RSU 22 Budget Workshop Mtg May 14, 2025

001Check. Check. Mic check. It was I don't know what We are going to um commence the budget workshop meeting. Um absent are Heath, John, and Scott Cuddy. And without further ado, I'm going to turn the floor over to Nick. Good evening. Thank you all for coming. Uh you're going to have a few packets coming around. Like any teacher, I would say please don't open them yet because oftent times what happens is your attention is gone. So you'll get uh one packet with presentation and one full packet that has a number of things and we'll talk about each one in just a moment. So just give me one second to hand them all around. So again, you should one packet presentation. Uh you'll see three slides on the front page and then you should have kit

002that uh looks like this. Okay. So, welcome to the budget uh workshop that last year. If you remember correctly, if you were part of this group, um we had intended to do this as a budget committee and we had pretty much everyone from the board show up and so we had not noticed it as a board meeting uh or a workshop and so some individuals had to leave so that we did not have a quorum. So as you learned over the years uh you try not to make the same mistake twice and so that's what we did this time. We made it as a budget workshop uh where we could invite everyone as the board the board itself and the budget committee as well as our four representatives from uh the four towns. So tonight

003we have a few extra people here that are not typically around. So what I would like to do is at least start off by introducing ourselves uh so that people know who we are at the table as some are board members and some are representatives uh from the towns and if you also indicate your town uh that you were from please and we'll start right on the end. Thanks. Uh Ed Level selectman Newberg. Matt Lance, council chair, Hampton Tammy Higgins, counselor Winterport. Shelley Sergeant, Hampton Rep. FA Anderson, Hampton. Kristen Keith, Winterport School Board Rep. Kristen Davidson, Hampton School Board Rep. Chris Franklin, director of finance. Nick Raymond, superintendent. Lester French, school board rep and board chair. Brook report and budget committee chair. Stacy Haskell, hand rep and school board vice chair. Uh Mike Shaw, selectman

004from Frank, Luke Field, um Rep Jessica Bar program Hampton Hass Hampton Schoolboard Gordon by Representative Frankfort from the school board. So again, thank you for coming uh tonight. Believe it or not, we have a total of 47 slides. Um I know this is not the most interesting topic for some people. Uh but I will say it is very interesting to me. So I get quite excited when I'm talking about numbers. So, forgive me if my excitement comes out too much and you tend to be a little um glazy eyed uh because probably what I've seen after the first about three slides uh people tend to get a little lazy eyed. So, I'll try to make it uh a little more interesting. In front of you, you have the uh packet with three slides per page

005so that you can take notes. Uh what I would like to at least put the disclaimer out. All of this information that you see tonight on this presentation is based on $1 million carry forward money. So numbers will change if that number changes. So that is the disclaimer. That's the number that we've used for the last few weeks in our budget committee meetings. Everything that you will see tonight is based on uh $1 million. And I'm going to try to do two things at once because I have hard copies in front that I have my own notes on and then uh the computer that I'm adjusting. So if I forget to push the button, just let me know. So what I would like to do is go through we have um a number of different

006a number of sections here. We have I I think it's about nine or 10 different sections. But what I would like to do is after each section provide you an opportunity to ask questions because in order to make this work as efficiently as possible, we will have time for questions uh periodically throughout the presentation. So I will I have in my notes when to ask questions. If you have a question, just write it down on your sheet and then once we get to it, uh I will certainly take that. So you'll have a total of nine opportunities tonight to ask individual questions about this presentation. There will be things that we discuss in this pres presentation that uh correlate to the other packet and we'll talk about that other packet uh as we progress through.

007Uh but you'll see much of it throughout the presentation. Uh so the first part is the budget process. And if this bores some of you because you've heard of it already or you've been part of it, my apologies, but I want everyone to know from start to finish what the process has been for the budget. uh we have had a number of uh board committee or u budget committee meetings. We have invited towns folks. So I just want to make sure that everyone hears the same message. So the budget process begins at the school and department level. Uh and when I say departments, we have technology department as an example. We have our special ed department all uh not associated with a different uh an individual school. But in the individual schools, they have their

008own respective budgets as well. So these budgets begin roughly the November December time frame in their respective school uh or department. From there individual meetings are conducted with each one of those uh either directors or principles right around the January February time frame. So they meet with myself ordinarily they'd meet with the director of finance but Chris had not joined us at the time. Uh and that's something that she'll do uh as we progress through uh with her being here. uh the RSU22 administration presents the budget recommendations to the budget committee article by article. So that started um March 13th. And the reason why we do article by article and not do it in this particular presentation is because we probably would be here well past midnight if we did that. So today's presentation is

009going to be more of a summary of what we have seen throughout the last few months. Whereas if you need greater detail, that's probably going to come outside of this meeting in uh emails or communications with myself or budget committee members. Uh one town representative and we're fortunate enough to have all four here today. Uh they were invited by the district uh to be part of the budget committee and I truly believe that it has been a great success and I appreciate uh the time that they have put in. Uh our first meeting was u March 18th and we've had a total of eight meetings including uh this one. District budget meeting. You'll hear this one a couple of times. Is scheduled for Thursday, June 5th. That is at 7:00 in the uh Hampton Academy

010gymnasium. For those of you that have been there, that's typically the event where we have the stage set up at graduation. The board sits in the front uh and uh citizens of our four towns will sit in the chairs uh with the town clerks on the side. Uh and that's where the voting occurs. warrant uh article by article. All of our budget committee meetings uh are noticed. They are open to the public uh to attend, but we also video them and we have them all archived on our website. Uh and the last bullet is our ED279. That is what I call the blueprint of school financing uh and what dictates what we would get for uh state allocations and what towns are responsible for. Um, I probably before I clicked over to the next slide,

011I should have said, you know, from my notes, of course, I'll probably forget these throughout the whole presentation, but I just can't thank the people enough. Um, our administrators, our directors, there has been a significant amount of time, effort, and energy put into this particular budget, as has been the case with every budget. Um, those individuals have cut things uh that they felt was necessary, but found we could do it a different way. uh they have uh advocated for their schools. Uh I can't say enough about the school personnel. Also, our uh budget committee and our board members have put in a tremendous amount of work and as I previously mentioned our four town representatives. Uh I do believe that this has been very beneficial to have you you folks and and Tammy, I know

012this is your first time, but certainly uh thank you for for attending and participating in this. I do believe that getting the involvement of the towns and hearing your perspective has been very beneficial. Uh and uh I what I do like is the fact that you're asking the questions that we may not be thinking of sometimes and so I appreciate that. Uh and of course the last person I want to thank and she's sitting over to my right although new to this process. Uh Chris has done a tremendous job. Um, she I I kind of feel bad for her at times because I go into her office and ask her questions that she's probably saying, "Why doesn't he know this by now?" But, um, she's very patient with me. She works very well. She's very

013diligent with her work. And I really appreciate, uh, what she has done. And there are some things that you'll see tonight that, um, she has done that we haven't had in the past. And it's it's tremendous work. So, I appreciate that. So, thank you, Chris. Uh, I also do believe that this process has been very has been more thorough than at least the three years that I've been here. Um, not that the budget process hasn't been thorough in the past, but really it has gotten down uh to the very nitty-gritty details and u again I thank everyone for that. Our FY26 budget meetings uh you can see them listed up on the the TV screen right now. Uh some of which have not occurred at this point. Uh but we did start uh March 13th

014and we will conclude hopefully uh assuming a positive uh outcome on June 10th with the uh district validation referendum. Those will be at the local voting uh station, the local voting polls. So if you're not sure, I don't want to misspeak about a uh individual town, just please reach out to your uh town office or town representative and they can certainly help you with that. So at this point is option number one for questions. Do does anyone have any questions pertaining to the information that we have just recently gone over? All right. First, the next thing uh will be our enrollment. Enrollment is a a major contributor to our um school funding and any school funding. As you can see, our enrollment has declined and you'll see a visual of this in just a moment.

