COOP Annual District Meeting 3/19/2026

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 2026 annual meeting of the Hollis/Brookline Cooperative School District. My name is Drew Mason, and I am the district moderator. I call this meeting to order. I invite all who are able to 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, with liberty and justice for all. I invite all who are able to stand for our national anthem performed by volunteer members of the Hollis/Brookline High School Flute Ensemble directed by director Chaz Rogers. >> [applause] >> Ladies, that was utterly delightful. Thank you so much. Hollis Brookline High School Flute Ensemble. I >> [applause] >> I invite all serving members of our armed

002forces and all veterans to stand and be recognized. >> [applause] [applause] >> Thank you for your service. I invite School Board Chair Holly Babcock to introduce the members of the School Board. >> How's that? Well, good evening. Thank you for joining us tonight. I'm Holly Derlo Babcock. I'm the Hollis-Brookline Cooperative School Board Chair. I'm joined tonight by Kate Stoll, our Vice Chair, Rob Mann, Cindy Van Konet, Amy Kellner, and Tom Solon. Beth Williams unfortunately had a family situation and is not able to join us tonight. Thank you. >> I invite Budget Committee Chair Darlene Mann to introduce members of the Budget Committee. >> Good evening. My name is Darlene Mann and I serve as the chair of the Hollis-Brookline Cooperative School District Budget Committee. I'd like to introduce the members of the Budget Committee this

003evening who are Dave Blinn. I can't even read from a distance. Um, our vice chair, Raul Blanchette. I can't see the order that they're sitting in. Uh, Tony Stinezie, Tom Enright. Melanie Leveille. Dave Blinn. And our um, school board representative, uh, Tom Solon. I got everybody. Brian Raider. Including Brian Raider from Brookline. Thank you. >> I invite SAU 41 Superintendent Gina Burgoff to introduce introduce SAU 41 and school staff. >> Good evening. Over the past two plus decades, I've been your neighbor, your chemistry teacher, your board member, your assistant superintendent, but tonight I am proud to stand before you as a superintendent of schools in SAU 41. >> [applause] >> Here with me, we have Dr. Dorothy Flaherty, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. We have Lauren De Gennaro, assistant superintendent of student services. We

004have Lance Flamino, business administrator. We have Jake Hess, principal of Hollis/Brookline High School. We have Yolanda Flamino, assistant principal of the high school. We have Tracy Lane, assistant principal at the high school. We have Cole Eaton, assistant principal at the high school. We have Patrick West, principal of Hollis/Brookline Middle School. We have Ali Bushman, assistant principal at the middle school, and Catherine Ransom, student services administrator at the middle school. >> [applause] >> Helping us tonight are district council Allison Miniutti. District clerk Diane Levitt. Supervisors of the checklist and ballot clerks are along the back wall for both towns and assistants and counters are in the back corner. There are four fire exits in this room, two up here at the front and two in the back. The fire department would like to remind you to

005please keep these exits clear. If you are at home and want to watch the the video, you can get it from SAU41.org. Click on resources and then board meetings on demand and pick pick the meeting. That in sometime after the meeting closes, the video of that meeting will be available at the same place. On SAU41.org, there are a number of documents related to this meeting. It's a little bit deep in the webs and in the chain. So, the first thing is a white pop-up and you click on the two and then click on view annual meeting documents and then you click on Hollis Brookline Co-op and then way down on the right hand side, you click on FY27 budget. In that in that page, there are a bunch of documents, but the key ones are

006copy of the Co-op warrant and the MS-27. MS-27 is the official budget as submitted to the Department of Revenue Administration and also copies of this presentation. You may find from the from the seats that it is almost diff- impossible to read the slides. So, if you download the presentation to your device, um you can follow on on your tablet. We had an election last week. Um for the uh Brookline results, Kate Stahl was the winner for school board. Uh and David Blinn was the winner for the budget committee. On the Hollis side, Cin- Cindy Van Conant was the winner for the school board, and Raul Blanchette was the winner for the budget committee. >> [applause] >> Also on the ballot was a charter petition warrant article, um and the vote was yes in favor 429,

007no 5 1,519. It failed. This is the last meeting in the cycle of the local meetings and elections. I feel kind of the same way. Um for Brookliners, they still have to finish their annual meeting, which will be Saturday, the 28th, uh 9:00 a.m. at CSDA. Next September, we are chartered to have a primary election, and the general election will be in November. The reason I point out the statewide primary, it is because as a primary election, we vote by party. If you are a member of one of the two parties or are undeclared and you are satisfied with that choice, you need do nothing at this time. If you aren't sure of your party affiliation or you forgot to revert to undeclared after the last primary, you need to act. You can view the

008latest checklist at your town hall or your clerk's office or you can look up your registration at sos.nh.gov. If you ask nicely, the clerks at the back of the room may let you look at the checklists that are here. The deadline for changing party party affiliation in time for the primary is Tuesday, June 2nd. We are here tonight to discuss and act on the subjects brought forward on the warrant by your school board. To do so effectively, we need rules which provide order and structure to the business of the meeting. Rules must be set for each meeting so folks how to how to folks understand how to get things done. I will propose a set of rules and then ask the voters to adopt them. Once adopted adopted, it takes a 2/3 vote to change

009them. As a reminder, Robert's Rules is only a guide. They do not control how this meeting is run. You can find a copy of my rules in the yellow section of your town report on page uh 213 in the Hollis report and 224 in the Brookline report. In the next several slides, I will touch on a few topics. If you wish to speak, come up to the microphone and show your voting card. Please wait to be recognized by the moderator. This gym is not designed as a meeting hall, so it's sometimes very difficult to hear. I would hazard to say that the acoustics here are terrible. Announce your name and address clearly so the clerk can hear it. You may speak only once until all other first-time speakers have a chance. Your time is limited

