you all here. Um, then, okay, just bear with me for a minute. So this has us coming back on the no we're on theth has us coming back on the 25th to workshop so we can move on for now because we will have opportunity to look at real numbers and real information and workshop week together. Are there things before we move on that you would love to ask to be sure

076that we see at that workshop? We do not have a lot of time for um we won't be able to send anyone back. So, if there's information, reports, um I know the 25th is still not the end, but it's awful close to it. Um I'd love to know how we're doing to the to the budget as close as possible as possible. Yeah. I know finance committee will get a look at the real deal. Um any changes to things that have come into to more clarity as we've had more time that were uh guesses before. Um, good news, bad news there. I'd love to see um anyone else. What do we want to know at this workshop? Uh, I think we need as I mean there are some like I think we should have available to

077us how much money is in the capital reserve. That's a number that we definitely know. Um, how much money is currently encumbered but hasn't been spent yet. Um and how much money best guess obviously um is in the assignment balance. Those are three numbers we need available to us. I think as best we can anyone else. Um, so the other thing I think we're going to have to take a a look at is um, you know, we get uh staffing report basically every month or something like that. I think um, any position that we have not been able to fill for nine months, 6 months, a year, you know, whatever I don't whatever makes sense or is findable. Um, in the past couple of years, we have decided to stop trying to hire, for example,

078for one of the three constantly open bus driver positions. Uh, if there is a similar position that we keep budgeting for but keep not being able to hire, which contributes to the money going into the undead fund, we should just have that available to us. That might be an easy way to reduce the budget without reducing any services in practical nature. Yeah, I think that broadly would be good to know as well, both financially, but in terms of what are the positions we can't fill, you know, what what are the tough areas? I feel like transportation has gotten better, but we're seeing I'm seeing a lot of uh resignations in food service. Um, so what you know, the idea that just having money means we can hire someone is just it's just incorrect. Um, so

079what what sorts of challenges are we facing? Um, and what's realistic? Do we take it right to the bone and say, "Okay, well, now we're never going to hire these positions, but the need is significant and there's a maybe, you know, what does that look like?" So, I think that'll be a big one. I think I think we need to make sure that um that end of June report um is as final as we can make it so that whatever those numbers are as the year ends that um if there's a balance, we can explain it. if there's uh outstanding um billing or salaries or anything that's going to be put against those balances, uh we want to make I I just think need to make sure that the number if there's if it if

080we're giving the appearance that there's money left over that isn't actually left over, we need to make sure we can explain it. Um, and um, I just think that those numbers need to be as accurate as possible, as final as possible, and that there's some kind of narrative to go with anything that looks like there's an overage that needs to be explained. I think transparency wise, I think it's obvious people have their lists and we need to be sensitive to that and uh, just make sure that we can if we can't show it, we need to explain it. Oh, that's not right. That's the same thing. We need to be able to explain all all those final all those final numbers. We have to have a rationale for all those final numbers and have them

081be as final as we can. And for June 25th, we'll be able to again bring you our best estimates at that point, but the year at that point is not yet over. Um and so the intention is that the actual reports that we do with finance committee, the month end reports that we will bring to the July 9 meeting. Yeah. Right. Um so at the 25th, we'll be kind of still talking somewhat theoretically. Um July 9 again it's not it's a draft balance because until we have our audit in but these were the kind of however long a couple of reports that we didn't historically historically haven't seen because we haven't had a committee we haven't been looking at them in June we've looked at them in September by then it was kind of too

082late to yes too much yeah so now July 9 the intention is to have that ready for um deep discussion. Yeah. Great. Thank you. uh in an ideal world maybe a day before July 9th so that the committee can look at it. So we usually try to send those out a week before when we send out that's probably not going to be realistic because of just how things are falling. But we will try to get it ahead of time so folks have time to look at it before the meeting. I can't I can't make promises though. That's a real a tight turnaround of course. But we'll we'll do what we can. Um um so you're supposed to be coming up some numbers um for um uh July uh uh June 25th. Mhm. You're supposed to