015Um but what what we're finding is that over the last few years we have declined drastically. So from last year to this year we have a loss of 82 students. Uh as of today we have uh 2,116 students uh currently enrolled for um RSU22. You can see the breakdown. I I promise the breakdown won't equate to what's at the top because what what's at the top is exactly what uh we have in person um right now. Whereas the numbers at the bottom are those that are reflected from the ED279. Uh ED279 is based on an average of two years. Uh and when you see half people obviously it is not literal, it is figurative. Uh they do take the average of the two years. So you have a half half person. Obviously at the bottom

016we do have students that are are either current residents of our four towns that go elsewhere. We have current students that come from other towns outside of our four. Uh whether that be through tuition or um um superintendent agreement, excuse me, drawing a blank there. Uh and then we have had a significant increase since CO with homeschool and private school students. We're not alone. RSC22 is not alone in this. Uh many districts face this issue along with just simply declining um um students just in general. Uh not as many not as many students available to attend a school, but in addition uh more students that attend uh private or uh homeschool. Here is the visual of those numbers. Uh obviously we're not into 2026 at this point, but this is based on uh the numbers

017from the ED2279. So you can see that there has been a drastic decline and you can see exactly when that happened because we shut down as did the whole nation. Believe it was March 13th of 2020. 20 school year 2020 2021 was our first full year of co and you can see that is exactly when the decline starts. These are the projected enrollments. Obviously, this was done prior to COVID. Um, so they're not I think if we were to do them again, we'd see a different scenario. However, the picture is painted that next year we would have a few less students anyway. And that is the pattern that we're seeing. So, this uh picture takes us up to 3132. Uh, but we'll see hopefully uh a dip in the next couple of years with a

018slow increase after that. Any questions at this point involving enrollment? Next important aspect to any budgeting is your revenue. Uh in other words, how much money are you going to take in? So, we have a state allocation uh that has increased by $165,663.88 that fluctuates yeartoyear. That is all based on your town's valuations, our four towns, as well as the student enrollment. Uh so, in other words, if your valuation goes up and your student enrollment enrollment goes down, oftent times you see less money. Now, we were fortunate enough to get more. Um, that is not so the case in every school. A lot of my colleagues have a significant decline in state allocation. Uh, and that's the situation we were in last year. We did have a decline. Uh, but we have now gotten to

019a level that is similar to the FY24 school year. Uh, pretty consistent with that. Our local earned revenue, you'll see in the next slide, but the total for that is just over a million dollars. We are up about $327,000 in that local earned revenue. The distinguished educator on loan, that is a individual who was on loan to the um main department of education. Uh that individual term has ended. That was a two-year term. Uh we were uh receiving compensation for that individual to work for the department and they have returned back to working at RSU22. So that revenue uh has dried up and we will not be receiving that this year. Tuition uh the bulk of that if not all of that is for high school students. Uh individuals who do not have a high

020school in their uh district they are tuitioned to RSU22. Uh and in some of those districts we do provide transportation. We have one bus that comes here. That bus is uh contracted through AOS47 which is uh Denim and Orington and we have uh two vehicles one school van and a private vehicle uh that transport Glennburn students. Interest uh that is the interest that we have uh in in the from the bank. Uh last year was the first year this current year is the first year that we have actually uh budgeted any revenue. We have received more than $50,000. So, we feel comfortable uh budgeting $100,000 for next year. Uh that obviously is a risk uh because we don't really know what the interest rates might be a year from now, but we feel comfortable that

021$100,000 would be appropriate. Uh and then the last one is uh for $300,000. And for those of you that are that were here earlier uh in our meetings, this is uh the elimination of some of our reserve accounts, specifically our special education, our fuel stabilization, and our en energy reserve account. What we have found is that we have a contingency fund that was approved a few years ago through the budget process. there is no need to have these separate reserve accounts because the money just sits there and we cannot use that. So if we were to utilize the contingency fund, we have a better opportunity to use that for other emergencies that come up. And so to put this $300,000 in as a reserve helps offset um article two, which is special education, and article

022um 8, which is our um maintenance Nine. Sorry. Nine. Thank you. Transportation is eight. This is the local revenue as uh stated before just over a million dollars 1.1. So things that we receive local revenue in uh gate receipts. So we typically will charge for uh football and basketball events. What we tend to do in these situations is once we get to $10,000, the remaining money goes towards the athletic facility reserve account to put towards the uh replacement of the turf field MLTI reimbursement. And I will say, you're going to hear about this one a little later. We have in there $11,000. That number actually is going up. We just found out at uh 10:58 this morning that um the number is going up because the price of those computers has increased, but the state

023has guaranteed that they would cover that cost. So for the time uh when we get to the budget process for the board next week, we'll have different numbers, but the numbers in article 5 to cover the Chromebooks will be offset by the revenue on this side. So that will change. Uh interest as I mentioned is $100,000. Expense um reimbursement is $6,000. Uh that would be for um fuel tax. We when we go to the gas pump or anyone goes to the gas pump, they're charged uh tax at the end of the year. We submit our receipts and we are reimbursed for the sales tax. Uh the miscellaneous, we don't have anything budgeted. We have very little this year and and it's a moving target. We never know if we're getting any. So, we we didn't

024feel comfortable putting anything in there. Distinguished service, uh, distinguished educator award, we've spoken about tuition, uh, that's based on 55 students. And then our reserve funds at $300,000 totaling uh, $1.135 [Music] million. Here is a a graphic of our state contribution. What you can see is over the the last few years that has gone up. And as I referenced 2024, um we're about equal to what we we received in 2024, but we did have a dip in our state allocation um last year. Again, very fortunate to have an increase because there are quite a few that did not. Any questions at this point regarding revenue? The MSMA dues are is that the miscellaneous? That's someplace else. That's not the dues. Yeah, it's through a workman's comp reimbursement. Yeah. So, it it's all based on how

025much is is um claimed in the course of the year. Okay. RSU 22 versus all others. I'm not competitive or anything, but I do like showing this this slide. So this is all based on and it that's not an error. It does say at the top FY24 U because that's the most recent data that the state has. But what I like to do is show this information because when we we compare ourselves to what the state uh average is. Um it is very interesting to see what we pay for each one of these particular articles. So, there are uh three that are highlighted or or in bold and you can't really see it that well. Uh but the bold ones are other instruction. And just as a reminder, other instruction, it really should just be

026categorized as co and extracurricular activities because that's the bulk of what other instruction is. Uh that one is is a little bit higher than the state average. student and staff support. Those are uh school counselors, librarians, IT, uh curriculum, assessment, social workers. Um and so we spend more than the state average in that article. And then the last one is the debt service. Um and that one's a little bit more debt service. Large part of that is because we have a new high school uh that we're paying for. And many schools uh would only hope to have a school that was as new as this one. uh everything else we are lower and some of which were significantly lower than the state average. But I can say that our kids' needs are met. Even though

027it might seem significant in some of these articles, our students needs are certainly met um with what we're funding. So with a visual, this is the categorical per pupil breakdown. You can see uh the RSU22 blue bar versus the state average. And if you were to look at individual schools, you might see obviously uh fluctuation in these, but this is compared to the state uh just taking that information from the last slide. And then per pupil the state comparison over the last uh number of years what you can see is that uh RSU22 has spent uh less than state average uh at least since 2015. Any questions with that information? I just got one Nick because I'm still the new guy. Um in that breakdown we're comparing Austin versus everybody else which I love by

028the way. Um the CTE instruction we're at zero. Somebody else is at 293. I just need to know what that is now. It's a good question. So CTE um CTE is our career technical education is uh what we call UTC, United Technology Center. And so back a few years ago, United Tech the the funds for UTC for our students were sent directly to UTC. So we have nothing budgeted there. Some may have uh minimal expenses, but the majority of the schools it it is sent to their uh region school. Okay, perfect. That makes sense. How do those numbers compare when you break it down between like elementary, middle, and high school? I couldn't tell you because this is the state document. I don't I'm not sure if they break it down that way. the $116

029higher per student. Can what do you attribute that to? The $116. Yeah. What are you looking at? We're higher than uh the student and staff support. It's $116. You know what I'm saying? Per student. And And I guess the is it the student up here? the student staff support. I I would say that um we value we value our counselors a lot more than many other schools. Uh we have just instituted uh social workers in the district. We have uh full-time school counselors. We have full-time librarians. Uh we have a uh a significant amount of technology. Many schools don't have nearly that. Um, they may have a school counselor that they share amongst three or four different schools. They may have uh uh maybe a half-time librarian if that. Uh, they may have a partial

030nurse. Um, but we certainly value the additional resources to help our students out because if we don't have those, either our kids aren't coming to school or they're sick or they don't have the right technology or obsolete technology. Um, so we've we've put a significant value into that. All right. Yeah. I just want, you know what I mean? With uh 2116 students, you know what I'm saying? That 116, I mean, that adds up. All right. Okay. Thank you. Uh to circle back to the CTE. Now, that doesn't uh necessarily mean that our students don't have access to the UTC program. That just means the funds go directly to Correct. So the only thing that we have built into the RSU22 budget for funds for UTC is transportation. That's in a different article. Anything that deals