010to 2 minutes and cannot be yielded or transferred to someone else. Proposers of amendments to articles may have 5 minutes and sponsors of petition articles may have 10. When you get close to your time limit, I will give you a signal. When you're out of time, I will give you a second signal. Be germane and if possible, be brief. Avoid repeating points that have already been made. Above all, be courteous. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Speakers are limited to registered voters from Brookline or Hollis, members of the SAU or school administration for uh for presentations or to answer questions and district council Minutelli. Other people may speak if allowed by a majority vote of the voters in this room. Disruptive behavior or personal attacks are out of line, out of bounds, and

011out of order. To clarify, speaking without being recognized or failing to stop when your time has run out, are examples of disruptive behavior. The moderator is responsible for keeping the meeting on track and maintaining order. If things get out of hand, the moderator has various tools to work with. The purpose of a point of order is to bring to the moderator's attention that the meeting rules are not being followed. If you raise a point of order, please be clear about which rule or rules are not being followed. The motion can also be used to appeal a ruling of the moderator. It cannot be used to ask a question, nor make a motion. Those can only be done when the voter has the floor. If you wish to raise a point of order, come to the

012front of the line at the microphone. If you wish to make an amendment, you may do so when it's your turn at the podium. If the amendment is longer than 10 words, write it down legibly and bring it to me after you propose it. Dollar amendments must be made in final amounts, not percentages, nor amounts to be added or subtracted. Amendments to the operating budget only affect the budget bottom line unless you are completely zeroing out a line item. Otherwise, the school board has the authority to move funds around as they believe are in the best interests of the school district. If a line item is zeroed out, the school board may not spend any funds on that line item. A motion to end debate may be made only after waiting for your turn in

013line. It may not be made after making a speech, and I will not accept it if there has not been sufficient debate in my opinion. For example, the first speaker after discussion is opened should not try to end debate. The motion is not debatable and requires a 2/3 vote to pass. If the motion passes, debate ends immediately. All voters still in line should return to their seats. At that time, the item under discussion may be voted on. A The purpose of a motion to table is to pause consideration of an article. It is not debatable and cannot be made until the article is brought to the floor for discussion. The motion requires only a simple majority. The article can be taken off the table by again by a simple majority vote. However, it can be

014restricted from reconsideration, which leaves the article on the table. A motion to reconsider is useful and appropriate if new information comes to light or spending approaches the 10% rule limit. It allows the voters to discuss the matter further and vote again. The motion can only be made by a person who voted on the prevailing side. It is debatable and requires only a simple majority to pass. A motion to restrict reconsideration does not block reconsideration of a previous motion of article. If passed, it requires that any subsequent reconsideration of the vote cannot occur for at least 7 days. The motion can be applied to any previously completed and declared vote. The motion is not debatable and is in order at any time the voter has the floor. Articles will be taken up in the order listed

015in the warrant. All articles must be acted upon before the meeting can be dissolved. Acted upon does not mean that the article receives a final vote. It simply means that the meeting takes some clear action on the article. For example, tabling an article is sufficient. The article The order that articles are discussed can be changed by 2/3 vote of the members present. My copy of Robert's Rules is more than an inch thick. It is simply not possible in a few slides to take into account all of the possible motions and situations that can occur. The moderator has the responsibility for making rulings on such matters as they come up. However, this is your meeting. State law gives the voters at the meeting the ability to appeal and overrule any interpretation of the rules that the

016moderator may make. If you disagree with the ruling, come to the microphone and raise a point of order, being clear on what you are appealing. A second is required. The meeting then has the opportunity to discuss and vote on the ruling. An appeal is successful by a simple majority vote. If the ruling is a direct application of one of the meeting rules, you need to suspend or change the rules rather than make an appeal. That action requires a 2/3 vote. So, I put it to you. Shall the school district vote to adopt the rules for this meeting as proposed by the moderator? Moved by me. Seconded by? Darlene Mann. Is there any discussion on the rules? Voting card. Thank you. Miss Hicks. >> Uh Pam Hicks, 8 Maple Knoll Drive. I would like to make

017a motion to amend the rules to require a 2/3 vote to table an item. >> The motion is to require The motion is to require a 2/3 vote in order to table. >> Simple I apologize. I was given wrong instructions. It was to make it a simple majority to move it from Do you want to do it All right. I apologize. This is terrible. Is this correct? We would like to make a motion to move it from a simple majority to 2/3 to table an item. >> What is your name, ma'am? >> Carla Ramirez, North Pepperell. >> Carla Ramirez? >> Carla. >> Ramirez. North Pepperell. >> Okay. Is there a second? Mr. Perry. Is there discussion on the proposed amendment to the rules? See Mr. Butow. >> I I guess I have a question for

018the proposer of the amendment of the rules. Is this only applying to putting something on the table and not a vote to take it off so that a vote to take it off the table would only require a majority vote? >> Fair question. >> This is a vote for both. Mr. Perry, are you good with that? Okay. So, the motion is to change the requirements to lay something on the table or taking it off the table from a simple majority to 2/3. Mr. Pinciaro. >> Thank you, Aaron Pinciaro. Calls uh Dale Road no. >> No what? You're you're you're opposed. >> No no for the for the motion that was made for the three 2/3 vote. No. >> Thank you. Is there other discussion on the motion to amend the article? >> I'm in support

019of >> You are who? >> Uh sorry. Uh Mike Julian, North Pepper Road, Hollis. Thank you, sir. Um I am in support of moving to 2/3 majority to table bills because there are several important articles of warrant that often get tabled and not discussed and it's critical that we um if we're not going to discuss them here, uh a 2/3 majority decides that as opposed to simple. Thank you. >> Is there further discussion on the amendment to the rules? Seeing none, if you are in favor of amending the rules to raise the requirement for table and take off the table from a simple majority to 2/3, please raise your cards. If you are opposed, please raise your cards. I think that's pretty close. So, we are going to have to count it. >> Are you

020ready? Okay. If you are in favor of the amendment, please raise your cards. Are we good? Okay, you may put your cards down. All those opposed to the rule change, please raise your cards. Raise them high. >> Thank you. You can put them down. The vote is yes, 159. No, 160. The amendment The amendment fails. >> Mr. Moderator, I want to challenge the vote under RSA 40:4-b. >> Are you You're asking for a revote. >> Revote secret ballot vote. >> You're going to need um five people. >> Raise your hand. Got seven. >> Okay. We are having a secret ballot vote on this item. Let's give the counters a a minute or two to get ready. Are you folks ready? Melinda, are you ready? Okay. At this point, you will vote yes if you are

