001Good evening. Uh, welcome to our budget meeting. We do have one member not here today. Did you want to take over or No, she want she wanted me to. So, we and we have um three articles today. We have article four, which is our essentially co-curricular and extracurricular activities. uh you'd see it on the budget form as titled as other instruction. We have article nine which is our m uh maintenance and then we also have article 15 which is our adult ed program. We have a partnership in our adult ed program with two other area districts uh known as Riverside Adult Ed. And so what I would like to do is to start out with uh adult ed and Rebecca Cross. She is our director that oversees all three districts and she is going to
002give you a summary and outline of the program and then also what is uh included in our budget. Thank you so much. Um I have a little slideshow to share some information about our partnership, but yes, I'm Rebecca and um it's really my honor to serve as as your adult education director. This is really sacred and important work. So, thank you for time to share with you a little bit about the program. Um, so just as background, there's about 65 adult education programs across the state of Maine. Um, oh, okay. Yeah. One moment. How's this? Okay. Is this good? Yeah. Um, so as I was saying, there are 65 adult education programs across the state of Maine, and they're um they're all uh a little different from one another. Our program has skill building and
003career prep and also lifelong learning opportunities. So, the lifelong learning opportunities would have to do with all those enrichment courses that you see um on our website and that come in the catalog in the mail such as health and wellness, arts, digital literacy, things like that. And then we have our skill building and career prep, which would be literacy skills, high school completion, which is the largest slice of our academic work. But we also have certificate programs such as CNA, CN M um BHP um our Bangor partners have CDL as well and um we have some partnerships that provide phabbotomy training and um PSS training as well. We are also have a main college and career access grant that provides support for firstgen college students. Um either helping them navigate after they're already enrolled or
004providing some extra academic support or just helping them understand like the language of higher education and what it means to take on student loans and and how to navigate the system of higher ed. And we have a a pretty robust and growing English language acquisition program in Riverside as well. um helping remainers get the skills they need to become employed and settle into our community as productive members. So just quickly, RSU22 specifically the enrichment program this year. We've run 26 classes so far and we have 35 planned for the spring semester and so far we've had 250 community members enroll in these enrichment classes. So, the last time I checked, there were approximately 55,000 mayors who still needed a high school credential. Um, improving adult literacy can rejuvenate our economy, save money in our health
005care system, of course, positively impact our children's academic achievement, as well as promote community safety. So, low literacy adults are four times more likely to have poor health outcomes requiring hospitalization and use of emergency services. Um, and I I dug into this a little bit. I've shared this information with with this committee before, but I wanted to do a little deeper dive. And so, I visited main.gov education and health and took a look at just a few indicators. So you'll see in this table um without a high school credential across a few different measures what happens for citizens compared with overall in the state of Maine. This is Maine specific um information. But you'll notice that um there's a lot of health um and wellness impact trying to navigate life without a high school credential.
006And um at the bottom there you'll see like even with screenings such as dental but that would also include other screenings that um you know cholesterol screenings or whatever the routine maintenance that one needs. Um it seems that ours without the high school credential are not getting that type of care. So when we invest in adult education and adult literacy, we're really investing in our community wellness as a whole. Another interesting fact to think about is that 53% or so of adults over 25 who don't have the high school credential are not participating in the workforce. And so we love to think about adult education not just as high school completion but also the next step. So we're talking about what's going to be the next thing. As soon as a learner sits down at
007the take appointment with us. We talk about, you know, what's three months, 6 months, 12 months down the line for you and how can we help support you to that place. And that's not always easy for somebody who's living in very challenging circumstances to think even three months down the road, but we try to um just start to generate that process together. So, uh this is I guess I didn't label this table. Sorry. But on the left, that's last year's data. Just what's going on right here, right now in RSU22. Last year, we had 29 students enrolled in our high school completion program. This year, we have 34, but actually we have 41. Um, but I I put 34 because those are 34 students who are really actively engaged. We have 41, and we're pursuing
008those that have not really gotten off the ground yet. Um but when I started six years ago, we had two um and that has to do with all kinds of things, but really a supportive community here, making sure that students get the the um referrals that they need to find these services. Um and you'll notice that 24 of those learners enrolled right now are um between the ages of 16 and 22. And we do have a system here on RSD22 to report that data so that the subsidy dollars come back to the school. And then we've got 10 students aged 23 to 50. I've got one dad enrolled right now who's hoping to graduate at at the same time as his his um child who's enrolled at Hampton Academy. Yeah. And right now we've got
009nine or 10 potential grads, but we always have some coming through at the last. Um, so we'll probably have, you know, the 12 or or 15 graduates. We had a wonderful graduation ceremony here last June. Thank you so much for hosting that. It was really a beautiful ceremony. We loved it. Um, so last year I shared the picture um of Sandra and Keith with their son right after Sandra um finished her diploma. But both Sandra and Keith came in having stopped out of high school a long while long while long long while long while long while long while long ago um and they had this baby and they had some big ideas about um improving their lives for their kid. So there they are at the graduation um they bought their son a suit for
010the um but I love their story because here's Sandra now showing us that she is doing her last assignment um in her leadership class at EMCC. So, she's working on her accounting degree. And Keys sent me both of these pictures because he wanted to be sure that we all knew that he has earned his CDL and that he's also holding his welding gear there from Beiel University. So, he's going on past that CDL to um earn his welding credential. That would be the AWS. And they are just so excited. They've enrolled in families forward which is helping them put away money for home and they wanted you to see that baby Keith is thriving and um I put that little statistic there that 72% of children of low literate parents have a I'm sorry 70
011children of low literate parents have 72% chance of being at the lowest level of literacy themselves in adulthood. So when I think about Keith and Sandra's success story, I know that it's trickling down to little Keith and to generations to come. And Sandra and Keith are really maximizing adult education in that they got their diplomas with us, but they are also now enrolled in that main college and career access grant. So they they were done with high school, but they really didn't have the skills yet to navigate college. And so they are enrolled in college and adult education dy. And we can be that safe place and that mentorship to help them understand um the system and be that safe place to say like what does this mean or what what is I I have