083propose a budget, but we don't have the year end even though unit audited. I understand. But we don't have um uh those numbers. Are you going to have I mean it seems like a duplication effort um that you would want to get the year end and then say this is what I propose and then we work on that. I it seems like it's an extra step. Maybe not. But that's what I I see. It might get a little confusing. Well, we always do the budget before we have year end year end because we're always months ahead of year end. So, we know we're charging the administration to go sharpen the pencil, right? And so, we can start having that conversation on the 25th and then at the 9th that formed finance committee can, you know,

084do a deep dive with with fresher numbers. Well, we're also doing I mean the year- end numbers I'm not saying they're not interesting um because it helps us know how much money we have in the bank, but we use a zerobased budgeting format, right? We start at zero. Uh we don't I know that there is some misconception out there in the community that we start with last year's budget and move to this year's budget. But each year we start at zero um and we say these are all the things that we need. This is what they cost. Here's our budget. um when we refer to the last year's budget, it's just a point of reference. Yeah. So, you know, it's nice to know how much we spent last year, but if we say we need

085five teachers to teach math, that costs a certain amount, whether we spent all of it last year or not, Jim, I don't really want to disagree with you, but uh we started with a keep the doors open budget in my mind. I mean, that's what you basically a maintenance of effort, I believe was the term we used. Well, that's not a zero budget. Yeah. It's what it costs to do all the things that we're doing right now. Yeah, but that's not a zero budget, but okay. All right. And maybe define it differently, but you know, I'm just saying that we don't say, "Hey, we spent 10 bucks last year. We're probably going to need 11 this year." We say, you know, we have 312 employees. That's what they cost if we retain all of them.

086All right. Okay. Just a difference. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. you have something for it. Anybody else has any any suggestions at all? Any I I I you know the So what's been presented to the public so far is an extra $1.25 million. Correct. that is going to be used from this year's budget to go into next year's budget. The rollover roll over what we were instructed to do from the board based on our conversations was to ensure that there would be one at least 1.25 million left at the end of the year. So, we changed our behaviors from the time of that vote through to the end of the year to ensure that there would be funds that we could offset the tax base with. Okay. So then when you're reviewing the budget, um are

087you going to be um taking into uh into um consideration that 1.25 million um and determining areas that you might want to uh eliminate or reduce or anything like that? In what way would that when so the budget is already including the 1.2 so if you take that out of the budget just say that whole amount just for easy discussion the whole 1.2 2 million. Uh then you're pretty well all said in what you would um you yourself would be able to say well all right board this is what this is going to happen by using that money not using that money I should say you know I am going to have um um 35 34 uh 325 30 3 and 3/4 whatever budget 39 1.2 1.25 million is revenue revenue. It doesn't reduce the

088budget size. It reduces the amount that we need to request from the town public. Yeah. But it doesn't reduce the size of the budget that we approve. It helps us pay for the budget. It offsets the amount of taxes we need to raise. But, you know, whether we roll over 1 million or 2 million, the $35 million budget number doesn't change. I think part of what Fran's may be trying to say, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that if we had 1.25 million that wasn't spent, that that was money that we didn't need that we can just cut in next year's budget. What I'm going to say to you is it's not that clean. Um, generally speaking, when we're talking about funds that we don't pay, the vast majority of the time that

089is positions that we didn't fill, right? So um when we don't you know I am going to say to you we need we need to do this to keep you know schools open. Um I think transportation is a great example. We um we know how many bus drivers we need to really operate well. We don't have as many. So when I say to you I would like to budget for this many bus drivers because that's how many we need to do a really good job. But then I'm not able to fill all of those positions. That's represented as unspent money at the end of the year. So, I didn't budget for it because I wanted to pad that budget. I budgeted for it because I need the bus driver and I wasn't able to fill