021with in favor of the of the changing the requirements to table, and no if you want the rules as written. The polls are now open. Yes, it's the purple ballot. >> Mhm. >> Has everyone voted who wishes to vote? If not, it's time to to to get your vote in. I don't see anybody brushing to the ballot box. I There's All right. There's a couple people who are still need to vote. Okay. Can we close the voting yet? Hearing no objection, we're closing the this vote and the counters may count. Moving on, Mr. Julian. >> It's It's not Okay. Mike Julian, North Pepperell Road. I would like to make a movement to change the rules for uh moving of a warrant article up in the priority order from requiring a 2/3 vote to a simple

022majority. It's to take an article out of order to going from a 2/3 majority as it currently states to a simple majority. That is my petition movement. >> Moved by Mr. Julian. Is there a second? Mr. Power. Is there discussion on this motion to amend the rules? >> Carol Royce, South Merrimack Road, Hollis. Petition warrant articles are not more important than the board business and I know that this is why a lot of people want to get to those, but it is vital that we do not move them above the board business. So, I believe that the 2/3 vote needs to stand to keep that order. Thank you. >> You need to let other people you've had your chance. You can speak again after the lines. You didn't speak to your motion at the time.

023Mr. Mr. Garuba. Just Okay. >> So, moving up articles has typically been done uh with the concept that it would save time to move up certain articles that require the ballot box to be opened for an hour. Uh I do want to point out that because we have a traditional town meeting, we have options for how we address the warrant articles at this meeting. Uh the motion was made as a means potentially to save time for those articles that require a 1-hour ballot vote. But along those lines, we have two other options uh which would actually likely be faster. Uh we could either motion to table articles as we're currently sorting out the vote on or we could motion to postpone indefinitely. And in either case, that would eliminate the need for the ballot box

024to be opened for an additional hour. Um I do want to note that the motion to postpone indefinitely would allow debate where a motion to table does not. So, that's one of the benefits of our traditional town meeting. Thank you. >> Ms. Power. >> Diane Power, Brookline. As the chairman of the House Municipal and County Government Committee, I'd like, Mr. Moderator, for you to know that all warrant articles have equal footing on the warrant. It's just but the manner by which they are placed on the warrant. So, I would like to the meeting to, um, understand that no warrant article is more important or less important than another. They all are equal as they appear on the warrant. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. >> Go ahead, Mr. Julian. >> Mike Julian, North Pepperell Road. My apologies.

025Last meeting we couldn't speak and petition. This one I should have listened to the rules better. The reason why I proposed a warrant article is I believe it should be up to the people to determine what is most important. Yes, they are all important, including board business, but it should be up to the people and what they prioritize. Several times, including issues that are important to the populace, such as SB2, these get tabled. Therefore, we want to live with the results, but let the people decide what it what articles we vote on and what priority order. Thank you. I support it. >> [applause] >> Yes, sir. >> Joe Park, Reed Lane. Um, I'm personally here to vote for SB2. I've got a sick wife that I had to drag here with two kids to be

026able to vote on SB2. >> seem germane to the the motion on the table. >> I understand, but I'm trying to explain why I am in favor of what Mike Julian just posed. I am here to vote for SB2. All my friends and families and everybody that I know in town, we're all here to vote for SB2. That being article number eight and the notion that somehow that all these articles are equivalent citizens. I don't I don't buy that one bit, and I speak that with someone who's got two in-laws that have both spent their entire life in public education. So, I have the utmost respect for admins, and I understand everything on the warrant articles. Obviously, very very important, but SP2 is, I think, what a majority of the people here, if I can

027say that, probably hear a vote. So, let's put that to a vote. >> [applause] >> Ms. St. John. >> Michelle St. John, um Orchard Drive, Hollis. Um I'm here to be I'm here because I want to do the order of business first. These folks have been working to present our budget. As a taxpayer, I'm concerned about the operating budget. As a taxpayer, I'm concerned about the SAU budget, and people have a right to put in petition warrant articles, but they go at the back. Thank you. I'm vote no. >> Ms. Shanley. >> Mary Ann Shanley, uh Buttonwood Drive in Hollis. If these petition articles are so important they need to be moved up, they probably should have been a subject taken up by the boards themselves, and reviewed and discussed over the whole year, and

028minutes being able to be reviewed by taxpayers. Um Some of these petitions get voted down every year because we don't want them, and they keep coming up. This is just a whole new level of shenanigans. >> [applause] >> Yes, sir. >> Byron Loveland, Tody Bock Road. Motion to end debate. >> [laughter] >> Okay. The rules at this instant are it requires a 2/3 vote to end debate. So, if you are in favor of ending debate, please raise your card. I know, but the Uh thank you. If you're opposed. All right, the debate is done. So, if you're in favor of this amendment to the rules, which would allow um moving of article the order of articles by a majority vote, then you would vote yes. If you are opposed, you would leave the rules as

029they are, which would require 2/3. All those in favor of the amendment, please raise your cards. Thank you. All opposed. And the amendment fails. >> I demand a recount. That was closer than expected for you to make that call like that. >> You you can't see what I can see. It was not close. >> Mr. Mr. Moderator, I I I request a secret ballot recount on this vote. >> I I would rather we go for a counted vote rather than a secret ballot vote, if you're willing. >> We will do a counted ballot and see how it goes, and if that's not if it's close, then we might go to the secret ballot. >> Okay. So, Melinda, >> We will have five people. >> we need counters. >> Five people. >> Point of order. >>