031with UTC education, uh, anything CTE goes from the state directly to the school itself. It used to it we used to be a a flow through, I think they call it flow through. It would come to us and we would simply cut the check to UTC. They've avoided the middle person. Now it goes directly from the state to UTC. Thank you for clearing that up. Okay, now on to our budget summary. If you were with us on May 1st, you you now see a completely different number. So right now our budget is at [Music] 40,746,86365. That represents a 4.44% increase. I can tell you one thing, that is an impressive number considering where we started. Yep. Sure is. that um I do know that when it comes to the local uh percent increase uh that

032obviously is going to raise some eyebrows uh but 4.44% considering the cost of everything at this point um I'm very impressed with the work that my group has done and of course you folks around the table as well. Um LA so there is a difference obviously LA you can see the difference here but the FY25 we increased uh 2.28 million so our increase this year is even less than it was last year. So gross budget variance I I do like to show this graph as well. Um, this will show you from 2012. And I think as long as I'm here, I'm going to continue to keep 2012 and 13 on there just because I want people to see that we did uh it was significant way back then. Um, but when you compare us to

033the last few years, yes, it's a little higher than two years ago, but it is less than uh last year. And this is uh without adult education. adult education. You'll see in the end uh it's it it's minimal. Uh so we compare everything when we talk about these numbers without adult education. So I gave this summary last time and obviously it's changed a little bit since the last time but here is our our total total budget increase 1,732,82 that represents the 4.4% 4% in that 40 plus million budget. 30,60,429 represents people. I'm going to repeat that. 30,60,429 represents people. People that earn a salary, an hourly rate, and receive benefits. benefits may include but not limited to health insurance, dental, retirement, everything that goes along with it. So over $30 million. The most in what

034I would say intriguing number is the last bullet. So our first bullet we had a difference of 1.732 million. the total increase in wages and benefits 1,853,757. So you may say now how can you do that if your increase is at 1.7 that's because the other stuff was decreased. So when our people go up and everything else goes down that's what is happening. So our increase just for uh benefits and wages represents 107.02% of the increase. So again I'll repeat myself. How can that happen? Because the wages are higher we and we've reduced other things. So whether we've used um reserve accounts or we've uh allocated things from the fund balance we have been able to reduce some of the other things or cut some things. And we can talk about uh we'll be talking

035a little later about some of the things that were decreased. Again, my crew has done a fantastic job calming through this budget. Uh okay, questions. Um this is going to be an unfavorable one for sure. Um so as uh in the previous article uh you mentioned a decrease in enrollment numbers. Um as staff retires, are we going to be looking towards creative ways of maybe reducing those staffing numbers to line up with the decrease in students rather than refilling? Yeah, we don't wait for people to retire to look at the numbers. Every year we look at the numbers. So we have some eliminations in teachers this year that we we'll talk about and we've talked about already, but uh we look at that every single year. Uh and it is not based on whether obviously

036if the enrollment goes down there it's inevitable that we might need less uh whether that be less services, le less classroom teachers, but we look at that on an annual basis anyway. Doesn't necessarily mean someone's retiring. Great. Thank you. And and just to kind of piggyback, so obviously a benefits go up because that's just how it works. Like everybody's benefits go up. So the way I looking at this, if we're having higher teacher pay and I say the word teacher, educator, whatever the pay thing, sorry, I'm very simple guy, so just keep with me. Um if if that's going up a year, I assume that means we have retention of staff who wants to be here and does a great job and we want to keep them. So they're going to get good merit raises

037because they earn them. Is that pretty much how that rolls? Uh yes, we have a a good number of veteran staff. Uh whether that be in the classroom or in our support systems. We have a number of people that have been here for many years. Um insurance has gone up 10% this year. That's what um Anthem has provided us. So that's a pretty big uh increase from years past. But I mean I do think people like being here. Uh and we do have a significant amount of veteran staff. That makes money a lot of it. That's awesome. I think we noted in our community relations meeting that um we have probably more than a handful of staff that have just gotten their master's degrees um which is super exciting. Um yeah, which put that maybe

038in another pay bracket as well. We also are one of uh very few school districts that um promote national board teachers. Uh and I think we probably have the most in the state. Can I say that for sure? Yeah. our district has the most in the state and uh that comes with a with a cost but we have put an emphasis on that uh and we respect and appreciate the staff members that go that route uh and they're compensated accordingly for that. So that's another added bonus to our uh our educators that we have here. So, as I mentioned, uh we're going to now move into the articles. Um what I do want to say in a different packet, they are broken down more than what you'll see here on the screen. So, what you'll

039find is that each one of these individual articles has a number of subcategories underneath it. I'm not going through that through the presentation. I am summarizing it uh so that we we just simply won't have enough time. But one thing I will say um some things that have come up from the last few meetings uh all of these articles are broken down with notes. So if there are changes the notes are are listed there and there's one one of them it references um it's actually in the next packet. This one that has the notes but the the question that came up a number of times was specific of to grade two staff. um we had a coding error. So you'll see in the notes on this packet uh that it was uh those teachers were

040coded moved to the correct lines. Uh and it says RB, but it's actually WB. That's the web B. Reeds is RB. So just to clear that up. Um we we did not take any teachers out. There never were any teachers out. they just were not in the right code under that respective article. So, the article amount uh was the same. Um, another a couple other things that we wanted or I wanted to bring up the middle school projectors and sound systems, those have been taken out. So, you'll see that uh down the road as well. The iPads that we were talking about for preK to two, that has been uh reduced and so we are going to go to a three-year lease for that. uh that is at 0%. So we have broken the total

041costs into three equal payments and the only stipulation is in year three we have to pay a total not per unit just a total of $1 to get that back. Very well worth it. If we break that down that's 33 cents roughly a year. Certainly worth it. Uh and then the last thing that I just wanted to point out, the engineering services that we spoke about a couple meetings ago, that has been taken out and that will come uh hopefully through the reserve accounts um in the building. Another visual total proposed budget. What you can see on the left side of your screen is what each one of our articles represent as far as a piece of the pie. So, obviously, articles one and two, which is our uh regular ed and special education, represent

042a significant part of the RSU22 budget. Uh, and then you can see down through the rest of it. um minimal numbers but you can see all of them uh either in a picture or um listed out on the left hand side. Moving into our individual articles, article one, regular instruction here was a a change. So again, you're anytime you've been involved with us in the budget committee meetings, you're probably going to see some variation uh to these numbers. So our total number that we're proposing is 14,294,95.7. This is an increase of 4.27%. Again, this is the bulk of your people. This one and then number two would be um the the next article. So when the bulk of your people, that article increases by just over four and a quarter%. Uh we're doing fairly well.

043This includes wages and benefits for staff and substitutes in regular education. We have added an elementary teacher at Smith School and again all of these are based on numbers uh where the enrollment is needed. Sometimes we have bubbles in individual classes uh and other times we have dips uh and you'll see some eliminations down here below. We're adding a math interventionist set Wagner and we are also uh included in this article are simple things like instructional supplies, equipment uh and any dues and fees that uh schools may have. eliminated uh due to enrollment. We have a science teacher at Hampton Academy. We have a classroom teacher both at Weatherbe and Wagner and we have to have a 50% PE teacher at Wagner. Those are positions that are eliminated. And Matt, this would just answer your

044question uh from before. We look at enrollment and uh students all the time and the needs. Article number two, special education proposing $9,681,21420. This is where our largest increase is. And as we get through the um the added positions, you'll probably understand why. This is an increase of 13.67%. This includes wages and benefits for staff and substitutes and special education. This also includes four new educational technicians to support incoming students. When we spoke about this article uh a month or so ago, we spoke about CDS. Those are the students that are identified through CDS that are coming into RSU22 as students that we need support. We have looked through the entire special ed program, made adjustments where needed. This number I will tell you in January was 11. That has gone down to four. And

045so that is kudos to the staff for really analyzing what our students need, what our current students are involved in, what we can do to help accommodate that. And we're able to move that to four and feel comfortable with four edte. That is also an addition of one new special education teacher at Smith School. That teacher was actually added this year. We had a couple positions that have been unfilled. So, we have had money to to pay for that individual. Uh and we're looking to add that person in uh to the budget for next year. CTE, which would be our article three, career and technical education, also known in this particular region as United Technology Center. As we've previously mentioned, there is zero money budgeted there because that's uh goes directly to UTC to represent

046our students. We do have transportation. Uh that will be in article 9, [Music] $63,600 eight. Sorry, I keep messing those up. Article four, other instruction. Uh again, co-curricular extracurricular 1,135,294.7. That is a difference of 2.36%. This would include uh wages and benefits for all athletic personnel, coaches, and any club advisors that we have throughout our district. This also includes any game officials that you might see at games. It would include facility rentals predominantly for uh high school athletics and it would include supplies and equipment for all of those activities. It also includes the transportation for those activities. Article five, student support uh staff support recommending 3,87,230.30. This is a decrease by 2.53%. We were able to do that because of uh a lot of work from the IT department uh and getting that iPad refresh

