001I know. Good morning. Now it's 9 o' >> Okay. >> It's now 9:00 a.m. >> I will now call The first budget workshop to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Before I hand this over to Superintendent White, I just want to apologize if I get up and leave before the end of the meeting. Uh we have tickets to go root for the Huskies playing Villanova big game today. It's also um coaches versus cancer. So that all of the dancers will be wearing pins in honor of someone fighting cancer. Charlotte, my daughter, is on the team and she'll be wearing a pin in honor
002of Mary Lynn Gagnen today. So, anyone who wants to join our cheering for the Huskies, log on or watch the game. Okay. So, now with no further items on the agenda, I will turn it over to Miss White. >> Thank you, Chair Ponds. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for those of you who are here in person and online. Appreciate your participation. My name is Iris White. I'm the superintendent for Bristol Public Schools. Welcome to budget workshop number one for the superintendent's proposed budget. I would like to begin by introducing my team from Bristol Public Schools. Starting with Mrs. Mary Hawk, who's our deputy superintendent. She's not able to join us this morning. Mrs. Carly Foron, our chief academic officer. Mrs. Jodie Bond, director of finance. Dr. Amy Martino, director of pupil personnel services. Mr. Joseph
003Grabowski, chief of talent management, and Mr. Jeffrey Telki, director of technology and student database management. Thank you, Jeff, for u manning the zoom today for us. Um, welcome to board of finance, city council members, and of course, Mayor Ellen Zapo Sasu. Thank you for letting us um conduct this meeting in board chambers. And for all Bristol Public School staff who are in person and online, thank you so much for participating. Today's presentation will focus on the budget development process as well as the major drivers responsible for the proposed increase. We hope this presentation will provide you with all the information needed for responsible fiscal decision-making as well as advocacy at the local and state levels. Please note we will open the presentation for questions at the end. My team will take note of the questions
004and we will be prepared to respond to them at the second BOE workshop on Tuesday, February 3rd at six o'c. Thank you. Bristol Public Schools mission to teach and learn with passion and purpose along with the Bristol Board of Ed's goals to secure necessary funding through public and community partnerships, narrow the achievement gap, and hire a quality a high quality and qualified diverse staff and provide a safe learning environment affirms our commitment to support highly effective teaching and leadership in every classroom, school building, and central office department. This budget is not just a financial document. is a reflection of our ongoing commitment to our mission, ensuring that our resources continue to support our values. It reflects a desire to provide our youth with a relevant 21st century learning opportunities and recognizes the key role our
005education system plays in our community. Our mutual goal is to provide our students with the tools they will need to excel and ensure that our community remains a place where all individuals can thrive. So this slide outlines the 2026 2027 budget process. We first of course make sure to update contractual increases. These are applied and positions are rolled to the next year. We forecast employee benefits based on staffing levels and obtained from the actuaries. As in past years, each building administrator and department head prepared a budget to present to myself and the central office team. After budget meetings with administrators, central office reviewed requests to >> I have to hear this, honey. I'm sorry. >> Vendors, worked with vendors and staff to finalize salaries and benefits. We also reviewed current grants to see which items
006might be moved to those sources of funding based on grant funding requirements. Bristol Public Schools 2526 enrollment. As of October 1st, 2025, there were 7,597 students enrolled in Bristol Public Schools in our classrooms. Additionally, it's important to note our fiscal responsibility towards other resident students, which includes 274 students attending magnet schools, three students attending open choice schools, 198 students attending vocational agricultural boag and technical schools, and 53 students attending parochial schools. The charts you see on the screen were taken from the CSD public ed site website and show our demographics through last school year. We'll just stop on this slide just for a little bit of time to people an opportunity. Bristol Public Schools demographics. This is a percentage enrolled by race from 2022 through 2026. Special education free and reduced and multilingual learners as
007of October 1st, 2025. Although Bristol is a community eligibility program often uh referred to as C district, I believe it is important to clarify our current standing regarding this eligibility. The C provides an alternative approach for offering school meals in local educational agencies, LEAs, and schools in lowincome areas. Instead of collecting individual household applications for free and reduced price meals, the C allows schools that predominantly serve lowincome children to offer free nutritious school meals to all students through the National School Lunch Program, NSLP, and School Breakfast Program, SBP. The C uses information from other programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, and Temporary Family Assistance, TFA. This includes students who are deemed categorically eligible based on criteria like SNAP, TAFF, or homelessness. My proposed 2026 2027 budget of 152,365,000 reflects an 11.17 increase over
008last year's budget. This proposal underscores the need for additional resources to address the team's best plans to accelerate teaching and learning in the 2627 school year. The overall general budget requests amounts to 152,365,000. This amount does not reflect the grant funding also used to support Bristol public schools. However, it is important to note that the share covered by the city of Bristol taxpayers is significantly lower totaling 110,639,686. This reduction is made possible through a substantial contribution of 41,657,314 from the state of Connecticut, which provides essential funding to support the city's educational financial needs. As budgets are created well in advance, many variables can affect a proposed budget. I will go over the ones that can have the greatest impact. Resignations and retirements can lead to unexpected costs and savings as new staff are anticipated to
009come in at lower salary, but retirees may receive severance payments. Our budget is calculated based on student enrollment per pupil expense, also known as PPE. Changes can affect funding levels. Increased enrollment may require additional resources, while decrease enrollment could lead to budget cuts or reallocations. Students with bilingual or special education needs may require additional resources such as additional specialized teachers or support staff, student specific materials or programs. Changes in the number of students requiring these special services can impact the district's overall budget. Most outplacement agencies have not yet set their tuition rates for fiscal year 27 and these costs are likely to increase postbudget development. The transportation contract is still unknown and we will see an increase in liability insurance due to the increased square footage of our new northeast middle school building. That amount
010is still pending from our insurance agent 2026 27 budget drivers. The following items represent the primary drivers which include both fixed costs and program improvements. Number one, human capital is the most significant investment in our students learning. 62.43% of the total budget increase is comprised of salaries and benefits. The wage line increased to $84,97,848 of the total budget of $152,365,000 or 55.96% of the 11.19% increase. The information both represents a partial description of this increase. Please note all salaries increases do include the new position as which we will review later in the presentation. The second year of the Bristol Federation of Teachers three-year union contract amounts to an increase of 3,897,1 1767, a 6.46% increase with step movement. Administrative line increased $700,9389, 11.17% of the movement of three deans to assistant principles. and we are
011now reflecting the full salary packages for all administrators per contractual obligation. Increases related to special education tuition and services amount to $1,913,000. This equates to an increase of 1,643,000 for tuition and $270,000 for our contracted professional technical services. Regular transportation and fuel costs rise by 453,370 or 5%. The first student contract expires on June 30th, 2026 and is currently out for request for proposals. We should know the final cost later this winter. Building and site improvements and equipment is increasing by 1,533,048. Last year, these line items were almost cut completely and we have facility technology repairs and upgrades that must be addressed this year. A more complete breakdown of the line items is later in the presentation. This slide presents the same information budget drivers as the previous slide rounded to the tens of thousands.