030Mr. Garuba. >> Are we doing a recount or are we doing another secret ballot? >> At the moment, we are doing a recount. But, we're going to count it rather than rely on the moderator's eye. >> Thank you. >> But, you can put down um Elizabeth Hamilton. She was in the uh camel colored coat. Uh you can put down Diane Power. Uh you can probably put down Dave Perry and Mr. Clark. And this meeting will be over. >> The vote on the amendment to the rules to require um 2/3 to table something. Yes, 159. No, 207. The motion fails. >> [cheering] >> I've been asked to remind people you can only put in one ballot, one for yourself. If your spouse or your friend has given you a ballot, you can't put it in. Um

031now Ma'am, what are you looking to speak to? >> To ask for a change to the rules. >> Okay, well, we're still working on a previous one. >> waiting. >> All right. I need the counters to be ready. All right, the counters are ready. The item you are you are voting on is to change the require the requirement for moving the order of articles from 2/3 to a simple majority. If you are in favor of this change to the rules, please raise your cards. >> Thank you. You can put your cards down. If you are opposed to this change to the rules, please raise your cards. >> This was the first one. >> On this side, you can put your cards down. Thank you. You can put your cards down. And the vote was in

032favor of the amendment, 180, opposed, 187. The article fails. >> Mr. Moderator, I want to do a secret ballot on that. 40 {colon} 4-B. >> All right. Now. >> Point of order? >> What is your point of order, Mr. Garuba? >> Okay, if everyone would turn to page 213 in their book and read rule number 36, "A secret ballot vote must be made in writing by five voters present immediately prior to the vote." So, you cannot turn card votes into secret ballot votes. >> [applause] >> I recognize that that's what my rule says, but my rule doesn't cover everything that's in state law. Counselor. >> Uh RSA 40 {colon} 4-B allows a vote to be questioned or I am writing or orally by seven or more voters present. >> How many? >> Seven. So, I

033need seven people to stand up. You don't count, Eric. You made the motion. I need seven others to stand stand up. >> Mr. Moderator. I'm I move to overrule the moderator. It's written in black and white. I'm sorry, it's written written in black and yellow in everybody's book. I move to overrule. That's It's clear as day. You can't do that. >> It's clear as day. State law allows it. And I don't care >> what the book says. >> Yes, but guess what? >> charge of this meeting. The body is in charge of the meeting. >> State law rules the me the articles in the meeting. And it doesn't matter if my rule what my rules say in the book. State law trumps. Now, I need seven people beside to to stand up, give us their

034names as to who's in favor of a secret ballot on this item. So, I see Ms. Pelka, I see Ms. Barber, I see Eric Power, I see Diane Power, I see Mr. Panchasik. Ma'am, your name? >> Margo Law >> Lawson. And you, sir? Um, I didn't hear. I'll I'll take Sue Hamola cuz I know her name. >> [laughter] >> I I The acoustics here are truly terrible, so All right. So, are you ready for another secret ballot vote? >> Drew, point of order. I have a additional question for the lawyer around the law. >> I'm sorry. >> I have an additional question of for the lawyer around the law that's being stipulated. >> Okay, what is your question, please? >> Well, you stipulated that it was seven people and it could be done at the

035meeting. You did not stipulate whether or not the law associates whether the secret ballot needs to be petitioned before or after the vote results. Does the law stipulate? For the record, Jonathan Fontaine, 42 Ironworks Lane, Hollis. >> It is when any vote other than by ballot declared by the moderator immediately and before any other business is begun be questioned in writing or orally by seven or more. >> Okay, so it can occur after the vote has been declared by >> After he declared it before anything else occurs. And this is different from secret ballot on a motion in advance. >> Yeah, thank you. >> All right, the polls are open on this one. >> Mhm. >> Is there anyone in the room who still needs to vote? I heard one yes. Well, then vote. >>

036All right, the ballot boxes are closed. Voting is done. Who still needs to vote? Raise your hand. I don't see anybody who still needs to vote. Move it along, please. Last voter coming. She can take it. All right. While the counters are counting. Yes, ma'am. >> Is that a bell? Foreign Drive in Hollis. I would just like to ask that the rules be amended so that it when end to debate is called, the people remaining in line get 1 minute to express their opinion. Is that already a rule? >> Currently, the rule says if debate is ended, debate ends. Anybody in line can sit down. Your motion is to change that the the underlined item. If the if the motion to end debate passes, then everybody still in line gets 1 minute. Is that correct?

037>> I I think that in a participatory democracy, people should be allowed to at least have a moment to express their feeling, opinion. Plus, I like it here. I'm hoping we can stay longer. >> Is there a second to this article? Mr. Orlando. Do you wish to speak to your motion? No. Is there discussion of the motion? Yes. >> Um Marsha Cohen from Dow Road. Um I I I'm speaking against this. >> Please speak closer to the mic. >> against this. We've been here almost an hour and half, and we haven't even started the meeting. It's just making the meeting longer and longer and longer. We're never going to get to the school business, which I think is the important business. So, I am going to vote no. >> [applause] >> Yes, sir. >> Uh

038Michael Hens 1 Lanza Lane. Uh I also agree that uh the direct democracy of this is really great, and I love it, but that's what a town hall meeting is. Never ever when we've ceased debate, have I ever thought, "Oh, I don't have enough opinions." So, I would vote against this, please. >> Yes, sir. I Joseph Hartman Mountain Road, Brookline. >> Okay, I can't uh What I hear is one So, say your name slowly and carefully, please. >> Joseph Hartman. >> Thank you. 51 Mountain Road, Brookline. Uh I would be for that motion because when the people get up in line, then they at least expect to have said something. And when the motion gets if it just goes to move and they don't get to speak, then I mean, why would they have a

039you know, they already are expressed their feelings to uh you know, speak on these matters and all this is important. There's a lot of dollars associated with for and against the schools and uh I would want to hear valid opinions. So, thank you. >> Seeing no more discussion, it is time to vote. The motion on the floor is to amend the rules so that if a motion to end debate passes, everybody still in line gets 1 minute to talk. If you're in favor of this article, please raise your cards. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the no's have it. Mr. Bouton. >> I would like to move to end debate on the rules so that we can get on to the business meeting. >> [applause] >> Is there a second? Some face I