047on a 0%. This includes the wages and benefits for nurses, school counselors, librarians, social workers, IT personnel, and curriculum. It includes uh technology needs. Those could be student needs, staff needs, uh projectors, intercoms, sound systems. Uh some of those will be reimbursed. Uh as I mentioned at 10:58 today, the Chromebook, we found out the Chromebook price went up $20 a device. So it is going from what we thought $459 to $479. So this article will be adjusted. What you see on June 5th will be a little more to reflect that. However, we will have the revenue also changed to include the additional $20 per because the department of ed has guaranteed that they would compensate the additional $20. So, this will go up to reflect the new Chromebook price, but as will the revenue uh

048that we will be receiving from the department of ed for that. This does include two new social workers uh to replace our Acadia contract. Uh we did speak about this a while back. We have an Acadia contract that has um three personnel then uh three personnel and we are eliminating that and we are hiring two of our own and we will also have um anou with an individual who will cover half a half-time position but they will deal with the billing on their own and we will not have an a cost to that. So we will just simply provide the space. So we are eliminating three uh social workers through the contract and we are actually going to uh acquire two and a half. And I will say our uh social workers are um filled

049at this point. There's a there would be a wait list if we could have one, but we've had one in Winterport that hasn't been in place since November because those kids have not been serviced. The contract has not been uh upheld because they just simply couldn't find someone. Uh and so uh those students have not had anyone for much of the year. and um having our own personnel. We have two of them right now in the district and it has been so advantageous for our students to be able to uh count on an individual who is employed by us and is here on a regular basis. Uh so we're taking a chance. Uh I believe that this will work because it has worked with the two that we currently have. Uh and it is a

050a small price to pay. It's um a little bit more than what we would pay for the contract, but we're getting I think we're going to be able to service more students out of it simply because um we get to see about double the amount of students as compared to them because they have to deal with uh their own respective reporting and paperwork. Just just to clarify, Nick, I think I know the answer, but so the students in Winport that weren't getting services do want to not be able to supply the person. So now we take it over. We own those but we own those positions so therefore we can delegate where they go easier. Correct. Yes. Perfect. Uh this also includes curriculum instruction assessment needs. You heard from uh Jennifer Nickerson way back when

051she gave you that information. This also includes district software that uh Nate Savage spoke about as well as the prek to2 iPad refresh which we've spoken about. This will be the first year of uh threeyear term. So you'll see this iPad refresh for the next two years after this article six. The next two articles are administration. So the first one is article six that's my office system administration. This includes uh the wages and benefits for everyone uh this as considered as assistant administrator in the central office, superintendent, assistant superintendent, director of finance, payroll, accounts payable, grant specialist, data specialist, and administrative assistants within um the office that I work out of. It also includes board insurance, board compensation, uh fees, and then any office equipment and supplies. So that has uh a proposal of $1,26,78648

052and that is an an increase of 2.46%. Article seven, very similar. This would be the school administration. So, anyone that uh oversees at one of our respective schools, wages and benefits for all of those individuals uh in the office, that would be principles, assistant principles, Dina, students, uh administrative assistants in those main offices, any supplies and equipment needed within those respective offices. In addition, the only change here is a 50% um dean of students at Smith School. uh and that is offset by some of the uh staff that have been eliminated as well. There is a significant need for office support at Smith School and so we're going to try it at 50% to see if that helps and uh we'll go from there. But I do believe that this position uh is needed uh

053and it is timely at this point. So this is an increase. This is a proposal of [Music] $1,949,673.74 with a variance of 8.04%. Article 8, transportation proposal [Music] 1,479,283.34. This is a decrease of 11.83%. The major reason to this is we have rewritten the contract and are paying for what we should be paying for with Seir bus. We have been paying for 28 buses. We're only using 23. So there is an agreement for next year and it has already started but there is an agreement for next year that we will be paying for 23 buses. So this article uh reflects the fact that we're paying for 23. So that was the decrease. Uh this does include transportation for all preK to 12 students throughout our district whether they live on the outskirts or right in

054town. I know that there has been a lot of discussion about transportation in the past and whether that be less people on the bus or trying to find different routes uh and that's something certainly that we can work on but we do need to provide transportation to all the students. uh and so some of them live further away and we we build our bus routes or we Seir bus builds their bus routes based on those individuals who are eligible to ride. Whether they ride or not, that's up to them, but it's whether they're eligible to ride or not. This also includes transportation costs for some uh of our tuition students. As I mentioned, we have a few towns that we transport. Uh it also includes our gas and diesel cost because the contract for seir

055bus does not include fuel. It includes special education in district transportation UTC transportation. So every day we transport two sets of students to and from UTC. We have a uh AM session and a PM session and those kids are trans transported to and from um both every day. And it also includes the transportation of homeless students. This is something that has grown over the last few years. So if we were to talk about this 5 10 years ago, we probably would not have. But we have a number of students who are considered by law homeless and it is our responsibility to transport them. Uh and we have a what's called the McKenna Vento director. She's our special ed director. She oversees that. But we do transport those students and sometimes we work with the uh

056the district that they might be in temporarily to help out as well. Uh but that is part of the law that we must transport. Article 9, maintenance proposal of $4,490, 73556. That is an increase of 4.56%. Again, uh I'm sure many of you buy cleaning supplies or equipment for your homes. If you uh could guarantee an increase of all that stuff just by 4.56, I know I would take that. Um because cost of maintenance has increased drastically. Uh and so 4.56% increase to maintain our buildings, keep them clean, uh I find to be very respectable. So, this includes the wages and benefits of all of our maintenance and custodial custodial staff. It also includes maintenance and upkeep of our buildings, any furniture and equipment needs in our buildings, the custodial supplies and equipment, and it

057also includes our school resource officers. For some reason, they're in maintenance. Not sure why, but they're they are. Uh, and so that's where we put them. That's where we're told to put them. So, we do have two resource officers. The intent is still to keep the Winterport resource officer. That was a position that we put in last year about this time. Um individual started has resigned has left. Um Waldo County we have a contract with they have been unable to fill the position. They are working at it. They're trying but they are unable to. RSU22 is still committed to have a resource officer in Winterports assuming Waldo County can get someone. Um hopefully they will be able to but there is also an agreement with the town of Winterport also to have um services. So

058I think that it would uh help us all the town as well as the school if Waldo County could um get someone in that position. They just haven't been able to. Um hopefully for the fall they will. So just to clarify, have they given anybody part of that contract back or paid ahead of time? I just do. We pay by the month and so since no one has been there, we haven't paid. All right, we'll sweep that wheel. Debt service article 10. There is a decrease there. Their proposal is 2 uh 2,882,550.89 small decrease by 3.72%. Few things that it includes. The biggest one is the Hampton Academy building. And I will probably note this as long as I'm here. Has nothing to do with the third floor. Uh that was funded through uh grant

059funds. So that is not uh part of the uh debt service. Honeywell project for energy and the turf field as that was bonded the last time we did it. Uh and a small note there is no more Frankfort debt. Uh that has ended. These are the debt service projections as we go up through FY27. And then article 11 is listed as other. This is where you would have your school nutrition or lunch program. We have a self-sufficient lunch program and so therefore we do not have a need to budget anything at this point and so we will still keep that at zero dollars. And here is what does it mean to have self-sufficient? Good question. So all the money that they uh raise through the sale of foods and what they receive through their their

060funding, they have enough to pay for the whole program. So some school districts put a little bit in there because they lose money. Uh but we don't lose money. As a matter of fact, we gain a little money. We have a a fund balance in the educ the uh food service program that they have to spend specific to food service. So that's the self-sufficient. So we don't have to budget anything for it. Here is an overview of all 11 [Music] articles and you can see the 4 point the totals at the bottom representing the 4.4%. Adult education is another component. It is not included in those first 11. It's usually uh standalone and voted on individually. the uh proposal for adult education and this services students as well as adults. This is a partnership that

061we have with RSU26 which is predominantly Ordo and RSU34 predominantly Oldtown. Article 15 proposal is $84,36159 a minuscule $16.35 increase representing.13%. So, this is just simply our portion of what we call Riverside Adult Education. Any questions? So, I'd like to read CAT article 2 with special education. And I know we talked about this, but I had the question asked to me and I couldn't answer it. I couldn't remember. kids that come to RSU22 uh for special education and because there are some correct they have that are from other towns that can't sustain that they don't have they don't have the ability the only way they would come here Ed is if they have a superintendence agreement from from another district correct correct And superintendent agreements are things that the the sending superintendent and the receiving.