012The funding request to the state for estimated excess cost reimbursement is based on the amount we received in excess costs in the previous year. For fiscal year 2026, our reimbursement rate is 72.72% which was used for the budget forecast in fiscal year 2027. superintendent's proposed budget by character 2026 2027. The following slides will highlight special education and I believe I will now turn it over to Dr. Amy Martino, director of people personal services. >> Thank you, Superintendent White. Uh the special education budget does have such an impact on the overall board of education budget. So a call out of some of the details is critical. To start in Bristol, pupil personnel services oversees more than just the traditional in district special education programming. As you can see highlighted here, the department is responsible for ensuring
013services for students with disabilities who require IEPs, but also section 504 needs both within Bristol public schools, but also for students who attend out of district placements, private schools, magnet schools, and the pupil personnel service department coordinates and provides services for students who are hospitalized, residentially placed, and or state placed. The department is also responsible to extend uh these services to to nursing services, specialized and adaptive equipment, related services, transportation, and extended school year among many of the other mandated requirements. In Connecticut, special education funding uh has been quite on topic. Um it is dependent upon a combination of local, state and federal resources and it is shaped by mandates and reimbursement structures. School districts as you know are legally required to identify and serve students with disabilities under both federal law IDA and state
014statute. Meaning service m services must be tailored to individualized needs and they cannot be optional. At the state level, Connecticut has traditionally relied on reimbursement, the reimbursement model rather than a dedicated funding formula, which you might actually see in other states. Uh Connecticut has started to talk about moving towards that model, but it has yet to do so. The primary way that the state helps districts cover cost is through the excess cost grant, which Superintendent White just spoke about a moment ago. It is partially reimbursing districts when the cost of educating students with significant needs exceed a threshold based upon the district's a average pupil p per pupil expenditure. Recent legislative changes have introduced a new special education expansion development, also called the seed grant, SEED, and that's designed to help provide more predictable formulabased
015support tied to the education cost share ECE uh ECS formula. However, as we've talked about in previous years, only a fraction of the fully calculated seed funding has been appropriated so far, meaning that districts receive less than 20% of what the fully funded grant would provide. The state has increased appropriations to special education funding in recent budgets. We've seen this through supplemental funding being added, through legislative actions, and increases to the excess cost grant. Um, however, most districts still face significant underfunded costs that must be covered locally. So, Bristol is not alone. Many districts are seeing these same patterns. On the federal side, Connecticut receives IDA, Individuals with Disability Education Act, funds that help support special education programming. These funds supplement state and local dollars, but they do not fully cover the cost of mandated
016services. Overall special education funding, particularly in Connecticut, continues to be significant and growing budget pressures, particularly for local districts. Across Connecticut, special education has experienced significant and sustained changes over the recent years. Districts statewide are serving students with increased complex needs while operating within a funding structure that relies heavily on local resources to meet the state and federal mandates. Although the state does provide support through mechanisms such as the excess cost grant, um we still see significant impacts to the overall budget. As a result, districts are required to absorb a growing share of special education costs within their local budgets. I think we've seen this year-over-year. At the same time, statewide trends including increased identification of students requiring special education services, rising tuition costs, transportation costs, and outofd placements uh coupled with staffing shortages in
017specialized role and expanding service requirements have placed additional pressures on the school system. These challenges are not unique to any one district, but reflect a broader shift in the scope, intensity, and cost that special education services are impacting across the state of Connecticut. This slide here is actually taken from a presentation delivered at the state department of education. At the state level, special education costs continue to grow at a pace that exceeds available funding. Over the past five years, uncapped excess cost claims have increased by approximately 70%. Reflecting both the rising numbers of high need students and the increasing intensity and cost of services to meet the students needs. During the same period, however, the state appropriated for excess costs have also increased by 57%. So uh this number has grown from 141 million to
018221 million. While this recom while this represents a significant investment on the state's end it does not keep pace with the growing number of need. Hence why Bristol has seen uh a reduced impact to the money that we receive from excess cost. If you look on this slide again, the state uh is is clear that in the projected years, if we look ahead, claims are projected to continue to increase roughly by $30 million per year over the next two years. By fiscal year 27, total reimbursement requests are expected to exceed 360 million. This would require 140 million more than the amount appropriated for the 2025 year, underscoring the growing gap between what is mandated and what is being provided. I highlight this point because as we are in the 70 range of receiving excess costs
019this year, knowing that the state is forecasting significant increases to what is being asked, the pot of money that is going to be used to support all district is going to decrease the the what each district receives. This uh much of the information here uh comes from the EFS and excess cost secure website. As you can see the spreadsheet above, Bristol's special education costs have risen significantly, but the amount of funding we receive from the state of Connecticut has not. Even though state reimbursement is lower than expected, we are obligated by law to provide the services that students require. Give you a moment to Okay, thank you. This was also provided by the state of Connecticut when they were showing um the impact of the excess cost amounts. Um so as you can see here,
020this is specific to the Bristol public schools. Uh Bristol Board of Education is continuing to face a significant fiscal pressure from two converging factors. First, the expiration of the one-time ESSER ARP funds created a funding cliff which we've spoken about in previous years, leaving ongoing costs that now not must be absorbed by the general operating budget. At the same time, actual year-over-year special education expenditures have grown faster than what has been allocated and what we can catch up with. These are, as we mentioned, are driven by the re the rising tuition costs, the increased needs of our student services as well as state reimbursement shortfalls. Together, these trends are creating a widening gap between available funding and actual costs. As you look here, if you pull the data from what was actually spent in special