012to write a thousand word essay and I don't know a thousand words like how am I going to do this and we're there to help. So um that's kind of what I got. I wonder if you have any questions about our program and I just also want to be sure to say thank you for your support. Thank you, Rebecca. So, the adult program, as I mentioned, is a partnership between uh us and two other program, two other districts. And I will say, although she has not been here for a long time, she has made great gains in the adult program. Um, and the amount of kids and adults that participate in the program through RSU22, it it's amazing. and um to see the partnership and the relationship that she has with those students, students that
013many of which would not have finished their high school career. Um she has developed u individual relationships with just about if not all of them. Uh and to see that with your own eyes, it's amazing and kudos to her. Um she has saved a significant amount of kids and I use the term saved because she has uh they would not have gotten where they where they are now and tr uh indicative of the photos that you saw. Uh that is a family that is thriving and doing very well at this point. So the adult program uh is certainly worth it for this district and because of Rebecca uh a lot of those students are where they are and kudos to her. So thank you. Thank you. the one she was using. I think the one
014Yeah, I heard it. Oh yeah, we got Casey hot green. Okay, we will move on to article number four and that is our co-curricular titled other instruction. I would like to have uh Mr. Terrell from Hammond Academy come up. He is our athletic director and he can go through this part uh with you folks and we can take any questions and go over specifics. Okay. As Mr. Rand said, my name is Barry Terrell. I'm the athletic director here at Hampton Academy and I'm going to speak a little bit to our programs at the high school but also at our two middle schools. I just want to thank all of you for the opportunity to be here today. I'm excited to to talk about our programs. I'm extremely happy with in my two years here where
015we're at athletically. I think we have a tremendous balance of competitiveness uh as well as sportsmanship. Um and we providing an excellent uh experience for our student athletes that's an extension of the classroom in our athletics department. Uh while we're not perfect, we're striving to always get better. I am extremely proud of the work we're doing and where we're at and I'm excited to talk to you about it a little bit today. So going to start off kind of the first half of my presentation just talk about uh some of the opportunities that we provide our student athletes through our budget. So want to start with athletic participation. Uh so at Hampton Academy we have roughly somewhere between 29% and 40% of our student body participating in athletics. Now I I gave you the range
01629 to 40 for a couple reasons. One each sports season we have fall, winter, and spring has slightly different numbers, slightly different number of programs which I'll talk about in a minute. And also we use the school enrollments to help us find those figures or I did and the school enrollment is also constantly changing. So hence the the range but depending on the sports season at end of the academy we have anywhere from 29% to 40% of our student body um included which when you get up to numbers around 40% that's pretty extraordinary when you're talking about number of kids involved in athletics. Um, so extremely proud of that. On on the lower end, springtime, we offer slightly less board. So the numbers are a little bit less lower, a little more lower, but um,
017again, that that's a number that we're proud of, 29 to 40%. At rings, again, depending on the different sports season, it's anywhere from 27% to 44%. Uh, which typically that high mark in 44% comes in the winter time. And at Wagner, that range was roughly 23% to 41%. So pretty consistent consistent there amongst the three secondary schools um in our department and extremely pleased uh with the involvement of our student athletes. Total programs overall here at Hampton Academy, we offer a total of 24 different programs. Uh when I say program, that basically means the sport. So doesn't count like we have varsity, JB, and first team volleyball. I'm not counting that three times. I'm just counting it once. But we have 24 different programs, which is more than any other school in this area. That's
018more programs than what Bangor offers. And to me, that's a tremendous source of pride. In that number 24, there are a couple what we call co-op teams where we may combine with an area school like Brewer or Herman um to to give our kids an opportunity to participate in some sports. Um but 24 programs at the high school level is is pretty extraordinary. Um at Reedbrook, we have 13 programs that we offer there and a couple of those are combined with Wagner. Um and then the same for the the Wagner um middle school, they have 13 programs there that they offer. And again, some of those are combined, like our field hockey team combines kids from both schools, for example. So, uh 13 programs and and just as an example there, I recently was collecting
019some data on middle school um athletic director responsibilities and whatnot. Um and a school like Ellsworth, which is pretty comparative size for our middle schools um only offers about 11 programs total. So again those numbers for Reeseburg and Wagner 13 total programs each is pretty uh pretty outstanding when it comes to offering opportunities. Also we offer very competitive wages at all levels middle school and high school to be able to recruit uh good coaches to again be that extension of the classroom for our student athletes. And we've also been able to through our budget when warranted for student interest. So we have a a huge influx of of players interested in a certain sport, we've been able to support additional coaching stipens. Uh for example, middle school volleyball is one that over the course of
020it, you know, two year two to three year time span with quite a bit of student interest, very high student interest, we've been able to have a position there and JP Lacrosse here at the high school. Similar situation. So, we're providing competitive wages for our coaches um and supporting our student athletes when necessary um by adding programs. We're also able to supply our kids with um the equipment and the supplies that they need to be able to properly learn, to be able to compete. And this also includes two full-time trainers in the district, which is, you know, to me an extraordinary service to our communities, to our to our kids and their families. We have a one athletic trainer that covers the two middle schools and another one that's here at Hampton Academy. And again,
021they're tremendous resources that were able to support that through our four and our budget. Uh talk a little bit too about some of the equipment upgrades. I mentioned, you know, giving our kids what they need and our coaches what they need to be able to to compete. Uh just in the last year, we've done a a track resurfacing of our outdoor track here, which is also a tremendous resource for the community. We've been able to purchase a mobile fencing, uh which you're going to see this spring. Uh we will be able to play our boys and girls lacrosse games here on our home turf field. Um all of them for the first time. had a game here or there that's been on our on our turf field, but we've had to rent uh field space
022at Cameron Stadium and at Hudson University in the past for them to play and also at at Brewer. So, um I'll talk more about facility rentals in a moment, but that new mobile fencing is going to be again a tremendous asset for us. We've had several weight room upgrades. I met with the football coach last week. our numbers of all athletes, all students who want to use our weight room is is higher than it's ever been. And I think that's partially due to the upgrades we were able to do in the weight room. And we've also uh purchased these haven't been put up yet, but we've purchased two new nets for our outdoor batting cages. One up by the high school facilities for baseball softball and one up here by the middle school baseball field.