040know. Ms. Pack Puck. If you are in favor of amending the rules, I'm sorry, of ending debate on the rules, please raise your card. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise raise your card. Thank you. Debate is ended. Now comes to time to vote on the rules. Actually, we can't because they're still counting. So, instead, I'm going to move forward and invite Superintendent Burksgag uh to talk. >> [applause] >> So, what have we been up to in SAU 41 over the past year? Due to your support at last year's annual meeting, we have been quite busy. At the middle school, we converted from oil to propane and constructed a centralized boiler plant with a new propane boiler system. The before and after is quite impressive. This summer, we're slated to add new ventilation equipment in

041the north wing, including adding ductwork to the science wing. We'll add updated controls for regulation. LED lights will be installed throughout the building. Slated for the summer of 2027, we will add new rooftop units for the south wing where the bulk of the classrooms are located. And an energy recovery ventilator with dehumidification to the gymnasium. All of this was a part of last year's two bond projects. Regarding the solar project, we have successfully safe harbored the project and are slated to be eligible for the 25.5% rebate at completion. You will see solar atop the high school roof by the end of the summer while middle school roof gets replaced. In the summer of 2027, um the complete grid tied system will be mounted on the middle school roof. You might ask, what do you get

042for your tax dollars? How do we measure excellence? It goes far beyond test scores. Yet, we're recognized annually for our strong state test results. We've been recognized once again for being an advanced placement district honor roll for the high number of students taking and excelling in all of our AP tests. Each year, around 75 or more students enroll in dual enrollment courses earning college credit prior to graduating. Each year, we proudly send off an impressive number of graduates to the military, including military academies. In the performing arts, over 20 middle school students are invited to participate in honors band and chorus festivals annually. Our high school students are invited to participate in All New England, Monadnock, All State Modern Ensemble, jazz jazz and classical festivals. At the middle school, our students are district and state

043level winners of the Daughters of the American Revolution and VFW Patriots Pen Essay competition. We have spelling bee champions. At the high school, our math team just recently placed second in the state. And we are home to a high score awardee. Our We the People AP Government class has been invited to Nationals for two consecutive years. Our three middle school robotics teams place in the top of the state and our high school team is on track for consecutive appearances at World Championships. Our Science Olympiad teams demonstrate impressive results at the state competition as well. At the middle school, we're home to the 2025 Tri-County champion baseball team, girls lacrosse team, and boys track and field team. At the high school, we're home to 2026 wrestling meet of champions champion and fifth in New England. Just

044last Sunday, we become became home to the 2026 boys basketball division two state champions. What we offer at Hollis/Brookline middle and high schools goes far beyond a narrow scope of paper and pencil lessons. We are a community that supports the whole child and their efforts to meet their greatest potential in a myriad of opportunities. We are working together to develop tomorrow's citizens who can contribute to society in meaningful ways. Now, please welcome Tom Solon. >> [applause] [clears throat] >> Thank you, Superintendent Bergskog uh for many things and uh for those of you who are somewhat new to the community uh don't be surprised if you hear her referred to as Gina because as she mentioned to you, she's she's not only our superintendent, but she's our neighbor. Um as a as a resident, she's had

045kids going through In fact, her her two youngest are in the co-op now and were part of that championship team. And she was an award-winning teacher at at Hollis/Brookline as well as a school board member while she was at an administrator at another community, assistant superintendent for 7 years and now she's had 2 years as our uh of transition and 6 months as our superintendent. She inherited a strong team and made a significant uh and impactful changes throughout the first 9 months. Ours is not a typical school community. We are a close-knit community despite what impression you might be getting at meetings like this. Uh at the end of the year, our kids are often in tears, sad to be leaving school. And the relationships formed are real, they're strong, and they're important. But we're

046also passionate about our local government. It's not a spectator sport, it's full contact. Student performance has been a frequent topic. For many years, you've likely heard the board [clears throat] and the administration say that the state assessment data are not good metrics for our district. At the April [clears throat] 2025 Co-op board meeting, there was an academic performance data presentation that triggered additional board discussion about how to communicate to a wider community audience and clarify concerns with the state assessment data. And that's sort of what I'm going to try to do tonight. So, the question is, how to measure and report district performance? And what I am proposing is that that New Hampshire student proficiency data should not be used as a measure measure of success. But why not? Well, the key to it has

047to do with New Hampshire's rule that allows parents to opt their students out of participation in the assessments. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing or a good thing, it's a fact in New Hampshire. The repercussions of that is that many parents do opt their students out. And what this graph is attempting to show you is the [clears throat] percentage of students that opt out in the co-op for the state assessments. Uh what I particularly want to show is there's the red line going across. That's 95% participation. Anything above that is less than 95% participation. And when the test the assessments were designed and released in 1965 at the federal law, the goal was to get high participation so that the data could be used to identify not only snapshot performance, but performance trends.

048And the feeling was you need to get a lot of people into the test data in order to have good results. So, why would people opt out? Well, there are many reasons, especially in the high school. There's a lot of overlapping time frame with the tests for the state assessment along with AP tests, college board exams, and other activities, jobs, sports. But the big problem is there's no apparent value to the students to be taking these assessment tests. They are not what would be considered high stake tests. They don't affect grades. They're not part of your transcripts. Uh and there are many other priorities. So, many parents do in fact choose to opt them out. And particularly looking at the far right, that's the science testing in grade 11. Uh in the last 3 years,

049we've had at least 25% opt out. And in [clears throat] 1 year, it was it was uh approaching 50% of the students opted out of taking that test. The impact of that is it could be skewed results. So, questions we should be asking are what do the proficiency numbers mean and what are their value as metrics? Are they in fact telling us information that we can use to improve what we're doing or to at least evaluate what we're doing well. And do they measure critical uh mission-critical performance of our school district? So, if if they do, great, but if they're not, then the question is what could we be doing instead? So, the question I ask is what matters most? If you look at a lot of the documentation on evaluating schools, one of the