062So I would be the receiving superintendent. The sending would be whichever town or community they were coming from. We would have a conversation uh about the student. And so if there were a student that had IEP needs, if we could meet the needs, we certainly would accept the individual. If we could not meet the needs and things that reasons why we may not be able to meet the needs, a case manager that they might be assigned to might be filth. It might be to capacity. We may not have the services that are required. We would not accept the student on a two stu superintendent agreement if we couldn't meet the needs. So, do we have any do we have any students? If we do, we have a few. Um, but I couldn't tell you that

063for sure. I guess where I'm going with this is if there are are they is there are they subsidized by the schools that they come from? So the money would come to us but if there's anything additional for expenses we would have to pay that but I'm not certain we have anyone that would require additional expenses right because I don't know I don't think we talked about this. No right when you have a superintendent agreement the money goes with the student. So we actually have I mean I can get the exact numbers but we are when when we're up about seven to eight superintendent agreements versus those going out versus coming in. So we have a plus in superintendent agreements. Okay. All right. That now I have the answer. Thank you. Yeah. So, so to

064your point, if if it's like me and you equal trade dollar, dollar, but if I need more needs, I'm a $150 or a dollar. Does the other school district take that 50 cents on or do we eat it? I think that's what we're looking at, right? I didn't know extra money needed. No, we we cannot we do not bill another school because a student may incur another 50 cent cost. I I I know you're just saying no. Okay. Uh in that same article, um you mentioned I guess not in this article, but in a different article, you mentioned uh being able to bill for the um the school counselors or the social workers. Are any of the special needs for any of these special education services available back to the state? Any of the special

065needs? No. No. Okay. I really only had two. If you look at article 4 and article three, in article three, you mentioned that the transportation was for that article is now in article 8. In article four, is the transportation for these activities also in article 8? No, because it's specific to athletics. Okay. And the other question is under school administration, your athletic director, is he considered um an assistant principal and is he under article seven? No, article four. Okay, last question. I promise. You said only two. I know. I didn't realize there were two on the same one. So, I'm going to take uh I'm going to take my leave and do it anyway. You can borrow one of my questions. Okay. Um you mentioned that we're going to add 50% for a dean of

066students to Smith school. I know we have shared dean of students before. Is this an added person and is this person going to have another 50% doing something else? Depends who it is. Uh it is an added position. Uh but there it is not combined with the current dean because the current dean is split between Wagner and Reedsbrook and that position will remain. Thank you. Now I 504 coordinators. Thank you. Yeah. So I appreciate that. We had last year we asked for two AP coordinators and two 504 coordinators. We included we ended up changing that. We reduced it to one in one. So this current year we were able to hire a 504 coordinator at the high school but we were unable to hire an IEP coordinator K8. The the board made the commitment that

067they were going to this year add an IEP coordinator and a 504 coordinator. So that it ended up being two and two. That's not going to happen. However, here is what we're going to do. See if I can do this. The current K8 IEP coordinator will be combined with a uh K8 504 coordinator. Reason being, the 504 coordinator at the elementary level does not have a large enough case load to be one person. So, what we're going to do is tie the IEP coordinator position into that and pick some either case managers or schools that have a heavier load for IEPs and help that um area out, whether that be a full school, grade level, case manager, whomever, but that will be identified through the special education director. So there is no need to add

068uh an additional 504 coordinator for K8 at this point because it will be embedded in the current IEP uh K8 position. The high school position uh we have eliminated a high school special education reading teacher. The case load for that individual, the responsibilities for that individual have been filtered out to current staff. That has already happened. the students that needed those services, the case managers within respective building have been taking care of that. So the replacement, what will end up happening is we will hire a new case manager, special education teacher slashie coordinator. So that person will have a case load of students but will also have the responsibilities of the IEP coordinator. So, we are adding the positions literally, but we're not putting them in financially because they're being taken care of through other

069positions that are there. I'm sure that's as clear as mud. Sounds cool. It's an outside the box thinking because we we were not able to hire an IEP coordinator for K8 this year. I believe we will be able to hire an IEP504 coordinator person. Can't tell you why personnel, but I I believe we can. So, I'm just looking at the salaries under the 504 coordinator and it it looks like for 26 that double almost doubling for this year. So, it's going to from 57 to 95. Uh the 504 coordinator does look like we're increasing that position to two and then it or almost two. Um, and then the IEP also looks like we're increasing to two or more than two. So, the 504 coordinator position is increasing by $26,000. The 504 is going up by

07038,000. But you've got to look at the benefits too because there could be a change of personnel. 26. Yeah, I see where the I definitely going up by another person. So the IEP coordinated there is one in the district at this point. So there is yeah it does look like there's an increase of 106,000. We'll take a look because the the reading teacher may have been put into that, but it really should be a special ed teacher [Music] instead. There there would still there will be IEP coordinator responsibilities for this position. So, it might have to be split 50/50, one with a teacher, one with a coordinator. So, that might be part of it, but we'll have to take a look at that. Excuse me. Could you tell me where are you looking at that?

071I can't see. So that will be on this packet, Tammy. And if you flip to page three, sorry, page four, you would be looking at the second page of article 2 and it says, the heading is IEP coordinator. [Music] That would be very helpful. Thank you. So, we will take a look at that. Thank you. And just just so I'm clear, it's K K to8. It's an IEP combined with a 504. Correct. Correct. And then high school are has their 504 which is staying correct same. Yeah. um and their IEP coordinator is adding plus they're also going to be splitting some of the reading the support. So there will be a a special ed teacher. The current reading teacher is just changing over to a special ed teacher. So that new special ed teacher will

072have case management responsibilities, will oversee students and their IEPs, but in addition will be the high school IEP coordinator. So one position, same person, just multiple responsibilities. So would that be explaining an increase in one line article for that position? And then does it also reflect a decrease from the reading department? So it it's still all under special education article two. Yeah. Any other you Yeah, I do have another one. I probably should have mentioned it earlier when we were talking about revenues. Um, under article 4, um, other instruction, when you mentioned, uh, the rental fees, you're showing a decrease in rental revenues. Is that rental revenues for our athletic facilities? Correct. When people come to us and utilize our facilities. Yes. Are there any big athletic de events on the horizon that we could

073be trying to pull into here to generate revenues and use our facilities? You could, but there aren't many nowadays because what happened the biggest ones were the main principles association that used to come here. But now there are so many turf fields in this area. They spread the wealth and they don't come. It used to be Hampton Academy year after year. It would be soccer, field hockey every single year that we would host. then it changed added into football and now we have Bangor, Herman, Brewer, UI, all of these have synthetic turf fields. So they're going everywhere um and they're just trying to spread the wealth. Thank you. Any other questions before we move to the next section? Capital reserves. No, sorry. Should just say reserves. Capital is one of them. So, our reserve accounts,

074we have a capital reserve account with $646,732. This does include uh $347,000 that was um authorized for the Weatherbe ADA project that will be completed. hopefully in a month or so. Um, we are recommending that we put in a total of $527,000 into our capital reserve account. Why? That's because we're looking for $73,760 for Centigg. Cintig is an emergency safety platform that uh comes in the form of a lanyard with a push button. If you were here the day that we had the presentation, uh it is a safety platform that the button is pushed by a staff member in the building. Depending on how many times it is pushed, it may call the office or individuals within the office or it may call EMS. Uh this platform uh saved the lives of many many students

075uh in the country not long ago. It is a platform that we were considering last year, but we did not do it. and for the safety of our students and staff, we feel as though that this is now the time to do it. Uh, and this is one year worth of uh, this platform and it is a five-year contract. So, we're looking to take that out of the capital reserve. In addition, we have uh, a variety of projects uh, and items for maintenance uh, totaling $453,200. things such as new playground equipment for both our Winterport and Hampton campuses, uh, paving projects, flooring, roofing, HVAC, uh, equipment replacements. We have ground and inlet cleanings that need to take place, and we have, uh, storage needs. So, that the total that we're looking to put in is

076527,000, and we would expend, um, the 73760 and the 453200. the athletic facility uh reserve account total 948,761. We've made a commitment to the communities to do this. We would like to continue with $150 $150,000 uh to dedicate towards the turf replacement when that comes. Technology reserve account. We have $65,025 uh at Mr. Savage's recommendation. We'd like to transfer 85,000 in to plan for uh FY27 Chromebooks as well as down the road making that plan uh to uh change over some of our U technology. And we're looking to expend $315,000 from that reserve account for the staff technology refresh that we've talked to you folks about. The fuel, energy, and special education reserve accounts have a total of $350,000. We're recommending that we use 300 of it. We're not looking to deplete all of it