090the position or periods of time it went unfilled. Right? That is the vast majority of funds that we have left over. So, it's not as clean as simple as to be able to say, "Oh, well, I didn't need that money. I can just cut it for next year. I still need more bus drivers." uh in if I if I may in the um 35 million I'm going to look at it from this perspective in the 35 million um there are certain expenses positions all that type of stuff um and um some of the some of the cost centers or cost things lines whatever you want to call it um you wonder sometimes um is it all that necessary as student education basically is just part of you know cooperation. One example I I this is

091the thing that bothers me the most is that there's um for board contingency. I spoke about this before and and that's a fairly large amount of money and I say why do we have to have a board contingency when we have insurance and we have lawyers you know the board does at other well not at disposal but you know to protect us and uh you know just that one item um if it will make it easier to be understood that amount of money um is $85,000 you know that's sitting Yeah. Not being used. So it has nothing to do with anything else. So it's in my mind I would take 35 million less$84 $85,000. Does everyone follow me? So that's how I would be looking at the bottom line. So now the budget is not

09235 million, it's 34, you know. So it and and there's those some of those kinds of of things. So, it's not teachers. Uh I had no teachers, no no bus drivers, uh you know, equipment. Um you know, we have the reserves to do repairs. Those can continue. Uh we're looking to do some repairs this year. You know, it's all for, you know, the infrastructure. So, none of this that I'm talking about has anything to do with that. Um I'm only talking about, you know, do we really need this? So that's my approach to the budget 100%. I mean if you want to suggest line items to cut suggest. Yeah. So that's so that's why I talked about the 1.2 um you know so that you won't uh need that amount of money if we find

093I have to have justification for that line. I guess as a board member I want to know absolutely necessary and this is legal reason and all that kind of stuff but at this point and we can get that for you but I might gently point out that we did have a vote at the last committee meeting to um allow movement between articles because the article that contains board contingency was over. So whether we use that line or not the sum of money was necessary. It was an example. Yeah. Yeah. But we so we did use all of the board contingency. So maybe we needed to to to that point though it's an it's an example in our next meeting is workshop. So if folks can do, you know, want to do the work of looking

094through and finding things that you're like, can someone please explain this to me? Um, let's pull those up. You know, we can start a Google doc or something. Not a Google doc. Send them to you directly. Send them to me directly. Um, I will start a document and share it. You can't you can't have a Google. That's a meeting. Well, I'm saying I'll gather the question. I will gather the question just as long as it does not last. I I survived that whole year. Here we go. Um I will gather everyone's questions or ideas or please explain this one to me and we'll get them to um Chandanda and David um so that way we can because we just don't have a lot of time too. So we want to we want to you make

095good use of that workshop time. So, well, that worked the last time, too. Parking lot questions. But basically, let's start a new parking lot in advance. Um, because we won't have time to say all of these things after workshop and then we don't really need to get, you know, we're going to send it to finance. So, let's uh pre-parking lot um come up with your ideas, questions, areas for scrutiny. Email them to me directly. I will gather them and provide them to the central office. Um, and that way we can hit the ground running at our workshop with, you know, their presentation, um, their ideas and and then they'll be ready to, um, handle what we what we'll show up with as well. Does that make sense? Do that. Yes. Is it the last year's

096uh, finance committee or is it a new finance committee? New. It'll be a new finance committee. So when do you appoint the new finance committee? Probably tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow. Yeah. C certainly this week. So that folks should get that on that on their calendar. So um in the meantime, um please hold July the 9th. What? July 9th. That that's the finance committee. Um and this is a big deal. This is an extremely big deal. I hope everybody shows up and um brings their best. And so even if you're not in the finance committee and you want to stay u up to speed or participate or listen, please come to that finance committee and you don't have to be a voting member to, you know, to be there. Um um can I just say I I

097have tried to value over the last um budget season so far being really transparent and getting you guys lots of um materials way in front so you would have a week to look at it given the compressed time frame that is probably I'm probably not going to be able to do that in the same way um moving up to next week's workshop we will probably be working up right to the very last minute on um what we bring forward because we want to bring you the most accurate most innovative and thoughtful thing that we can. Um, and so we are going to need all of that time to put together. So, um, when I can get it out in advance, I am absolutely going to do that, but I'm I'm going to have to ask