050things that they talk about is it's most important, first of all, to get the students into school. And then, once you've got them in there, get them out of there in the way you want. Get them to graduation. And finally, provide a gateway to the next stage of life. So, how do we do? Well, measures of success our truancy rate over a 3-year period average is less than less than 2% truancy. Now, truancy is students who are habitually out. It's not just an absenteeism, but it's students who are habitually out more than 10 10 absences in a school year. So, we do a pretty good job of keeping them in school and we certainly have a very low dropout rate. How about getting them to the end? Well, we have a 95% 4-year graduation rate

051and upwards of 99% over the students' lives. They Some of the students are there longer. I see some of the folks are uh taking uh photos of this This is posted as well. And then finally, we have This is self-reported data, and you know how much kids like to tell you, "What are you doing next year?" I don't know. Well, 88% of them tell you they're going to to college. Uh almost 2% are entering the military, and over 7% are entering the workforce. So, what this tells us is that 97 98% of our students are making concrete plans upon graduation. So, what else do we measure? Well, we have alternative testing data that can be used as the superintendent mentioned to you, we do a a lot of AP testing. We do some of the

052highest percentage of AP testing of any of the schools in the state. We do PSAT, SAT, and achievement testing. Some of our students take the ACT test. I don't know whether the International Baccalaureate testing is is very popular here, but that's that's another option. There are other indicators of success, as the superintendent mentioned, such as our dual credit enrollment. And we have in the past conducted surveys, and we can conduct them in the future. These are all characteristics that might well all help us in trying to get good data. In summary, the state published proficiency data are distorted somewhat by ignoring the opt-out allow allowance. What this whether we like it or not, it's a fact of life. A high percentage of our students do not take the test, and and one of the things

053that we've noticed is that of the students who opt out, a disproportionately high number of them are our highest performing students because they are the ones who are most impacted by the overlap with things like AP testing and other activities going on. So, of the student population that is tested, we tend to lose more of the students who would show us some of the the best scores. The proficiency data is is misleading without context. That data was designed to identify trends. The target numbers that are posted for the values are typically in the 50 or 60% proficiency range. In many cases, we exceed the targets that are posted on the same websites that are showing the data. 50% doesn't sound like a a great number for proficiency, but you have to view it in terms

054of how they've designed the tests. It's My guess is that they want to have the majority of the performance somewhere in the middle of the test so that they can see the extremes. If you have students who are consistently testing at the top end, it's very difficult to discern the differences between a good performance and a great performance or a low performance and a a really poor performance. The published proficiency data is is not the best target for us. There are other metrics that are better measures for success for our students and for our schools. So, your your co-op is producing real-world success stories. And I think that's where we need to put our focus. We will be talking later on about some of the the tools that are coming up. We are making efforts

055to put much of this data, including the state data, but not that's not our focus. Putting it on a data dashboard that will be available on the website. That's something with our new platform will be that will be possible. We want the information out there, but we want to make it useful information. Thank you very much. >> [applause] >> I have the vote on the amendment relative to uh order reordering articles. The amendment was to change the the number of votes to uh reorder articles from 2/3 to a simple majority. Yes, 189. No, 211. The amendment fails. At this time, we are ready to actually vote on adopting the rules. If you are in favor of adopting the rules as written cuz all of the amendments failed, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you

056are opposed, raise your cards. And the rules are adopted. Mr. Penchesky, what do you What is your >> Yeah, um Aaron Penchesky on Dow Road. Just a couple of comments on the previous presentation that we heard. Uh I would love to make all those improvements if all of the Is somebody shooting at me? >> [laughter] >> I'll shoot back. I'd like to make all of those improvements on my house. But I don't have the budget to do it. And I have to manage my budget. Point number one. Point number two is that opting out of the performance measurements for academic performance in math, science, and reading doesn't doesn't mean that we're meeting those objectives. And I think to gloss over those points because that's the national standard that is used uh is um is in

057it it it's insufficient in terms of the performance that we're getting from our school system. The school system is doing I think the best they can do, but we are paying a premium in our property taxes for an insufficient product. And we got to stop this. Right? We we have we have to fix this problem. And that's partly why we're here today. Is that we have these issues to deal with and we'll be hearing about them soon. Uh I would also like to make a motion uh to move warrant articles uh eight which is the SB2. >> We're not I'm not taking motions just yet. You'll have a chance later, but not just yet. >> When will that be? >> Not yet. Later. >> That's the same kind of answer you get when you ask

058about the academic performance. So, thank you very much. >> [applause] >> Yes, ma'am. Is Is it relevant here? >> It's a motion. >> That well, I'm not taking motions right now. Yes, ma'am. >> So, this evening what you'll see um presented to you, the articles will be um we have five articles that have direct financial impact, including the SAU budget, the operating budget, the support staff contract, and uh the funding of the facilities maintenance trust and a contingency. Those articles tonight total $33.5 million. State law allows uh a calculated maximum to um to be presented to you this evening, and let you know what the 10% limitation is of the maximum approvable budget is $36.791 million. We also have five petition warrant articles uh to complete the warrant this evening. So, with regards to the

059$33.5 million budget, the chart in front of you shows the distribution among um key categories of expense in the budget. Approximately $75,000 75% of the budget is um directly uh is directly related to salary, benefit, and special education costs, with the remaining 25% split among general education, transportation, debt service, and maintenance expenses. Over time, um this chart is intended to show you the trend in the budget. Blue represents budgets as they were voted in in nominal dollars. The red line represents an inflation-adjusted budget. You'll see by the end of the period through FY26, a slight slight increase in the in the budget over the starting point, and that um is due to categories of expense that rise greater than inflation by significant level over this time. Those categories include transportation, special education, benefits, and a

060doubling of the New Hampshire retirement system contribution rates. Next, I'd like to share the student enrollment trends. What you'll see in red are the 5 years worth of estimates of where student enrollment enrollment will trend over time as presented by the New England School Development Council. The projection as we move into the first red line, which is for FY27, is a very slight increase in students of three. And what you see over that 5-year period is that the trending the trend of our student population is relatively flat and isn't going to see a lot of movement. The next 5 years, which are not represented on this chart, would show an increase in the trend of our students approaching 1,200 students split um between the high school and middle school by uh school year 2035-2036. The