023So, um we're excited to to get those in use this spring as well. Um, talk a little bit now getting into the specifics of, you know, what we're able to to supply for our our student athletes and our coaches. Uh, we purchase all game balls and every sport. That may not sound like much, but the price of basketballs, softballs, baseballs, tennis balls, everything has gone skyhigh. haven't been able to to provide um everything that they need in that situation. You hear some horror stories of other schools scrambling to try to find this stuff. We're able to to provide that safety gear. We're obviously safety is of the utmost important to us. Um we've been able to purchase things like this year there was a new rule for what they call corner mask for field hockey.
024A totally new style mask that was needed for that sport. We were able to purchase those. There's a new rule this year also for neck guards for ice hockey. All high school players in the country really, but certainly in the state had to wear these neck guards because there was a pretty serious uh injury where somebody got cut by a skate blade at a not in high school, but at a different level. And so they implemented that neck guard rule. We were able to supply those for all our ice hockey players. Um, when our middle school football equipment wasn't quite up to safety standards, we were able to uh get them uh 18 new football helmets and 24 new sets of shoulder pads. We supply, you know, cones, pylons, dummies, everything that our coaches need
025to be able to plan and execute a good practice. We also want our student athletes when it comes to having every opportunity but also to being safe. We want to provide them good facilities. Uh we're able to rent some of the top facilities in the area. For ice hockey, we use Sawyer Arena, uh Alpon Arena, upscot Ice Arena, uh golf courses like Hammond Country Club and Rocky Null. Ski tickets. Our ski team was able to purchase tickets for their races at some of the best mountains in the state of Maine. They get passes for their practices here locally at Herman Mountain. I mentioned that the lacrosse facility rental in the past uh was something that we had to use. Uh we we don't need that anymore. But um we've also been able to provide opportunities
026like our basketball teams that had such a successful winter season when they're getting ready for tournament. Often times they'll want to um practice in a facility that will help prepare them for that. We're able to do that for them. Um, we also, just as an example, we host a middle school tournament here for the PPML, the league that they're in. So, that kind of displaces some of our teams, varsity basketball teams during that playoff tournament season. And that's another reason why we're able to rent them some outside facilities. And then this time of year, we've spent some time since the snowstorm on Monday trying to prepare some indoor tennis uh facil for our athletes as well. So, we're able to provide facility rentals opportunities, top-notch um facilities that are in this area. We're able to
027access uh for our teams, new uniforms. Um we're able to provide uh new uniforms again for both middle schools and high school. I'll go through some of those details in just a moment. But before I do that, I do just want to mention that typically we use a one-third rule for new uniforms. Some of you that have been around a while probably know what that is, but basically we pay for a third of the new uniform with the budget. Another third comes from that team's fundraising account and then another third from our all sports boosters. But in in the last two years that I've been here where I've had to kind of reestablish a 4-year new uniform cycle for the high school, which is pretty standard, and a six-year cycle for middle schools, which is
028also standard in the area. Uh just in the last two years at HA we've been able to purchase new track uniforms which service both our indoor and outdoor track team and we have depending on whether it's indoor or outdoor somewhere from like 90 to 110 athletes there. So that's not like a normal set of 12 basketball jerseys. That's a pretty big that's a pretty big undertaking. But we got new track uniforms, uh new baseball uniforms, new fall cheering uniforms, football got new purple jerseys. They're on the two-year cycle. They have a home and away jersey that they have to have. Winter cheerleading, girls tennis. We got new ski speeduits, which is their uniform, if you will. And then we also got what I call fill-in uniforms, which means we didn't buy a full set, but
029we had to fill in some old uniforms for softball, boys soccer, and volleyball. At Reedsburg, we've been able to purchase again just in the last two years um new cheering uniforms, new unified basketball uniforms, and new volleyball uniforms. Unified basketball and volleyball are combined sports with Wagner. Uh so that's why when I read the Wagner list, it be little different, but Wagner got new uniforms just this season, this spring for baseball. They've got new cheer uniforms, new soccer uniforms, um new cross country uniforms, and then also the combined unified basketball and volleyball uniforms. Okay. Uh that's what I had for you folks. Does anybody have any questions? Okay. Okay. Great. On the uh I know we have that mobile fencing. Um how much should we save from going with the mobile fencing versus renting those
030fields for lacrosse? Do you have an idea? I wouldn't know the exact number off the top of my head. I can tell you that the the rent is probably around $6,000 would be my guess for renting the the field space at Cameron Stadium. The savings would not occur this year. It would be over a period of time. So, we won't see a year one savings. It will take a couple years to match what we're paying in facility rentals versus what we paid for the fence. In the end, savings. Yes, I'll probably get a ton of questions for you. So, I I see we we removing you're saving on the rentals for lacrosse playing on the turf. Turf is already maxed out um for usage uh for being used for multiple sports that really aren't intended.