098for a little bit of grace in that we may need some time, in which case we may need to put some time aside in meetings for people to look at things if it's the first time you're seeing it. So, um, I appreciate your patience on that. Yeah. And, uh, so check your email, folks. Um, I know it's it's summer, but you can see the schedule's pretty full. So, a daily peek at your email would be appreciated. Um, and we did vote on that, right? I just completely lost track of where we're at. We're number six. Um, anything else on this uh process plan, what we want to see for workshop? Are we feeling like we can move on? Hunter, can I just add a quick question? because I'm not going to lie, it's a little

099confusing reading our budget. Um like in the notes for example, are we adding three teachers on this line or do we currently have three teachers? Cuz when you look at it, you know, if we're adding three teachers, this numbers make sense. But if we already carry those three teachers and we're increasing it by 37,000, that kind of jumps out to me a little bit. So I just want to clarify what our notes mean, per se. So, that's a very specific question unless we're looking at what you're looking at. Um, but yes, three teachers into the next year, Ken is probably going to spend $37,000 for salary because they have a contracted uh increase and then most of that is in the 13%. I know, but this is a huge increase and it actually decreased. What

100cost center are you in? Like I don't know what you're I'm not going to lie, this whole page is kind of confusing cuz the cost centers aren't straightforward how they honestly in my opinion should be. But I'm on page nine of 82 just looking at regular instruction. Not just that one specifically. I'm just trying to clarify what the notes on our budget mean. Like are we adding three teachers or are we carrying those three teachers and it's increasing that 37,000? Cuz that makes more you know what I'm saying makes more sense to me. I'm not feeling confident in giving you an answer. Not know I don't even know what document you're in. I'm looking at the legitimate MSAD15 proposed budget. Everyone has access to it. Everyone has access to a lot of documents and folks

101bring documents for it all the time. I have to guess which document they're looking for. I'm looking at I got this from our shared stuff on the website. It's the line item version of the line item that was presented at not even just now with just any of the notes. I'm just trying to clarify for myself while I'm looking over this. For example, David, do you know what that note means? So, generally speaking, what we've done with those notes is they represent the headcount in that line. So, we're just carrying those like for I'm sorry, just for example, we're just carrying two. We're not adding or subtracting from any of that. That's just how much we carry. I mean, without looking at that line, I can't because we have it organized in two different ways.

102So, I don't know which one you're looking at. I'm looking at the proposed budget. Yeah, that's a Yeah, there's just there are three different versions of the proposed budget organized in different ways so that people can see it. Three full-time. I'm just trying to clarify so when I'm looking over it, I have an understanding. So, there's no add or subtract. That's just how many teachers are in that line. The notice for three full-time equivalent teachers. So, the increase for those three teachers is a total of $37,000 or 23%. In some cases, that's going to represent an add or a detract or so like in some cases four teachers might be one extra teacher or it might be one fewer teacher. That's just how many in the proposed budget were moving forward. And then there's other

103documentation that talks about what was taken away and what was added in in the budget. That's just what I'm trying to clarify while I'm looking over it. So I have an understanding. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't know if if that's what we're carrying or if we're adding that or subtracting that so it can make more sense if a large number jumps out to me or a large detail. I'd recommend you look over the there's um a number of just even the presentation slides lay it out pretty clearly about what we've added and what we've taken away. But for reading that note, it's saying there are three teachers in this space. To have those three teachers, it will cost us this much more next year than it did this year than this line did. had we've

104been going from two to three teachers, it would be a much bigger it would be a much bigger number. So, we just happen to know from looking at it that that's probably stable free teachers increase in their contract pay and their health insurance. Yeah, understandable. I just wanted to clarify for myself when I'm looking through this and sure that's the head count that is budgeted. Right. Like that one line item down from that one. You notice it says eight full-time heads. Again, that's now eight. That's eight heads being accounted for in that department. Before they didn't have that, the notes went in because before it was just the line item for regular education and so now they have that in so that we know, oh that equals three teachers or that equals eight teachers. It