021education department versus what was allocated to special education services, you'll see that right off the bat there was a $6 million gap. As you project um without increased funding, that gap will continue to grow. Another key factor that is impacting the budget and I know that there's many uh members who have asked about well we've heard that our student numbers are declining so we should talk about that. Um there are changes in student populations. So while the overall enrollment across the state this is state of Connecticut data here and in Bristol has gradually been declining the number of students identified for special education and the needs of those students has risen. Not only are more students requiring support, but the complexity and the intensity of their needs have also increased, driving higher costs for specialized
022instruction, therapy, transportation, related services, nursing care, equipment, etc. These trends mean that even as our total student population shrink, you've also heard me say the numbers aren't don't say everything. Um, the resources required to meet those lowering numbers has increased. And that is a pretty particular thing that we need to pay attention to. This next slide is so how does this relate specific to our Bristol public schools? The last slide was the state of Connecticut. Now we're talking about Bristol. So Bristol has actualized the same pattern seen across the state. Our student overall numbers of enrollment are declining. However, our students with disabilities are increasing and again the needs of those students are impacted significantly. This chart is just another uh another data point to show how we have actualized those over the years. So
023while the number of outofd district placements have remained relatively stable with a some level of an increase the costs have drastically increased and we've seen those year-over-year. Um, at the same time, the complexity intensity of our student needs have grown substantially, placing greater demands on our relatively stagnant numbers of programs and staff over the same period. So, the chart on the right highlights the number of students who are requiring significant levels of programming in our in district uh programs and despite our programs uh growing uh to some level, we are not meeting we are not catching up with the needs of our students. Um so we're kind of bottlenecking at particular places. So um Commissioner Tagriello at one point said it was really important to highlight like of our programs we are heading uh over
02435 different program classes. How many available seats do we have in these programs because you know we want to know like how many students are being served. The program capacity um data here reveals that we have a significant strain on our elementary and high school resources. The most critical bottleneck is our autism lead program and as you can see we are over capacity we quite substantially. Um we also see that we have other needs at the high school level that our current programming cannot meet. While you will see on here that we have some seats available in, for example, our Excel elementary school or our learning centers at the middle school, when you look at the numbers, the most seats available is four. So given the number of students that we have moving in every
025single year and the fluidity throughout the year, we start the year off already at capacity and have significant issues with being able to program for students. The reason I highlight this is it will speak to why we have particular requests in our budget. So I do know that Superintendent White will be calling out the positions for the entire board of education, but I do think that given the data reviewed, um it's important to to highlight what pupil Personnel Services is requesting. So as you can see, Dean of Pupil Personnel Services, five special education teachers for the intention of increasing programs, another board certified behavior analyst, an occupational therapist, and the addition of paras. Just to note, we have added 12 additional PAR educators since July 1st simply given the needs of the students coming in
026with either one-to-one programming needs or students who have demonstrated that level of need. and we're trying to prevent needing to go to out of district programming. Um, and then additional adding in a high school department chair. So folks, I know that there might be some questions related to this and I know we'll answer them next time, but the next slide does highlight some of the why. So as you can see here, having two BCBAs who are overseeing almost 40 programs in the district is almost unheard of. It is very challenging for two BCBAs to oversee the level of programming needs that we have. Similarly, our occupational therapists, if you look at the state model of what we should be employing, the state would actually recommend that we have 12 OT's. We have 4.5. So asking
027for one doesn't even come close to what the state is requesting. However, it gets us closer to what we believe we need. Similarly, um on the administrative end, um you may know that we have one administrator that oversees all of out of district programming. That person conducts over 600 PPTs and writes 600 IEPs on their own. I have another supervisor that oversees preK and all the administrative pieces on their own as well. And that leaves five administrators overseeing the 14 schools and over 40 programs, which at this point has become quite challenging. So when we look at, you know, if we invest in special education, how does that help us? Not only are we required to do so by law, but there also is a benefit. If you look at the bottom portion of this
028slide here, you'll see that on average for every class that we open, it saves the district about $500,000. And that does not include transportation. That's each year. So every time we're sending students out because we can't program for them in district, we are actually contributing to the increase in cost of special education. Um the other caveat here is we have not been able to actualize any revenue in the district because we have no capacity to support other towns. I think many of you have heard me say that I have related towns that call me all the time. They have my cell and they're like, "Hey, can we please have a seat in your blank program?" I'm like, "Unfortunately, I don't have a seat to offer you." Um, but we have other towns that are willing
029to pay uh tuition to our programs as well as taking care of their own transportation, but unfortunately because we're so maxed out, we're not able to. So, that also is another reason why we truly should invest further in special education. I know that was a lot said and I'm going to turn it back to Superintendent White for the rest of the budget presentation. >> Thank you, Dr. Martino. excellent job painting a picture of the need in special education and where we are and where we need to go forward. So, thank you very much for that. Back to the 2026 27 budget drivers. The following slides will focus on bargaining unit and salary obligations as budget drivers. Please remember again all salary costs and FTE counts include the new position requests. We want to continue to
030be transparent about our staff count. During the past couple of years, seasonal additional supplemental staffing positions, um, usually tutoring, stipens, coaches, paid student interns, adult education, family resource center employees, learner engagement attendance program, LEAP employees that are vacant were reported in the FTE count. However, these vacancies may or may not be filled as it depends on student need and funding source. We are therefore not reporting these types of vacancies in our count. However, any vacancy that we anticipate filling is reported in the FTE count. In the current school year, we are regularly reviewing all positions and reconciling to Munis. In this staffing slide, all bodies and positions and anticipated true vacancies are reported. The count also includes all of our fiscical year 27 staffing requests which are reviewed in the upcoming slides. So here is