077at this point. We'll see how this goes first. Uh and we're looking to utilize that as revenue. Revenue to help uh reduce that local assessment to offset a couple different articles. Uh, as we spoke about a couple meetings ago, the contingency fund that was approved back a few years ago at the district budget committee meeting that could be utilized for emergency purposes to cover any of the unexpended um things that come up such as, you know, if we didn't have money for a roof replacement or a furnace or boiler replacement or a special ed student, um the board has the authority in this contingency fund to transfer the funds. uh and so to utilize the $300,000 as a revenue would be the most appropriate. The last one under the reserve accounts is the new reserve

078that we spoke about last time and that is to develop an administrative office replacement reserve account. Uh it is recommended at $1.6 million and I have it broken down a little bit in here. The building itself, the most recent quote just came in last week. That is $977,10.71. That's the same floor plan, same everything. But this is also utilizing UTC students to do a bulk of the work. Um, Modular Genius is the company that provided the quote. They will essentially provide the shell of the building and winterize it and UTC would be would be doing a number of the uh finish work items within the building. But there are also expenses that need to be taken care of. um landscaping, paving, things that the district would be responsible for. And that's where the additional roughly

079$600,000 and the $45,000 of engineering services comes in. So when you when you think of $1.6 million, that is not just for the building. That is all the additional stuff that goes into it uh to prepare. So the plan still is that UTC would do this. Uh the plan would also be that this would go to a referendum. So even though the money is sitting there, uh it cannot be expended, we cannot go out and purchase the building until the the referendum happens and prior to the referendum, we have to have uh at least anformational session for the citizens to come uh listen to the uh story of it. So that those are the reserve accounts. Any questions? Why does the office need to be replaced? Great question. Have you been in the office before?

080Okay. So, let me give you a summary. Um, there it is. So, air quality is one of them. Uh, we have two um air purifiers. Uh, the staff are getting sick in the building. So, we have an air quality issue. We have an ADA compliance issue because it is not ADA compliant. We have um mold. We have um bathrooms that are certainly not ADA compliant. uh very uh extremely small. Uh we have in the last couple of years the furnace kind of exploded. Um not causing a very good scene. Um we have a kitchen sink that is about a foot and a half from the downstairs toilet where people have to wash their dishes. So I would absolutely give you a tour if you want to see it. Um or if you you want to

081wait until the the meeting, we can do that. But it it's um as I said in the last meeting when we spoke about this, I know last year when this came up, and I'll say it again, I'll say it until it happens. This is not a building for Nick Raymond. Um I've worked in buildings that are far worse than this, but I have a staff that I want to make sure are working in a decent place, and right now they're not working in a decent place. And I think that the staff and the schools deserve to have a nice place and I also believe the staff and central office need to have a nice place. So is that building going to be torn down? Yeah. So the plan would be the mod we started the

082process way back when uh we've had two different proposals. One before I even came in uh and then one just recently. Um the first proposal was done back in uh don't quote me on this. It was 2020 or 2021. I'm not sure. uh two proposals out of that. One to just completely remodel the current building asis. That was $1.1 million. Uh then there was a proposal to redo the building asis and build an addition to it and that was over $1.3 million. We felt we could do it cheaper uh and we thought we could do it with a modular and we were able to do that and the quote is 977. And so the plan would be where the apple orchard is right now next to our building which is adjacent to the parking lot.

083We would either relocate the trees or plant new trees elsewhere and the building would be there and then we would demolish the current building as it is and have it as parking. Can I ask for clarification? I know it's been explained to me but I still don't get it. These are all in capital reserve accounts. But then you talk about contingency account. Are some of these capital reserve accounts going to be moved into contingency which gives you a better or these remain the same? We use them and we have a contingency separate. Correct. So what I would recommend is we continue to keep and I should again I should change the title because it's really just reserves. I would recommend we keep the capital reserve, the athletic facility reserve, and the technology reserve. Those are

084uh reserves that we can plan ahead. We know things are coming down the road. Whereas everything else is an emergency. If we have a a roof that needs repair, uh if we have a furnace that dies, those are things that would be defined as an emergency. So therefore you could take from your unallocated fund balance to transfer into a contingency fund. From there you could expend from the contingency fund to pay for said emergency whatever that is. Thank you. And then the other reserves would be gone. The the uh three reserves the fuel, energy and special education would be used to as revenue to offset what we're expending in the articles. And Nick, um, during the budget committee, we discussed that spending the contingency fund would go to the board for approval. And with all

085that being said, the additional $50,000 left in the fuel fund. Um, you mentioned maybe not wanting to, but why wouldn't you not just deplete that fund to reduce the overall ask? We could. I just didn't want to take the full chance, but we could because then any contingency would be voted on from that point forward. Correct. Yeah, we could certainly do that. We're budgeted at exactly the contracted amount of fuel. That's one of the other places that we cut. And if we were to deplete that fuel reserve account and then we had an exceptionally cold or long winter or the prices of heating fuel increased, there would be no safety net in that case. Great pleasure. Thank you. Uh just a point on the uh administrative office with replacement accounting. I really like the idea

086of the UTC students doing that work, gaining that experience. It helps the district and it helps all the kids in that UTC program. So that's what solid idea. Any other questions with the reserves? Ed, your town interim town manager has a question. You want to get that question from her, please? the new building the 1.6 million including demo and old ones. That's my Yes, my understanding. That's your plan. Yeah. Did the town of Newberg want it? a great deal. We already have one. Yeah, we already sand. We don't need another bill. Thank you. But it did it also include the parking lot or did it not? Paving was part of it. Yes. Yep. Okay. Local assessments. So this I think I think you all have these correct in the back of your packets. So this

087information will reflect the local assessments valuations by town. So this is all based on the ED279. As you can see, once again, there is a significant increase in the valuations of your towns. Again, this has nothing to do with uh RSU22. We received this information uh from the state itself, but we have a 13.3% uh increase overall between our four towns with Hampton increasing 13.3, Winterport 12.9, Newberg 13.4, 4 and Frankurt [Music] 14.2. Next one. A lot of people are very interested in this graph and I want to be very clear. FY25 what you see on this screen. This is not finalized because the only time we finalize our numbers is based on an audit. So this is just where we sit today, May 14th with our numbers. But what you can see is that

088our uh fund balance has gone down drastically. We provided uh $3 million as carry forward money. We used over a million dollars last year in the reserves. So right now we are sitting just below $7.5 million uh in unallocated funds. Obviously, we'll uh still continue to include um money into the reserves that as we've spoken about. There possibly could be money left over from the FY25 that would adjust this, but where we are today is just under $7.5 million. Local funding by uh funding support by town. Next slide. The first part of that table, the top part talks about the the percentages, excuse me, on the breakdown to each one of your towns, 80% and 20%. So, this is something if you haven't been around for a while, this is the percent breakdown that was

089agreed upon when the RSU was formed between the towns. 80% towards valuation, 20% for pupils. So you can see what each town uh represents in our district as far as uh the percent. And just so we don't cause too much confusion, FY26 is the column before the end. So the the last column is FY25. So I put it in there just to compare it to uh what we're asking or what you're at right now. So don't confuse it. the the column that we're working on is that second to last one from the right down at the bottom you have your uh towns broken down with dollar amounts for a total of 16,826,472.114. Your next page is where you will find your percents, your individual amounts per town. So, this is where at the beginning of

090the presentation I said we're probably going to have some eyes raised, eyebrows raised because these percentages are much higher than what people are used to and I recognize that and I think everyone on the board recognizes that this is hate to say it but this is as a result of $3 million last year. I don't feel comfortable continuing to give. And I say it like it's my money. It's not. But I I I don't feel comfortable, and I think the phrase was used in one of our budget committee meetings, kicking the can down the road. I know people don't like these figures, but the more money that we provide from carry forward money, the more we continue to kick the can down the road. And one thing I do want to highlight here is the

091second column that says 20 uh 2025 assessment. I know everyone tends to forget what last year's was, but each one of the towns and the total assessment was a decrease last year. So the responsibility to our citizens was less from the schools side than it was before. Not many taxes tend to go down ever, but the school the responsibility that the citizens owed the school that decreased last year. So to call out the elephant in the room, that's what it is. And now we're dealing with percent increases that are in the 20s. And I don't like being the the bearer of bad news, but that's what we're dealing with at this point. And if we have to cut from this budget, as we started out 4.4%, if we have to cut from this budget, I