031Uh I know softball, you know, I'm a softball guy. I know softball damages that turf every year they pitch on it. So, how are you able to put more sports on that field when there's already not the availability to use that field by the sports who are supposed in theory supposed to like softball get bumped and that kind of thing? How are we how we make it that way? Uh, yeah, good question. One, it was only getting used in the spring by softball. Obviously, it's advantageous to have it this time of year to practice on because it's not muddy because it's turf. So, it gets used some for that, but basically just with careful planning ahead of time like I go through and and uh schedule the lacrosse games and um and having a time
032in mind when softball practice will be thankfully we have lights games typically are are nighttime starts. So like softball would have practice from say 2:30 to 4:30 and then we could pretty quickly transform the field into use for um another sport at night time under the lights. Um even when we were going to Cameron Stadium, we were playing a 7:00 game. We're at Hus. So um and also we have we do I spend a fair amount of time grooming the turf. We have rubber pellets that I'm constantly using the broom to try to feed into that pitch that spot you're talking about where the softball pitches kind of into it. So I spend a fair amount of time especially in preparation for the fall season doing some of those repairs and then somebody else is
033talking at the moment. Um, as far as facilities and repairs and budgeting for new ter this and that, uh, we've kind of unofficially spoken a couple times. I spoke think about the same thing. What does, what can and do we do for business sponsorships with Hman Academy, R222, what is allowed, what is not on the MBA, and how can we make an impact on that? Because when you come from the little league world, I've got like 35 banners on my field that are 100 bucks a piece. So, how can we capitalize on something like that as a school and or can we? I don't know the rules. Uh, yes, we can. We We do actually have a sponsorship account down in the gym. You'll notice there's a few banners in there um that people have
034have paid to have put up. I do know your question about an opportunity to potentially add more. I know that the scoreboard out on the turf field has some older ones that are born. The advertisement itself is born. you can't even really bring it home, put it up there originally. So there that's actually something that we've explored, you know, trying to to replace. So there are some opportunities there. Um and yes, we can do that. And yes, there is already a kind of a sponsorship fund, if you will. Sweet. And can anybody join that and get that running with you guys? Because I know somebody Can anyone join? Uh, we can talk. I mean, we can talk about Yeah, I'm sure we can get some get some help. Yeah, I have a question. As far
035as the tariff goes, are we allocating funds each year for the inevitable replacement of it with the excessive wear or are we going to wait until that's the expense? Good question. Comes up every year, not part of the athletic fund, but it is a reserve account. So, we have an athletic facilities reserve account that we put in $150,000 every year from the fund balance into that account for the purpose of the replacement of that turf. Last year, we also added some money in for the resurfacing of the track because that's an athletic facility, but the intent is to continue with that until we have to replace it. And do any other funds go into that for potential other improvements set the softball field that something not the soccer field wager anyone want to reinfor it
036is but historically speaking with the the exception of last year and I can't speak to when I was wasn't here. Um last year was the first year we put anything in addition to the 150,000 I believe when that was set up that was intended just for the the turf. Uh there also is another uh revenue source into that and that's a portion of the gate receipts that we receive. So we usually budget I think it's uh $10,000 for gate receipts but we tend to get more and so we take the excess and put it into that account uh to help offset that as well. And you can use some of the fund balance monies towards that if you want to put more like say they want to put 300,000 away this year. for whatever we
037could use. That's a possibility. Thanks, guys. So, just a few things to They're not questions for you. You welcome them to sit down if you want. Just so people understand um and I'm not doubting anyone's intelligence, but within this particular article, you'll see co-curricular and extracurricular. Well, some people don't truly understand the difference. So, what is the major part of the difference? If I had to sum it up in just a few words, co-curricular tend to be clubs. Clubs that you would see run within a school. Extracurricular tend to be sports. When people think of of sports, they tend to be extracurricular. So, you'll see that breakdown in here, co-curricular versus extracurricular. Um, the uniform funding, uh, Barry did indicate the third rule, uh, that's at the high school. We don't have a sports booster
038at the middle school. So typically what happens when we replace middle school uniforms that does come out of the um uh regular fund general fund unless we have a a team that has done a significant amount of fundraising but we tend not to see fundraising as much for sports at the middle school as we do for the high school. Each high school program has their own dedicated um account that they use for fundraising purposes and that's where the third comes from. Um we do have some added positions. So when you look down on your sheet, you'll see elementary, co-curricular elementary. Elementary also consists of middle school. So oftent times when we think of elementary, we think of just the younger kids, but for the purpose of the budget in this particular article, elementary does also
039include our middle schools. Um, lacrosse field is something that we have talked about for the last few years. Uh, we did purchase that mobile fencing. I'm glad you mentioned that. I think that is going to be a true asset to our program uh and to our facility itself because uh we've heard for the last few years that our lacrosse team had to go elsewhere to play and they didn't truly have a home game. The weight room equipment uh oftentimes we may not think that it comes out of this particular uh article but I will say the weight room equipment by and large when we moved into this school was used already. uh that came from uh an all female gym in Connecticut that had closed down. We got a great deal on it. It was
040already upholstered in purple. So, it worked out really well for us, but we've been here 12 or so years. Uh so, it was time to refurbish or replace some of that. Um that equipment is only so good. Uh it will only last for a certain amount of time. And so, that was a nice investment and the kids have uh used that significantly uh this year. Uh, another thing just to add, uh, Barry did talk about adding the batting cage nets. We also have, uh, nets that are coming into Winterport this year, uh, for our teams that play there. Uh, so that is something that we have done in in this particular year. Uh, the Northern Light contract. So, we have, as you mentioned, two um two full-time athletic trainers. We have a set contract with
041Northern Light. Uh, we used to employ our own athletic trainer and uh, that individual left and Northern Light approached us. It has been a fantastic working relationship with them. The high school has one dedicated athletic trainer that builds a relationship with the students and the athletes uh and is able to help them very very quickly and to get the services that they need in the event that they need it uh down the road. I will say that contract the amount of that contract or the the dollar amount is minimal compared to what you might think. uh to think that we have two full-time uh people dedicated to three schools, that is minimal. And what you will see here is uh $13,650 built into the secondary piece, that's a third. So the other two/3 are in