031a list of requested additional certified staff. This slide provides a list of requested additional certified staffing for the school year along with the anticipated funding source. These include 0.5 library media specialists at BAS, one district-wide TE-sau teacher, three dean of students, one in the office of people personnel services, and one each at Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern, 4.5 math ISTs, these are instructional support teachers at the K through five level, five special education teachers, one psychologist, two special education department chairs. These are stipended positions. Next, requested additional non-certified staffing. This slide provides a list of requested additional non-certified staffing for the 202627 school year. In technology, we require an additional IT specialist and we are looking to restore the student database administrator position. So on this slide, you'll see um where we've noted with an
032asterisk any positions that we are looking to restore that may have not been filled um in the last budget cycle. We are looking to add an armed service security officer to the security staff to support our K through5 classrooms. We are requested requesting 14 two perk K through five school teaching assistance. Since BAS does not have additional support for the principal, we would like to add a behavioral interventional specialists. We are looking to restore a secretarial C position five at Bristol Central and 0.5 at BE. We are looking to add a library clerk at the elementary level. In facilities, we are requesting three additional custodians and would like to restore other positions. Two uh like to restore two custodial positions for a total of five. We are also looking to restore a skilled maintenance position
033in this case the HVAC technician. And as Dr. Martino shared as special education, we are asking for the positions of occupational therapist, BCBA, and 10 PAR educators. The next slide represents contractual increases including the new restored position s. These figures do not include any salaries allocated to grants salaries non-certified. This slide represents all contractual obligations plus the requested additional and restored non-certified positions that were noted on an earlier slide. We are historically under budgeted for educational substitutes. While we likely will require an additional appropriation for subs in the fiscal year 26, we significantly increase our fiscal year 27 budget requests by $1,514,53. This includes teacher, par educator, and secretarial substitutes. In fiscal year 26, facing a substitute shortage, we also increase our daily rates to be more competit competitive with surrounding towns. The fiscal year
03427 is reflective of this increase. The salary budget drivers are shown above. Employee benefits. Contractual obligations are the driver on the increases in employee benefits. Our actuarial consulting staff at Lockton, in line with our commitment to transparency, estimates our insurance costs to increase by 4.85% over last year. As of this budget development, we will receive no additional help from the insurance reserve this year. Social social security and Medicare increases as salaries increase. Overall, we see a 1 million16,41 increase in employee benefits. OTO allowance that you see is contractual for union 2267, $150 per employee. Professional technical services. Our budgetary increase is a reflection of the importance of professional technical services. General maintenance, technology expenses, and athletic expense increases are the driving forces behind these increases. These budgets were deeply cut last year, and we would
035like to get them back to an appropriate level of funding. Other services include property and liability insurance where we have budgeted an anticipated annual increase. Software costs continue to increase due to the need for updated and more secure software solutions. Maintenance, supplies, services, and utilities. This slide details our estimate of utilities, including electricity, water, and gas based on the contracted amount of services for the city of Bristol. It also includes the supplies necessary to maintain our building facilities such as cleaning products, repair materials, and office supplies. Overall utilities, maintenance, supplies, and services showed increase of $1,443,48. Due to budget cuts last year, many repairs and maintenance were put on hold and need to be addressed this year. You'll see an increase in the lease line. This represents the lease and charges for the prek rental
036at Giamati facility. These costs were unbudgeted in fiscal year 2026. Student transportation. As we approach the final year of the first student contract, it's crucial to note that we will be going out to bid in the next fiscal year. This transition may significantly impact our upcoming transportation budget. These budget numbers are preliminary and will change once we have our finalized transportation contract. The special education bid we received for fiscal year 2025 had a substantial increase with some rides costing over 50% more. tuition to other facilities. Even with the addition of 6.6 million in special education funding at fiscal year 26, outplacement costs continue to exceed the budget. Overall, we have increased the amount of funding and expenditures to other schools by 1,643,000 in fiscal year 27. Educational supplies and materials. This slide presents the budgeted
037amounts for instructional supplies as requested by our principles and department leaders. Please note the budget for educational supplies and materials remains a very small percentage, 2% of the overall budget, equipment and capital outlay, building and site improvements following a zero budget in fiscal year 26. In fiscal year 27, we are proposing citywide HVAC repairs, including firebox inspection and rebuild, six:00 replacement, move away from FCC licensed product and increased fees at Mountain View and Ivy, press box plaza deck roof area place permanent repair at Bristol Eastern High School. in the equipment line for facilities and operation and maintenance of plant. We are requesting annual maintenance contracts are $9,500 paid from this account. Green Hills and West Bristol HVAC repairs, motor vehicle repairs, electric motor repairs, elevator repairs, roof repairs, fire alarm sprinkler repairs, sound system clock
038repairs, gym floor, carpet replacement repairs, ceiling tile repairs, doors and hardware repairs, floor tile replacement repairs, basketball poles and standards, gym door service and repairs, bleacher repairs, locker repair, repairs, ceiling replacement, blackboard, whiteboard replacement, window repairs, fence repairs, toilet partition repairs, security camera fob repairs, and environmental safety repairs. That was a long list. We invite people who want to see these spaces. We're our schools are open, so if you want to see these spaces, we're very open to having folks come and see for themselves. M mowers, lawn tractors, floor washers, burnishers, vacuums, carpet extractors, cafe tables, chairs, miscellaneous custodial replies, jer carts, platform trucks, desk chair movers, carpet replacement, technology with significant cuts to the technology budget last year. This year we are requesting $3,800 replacement of unrepairable document cameras. $350,000 at the BOE purchasing
039new student Chromebooks as needed for replacing end of life CBS and broken Chromebooks. 40,000 for Chromebook charging carts for fine arts for music. Replacement of keyboards at Bristol Center and Bristol Eastern. Replacement of risers at Bristol Center at Bristol Eastern. Replacement of district-owned in instruments as needed in art. Repair and maintenance of district-owned art equipment, film inspection, wheels, cameras, dark room, etc. Anticipated revenue, building rental and tuition anticipated revenue are based upon the fiscal year projected actuals. Medicaid anticipated revenue remains flat with this year's budget and excess cost. Anticipated revenue is based on this year's billing submissions and the state's reimbursement rate of 72.72%. And this slide is a repeat of my proposed budget for 2026 2027. This concludes my budget presentation. We will now invite you to ask questions which we will collect and