092think it was said the last time by Brooke, it's people. And we have gone through this budget with a fine tooth comb to make sure that what we have is appropriate. We do not have fluff positions. Our staff work their tails off. We don't have people sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They work hard. But I can assure you it will be people if we have to make a reduction. and no one wants that. So, I don't like giving this information out. I don't want to kick the can down the road any longer, but the reality is we have to deal with it at some point. Dam. Um, I have a question that might be a little bit just ask. How did the fund balance get so high in the first place when you were always

093when the only have I believe it's 4% and you have 29 the RSU 22 notific I think you're I think you're referring to the percent that were allowed over the 9% right now yes I think so let me answer your first question and I think the rest of it will be fine um I can't speak exactly for what happened before I got here but what I can say is this district received an awful lot of COVID funds. Um there were unfilled positions. There were positions that were filled with less experienced individuals but budgeted at higher. And so when all of those things happen, you end up with a significant amount of money left over. And that just continues to roll over and roll over. And when you receive millions of dollars from uh federal funding,

094um it's where we're at right now. Um I know a few years ago we had a significant amount of positions that were unfilled, uh specifically in special education. And that's why I'm proud to say that we started at 11 edte and are down to four because we really looked at each kid individually and each school individually. the the staff is doing a tremendous job trying to really rightsize what we need in this district. Um, do we have open positions? Yes, we have a couple still. Um, and that's the nature of the beast with trying to hire people nowadays. As as you probably know as a town representative, it it's very difficult to hire people. And um, while we're trying, we do have some open positions, but certainly significantly less than we've ever had. Uh so

095between the funding that has come in unfilled positions uh that's I would say that's the catalyst to the the major fund balance. Um back to the unallocated fund balance history graph. Uh do you project any large transfers going into the reserve accounts? I think it was the orange line on the bar graph or can you really not speak to that audience? what I project is what we went over a few slides ago. Okay. From those reserve accounts, this one. Yes. Okay. Yeah. That that's what unless something major changes between now and next week, that's what will be in the district budget meeting as a recommendation. And those are all represented by the orange line on that bar graph. No, that was from what we provided the last year from this year. So when you look

096at our audit, our audit does not reflect the amount of money that we agreed last June to put into the technology reserve and the special ed reserve. So that line actually uh reflects what we did for the June budget meeting last year, which we're in FY25 right now. Perfect. Um, another question that might uh uh help people understand um I guess the the damage that was done last year on this local funding support by town as far as the 2025 assessment goes. Um would it be possible? Would it be a lot of work to maybe create a a hypothetical chart, if you will, of if you had only done a million dollar offset versus a $3 million offset from last year or this year? From last year. So last year, instead of doing three million,

097if we had only done 1 million, what would this picture look like now as far as we could do that? It won't be ready for tonight, but No. Yeah. No, that might that might be helpful for the public. I actually think we had them all presented from 1 million to 3 million last year. Will was here. I I think we had them all laid out lots of different versions. Okay. And if I remember correctly, we started at 2 million maybe as our first offer. Okay. To go two to one. Yeah. To do less. Yeah. And I I think I get what you're saying because if you show them that you guys live this, we don't. And then the people we represent really don't. So if you can give them if we had done this and

098this and you can show them why it went up a huge percentage instead of baby steps, then they can easily more readily understand it, I think, and not see as a big increase and you guys are just trying to live larger up here. So that's what people they don't understand what they exactly and that's why I'm so happy you guys brought us to the table cuz I'm starting to get it. Yeah. Yeah. And it probably should have been helpful last year, but it obviously wasn't and but I think it might be helpful this year. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. The term fund balance became a hot button issue that nobody knew what they're talking about except the district had a ton of it and it had too much and we need to take it back. That's

099all we knew. That didn't work. Okay. This one is just a small variation. Did this include? So this is the first slide that we're actually including adult education. Uh the adult education as I mentioned was just a a small portion of that budget. This is what the um allocations would be with the adult education. This is a visual that probably no one wants to see, but this is the essentially that 20 plus percent that um we were just talking about. And if you notice in red last year, the know the unintended consequence to what we did last year is what we're seeing right now. just the visual. Now, um I'm not sure, Matt, if this might help. I know what you're asking, but I did have that little note at the bottom. If RSU22 used

100$3 million again for FY26 as carry forward, the local increase, and you'll see that in a minute, will be 9.12. So even if we did exactly what we did last year, which I'm not proposing, the increase is still 9.12%. Why is that? It deals with your valuations of your towns. The state, not RSU22, not Nick Raymond, the state says you as a town person can afford more. Has nothing to do with us. I'm not saying they're right or wrong. That's just what they say. So, um I'm pretty I'm very thankful that I'm here for status because uh our last meeting you actually gave this to us and I went everybody in our select men town manager we sat down and we talked about this and we just we think we feel as though this year,

101we should rip the band-aid off and like with nothing coming out of reserve account, you know what I'm saying? To get this over with because looking at the numbers, it kind of it it kind of makes sense at this point just to deal with it this year because just like you said, kicking this can is it's relentless. So that's So I guess no money towards it. You know what I'm saying? Out of that reserve account, that million dollars that you I mean everybody's talking about. We we support zero amount as far as that. You'll see an option in a minute about zero. Okay. Yeah, I read ahead. Sorry. That's why that's why it came in my mind. Um Okay. This we're good two more slides. We're almost there, folks. Uh this is another one I

102do like to show as well. Again, the the competitive nature of me. Um a lot of people ask about area schools and what they do. This is above EPS. Now, EPS, for those of you that don't know, essential programs and services, the state says, "Oh, you can get by with this amount of money." Well, no, you can't. You can't do that. And here's proof because here are all these communities some of which are in this particular area. Uh some are just handpicked uh because you know we like to compare ourselves to Cape Elizabeth and Falmouth and Kennebunk and Cumberland. These are typically the schools that you see in any uh result top schools in the state. So when you look at this particular table, these are the percentages that these communities or districts pay above

103and beyond the essential programs and services that the state says, "Oh, this is enough money for you." And so RSU22 the last uh 3 years has paid 15, 13, and 15% respectively more than what the essential programs and services states you should have. But when you compare us us to others, a lot of other districts and areas are paying even more locally. And when you look at those high performing schools and districts year after year in every single report, they're in the 60s, the 40s. I'm not advocating we do this, but when we compare ourselves to other districts, we do have we are we're not asking a whole heck of a lot. And so that's why I like to bring this one up. Any questions? I have one Nick and uh this was sent a

104while ago from another board member and uh it I don't think it would receive a positive reception right now, but is there an option to combine last year's fund balance of $800,000 with the a million dollars that you're talking about to to put a 1.8 million towards the budget? I think there's an option for everything, but that will we'll talk more about that in just a minute. Right. Right. Okay. Um, next steps. So, this is what you will see when you go if you go to a district budget meeting. So, if you haven't gone, um, they are a lot of fun. I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself. We will go step by step through this whole process. So what you would see uh as I mentioned in the stage up front moderator we go through the

105first 11 articles which we we've talked about today those are our cost centers each one is u a motion and a second any discussion people can come up to the microphone speak on any individual article they want they have the opportunity to raise it lower it the the disclaimer to that let's say someone raises it I have seen meetings where people come up to the podium or the microphone and say, "I want to raise it $100,000 to give us one more teacher." That's fine and dandy. If that is approved, the district now gets $100,000 more with no guarantee of a teacher because the board has the authority to determine where the money goes. So, that is always a disclaimer here. Anyone coming up to the microphone or podium cannot dictate where the money goes to

106or what is spent for, but they can adjust the money. Articles 12, 13, and 14 are just simply raising the funds for the budget. Article 15 is a summary of that proposed budget. Then you move into additional articles. You'll have adult education, local share, expenditures of grants and receipts, uh authorizing the transfers among the centers, uh reserve accounts. So each one of the reserve accounts will have their own individual article uh again one of which would be the new uh administrative building and then the authorization uh of any additional state subsidy. Then we have the CTE warrant uh articles. Once that is all done, the evening is done. It can last 30 minutes. It can last upwards of four plus hours. It depends. I've been in all of them. So, uh it varies. Um I

107do know that we have gone through this as I mentioned earlier with a fine tooth comb. So, I'm hopeful that uh there is support out there, but I don't know. It depends on who shows up and what they have for questions. We could have the same exact questions that we have answered um throughout the eight sessions. Uh we could have no questions. It really depends. So that's what the evening will look like. And then on the uh 11th at your polling station is when you would go to cast your vote and the vote is just simply yes or no. Do you approve the budget? I think it's Tuesday the 10th, right? Tuesday the I think the 11th is a typo. No, that's okay. Yes, it is. It is the 10th. I will change it before