042the elementary part. Uh so when we're talking roughly $40,000 for two full-time athletic trainers and what they do, uh that is one heck of a deal. Uh and if by chance we have multiple events, Northern Light will another one to us so that all of our events are covered. Uh those tend to happen. Uh the situation might be um hockey and basketball going on at the same time or middle school having a variety of events uh at different areas as well as a high school. So that partnership has been uh great to work with. Um, one thing that was mentioned also, if students have a desire to to have a program, I will say it's not as easy to just say, I want a program and we fund it. That that I don't want that
043impression out there because that's not how it goes. We have a two-year informal process. So, what happens is individuals who have a desire to start a program, they run that program with an adviser, typically a staff member as their adviser for two years. We want them show that it will uh remain feasible. It will the numbers will stay. There is still interest in it because we may have interest in a club or some sort of activity for a year and then all of a sudden those students leave and the interest has has died down. So, we need to make sure that it is sustainable for numbers uh and we can build it into the budget. Once we get to that point of the two-year process, the board would then uh vote on whether to approve
044the funding for that particular um program. So, it's not like they can just uh up and develop a program and have it funded automatically. And I think that's it. I think it's worth a green light on. Okay. Um, as far as uh well, I guess yeah, the uniforms, equipment, and the lacrosse fencing, which lines are those coming out of? So, that was done. That was a summary of what has been done. So the weight room equipment was done, the lacrosse fencing was done last year. Like he was giving a summary of what and the uniforms that was all stuff that we had done in the past, right? Just examples of stuff that we use our budget for, not specific lines going forward. Okay. Those are just some examples of what we would use it for,
045not specific to what we would have for uh this particular 26 year. I mean, obviously we'll have uniforms still. We'll have equipment ch uh replacements. So, I guess I understand what he's asking. Which one of these line items did that does that come out? You know what I'm saying? Is that secondary extracurricular? Yeah. So, uh, depending on which one. So, the uniforms, if it's at the high school, it would be the secondary extracurricular. And as a matter of fact, it would go even further into equipment. There's an equipment line under that. If it's the middle school, then it would be tagged to one of those. So, this is just an in general to market. Correct. Versus a breakdown of correct where everything go, right? Yep. And um so my other question is is uh he
046had a date numbers on this. Some of these are like damn, you know what I mean? A huge difference between what's budgeted and what so uh I guess for example secondary extracurricular uh the budget number is 719,000 and 491's been used to date. Yeah. and you have a number of stipens that don't usually come out until the end of the season. So any of your spring sports, all of the siphons encompassed in that would come out in June. It's usually the first payroll of June. Um your your uh officials that are within the spring sports, you'd have that coming out every event essentially. Transportation, same thing. by the event. I don't know about the um uh facil if the facility rentals have come out of it yet or not. No, we we still have some
047facility rentals for February and March from winter sports that I just sent out to be paid this week. Actually, we're still paying the tail end of some winter sports bills and basically have a third of our year left with spring sports. All right. Thank you. Is there anything identified in this article that could potentially benefit from funds from the uh nothing that stands out right now because a lot of it deals with just the yeartoyear supplies, the stipens, uh all the equipment. Uh there is nothing major to my I'm looking at Barry right now. There's nothing major like a a sports fence or uh replacement of weight room equipment at this point that we have we've talked about. Now, could something happen between now and the end of the school year? Uh an example, if
048one of the batting uh bat stop screenings gets ruined for safety reasons, we would have to replace it. That could be something that come out of there. Now, just for I just want to clarify, could you identify what fund balance could be used for in respect to athletics. I know obviously capital reserve is there anything else that could possib for the athletic piece it's for the turf replacement. So it would not be beneficial to use any unallocated fund balance dollars for something you're going to have every single year. So, if we're looking to put unallocated money towards stipens, as an example, that would not be fiscally responsible because, you know, you're going to end up with that every single year. Things such as the replacement of the turf, replacement of major equipment, those are the
049types of things that we would use. The batting cages would be another one. Uh if we needed a new pitching machine for baseball, softball, those are the types of things that you would want to utilize that uh fund balance for. Have has RS22 identified like is there a fiveyear capital plan 10 year capital plan that is identified to replace those things that could be pulled from that fund into the reserve account for athletic purposes? No, the only thing that's earmarked is the turf at this point and then we've talked in the last couple of years the resurfacing of the tennis court. U but beyond that we have not discussed anything. I may make the recommendation for athletics to possibly look into a capital replacement program that you could use these fund balance for that seems
050to be a my thing. So you're not having to budget for that in the future. It's use for that fund balance right now that you can stick aside. Yeah. So piggy back off that. So there for years to build or develop that lacrosse field or that softball field or any kind of field you're looking to do that would be a good use of those funds towards that because it's a one time way to be done. Awesome. Thanks. Every year I rail against putting away all these money in those reserve funds because due to inflation, you're just throwing away the taxpayers money. When you take and put $150,000 a year into a reserve fund that you're not going to spend for 10, 15 years, by the time you get there, you've lost about 50% of your
051value because inflation. You're far better financially to borrow the money on a bond to pay for it afterwards with cheaper dollars because of inflation. So I know you you brought up about are we putting money away for the field? Well, yes, they are against my advice. Well, I think the alternative argues that I'm not a finance director, so I would turn the finance director that right now there is a large sum of money that is in an unallocated fund balance that is technically out of spec for state law. So, it's just a creative thought to try to move that into a capital replacement program that for identified athletics use to try to bring that fund balance back to where it needs to be. We may large fund though I'm not in favor of throwing it
052away to inflation and and we are within state law they allow you every article four right uh article nine Booth, our facilities director. And before we get to this point, this is the first article that you will see um a larger amount of wages and salary or wages and benefits individuals. So, just so you know, you're going to hear this probably three more times from me uh throughout this process and maybe even another time tonight. Right now we have earmarked because that's what we have from Anthem 17.89% increase for insurance. So when we get down to the personnel the wages and salaries for our personnel under article 9 you're going to see a larger increase than you typically see. Much of that is due in part to the Anthem number. That number should be the