105just just to help us figure out what does it mean, you know? All right. Um hire a teacher. Anything else on this broadly speaking? Okay, great. So, let's move on. And um as a a reminder, just email me um questions, ideas, things you want to make sure we have answers to at the workshop pre- parking lot. Um I move to consider Jennifer Pumprey as probation. Thank you, Jim. Second. All right, get the show moving. Um, I did not ask Miss Pumprey or the high school administration to be here tonight because I wasn't sure how long this was going to take and I didn't want them to have to sit through it. And I also didn't want to be asking you to vote on a teacher prior to us having a discussion about budget because I

106thought that that would bring up some questions. Um, what I will tell you is that we have um multiple poll at this point. We have multiple math teacher openings at the high school. Um, and we have an opportunity to fill one of them and I highly recommend that we do that. Um, as we get further into the discussion, if we want to talk about reducing staffing, as I said, we still do have one vacancy in that department at that school that we could work with as a discussion. Um, and I and I don't want to get into the merits of that at this time. Um we'll talk about that starting next week. But I just wanted to be clear that we have two openings at this time um in that department which um would be

107catastrophic if we did not fail. We would meeting basic graduation needs would be okay. Um so we are bringing Jennifer Pumprey forward um as a math teacher for the high school. Um Jennifer has 16 years experience as a teacher at both the middle level and the high school level. Um she holds multiple certifications in math and science at the middle school and the high school level. She comes to us most recently from um Oceanside High School in Rockland. They have moved back this way. Um and that is a benefit to us. Um our the folks we talked to at Oceanside were pretty um devastated to lose her. So their losses are gain and I'm happy to have it. Uh she has a master's degree in teacher leadership and a bachelor of science in math and

108science education. Um, and I would appreciate you supporting that hire. I have a question. How did you say how long she's been teaching? 16 years. 16. [Applause] Anything else? Questions? All right. All in favor? Post. Fantastic. Um, welcome Jennifer. Next up, um I would hear a motion to consider a donation from the G&G Athletic Boosters of up to $63,200 of supplies and labor towards the refurbishing of the Snack Track. So move. Second. All right. Uh discussion on that and you um all will see the detailed estimate in your packet. Fantastic. Go for it. that works out. Can you explain what this is all about? I'd be happy to. Um, so, um, as you know, we had a pretty big bond proposal not long ago that, um, was not successful. And in part of that work,

109we were going to do quite a bit of site work to our fields as well as to some of our outdoor facilities as well as our indoor facilities. Um, as part of um, my work coming on um, partway through the year and and part of our what we talked about for strategic plan goals for next year, um, one of the things we're working on is how do we continue to get our facilities work done in ways that don't necessarily hit the local taxpayer. Um, so we have really um, been interested in our very generous partners. Um, one of the big needs, those that were on the um, December site tour was that shack is in terrible condition. So the snack shack is um where the the boosters run their concessions and other such things right

110on the football field out here behind the school. Um and it it's in it's not in great condition. The floor is a little bouncy and the outside looks pretty dilapitated. Um but we have not prioritized investing funds in that facility. We've instead invested funds in, you know, inside of the school. Uh but the uh booster the G&G athletic boosters came forward to us and said we would be interested in um using some of our fundraised money to um go towards that reimbursement uh the refurbishment of that facility. You know, would you let us partner with you on that? And so um David as well as Tom, our facility supervisor, have been working very closely with the booster um leadership over the last um couple of months. We've chatted about it in the facilities committee um

111that this was a possibility and um they have come forward with feeling that they can support um a refurgement. So it will be um and and we've done some work with like what is the best thing to do with this? A coat of paint wasn't going to save it. Um and the recommendation is that the most cost effective thing to do is to replace it completely. Um it will stay within the same footprint of what is already there. Um, and the the athletic boosters have said that they will um support the donations to have that renovation happen. So, we're asking the board to support accepting that donation so that we can get a new snack shack without that coming out of our local budget. Fantastic. Yes, Sam. Um, obviously I'm in favor of the concept.