040then review at our second budget workshop on Tuesday, February 4th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the BOE auditorium. Would you like to open up for questions? Yes. Anyone who has any questions at this time, you're welcome to come up to the podium. Yes. Is it on? There it is. Um Marie O'Brien, I'm your leazison from the board of finance to the board of education and I want to first thank you again for this special session. Uh very educational uh not as educational as presentations in the past. So, I've noted to some folks in the audience who are new to the board of finance in particular that this is like one-third to one quarter the number of slides you've presented to us in the past. And uh I want to thank you in particular and
041Superintendent White um for the more financial and budget focus of this presentation because that's of course the uh responsibility of the board of finance not only for your department, major part of city government uh and our community's well-being as well as all the students under your care and their parents and families. but um really important in setting a trend across what we do for the city and that means um the the obvious parallels with other city departments. So thank you again for that. I also want to thank you for identifying the sources of data on some of these slides because in the past we have had verification issues and obviously uh we've had some controversy uh between city authorities and your authorities as to whether the data was real or not and what year the
042data was real. um that this doesn't mean that I in particular or other members of the board of finance are not interested in the educational impact of these numbers of this budget. So the impact on the curricula, the reduction in the number of topics, the uh impact on classes, number of classes, class sizes or the choices that our students have in this really remarkable community and city that we live in that allows our students to attend post K12 education all around the world and qualify for that. May I say uh w scholarships and other wonderful financial aid gifted to them because of what you've been able to provide for them and what they've learned through your system. Finally, um and I'll start with my first question. I do want to know and this is the
043board of finances um responsibility to be aware. We are not allowed to take action but we should be aware of what your policy parameters are with respect to any of the these items excuse me I'm sorry or any of the questions that um I'm going to pose. So on slide three, you talk about budget meetings held with principles and department heads. And just out of curiosity, would love to know what those principles used initially as an increase to their budgets and then what you were able to reduce. Under five, you performed depth cost analyses. uh again would like to know uh what your principles determined were those cost analyses and what was the reduction. So in in um in a nutshell very much interested in knowing how your administrators at your unit levels are taking
044responsibility for managing some of the costs. They're closer to the front lines. I'd like to know how effective are they in um on on page on slide four. Thank you for giving us the numbers the count of students that are in the K12 system as well as those that you are fiscally responsible for. So because in the past we've had capacity issue number questions including those um by the board of finance with regard to and I still haven't figured this one out bond rating related to this number. I want to verify that the number of students you're responsible for, so your capacity number is 8,322. And on slide four, what I did was summed up 7,597 students and then all the others except for the 503 students attending parochial schools for which I believe you
045were only responsible for transportation. I may not I may be incorrect on that. Okay, please bear with me on page 10, the variables, the outplace tuition costs. You have spoken in the past about ways in which you have negotiated contracts or agreements with providers that are out of town and would like to know how successful you have been with negotiating those clauses. what those might be. Again, we don't we're not trying I'm not interested in the sorts of things that you as members of the board of ed are responsible for. I'm interested only as a member of the board of finance in understanding how I might be able to help provide the right kind of pressure to increase the percentage savings for you in that way in those contracted uh in those contracts and agreements.
046and um actually was the percentage increase for the in-house versus the outsourced services and for Dr. Martino as we go into some of the special ed that'll relate to a couple of other questions I have. But the next slide, slide number 11 under equipment and capital outlay. I'm sure all of this is for items that are less than 20 years old or have less than a 20-year lifetime, but obvious question any way we can move any of that off to the capital budget at all. Uh slide number 12, professional and technical services under budget drivers. In the past, you've talked about progress that you're making towards hiring in-house talent for these services. And although on another slide, uh, you do identify at least $500,000 in savings potential for especially the special ed, I don't know
047that we've ever actually seen, uh, the a true cost benefit analysis of how you have achieved that. Would love to be able to look to look at that at least for the last year or two years. uh because obviously that $500,000 savings in sp in special ed is not a savings. That just goes to defay the costs increase for the next year. So, as a board of finance, we really need to see how well and what kinds of items you were using to negotiate and increase the investment in in-house services in Bristol services to bring that cost down, especially as we get into uh some of what you're projecting, and that is bringing students in from other districts to be able to raise the revenue for you to take advantage of the investment in these
048professional in-house services and pro and programs. Slide 13 again, uh, capital and technology, $2 million. Any way any of that can be moved off to the capital budget under athletics and student activities. On one of your first slides, uh, in fact, maybe even been your mission slide, but certainly another slide, you talk about community partnerships, and I know that obviously in athletics and student activities, there's a great potential in this community to do a lot more fundraising and to ask students, businesses, and others that want to partner with you to step up to the plate and offer uh either savings or of or finances for some of those costs. Slide 19. You have envisioned that the excess cost reimbursement is not 91%. Uh you've said since December 1st of 2025, the state's excess cost reimbursement
049has been 72.72 72.72%. What is it likely to be? I think we need to know probably the you've spoken with the controller and maybe the uh chairman of the board of finance and possibly even the mayor. I know you've had a meeting a couple of weeks ago, but certainly I'd like to know what is that likely to be. It's not going to be the 91% that that you are due, but what is that likely to be? And the sooner we know that the better. Slide 22, the Bristol public schools enrollment data. again going to controversy and personal uh personal discretion or lack of discretion that individuals have had both on the board of ed and the board of finance in talking about numbers. I want to be sure that on slide 22 that 8,400 number
050as the start in 2019 of public schools enrollment is an applesto apples comparison with slide four on slide uh 25 position proposal for the 27 budget. I think we've asked this in the past and uh I think you did move on this. I understand why you may not this year but I need to ask the question the dean of students PPEs and the five special education teachers to increase programs. Why the administrative position? Uh I think in the past I've understood that an administrative position is necessary for not just managing but also gives you the dual capability because oftentimes they have teaching certificates to then jump up in and be a substitute but would love a little more clarity on that. Uh if you need five special education teachers, why aren't you asking for six?