108it goes on the website. Thank you. I think the 11th was last year. Um the fourth. Okay. Thank you. I'll change that. Okay. Um just quickly going through the options. That's the last packet that you you can see. I believe, and I don't want to speak for everyone, but I believe uh the budget committee started out at a million dollars. Uh the question was posed to us, can we see what it looks like if we just put the carry forward of the fund balance amount? That's $882,794. Can we also see what it looks like at 500,000 and zero? So, those options are there. The million is still there. Uh we have added 1.5 million, we have added 2 million, we have also added 3 million. You can see and Katie, thank you. Uh because there

109was a small error this morning that she brought to our attention and that has been adjusted uh on this form that you see. So what you can see there is a fluctuation in these numbers. Uh but as we talked about already, how much do we want to keep kicking this can down the road? Again, I would continue to propose the million. Um, back before we did 3 million, we would put 650,000 in. Uh, that's what we did consistently for a number of years. Uh, there was a time we didn't put anything in. Um, but I I do think that there is, this is, this one's Nick Raymond speaking. Um, I do think that if there is money uh as a fund balance, I think it would be appropriate to use that to help offset some

110taxes. This is a significant number. 20some% is a significant number. Uh, in the end, providing a million dollars as carry forward money, I think, is very appropriate. I'm not sure I would be very willing to go to zero and still have all this fund balance money. Again, that's Nick Raymond speaking. I agree with you, Nick. And um again, I want to I want to say thank you for the opportunity of allowing us to come in here and work with you guys on this. It's been been beneficial to us as as town representatives, but I think like you said earlier, it's also been beneficial to the to the budget committee and think it it goes a long way to show the people of our community that uh we do intend to work together and arrive at

111the common goal for the common good. And thank you again for that. I I certainly think the more we can educate people uh the better. And I know that my goal in having the four towns here was so that you could help us educate people. Um because that was one of our biggest flaws. We we didn't have the time or the ability to educate everyone. Uh, and so the more people that we can get to, uh, the more people that have knowledge of our budget and the process, the better that will be. I'm not saying that we're always going to agree because we don't. But I can also say that this budget committee with the town representatives have truly listened to one another and taken feedback, both sides, uh, to come to a consensus that

112I I think, um, is the best of of everything. Um, it's certainly not. We'd love to have everything for free, uh, but we can't. But I do believe that this budget meets the needs of our schools with our students and staff, and it also meets the needs of the citizens uh, by doing what we can to help out as well. This also lets the residents know that you're working to be transparent. So, that that's huge. And I guess I will say and to echo your point that uh disagreements are inevitable um but division is a choice. So we can make that choice. Yeah. And as I mentioned um this boom last year in the heat of everything but when you guys put these numbers out is awesome. But we've had conversations in these meetings what

113a fund balance should and shouldn't be used for. So when you guys commit a slide something idiot proof like that that we can post and say major things yes every year thing no like that kind of thing so they can understand it completely really simple this is going to go a long way and I yeah we're so excited that we're here and this this is eye opening and I think if anybody's watching this from any of our towns they understand that we've had skin in this game the whole time and we're we're pretty much in agreement on this at this point. So they need to understand that they tried we tried and this is where it's at. this is where it's at. And if it's going to keep the teachers happy and stay and the

114kids are getting educated, then whatever. And I certainly would like to think that um if any of the four towns have been at the table this whole time and there is a true concern, I would like to think that it has already been discussed at this point. Absolutely. And if not, please let us know. Yeah. you you send followout emails like the next day with any question day maybe one time it was two days because it actually took a lot more research but it's instant communication back like and it's public like it was is very interesting so even if I didn't understand it you explain it to me in a private email which I appreciate but it it does mean something that you can get that answer you can trust the answer everything's out in

115the open so you know people think anybody's hiding anything the towns have all joined this hyen thing now too so I've been digging that pretty trying to trying to find whatever I can and this is where we've landed and I think it's what we got. I love it. I wonder if I was going to ask so next steps. You've had the towns involved. You've had a great committee that's really given a lot of time. So how do we let my neighbor understand why it's important to pass this budget? So, next steps, what are we doing as a district? What might the towns do on their part? Uh, one of the things that I think might be helpful is where you've posted the um the slideshow, could you also post how they can get to the

116video right there? I know they can go on YouTube and they can find it, but if you put the is it URL? I never know. If you put that there, then maybe they'll click on it and see an explanation. But I still think it has to go beyond this because I can tell you right now, my neighbor is not going to be happy. So, what are we going to do to make this pass from here till next step, the referendum meeting, right? Yeah. Or the district budget meeting and get it in front of anybody who really wants it easily. Like I shouldn't have to go like six clicks into a website to try to find it. should be like, "Here's our Facebook page. This is where this is right on the top." Like something so

117it sticks out like a sore thumb and nobody can say, "Hey, we couldn't find it." Well, you didn't look. You type in R22 and it's right in front of your face. Like that's kind of where it needs to be, but that's your tech guys. It really does need to be that simple. Unfortunately, it does. And I was just going to I was going to suggest that we put together some FAQs. Um, and maybe some of the towns, if you have some questions that you think your community members are going to ask and you want to make sure we're all on the same page with the the responses, you can help develop those. That's a great idea. Absolutely. I mean at the end of the day I think there's a few key points that if people

118yourselves go out and be advocates and talk to your community members who have four great representatives that join us from the communities. Um the biggest points are again if we don't pass this budget there's not a lot of anything we can cut and you guys can all attest to that that have been sitting in these meetings. We've done a tremendous amount of trimming anywhere and everywhere we could, but we're pretty much at the skin and bones now. And and the real meat of it is, as we've discussed, is going to have to come out of out of people. And nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to see that. But I said it in the last meeting that we had with the budget. If it has to come out of people, there will be some

119hard decisions in this community that you need to understand. we are either going to end up in the left upper corner of the pay scale or we're going to have to increase class sizes and start getting downsizing. So I mean and and nobody wants to say that out loud. So I was nominated chair just for that purpose because I'm the only one up here who will do it. But it's the truth. And and that's something that really needs to be communicated to every person, neighbor, person who's going to walk into that poll is that do we want to sacrifice our kids' education, lose valuable teachers who have wonderful experience and and great offerings and and have to kind of go to the more inexperienced, which there's nothing wrong with that. But is that the shape

120that we want to drive the direction of this this district and you know or do we want to downsize and then have larger class sizes which has been a big stickler in this community as well as as as some of the board members can attest to that's so and I think that's pretty unpopular. So so that's a big a big thumping point right there. Go out and and try and get people to see it from that perspective. And the second thing is, I know we've been kind of negative fancies about talking about, you know, last year's debacle with three million, but I will say I feel like it had to happen. I think it was a good thing at the end of the day. And maybe I'm the only idiot optimist in the room, but

121if people didn't see us fall off this cliff with their own two eyeballs like they're now experiencing, they would have never gotten engaged. They would have never believed it. and we would just continue to have people who are zero engagement in this community in this process. And I think if nothing more, we've got more people who are actually participating and coming and and and seeing at these meetings that no, you know, we're not all pocketing a bunch of money. We do pay taxes, too. So, it sucks when our taxes go up. And we want the best for our kids as well. And so, you know, to have that bring the community together, while it's now going to be painful this year as we rip the band-aid off, it was a good thing. And hopefully, we'll

122have more community engagement in the future with these processes as we have to as a community make hard decisions going forward. This is not going to get any easier with the economics of this country and this world. So we have to continue to work together in order to not be boring with each other and thinking that we're, you know, pulling wool over somebody's eyes. We can solve these problems, but we have to solve them as a community and in unison. So I would say those two points, if you can drive home anything, going back to your neighbors and your friends and your families in the towns, those are the two points. We need to get this budget passed. There's just not a lot left. and and for our kids sake is not a big ask,

123but I do understand this is going to be a painful year. It's going to be painful for everyone. So, and I do thank all the community uh folks, the four guys that came nearly every meeting because your your feedback really helped us get to a point where we can honestly look at the taxpayers and the planning committee and say, "We've done our absolute best. We've taken every piece of feedback and input and I think we've come together with a solid budget and I'm I'm glad and I hope this process goes the same way in in the next coming years because I think it I think we should have been doing this a long time ago quite honestly. I agree. Well said. Absolutely. And are these this whole stack of papers is this going to be

124available for people to access from online somewhere in case people want to digest this on their own? Yeah. Okay. Would that be easy to find too? It's going to be right under the budget tab under today's date. It'll be at the top actually. Okay. Nice. Thank you. And then can you will you be able to send us these slides again like you have been during the last seven meetings? Second. All right.