112Um, we do need a new snack shack. Uh, we also desperately need uh fixed bathrooms outdoors for our event attendees to use. Um, it has been something we've been trying to address in various ways for a long time now. If we are going to be building a brand new building out there, I really feel as though even I was just at St. Dom's um last week they have a snack shack that's almost the exact same size as ours except it has a single stall bathroom on the end and I saw a steady stream of people using it and being very happy. Um much happier than they are when they emerge from the porta potties. Um, and we do have $25,000 of plans and money um that we have we were, you know, looking at um

113a couple of uses for that and this has ideal community impact. Um, I would not stand in the way of the boosters, but if there is some way that we could kick in $25,000 of plans and money and get a permanent bathroom that our families could use, um, I think that would be not just win-win, but win-winwin all over the place um, going forward. So, if there's some way that we could incorporate that, maybe it's a pipe dream and bathrooms cost a million dollars nowadays. I don't know. But if there's some way that we could, if we're gonna build a whole new structure, it just seems like maybe that's something we could pull off, incorporate two bathrooms into that. If there's some sort of matching we we could do to to add to this. Um

114the plans and money has been accepted. It was earmarked for any sort of facility um upgrade, anything that served the kids. So yeah, just Yeah. Yeah, I think the issue is the bathroom doesn't necessarily cost I mean we might be able to put a bathroom together for 25,000 running the plumbing and the septic for it would be where that's probably a little bit but we we can certainly explore that or something. We I will say that I have already received complaints about the portaotties literally already this year which absolutely kills me. Um Gary and MSD um I think this is really generous and it certainly needs to snack shack needs to be addressed. My concern is that uh in every iteration of our fields proposal the snack shack wasn't there. The snack was snack shack

115was being moved somewhere else. And it was incorporating bathrooms. We had talked about moving it up along this edge of the field where the the storage and dugout building is. We had talked about moving it up by where the new baseball fields are. I realized that who knows if any of that's ever going to happen, but if anything happens, the snack shack we're going to be if we pour a slab, it currently I don't believe has one right now. I think it's on posts, so it's not a whole big deal to get rid of it if we had to. Right now, if we pour a slab, we're we're p we're developing a permanent site. Mhm. And my concern is now we're going to be designing our entire field around the snack shack. And I and

116I don't want to put a d I really don't want to put damper on. I've dealt with snack shack for a long time and was a volunteer there for many years and I know how limited it is. Um, I just I'm concerned about everything else that we've talked about about the fields now being compromised by where this permanent little building is going to be sitting because it's not a renovation. It's a replacement with a permanent slab. It's a replacement. We That's my concern. And it's it's it's valid other than we are so far away from doing work out there. you know, the the bond was voted down, our actual literal functioning budget was voted down, you know, like the the timeline to us redoing that whole outside space is is, you know, is quite extended.

117I understand. Um, and we have approved a spend to redo the field, the performance field that's right there. So, I feel like this kind of is setting these things up to be there for right for quite a while. But at the same time, we've talked about we're putting a septic in for the portable and we've talked we've discussed that doing some doing some septic work or no removing a portable. The intention is to leave the portable where it is. So it's going to require to what already exists. So we're going to put a septic system in for that portable. I do not. Or connect it to the building somehow. It's going to be connected to the building. So now we're going to run that. We're going to run yet another line to yet another building.

118Nope. The line already runs underneath. No, but there's but there's no other line. There's no septic or plumbing line to the portable and there's no septic or plumbing line to the snack shop. So, we're going to be looking at m, you know, rather than if we're going to put in a a septic and leech field of some kind, wouldn't it make sense to move the sack shack somewhere close to it and then put bathrooms in it? But are we doing that? Take advantage of that. I do not believe that in any of the site plans we have put together and leaving it where it was that we needed to put in a septic and a leech field that we could connect in with what was already there. Can you speak up please cuz you have