051Why are you asking for a dean? And I think in on another slide you're asking for two or three other deans. Um, on that same slide, uh, there's a bullet point, add PARS to the budget. We added 12 in the fall of 25 to meet student needs and IEPs received from other districts. Question is, what control do you have over those IEPs that come from other districts? You know, we know that we have had some wonderful influx of families from other states specifically to Bristol because of our special education program and its excellence. But uh I'm interested in knowing what other kinds of controls do we have on that. Slide 26 I think goes there a couple of questions there but that I've referenced that that's the uh Dr. Martino that's the investing in capacity.
052I think we really need to understand that a little bit more. we understand were mandated uh on the special ed costs, but would really like to see if there's anything else in there that we could be smart about utilizing to the benefit of all of you so that many more of our dollars are going to continue to enhance the excellent education for for the regular for the general education program as well as for the other things that you want to do. Um, slide 29, the requested additional certified staffing. I've addressed some of those, the three dean of students, the department chair, why administrative at this point. Slide 30, you're asking for 10 more pair of professionals. That's in addition to the 12 that you added. I noted last year from attending a number of your
053meetings that you were way down on pair of professionals. In fact, you would cut them. Does this bring you up to the full total that you need? Uh, also on page 30, although it is an alliance grant, I was at your meeting when you passed a policy change, a reinforced one with regard to an armed security officer that is your head of security and you were relying on a partnership with the Bristol Police Department. But why now a district-wide armed security officer and what does that lead to? And uh again because of my earlier policy question I want to understand how does that differ from the policy that you voted in a few months back. Slide 33 you identified total FTEES as 181.39. Again to my earlier comments, I just want to know know that
054all these numbers sort of jive because we've had quite a bit of controversy on the board of finance side members uh and enough enough minutes wasted in discussion over which numbers are real. But I have to say from this presentation today it uh looks as though you have paired down the uh confusion on some of these numbers. And on slide 35, employee benefits, Superintendent White, I think I heard you say that under the medical prescription, which is going up by $822,000, that there there is no this does not reflect anything coming out of that healthcare insurance reserve fund. Slide 36, software licensing. That's a million dollars, a million $100,000 increase. How has this been impacted by the so-called partnership with the city of Bristol on IT? Why is this not being a shared IT cost
055or should it be a shared IT cost? And if it's not, why not? Same with uh slide 37, electricity, solar generation, $2 million, $2.1 million increase. Why is this not through some kind of a city partnership or already or is it already? And that's the additional cost. And then I did note on 37 the $1.4 million added to the expense side of your budget because of the jamati lease. Slide 38. Given what the governor has recently done in the legislature on homelessness and expenses for homeless programs and individuals in the state that four that $440,000 expense for homeless transportation, is there any state aid in that or can that be spiked out? You know, it might be nice to be able to have our Bristol delegation deliver something financially to the the uh to the
056homeless population as our mayor and our city council and others in town work to help. And then probably slide 39, that tuition to other facilities. This is what I was talking about in terms of analysis of the ROI, the return on investment. uh references back to slide 26 and all of that special ed data that you gave us. How can we really be a lot smarter and frankly a lot more aggressive on how we are contracting with some of these services especially if we're going to invest in more personnel and more more facility improvements and uh and other items. So that's it. I think that's enough. But thank you very much. I truly appreciate the opportunity to not only sit here front row seat to your presentation, the amount of effort you put into getting
057this down into as skinny a package for us to look at, but also paying attention to my questions. I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Chair Pon apologizes that she needed to leave um as she had mentioned previously, but I'd like to invite any other members um of the audience to come up and ask questions. Okay. So, with that, um, I'd like to invite commissioners to invite, uh, excuse me, to ask questions to be considered for the next budget presentation. >> I'll be putting some questions together and sending them in in writing. >> Very good. Thank you. I do have some questions that I can pose now. And of course, um, members of the public and commissioners are invited after this presentation to send in questions for consideration. Actually, what I think
058I'll do first, um, Chair Ponds did provide some, um, items to be presented for consideration. So, we wanted to emphasize that the Board of Education's budget challenges are not temporary, but structural. And for several years, delayed appropriations, one-time grants, and the use of BOE reserves have hidden the true cost of running our schools, excuse me, and shifted financial risk onto the district. When permanent expenses are paid with temporary money, the problem doesn't go away. It rolls forward. A clear example is special education. In fiscal year 202425, the district faced a 6.26 26 million special education deficit. About 2.8 million was covered with temporary COVID funds and 3.47 million came from a city supplemental appropriation because part of that cost was paid with one-time dollars. Future budgets did not reflect the real ongoing costs of serving
059students. That leads directly to where we are today. For fiscal year 202526, the BOE budget was described as a 5% increase, but the actual net increase was only about $447,000. This increase does not address mandatory expenses, including a $3.3 million in benefit increases, a $2.66 66 million increase in transportation and $4.7 million in salaries and contractual obligations and a nearly 20% increase in special education. Altogether, that's more than 11 million in new costs with only $447,000 in new funding. No school system can absorb that without impacting programs, staffing, or services to students. Education is also treated differently than other city departments. Other departments do not carry benefit costs in their operating budget, but the BOE does. That limits our ability to use budget increases for classrooms and student support. What we're asking for is a
060a fair and sustainable approach, one where education participates in the same centralized benefits structure as other departments and where budgets reflect real costs upfront. Our goal is stability, transparency, and protecting the resources our students need to succeed. Now, I'd like to reference some of my notes. Um, special education costs have been referenced in many places in the budget, as it should be, because we know that it accounts for a substantial need and a substantial ask. And we know that those needs can be fluid based on um where we start off in the in the year, but also as we get students coming in um and students leaving the district. I think what is also notable is needs for students um with a 504 plan. Those students also require specialized services. And I wonder if the
061district would consider identifying students with 504 needs because those students are getting um specialized services. Understanding that those needs are also fluid, we might have students with long-term 504 plans, but we also have students with short-term 504 plans. For example, a student might break his or her leg and that requires um transportation. So those are examples of um temporary needs, but it isn't a cost. it is a cost to the district even if it's a temporary transportation need. Um so by identifying students with 504 plans, it helps the public see that there are costs both anticipated through yearly 504 plans but unanticipated costs like those temporary 504 plans um or 504 needs. Um and the breaking of the leg was just one example of a temporary transportation cost, but we know that some of those