061enrollment composition is important to the district due primarily to the apportionment formula. It is um significantly impacted by average daily membership, which is related to our student counts and attendance in in school on a daily basis. Um looking into FY27, we see a 53%-47% split between Hollis and Brookline. So, 53% of the students um are from Hollis, 47% from Brookline. The The year that we were closest to a 50/50 distribution before the between the two towns was in the 27 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 years and the kind of in the middle of the chart where you see the two lines equaling each other. But moving out from the the 53/47 split anticipated for next year, um by the end of the 5-year period, the distribution is anticipated to be 56% Hollis and 44% Brookline. So, looking

062at where we were with budgets and where we were with students, we're going to look at how the two come together in the cost per pupil. So, the cost per pupil numbers presented to you here are directly from the New Hampshire Department of Education website. The most recent data published is based on actuals, how we finished the budget of last year, so of the 24-25 school year. What you see historically is that the the co-op as a district has always been below um the state average and for the first time in since um FY10, as we looked at FY25 results, the um co-op district was slightly above the state average in cost per pupil. Comparatively, this chart represents in purple the high, the low, and the state average across 162 districts. With the high um

063being a The high and the low actually are related to um districts that are only elementary schools, but given the composite report of 162 districts, they do represent the high and the low. The next, the third purple line is the state average. The light blue, you see the co-op. And the remaining um cost per cost per pupil amounts that are shown reflect a group of communities that we've included for different reasons. A couple of them are other cooperative districts. A couple of them are proximal to our district. It includes communities where we send students to vocational programs. There are communities that have are similar to us based on test scores and things like that. So, those communities, as you see, we have some that are above us and some that are below us. But, of

064the 25 total regional and cooperative districts in the state, Hollis ranks the co-op ranks eighth out of 25 and we're in the lowest third. The budget isn't the only thing that we're going to talk about tonight. The other thing is called the local tax effort. And it's that tax tax effort that directly relates to the tax rates that you are you see on your bill on an on semi-annual basis. So, we'll be the the two most significant components that affect the difference between the budget and the tax effort are revenue and state aid. Um for the last column to the far right is the estimate for FY 27. That's why it's shaded a little bit differently because it's an estimate. The year before is for the year we're in now, fiscal year for the school

065year 25-26. And the tax effort associated for this school year is $700,000 lower than what we estimated at last year's district meeting. So, where revenue and state aid are concerned, again, these are the two categories of expense that reduce the budget and result in a tax effort that then calculates is used to calculate tax rates. So, estimated revenue for the district moving into FY '27 or fiscal school year '26-'27 is anticipated anticipated to be approximately $275,000 lower than the current year. Uh and looking at state aid split between Hollis and Brookline because each community receives different levels of funding. There are several state reports that address composite funding to a a community. And so, if you were to look at that state report, you would see a number for Hollis and a number for Brookline

066that's greater than what I'm presenting this evening because each community's total aid would be reflected in that number and there's a portion for elementary schools and there's a portion for the co-op. So, looking at um Hollis, Hollis will see a net reduction in state aid of about $88,000. Brookline, on the other hand, will see an increase in state aid totaling $419,000 due to a new category of adequacy aid a new category of of aid that's included in the adequacy formula called fiscal disparity aid. Looking at this chart of aid per pupil, um you would see over time that the red line represents Brookline, the blue line represents Hollis, and over this period what you see is that Brookline receives greater aid on a per pupil basis than Hollis. On average over this period, that amount

067is about 600 I'm sorry, it's about an $800 difference. But as we move into FY '27, that amount increases to $1,225 per student more for a student from Brookline versus a student from Hollis. So, what we've talked about so far are three things that affect tax effort. One of them is the budget itself, where an in an increase in the budget directly increases tax effort. We've [snorts] talked about revenue. Since we're seeing a reduction in revenue, it it leads to an increase in tax effort from the prior year. And looking at state aid, since state aid is going up, it has the opposite impact to tax effort, and it would go down, resulting in a net change in tax effort year over year of about $1.3 million. So, summarizing these impacts a different way, for

068those of you who like to see a bunch of numbers on a chart, um these are the actual dollars associated with the budget and um the revenue and aid that I shared uh earlier. So, that $1.28 million increase tax effort is a 5.3% um from the current year. And what happens to that um amount is that it's apportioned between the two districts based on an apportionment formula that's based, as I said, heavily on average daily membership and on equalized value. The net result of applying that apportionment formula to the tax to the um tax effort, essentially, is a a distribution between the two towns of 57% or $14.6 million being assessed in Hollis and 43% or $11 million being assessed in Brookline. So, uh what this chart represents is um the first look at the

069composite effect of um the tax on your tax rate. After um starting with the level of appropriations on the top line of $33.5 million, we remove co-op revenue of $2.1 million, and we have remaining $31.4 million. It's at that point that we apply the apportionment formula and allocate the the uh net to be at the amount to be apportioned between the two communities. We do that because each community does receive a different level of aid, and that aid needs to be attributed appropr- appropriately. After attributing aid to both Hollis and Brookline, that's how we get down to the $14.6 million for Hollis and the $11 million for Brookline. Which results in a tax rate um impact for Hollis of $6.28 per thousand, um which is 5.8% higher than the current tax rate. And for Brookline,

070a tax rate of $9.48 cents per thousand, which is 4.6% greater than the existing tax rate. I'd like to just make a couple comments about those rates themselves. First, I'd like to explain that the rate impact that was initially shared at the public hearing was slightly lower. The reason for that was because of evaluation assumption that was applied to the valuation of each community. At the time, consistent with the the process the the process with the Hollis Budget Committee, we assigned a 1% increase to the valuations. As late as last Thursday, we received uh input from the Department of Revenue Administration that said we should not be applying a business case or a trend assumption to the valuation. So, we adjusted the valuations back to where they currently stand. So, the numbers before you represent