053true number should be coming to us sometime hopefully next week or the week after. usually comes right around the 1 of April. But the initial number that they have given to their trust and and when I say the trust, it's a number of schools throughout the state is a 17.89% increase. I would venture a guess, we will come in less than that, but at the starting point, we have to put that in just to make sure that we are covering all of our bases. So, if we get that number uh between now and the next time we talk, you'll see an adjustment and you'll that adjustment reflected in all the other articles but at least right now it is a 17.89% increase all right so Mr. Booth good evening thank you I'll be broad scope
054today when we to tell you some of the things we're trying to do in the buildings and where our funds are going uh we started three years ago trying to get into a fiveyear plan with equipment with painting facilities cuz when I got here, none of the facilities had been if something got painted, it was because it had to be, not because they were. We're trying to do 20% or better every year in every building to paint. We're actually a little ahead in a couple of buildings. We're doing well with that. A couple things that we're doing in the building, we have we've only brought plumbers into the building to change mixing valves and only mixing valves. We're doing all our repairs. which wasn't the case when I got here. They Nicholls was on speed
055dial as was a couple others and uh that cost was out there. We're we're doing everything in the house. We're trying to we're doing some electrical that we're allowed to by code. Um but we also have a relationship with electric which has been very good. a lot of cases they're just coming over and they're not even building us. Um, some of the things we're going to do this year, we've done lighting upgrades so that all our buildings are now LED. Um, Honeywell had come in and done one the year before I got here, but they had not done everything in every building. We're now upgraded in all our buildings. We do all our construction in our buildings because we have to build rooms. We have to build petitions, whatever it is, we do all that
056in house now. We've done some upgrades in all the schools. So, we're doing really well from a school standpoint. We we don't have I think from a maintenance standpoint, we're doing very, very well. I have a really good team uh staff wise. They're willing to do just about everything. The other thing that we're trying to do is to upgrade equipment. Um we've got in some of our schools it's original and so as that's getting replaced that's part of what we're trying to look at as we replace it we're getting rid of the old stuff which is a positive we're also we've consolidated all our supplies and our tools into one building which is the sheds and that has helped us immensely with our understanding and following our supplies from a custodial We're also green now.
057We weren't we're 100% green from the materials that we use for cleaning. Um, which unless somebody's bringing something in that we don't know about, everything we use or buy is all green. We do again everything in our building. So, we've tried different products. We tried a different we use WV Mason now. We've also used we tried see what products were good or not good, what our if it saved us money, didn't save us money, we're basically back to to WB Mason, but it was an experiment we tried. We didn't lose any money. We just found one was going to be less issue and less maintenance for us to use. So, we're we're doing that. Staffing wise, we're better than we were three years ago, but we're still got a couple open positions. We're interviewing next
058week for position at Wagner. We are 100% card access in all our buildings now and we've re keyed the exterior of all our buildings also. And I've told this story before, but my third week I think I was here. I walked into Rebrook at night and somebody followed me in and unlocked the door and turned around and said, "Well, I don't know you. I'm Bill." I said, "Well, I I live here." I said, "You live here?" "No, I live in H." I said, "Well, you don't work here. Can I have your key?" And he goes, "No, this is my key. You're on getting it back." So, we had keys everywhere. And I I'm not sure if Nick got calls. I got a couple calls when we re key the district because they couldn't get into
059their building anymore. So, I think from a standpoint that stand much safer in the district. We put coating on glass that everybody This is too expensive. We did it in house and came in for I think we were under $12,000 to put coating that when if the glass was ever hit or shot, it wouldn't shatter. It just you'd have to then beat the glass out to get in. We did an experiment last year with it with the police and it works. And so, but I think our buildings are safe. We got cameras up now so we can see just about in the house and exterior. So, those are all the little things we're doing. We've also done some we've done some things last year. We irrigated the the track field. We irrigated the soccer field.
060We irrigated Wagner field. Um, which saves us money from the water district, but it also produces a better product in the field. So, that's been that's been good. We placed the south wall on the football field. We were able to do that one from above. The one on the east side we can't do. So that's another reason we need to put a little more money in because we have to do that when we resurface the turf. We're going to have to tear that deal up because the wall is disintegrating collapsing. So it's just a matter of time. So about the same time we do the turf that portion. We talked about it last year, but I had a price of $90,000 to remove the bleachers so that we could get in there to do it
061without getting onto the turf. We both had little about that. I wasn't pay 90,000 for somebody to remove turf so we can get in wall. But so we're also doing all our flooring now with uh we're tearing up floors and replacing floors. So that's part of our During the summer, we have cleaning teams, painting teams, and flooring teams. And if you want to come and work with us for a week, I'd love to have you come in so you can see what my team are. We work really, really hard. Not to sound redundant, but is there anything identified for that fun? So, we are using right now some for the Weatherbe project that was done last year. Um, we had we've been talking about the roof replacement. Uh that could be something we put in
062this year. That is part of our list that we have uh started last year. And then obviously, Bill had just mentioned the wall. Um while we have the turf part in there, we don't have the wall. Uh we're not we haven't added extra for the wall purpose. From a playground standpoint, we we we're repairing what we can, but we do all of the chips that we put in. We made a prek playground area this year. It worked out pretty well underneath the canopy. Um, I guess as far as fund balance, I'm just going to throw this out there. Um, the town of Hampton is also getting ready to redo all our sidewalks around the four mile square. And it was mentioned this past Monday at a meeting with DOT about the uh short stretch of
063sidewalk that goes from I think the parking lot over to the old crosswalk to the old academy. that there are residents of town that like to park and walk walk in circles off of the flow of traffic and that one I guess is in a state of disrepair. It's probably not used often by students, but yeah, I don't even does it belong to us. I'm not sure. I know that it used to be used when the old we were in the old academy football. But we even eliminated the lights the flashing yellow at that point because it's not used anymore. Yep. I think DOT might be considering putting crosswalk signals back in there. And like I said, as far as the residents walking and being out of the flow of traffic, that little stretch of