062um other temporary needs might be outside of transportation. Um so I was wondering if we may be able to look at 504 students with 504 needs. I wanted to also ask that is the 11.17% increase um truly reflective what of what the school district needs in order to um provide a free and appropriate public education to students? Is it is that ask um what the district believes is needed to to educate students um for the year? Thank you for your patience. I didn't have any stickies. Um, okay. Um, so if we're looking at slide 18, uh, my question is with the, uh, uncapped excess cost numbers and knowing that, um, uncapped excess cost claims have grown by 70% over the last five years and that really as a district we're not getting the full um,
063we weren't we're not getting our full asks. Does this mean that we won't get the reimbursement that we a that we're actually requesting if we're not being fully funded through the asks of excess cost grants? Um I thought the I wanted to really emphasize that it was a very powerful slide on slide 20 to show that gap of 6.5 million. Um I and I I also want to say that I feel um based on my experience on this board that this was probably one of the most powerful presentations that we've had. Um while I love as an educator hearing all of the other information um that has been historically presented uh because it gives you a snapshot of what the district is doing um and each department is doing really amazing things. This streamlined the
064budget asks. It really streamlined it to um hit the key points to to really show um what is happening budget budget-wise in our district. So, I thought that this is a very powerful presentation. Um, and I it really shows how we're being impacted by rising costs, increased needs, and um, it shows the gap, especially in special education, that growing gap, the special educa education budget versus the actual expenditures and what we're receiving in support from the state. Uh, it it was a very powerful slide. I only had just a few more. Many of them are were around the 504 plans. Um but on slide 23, the cost of outofd district placement and some of this um Marie O'Brien emphasized when we look at our capacity to serve students um in district um versus our ability
065to um send out or not our ability but what we're doing we're outplacing students. If we're be able to build our capacity in district, what would be the cost savings? what would be the impact on um our budget and then also the the cost of outof district placement 504 versus students who are identified as special education. Do we have a high number of students who are being outplaced with 504 plans and what are the costs to the district for that? on the next slide. Um, and again pursuant to what Maria O'Brien asked, is there a cost analysis showing the impacts of providing services in district versus what it would cost for out of district and what would it cost? What would be the cost savings to build capacity and what do we think the cost
066would be for us to actually build capacity to provide more in district in district services? and the following uh slide, the five special education teachers to increase those programs. Did do we have an idea of which programs we would be able to increase with those five special education teachers? Um and are we experiencing challenges with hiring pareducators and retaining PARA educators? If so, have have we determined why? I know that one strategy was to increase to be more commiserate with what's happening with with uh districts in our DUR, but also districts um throughout throughout Connecticut because if if I were looking for um parah positions or substitute teacher positions, I would um want to maximize payment uh my return. So if we can look there to to determine this was specific to paras on this
067slide, but it also speaks to substitute teachers which I know we have increased their rate Um and contractually we increased the Paris rate but are we still seeing um issues with hiring and retaining? In the following slide, where else have we staffed um where else are we looking to increase staffing based on recommendations? This is specific to the OT staffing deficit. Are there other areas where it's being recommended to have a higher number of staffing especially in these specialized like OT some of those um other like specialized I keep using specialized because it requires a very specific um certification occupational therapists physical therapists school psychologists are there areas where we're underst staffed and we want to increase staffing um based on either what we know we need in the district or based on what's being
068recommended through the state department of education. Fly 29 requested additional certified staffing. I guess my question here and it speaks to my uh pre previous comment. Were we being conservative and careful in this request or does this just bring us back to where we were before losing so many valuable staffing positions last year? So I do see for example math ISTs um at our elementary level or our elementary schools we don't have um math ISTs except for our um K8 at least that was my understanding um when it requested um information previously about uh ISTs at some of the elementary schools. So these K to5 splits are we being conservative or do which I would understand if we were being conservative. However, I want us to meet the needs. I want us to meet the
069needs. So asking for um four and a half full-time positions for math ISTs. Is that conservative or is that really what we need to meet the need? Um, I I would understand if we had here's our conservative number, but here's where we have to fully meet the needs because I know that the needs are high from talking to teachers and actually having anecdotal experience um in an elementary school with um students who are struggling with math and there's no math IST and we're trying to do SRBI and all of these other interventions to determine if students need special education support or so I I just want to make sure that I understand if this ask is meeting the need or is it being conservative because we're being careful because we're in a budget deficit. And
070that goes for more than one position. It just goes for all of the positions, but I asked of that one specifically. Slide 33. I asked it earlier, but is there a cost to the district when we can't get the substitute teachers that we need on a daily basis? And what is the, you know, what is that analysis? Where do we see uh that gap between having the right number of special of of uh substitutes on on staff versus we don't and now this is the cost as a result because we know there are contractual implications. Um and and why can't we get subs? Is it because of the um the the rate that we're paying? I think we've kind of come to a a conclusion there. Marie asked some really good questions that actually I
071had written down as well. So, no need to be redundant there. I think that's it for now. Um, do I see that we have another question on the floor? >> Um, yes. Along the lines of Oh, sorry. >> Anybody else talking? >> Okay, my turn. >> You have the floor. Um along the lines of something that Maria just said, um I noticed that there's no ask for any restoration of um uh we do have ISTs for literacy, but no, um ask for restoration of literacy coaches in the district and kind of um uh off the record conversations that I've had with some um staff and principles is that it's they're seeing a real impact on how students are served. And my other my concern is we saw some recent data in a subcommittee meeting about
072test scores and um last year's test scores were not stellar and they need to be improved and are are we going to not be able to put um enough into our services for the students to increase that? I would hate to see that we get into a deeper deeper hole in the area of literacy um not being more important than math equally. Um, and I know there's, you know, there's got to be talk about what the, uh, what the jobs of those literacy coaches are to make sure that they are, um, you know, overseeing and that they're actually impacting the uh, student achievement. Um, one thing that I find that's very impactful that has been this year is the support for brand new teachers in a building. Um, we have a very uh, having been
073a teacher, we have a I know that we have very rigorous um, curriculum for um, teachers to uh, use to teach students. And I feel like if a if a teacher is kind of lost and doesn't have a way other than with their peers to share bre best practice and to have some coaching and modeling when you have an effective literacy coach you you get a lot of that and and I've known that for previous years at Hubble that it was very impactful and you know what are we if we ask for that in some capacity. I don't know whether it's part-time literacy coaches or or back to full-time, but uh I think that it's going to be a disservice. And what are we going to do later? Are we going to blame a drop?