119the actual information. Right. So we have talked to skillings and sons to put in a septic system for the portable building where it exists now. That's what I I that was my understanding of what Okay. So, so could we move the snack truck over to that? Well, we can't we can't if we pour a slide where it is. No, I know. I'm saying never mind where it is. I'm saying the boosters are offering us $60,000 to build a snack shack. Do we build it in a different location? That's That's my question. We can accept the money. Um they're obviously not going to be able to site it without us agreeing on a final site. So, you know, I could offer an amendment to the motion that uh any uh construction not begin until uh the

120boosters and uh administration have agreed on a final location. It's a good idea. I think to me that makes more sense. I think David has some additional facts and information. I would love to have them. So, we're also we have to do an updated site plan for the high school grounds because of new structures like the outdoor classroom and the greenhouse before we can move forward with any of the work that we're planning for the um the portable building. So, I believe if we're intention is to pour a cement slab for the snack shack, we're going to have to probably consider that in the updated site plan and work with the engineer for that. It's also Yeah, I agree with that. I retract my motion because there's no way we're going to be able to

121set the concrete without getting approval from the town anyway. And so, you know, that's a problem it's going to solve itself. I mean, I I I wish I' I'd like to think there's a way to ex accept the donation pending a site review. Well, it's not really our job, though. like we don't have an operational role at this at the school, right? So, we say, do we accept this donation so that we can get a snack shack and then ask the administration to do their best work possible with that? We would love to know if we could kick in a little money and add a bathroom. And maybe the answer is no, but we would still like to know that. But we don't need to get in the way of approving the use of the

122funds, right? No, but we control where where we want where we'd like it to see it go. But that's what I'm I'm saying. I don't know that we do. Well, the engineer. Well, but that's the that's not us. That's not usation. Okay. Well, fine. Us as an organization, not us. Right. Right. Excuse me, okay. Um I'm not sure I I got a handle on this. So, this building that they want, they're proposing the boosters, that is going to cost $63,000. That's it. The school doesn't have to contribute any money to the project. Correct. It's free money. Okay. Um, who's going to And they'll maintain the building over the years and and No, they're not. We will own the building. We will be Republic. We're going to own it and they pay for it. The donation.

123Oh, where I see we're gonna they're still working it and volunteers and all that stuff. Did we uh go off a bid on this? Uh we did not go out for bit on this. This is an estimate provided so that they could come up with a number to put in front of the board as their their potential donation. Um but they as a 501c3 organization would be the ones hiring the contractors to do the work. David. Yes, we wouldn't. And they're actually getting quite a bit of volunteer um donations from those businesses. So the bottom line is that they're going to give SAD15 a building that they paid for. Correct. Correct. And they're responsible for all of it or he's saying no that we'll have to maintain it. Correct. It becomes our building as it

124becomes part of our budget. The building that's out there now is our building and part of our budget and we are responsible for maintaining it. Have you seen it? I think there's a lot of girls right now. What? Have you seen it? You know what? I know the last time I saw it. But I feel like regardless, it's a building that many of us have seen. It's definitely due for a replacement. If there's donations that will cover it, then I say and it benefits them. like yes it's our building but they make the revenue from it and I just it's a project that's on our facilities plan that we've been trying to be replaced anyway we have a group of people who are I don't think anybody's disagreeing with that the point is that we

125want to make sure it's put in the best location for this point isn't the motion just to accept to accept the donation and then start going forward with this I mean we're not deciding it's going to go to this location or this location. This motion is literally to just accept this donation. Right. Correct. Okay. Yes. But this will then be probably our last bite at it. So if folks have issues they want to bring up to send their way, this would be the time to do it. But yes, we need to accept accept the money. Okay. Tentatively. Can we not accept the mot? No, we're just accepted. We don't have enough um information to go forward. Um I know there's still going to be some site work and that type of thing. And what about

126permitting? Have we talked about that at all? So in all our projects that we do, we're required to do permitting. We're required to do all that work. That is work that we do as the operators of the school. It's not the role of the board. It is your job to make sure that you supervise me and make sure I'm doing my job. But in your motions to accept donations, how the work gets done part, that one's my job. You can tell me what you think about it, but at the end of the day, that's my responsibility. It kind of comes down to, do you trust us to do it or not? Yeah. I'm not looking to oversee the project. All I'm thinking about is put hat on and go there. Um, it it makes me