064sidewalk was requested that we can work together to get that get that back up to ADA compliance that would allows that we got to do. I mean this this year's frost picked us down from Reed Brook that off because I I think if I hadn't we would have lost in there. So that's dug up April break. We've got potholes that I hadn't seen before and now back and some of the potholes I had are back. We got a couple projects too to do. So this is the year I've got vacuum all our bas it was cheaper to do that than it was to keep receding and doing everything. So some I know the plowing guys hate it but it saves us if money is earmarked from the fund balance that come in does that offset
065this budget just looking at for instance say when you guys get to that point and you want to use hypothetically the fund balance for new furniture could that that line item. Yes. I will say though, I mean that's a good question because we spoke um about furniture and also equipment needs. So what we're seeing right now is we are going to have to replace a lot in this building um units u the heating HVAC units. So we're finding that we're going to have to replace a lot of those. Uh and then within other schools we have a handful of things. the intent of the uh fund balance. We were talking about using some of it for that purpose, put that into the capital reserve, but yet keep the equipment in this part or the furniture,
066excuse me, in this part. But there's nothing to say we couldn't take the furniture out and put it into the reserve. But we do have a plan for um units to put some in for the purpose of replacing those. How many uh how many guys you got working? I've got custodial. I have 21 and I have one fulltime maintenance person. She just started with us this year. And then I have two retired gentlemen about 20 hours a week. I've got another gentleman. He'll come in do grounds work and cuts grass and plows and he's probably about And you perform with custodial staff. I will say he's very fortunate. The staff I don't feel the staff is big enough quite honestly. Uh especially when we get into situations like replacing the flooring. He has the right
067people that can do it. Uhhuh. he's fortunate uh and he also has the skills to do stuff. U that's not always the case. There are often times what we find uh we have individuals that we're hiring that might be good custodians but don't know anything about maintenance or we might have people that are good at maintenance but want nothing to do with cleaning a room. Uh we actually have been fortunate so that we have a good mixture of those individuals and some of which can do all of it. Um but not every like that and we do have some times that we're stretched really thin. Um, and luckily for Bill, he's been able to work it out, but I would say we're pushing the limit with the amount of people uh that we have right
068now. And I would like to think we can get more. Uh, but it's just not there. People are not willing to do it. So, I'm just surprised to hear you call them custodians because I mean, They're everything. I call them facilities people, but their job title is facilities, but they're facilities people. I've got we've got some really good people in the district. They do a heck of a job. Yeah. Yeah. That's a huge blessing to find somebody that can do that and want to learn how to do. So, I mean, Michelle started with us this year. She just to show me so I don't have to ask you again. So she's probably better fixing toilets now than I am taking back apart. So I can trust her and it's it's really neat to watch how
069the rest of the team joins in. And I'm guessing you got some equipment that you're going to replace, tractors or whatever that you're going to upgrade. Is that we upgraded one? Last year we upgraded one lawn more last year. Um we've added two vans last year, but we needed to bring two new bands in because our our vehicles we've got some older vehicles. Um I'm trying to just buy two Siennas because they last longer. They Yeah, the repair is more expensive, but they last so much longer. We've got a couple vehicles that are pushing I'm not sure. I'd like to think that I can find something I can remove at least one of them off the lot by during the summer. It's it's an older vehicle. I think it's a Dodge and it's just it's
070tired. But we've we've done pretty well. We got a plow truck last year. Um We've still got the one ton. We put a salter on that two two years a three years ago. We've got the gator. We put a salter on that two years ago. And that shouldn't say it out loud, but we we put that out. We put the light on and we go out and hit we're hitting more spots on this campus than we ever did by hand. And we're using less salt. our but I I swear to God there are times we could have no salt in it but if we're running that lights going people think we're dropping salt and it's safe it's really great though and we'll go with that but um no I think the campus is safe I
071think again we got people that are willing to to come in and help us and do a good job yeah I think it speaks volumes to you as leadership as well. Um, instilling the learning to these people who want to learn, who may not have the skill, the on the job training that you're doing with them as they go. I mean, that's fantastic. I mean, you're getting more for your dollar out of these guys. They're learning and girls. Um, so that's that's on you. So, be proud of that. I do have a question and I this is my third year the budget and I'm always impressed with everything you guys do and amazing work and that we have it in house. I'm really proud of everything you do. Everything looks great. Um and I know
072the one of the largest increases because of the insurance in here. Is there any other larger projects that are within this budget that are driving some of the other increases Nick that you can highlight? I mean we have the only thing that I can think of is just the cost of um supplies increasing. Um there is one error at the top that architecture architect and engineering one that should not be a deletion. So the revision that you see there will be money there. So I I just I want to point that out because that was an oversight. Which one was it? The first category under uh operations where it says operations of buildings at the top. Oh yes. So the fifth line down the architect and engineering that's listed as nothing written there and and
073there is a plan to have that next time. uh utilities we we have pretty much ready to go the u the fuel propane and number two we actually just finalized today. Uh we're saving money on that. Um which those numbers uh the numbers from today are not reflected in here because we didn't have it at time. We just got the numbers actually this afternoon. Um, and so the next time we meet, you'll see u the utilities go down to reflect the actual cost of what we're paying for will be paying for uh number two in propane, which is when I combine the two, it's about uh 20 to $22,000 savings u from this year to next year, which doesn't usually happen that way. U the furniture is one of the big expenses that is up,
074the 203.49% % that is uh earmarked for about $15,000 per school. Now, it may not necessarily equate to about $15,000 per school, but that's 15,000 earmarked for schools for the replacement of furniture. Most likely that will be I mean it's it's we have a total of six schools, but that's most likely going to be five because the equipment and furniture in this particular school uh student furniture um is fairly new compared to the other schools. So, we're looking at 15,000 for five schools. Uh, the wages obviously supplies and equipment just up there Bill's equipment that he's looking for. A couple things may change, too. Um, we're changing from our pest control to another company. That's going to save us grand a year. I'm trying to work out to change from our current trash to a