074I mean, hopefully not, but are we going to blame the another drop on literacy scores on what? on not having enough funding for literacy coaches to both train teachers to support best practices even among um longtime teachers to have those uh collab uh huddles that we have in Bristol to support them. um you know maybe increasing the the number of times they meet with students directly because I know a concern was well how how much do they meet with students directly but obviously coaching um teachers and supporting them um filters down to that. So, it's just a concern and I and I'm I'm guessing too that a lot of it has to do with our our previous year's, you know, rush to cut things we were asking for in the budget by the previous um
075city administration and rethinking that that should we have put something I mean, I'm not in the interest of adding more and more dollars to this budget, but if it's something that's really a real need, then we need to think about that and I don't think we can go without more discussion on that. >> Um, so Commissioner Tedesco, I think you hit some really solid key points there. And to round that out, is is the question are we considering adding any of the loss positions such as coaches, so literacy coaches, um, adding them back into the budget. And that I think supports my question is are we being conservative with these asks? Are we or are we aware that there are key positions that we lost or the need for additional positions that we're not asking
076for yet because of concerns with the budget and that went exactly to my point of the math ISTs. We have literacy ISTs at the elementary level but not math. And I see there that we're adding that. um are those numbers conservative or are they representative of the need and now if we can build in your ask um are we considering bringing in some of the lost positions because we know that they've had a compounded effect on test scores and I think we're going to continue to see the impact of not having these key positions not only in test scores which is real quantitative data that we're going to have but based on feedback from educators on the front line. Um, which we are hearing from. Um, would that be a fair assessment? >> Yes. Um,
077I think you're you're saying exactly what I'm what I'm saying. Um, okay. >> And just as a quick example because I know that those scores reflect last year when um we did have literacy coaches. However, I can speak to, you know, the the school that I was at where we didn't really we lost a literacy coach the previous year. Um, we tried hiring another one and circumstances prevented that from working out. So pretty much the whole year we were without a literacy coach and our scores um not I'm not saying it was a directly influenced but whatever the um reason was there was a decrease in our achievement and I just have to wonder if because we were lacking in that last year you know were we if we were the only school without a
078coach were we the worst drop in scores. I don't know. I I don't have all the data, but it surprised me to see the scores from Hubble because we've always been a fairly decent achieving school. So, that kind of that kind of stuff bothers me because once again, we're in this for the um for our students. So, maybe can we look at some of the data that we have to determine if there are other asks that we might be looking at? um based on test scores, you know, both the quantitative and qualitative components of the feedback and data that we have. The I think the other piece is if we are able to add in some positions, for example, adding back some coaches, do we need to look at contract functional job descriptions to build
079in maybe a student um a student contact component? because we know that in in many of the schools where the coaches were working directly with students um not having those positions has been extremely impactful. Um and so that might be when we had to cut when we had to make the really hard decisions last year to cut positions. We didn't want to cut any positions, but we did we had to make difficult decisions to cut positions that didn't have as much direct student contact. And coaches came up a lot in that conversation. Um, even though there were discussions about the amount of student contact that coaches were having. We know many coaches were working directly with students. Um but then there was that contractual component or that the responsibilities in the functional job descriptions that
080spoke to the amount of contact where we know that the ISTs that was most of their um their charge was working directly with students. Um so thank you. Those were excellent questions. Jill, >> good morning. I first wanted to say thank you so much. I really found that this presentation was very focused on the need to know information. Um, and I personally found that really really helpful. Um, I also just wanted to bring attention to slide 26. I really appreciated the presentation and the information around investing in capacity. Um I feel that early intervention is not only invaluable to the students but being able to provide that quality effective early intervention can also reduce costs in the future and I think that it's important that we keep the investing in capacity um at the forefront
081of our conversations. Um, in addition, I think by investing in capacity, it can also reduce reduce turnover, which leads to gaps in service, which leads to increased costs um and inconsistencies for our students in need of those services. Um, so I just wanted to really bring some attention to that and say thank you for including this particular slide. Um, I found it really helpful and I think it's really, really important. >> Thank you very much. Any other questions? >> I just have um one question about the seed grant. So, we were talking about special education funding and that um is hoping to provide more predictable funding um yet we've only received about less than 20%. Um and I know in our finance meeting it was mentioned that it's a yearly grant for three years. So,
082I guess my question just stems around will that after that three years, will there be um another seed grant um or are we hiring and making programs building off of that grant now, but we might not have that funding after three years? And maybe that's just learning more about that grant, but that was just my question. Excellent question. Anything else? Superintendent White, do you have anything else to add before we close? >> Again, just want to say thank you and everyone participating in person and online for your interest. Um board members, including board of finance, city council, board of education members, if you have questions after reviewing the materials, um we ask that you please submit to um email them to myself and Jod Bond, director of finance. um by no later than this coming
083Thursday morning. And we'll make sure to include those responses in our um February 3rd second budget workshop presentation. And I know because of the storm, everybody's wondering what I'm going to call school Monday. So we've um our primary um mode of communication is uh parent square. So we're testing all the parent square to make sure everyone's getting the alerts, the text alerts. Um, so make sure you have your phones handy tomorrow afternoon because certainly I want to make the call as quickly as possible and I hope everyone stays warm and safe in the storm. So thank you everyone. >> Thank you. We will be waiting for that notice. We were also able to confirm that there were no questions online. So okay, I just wanted to get that um verification confirmation. Um well, thank you
084again to everyone who participated and just you being here um shows how invested you are in ensuring that our students get a high quality education. Um and we will do that collaboratively. Feel very I feel really um positive. There's a lot of great energy around these budget conversations this year and um I appreciate all who are a part of those conversations. Um without further ado, wishing you all a very safe and warm weekend and we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. You know who people were waiting to talk about?