127uh uh a little nervous when there's something open. is that you know there's something still open that needs to be um confirmed or you know in order so I have a problem with that not the project but you know that all the background is taken care of to get us to this point I guess that's probably the better way of saying it has everything been done possibly to get us to this point so we can confidently vote with this money to be accepted here is the finance committee The facilities committee chair want to weigh in on this? So the facilities committee has been deep in this work for a very long time. We have been talking about partnering with the booster to replace this at at least 3 months worth of meetings. So I think

128to say that this is new and we haven't done the work is is not fair and I'm not on that committee and so I would not I think we went through and I'm a winner of uh hiring a new superintendent. I don't need you to speak up please. I think we went through our process hiring a new superintendent and that we should probably trust her to get a snack shack built in the right location. But good job on your Thanks. So, I would trust that the administration with David and Chanda can put it in the most beneficial spot and location possible with all the great accessories that we can afford at the lowest price we can get a bid on. And it's on our radar. It's on a list. It's it's checks a lot of

129boxes. like what's a in the public face project that's going to boost morale and make people happy and not cost a whole bunch of money and this seems to check a lot of those boxes. Yay. Um, agreed. Agreed. I do love Sam's recommendation to roll into this project to benefit it even better is looking at the bathrooms. I agree with that expansion of that. I put in, just as a point of reference, I put in a twob farm stand at at the farm and it was 20,000 with a brand new septic, brand new leech field. It was 20,000. So, excuse me. What is the plumbing on this U contract for the sink? They have like it's a kitchen. The what? That's true. Yeah, the same. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, let's accept it. So, circling

130up here. Do uh the motion on the table is do we want to accept this money from the boosters to go towards um a new snack shack and hand it back to the district to do do the work. Yes. Yes. All right. I think we've said our piece. Let's vote. All right. All in favor? All right. Opposed. All right. Let's get a snack shack, guys. Um, it would be amazing if there could be a toilet on it. If we could at least do due diligence on that. We will do due diligence and the the hearing from the board that you want to use that 25,000 toward that project. That gives us an option because the the flip side to that is that list that we have for the put aside for next year for projects

131that I think we've heard from the board already feels too short. If we were to put this on, something else is coming off, right? So knowing that that's the direction we want to go, we can pursue that and see what we can do. But I'm I'm not willing to stop this project because we can't get everything we have at the end of the day. Yeah, we're not going to stop it, but let's be as clever. But I'll see what I absolutely. And by I'll see what I can do, I mean David. So I'll test David. Oh, I didn't take it. Um, and I won't auditorium. Okay. So, all right. All right. Let's let's bring it back to one meeting. [Music] Committee reports. We do not have any because we don't have any committees. I have

132certainly talked enough. And superintendent report. Uh, new hires. We have Josie Young coming back as our food service worker at the high school. We're very excited. Josie has worked with us in the past and is willing to come back um and work full-time and we could not be more delighted. Um so someone coming in with experience and knows our schools and knows our kids. So we're very excited. Uh we do have a couple of resignations. Um Cristiana, she goes by Val. Um a teacher, math teacher here at the high school is moving on. Super exciting opportunity for her, but she is devastated to be leaving us. We are devastated to be losing her. Um but she um did put in her resignation. We also have um Tracy Combmes, an edtech here at the high school

133who's moving on and Pam Haskell, one of our van drivers, is going to be moving on as well. Again, we are excited for them and the opportunities that they have. Um sad for us to be losing them. Absolutely. And then finally, I have a transfer, Marcia Gavit, who is our food service assistant at the middle school, is going to become the kitchen manager at Russell School. So, we're very excited to have Marca stepping up into that new bigger role. And that is the comingings and going since I last saw you. No worry. Great. Um that is the end of our agenda at 8:22 this meeting. Um thank you. Awesome. Thanks to that.