075local I'm trying to see if that will become I think that should be a little cheaper. We've changed monitoring companies which is saving us money for burglary and fire. So those aren't refuge number but we will see some trash compactor in there. Three years ago I put in that I one that just kept pushing out. Um, but I still believe that because we get charged for a pick and the weight, whether it's trash or cardboard. And I still believe that if we compacted our own cardboard and then sold it, we're going to save a boatload of money. It's just a matter of where do we put the cardboard compactor and then how do we gather the cardboard when we do it. But those are those are things we can work out. But uh it just
076bothers me that well I mean we changed it we changed they used to pick every week we changed that made it once every three weeks because they wouldn't go four but so every three weeks we get a pick but it saved us $180 a month just by reducing one pick. So, we're we're looking at all those things that we do, but they're not reflected in what you're seeing right now. I I will say too, I having worked with Bill for three years, um he spends money from Article 9 like it's his own money and and really takes a conscious effort looking at the numbers and making sure that he's not overspending. He's always looking for places that he can uh cut money and cut but yet still get the same thing or better than what
077we have. Uh so he has done a really nice job being proactive trying to find um better resources or cheaper resources for the district. If it was outsourced, as far as the trash compactor, the cardboard compactor goes, is that something? What are you What are you guys doing with engineer? I kept that because we can get to the new admin building, we're going to have to have an engineer go with us in front of the planning board for the town. So, I just I wanted to keep that in because I I don't know the cost 45 isn't, but I was number I just said let's just carry it. So, that's just you have a set of plans to take the plan board versus something on a piece of paper. Give it to them. Well, to
078go in front of the planning board, they're going to expect Yeah, they're not going to let me come in. I mean, I put a tie on and everything. I guess on that topic, um I think I heard someone chatting about it a couple weeks ago. Uh was a new location ever found for that so we don't have to tear out the apple orchard or is there no there was never a discussion about a different location the apple orchard would be relocated because the as a matter of fact I think it was you that spoke to the individual but we had u so the the product that we're receiving from the apple trees are not topnotch right now and so the conversation we had with an individual was to either take the current trees in their
079state and relocate them or to replant, start over. And the individual said, "You're better off starting over based on the product that you're receiving right now." That's not to say we have to do that, but we did end up getting a quote for what it would cost to relocate them. Uh, and the relocation will be here at the high school, but I mean, we haven't gone any further with the admin building since the last time we really talked about it. Um, we're still in the process of having conversation with UTC and the modular company. So, we discussed that since last year any other further than what I just said to you. I talked to about it actually recommended if we were going to keep those trees to take to take cuts off of them and
080regrow them. They felt those were mature trees, but they're not that good a tree. One reason is they're too close. Um he when we looked at this area we could space them far enough apart we could run we could run a whole distance down and stagger put in whatever we wanted and the space was there to add to put 16 trees in and then if you wanted you could grow that out if you wanted to but that was that was the recommendation I got. There's also Yeah. How many vehicles do you guys have? I have I have I have 12 I have I have 11 vans and I have a pickup truck that I only use around here. It doesn't go anywhere else. We have the pickup plow and then we have two larger bands.
081One's kitchen. It's considered kitchen dam but we also use it and And we have an older older van that stays only on campus. We don't go off campus. I'm not sure if you give it any consideration. A lot of counties and towns are now moving to lease agreements with drastically reducing their turnover and mainten And then the rest we have four that are permanent at the rest of and the uh staff use those for professional development days. So we don't reimburse for mileage. They just take our time. Waldo County for instance, their sheriff's office just entered into option for their be able to rotate it out on a 5 to seven year annual basis, whatever you want to determine and helps weeds, but it's really maint Not a bunch of retired. Are they new vehicles
082they're getting? Yeah, they're all brand new. 5500 trucks with plows and stuff. They'll in the lease contract and it's in your budget every year. So you don't have to worry about a reserve account to be able to replace a vehicle. Yeah, the vehicles that I think we've only bought a handful of new ones. Many of the ones the district owns are a few thousand miles old. Say that. Um, anything else? I I have just a couple other things unless people have questions for Bill, otherwise we'll let him sit down. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill. Um, one thing to point out, and Bill had mentioned the key situation, the intent is not just to keep people out. It really was a true intent on safety. Oh, yes. because everyone had their own key. Um, and you could
083go in any single weekend into one of our schools and you'd see people that got in because they were issued a key. And just for safety purposes, we didn't feel that was right. Another thing of safety. Um, we have added a significant amount of cameras. As he said, each one of our schools have up-to-date cameras uh that we have access to at any given point. Uh, a web base that we could look at, be at a different and take a look at the cameras and that has really helped significantly and many of the schools that we currently have with cameras now never even had a single camera to begin with. Uh so that has been a huge asset. Another thing that's also part of this article um that people don't tend to think of is
084our SRO uh school resource officer. Um not sure why it's in the maintenance article, but it I mean that's just where it is. So we have two resource officers. Last year, we implemented the second one for uh Winterport for the two schools there. Unfortunately, uh as you may have heard, that individual is no longer there, but Waldo County is certainly working hard to replace that individual. Our hope is that we will have a new person in that position as soon as we can, but the intent is to still continue with our portion of the resource officer down at Whitport uh for next year. as well. We do have the full-time uh resource officer here on this campus um housed out of this particular school uh involved in the town of Hampton, but we do feel
085it's important to have it in the airport as well. And I'm sure Casey would vouch for that. But so that those are just the rest of the things I wanted to touch base on regarding article 9. When you speak about cameras, how many cameras do you have in like the student section parking lot of the exterior parking lots and stuff like that for any kind of hit and run accidents? things like so. Yeah. So, there are a few outdoor uh in on this particular campus. There are a few, but I wouldn't want to go out and say that we have x amount because I I couldn't guarantee that if a person were parked in one respective area that we would guarantee have a camera there, right? Yeah, there is some coverage. There is some. Yes.
086But again, I wouldn't I'm just a park. But I just want to make sure that we had something in that area because I know that can be a problem for being kids in a parking lot when things I I can't say that the whole parking lot is visible, but there are some cameras that may show portions of a parking lot. No other questions. Those are the articles for us to go through. All right. Motion to Got it.