071rate impacts. I would say that would be a worst-case scenario from evaluation perspective because there's assuming no change in valuation into the next year. Uh also just to mention how what percentage the co-op tax rate is of your total bill. Uh for Hollis, it's 31% and that's actually trending downward from where it's previously been, which was more in the I would say 33% range. It's trended down to 31% and Brookline um the co-op portion of your tax bill at 38% has been relatively consistent for a very long time. This chart represents the impact among all communities and districts that we've as we've gone through this um election cycle, ballot SB2 votes, and district meetings. So, here as you see where you see that $6.28 um cents for Hollis and this chart is a essentially recalculating

072your tax bill. These amounts are not added on to your bill. These would take your the amount that each of your each of your communities is currently charging you per thousand, throwing that away, and coming up with a brand new number. So, these are not in addition to what your is currently on your bill. These are new numbers. So, you see the increases that were anticipated for um the the cooperative district. We have the elementary district at $6.67 for Hollis and $8.79 for Brookline. The town of Hollis is at $4.53 again estimated based on um the items that were passed at um the most recent um town meeting for Hollis. Brookline is in the process of still needs to complete its town meeting. The number before you this evening is calculated based on what has

073passed your community to date. So, that number is a work in progress, I would say for Brookline. And depending on the actions as you complete your meeting, um we'll see if that really goes up or down from there. But, what we actually see between the two communities is something I've been the chair here for a long time, and I will say I couldn't really remember the last time that I saw the increases in both towns being estimated to be nearly the same, which is a 5% increase and a 4.9% increase. Oh, and there we are. >> Is that a voting card right behind you on the floor? On the floor, behind you. No, okay. Ma'am. >> As three of the last four articles tonight are 1-hour ballot votes, I would like to make this meeting

074more efficient. Continue doing these that are non-ballots during a ballot so that we aren't here so late. And I So, therefore, I would like to motion to move Article 8 to first on the list before Article 1. Because that would allow us to be able to vote, and then we can continue with the school ones and rather than waiting till the end to all of a sudden be here three more hours. >> All right. Um second by Mr. Julian. Um, tell us Can you say your name again? >> Carla Ramirez. >> Thank you. Is there discussion on this motion? >> Joshua Visco, 55 Irene Drive. Uh, I just like to mention that there's a lot of families here uh, with young children tonight. And it's getting late, obviously. And I know two of my three

075kids are in the library, and that ends at 8:30. And I would just like, for the benefit of the young families, to make sure we get the main article talked about as soon as possible. Because if moms have to stay later, people that came here and wanted to vote tonight, don't get that opportunity. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um, Marsha Cone, Dow Road. I I'm again speaking up against this article. Um, I think that a lot of us are here to vote on the school budgets. I think that SB2 comes up every single year. It gets voted down every single year. We never get a year off from the vote. I think that it should remain where it is. I feel for people with little kids. I used to be one of

076them. I had to make arrangements, too. Now I'm old, and I do want to get to go home. I speak against moving the articles. >> [applause] >> Mr. Whalen. >> Tom Whalen, Worcester Road. Uh, Mr. Moderator, could you clarify if these articles are passed over at the time they're brought up? Do we have to an hour vote? >> Um can you raise the volume there a little bit, please? Okay. To speak closer >> I'm a little taller than the last person. Is that better? >> Yeah. >> So if if this if these article or these one articles are brought up in the current order and they're passed over after discussion. >> Yes. >> Do we have an hour vote? >> No. >> So it's a false pretense. Thank you. >> I'd like to move to

077vote. Anna Halasa. >> Seeing no one in else in line, I'm going to simply end debate on the on the motion. >> [clears throat] >> Um if you are in fav- Going back to the rules, it requires a 2/3 vote to move the article. If you are in favor of moving Article 8 before Article 1, please raise your cards. If you are opposed, please raise your cards. Not even close to 2/3. If uh I Unless you picked them up, there were some driver license left left at the table. Uh Cannon Kelly, Saint-Hilaire, Justy, uh Tom Davies, who is back there. They picked them up. All right. Never mind. SAU budget, Article 1. Shall the district vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $1,230,494 as the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District's portion of the SAU

078budget of $2,560,328 for the forthcoming fiscal year. This year's adjusted budget of $2,540,642 with $1,221,033 assigned to the school budget of this school district will be adopted if the article does not receive a majority vote of all the school district voters voting in this school administrative unit. Estimated tax impact of 45 cents a thousand for Brookline, 30 cents a thousand for Hollis. Recommended by the school board 600, recommended by the bud- budget committee 500. Moved by Holly Derou Babcock, seconded by Kate Stoll. Mr. Mann. >> That's left. That's back. Yeah. >> Well, thank you everyone for coming out tonight to help determine the how we move forward with the co-op. The SAU board is comprised of all school board members from Brookline, Hollis, and the co-op districts. This 17-member board is a separate autonomous governing

079entity overseeing the office of the superintendent, administrative direct reports, SAU central functions like special education, and support staff. The SAU governing board does not answer to the other school districts, nor do the other school boards answer to the governing board. The superintendent is the sole employee of the SAU Governing Board. Similar to other districts in the SAU, the SAU Governing Board is a policy board. Its purpose is to create, review, and update SAU level policy, negotiate and is the signatories of the transportation contracts for SAU 41. It evaluates the superintendent annually and builds an operating budget as you are tonight. In addition to serving on the Co-op School Board, I serve um and was appointed the treasurer of the SAU Governing Board. In that capacity, I lead the committee that builds this budget. The committee,

080along with the administrators, start its work in October. Our several meetings and iterations, it develops and finally um submits a draft budget to the SAU Governing Board for review, modification, and final approval. The SAU administrators and staff uh complete a huge amount of work each year. The SAU 41 is somewhat unique in that it is a multi-district SAU where other Co-ops are generally K-12. The demands of a multi-district SAU creates duplication of work and effort to meet the needs of each of the districts of the SAU 41. Administrators have to negotiate up to six teacher contracts as well as support contracts, so it in total. They preside over uh the district board meetings and committee work. That easily translates well over 100 afternoon and evening meetings a year. At any one time, our administrators need

081to be at three places at once, and somehow they make it work. Our two communities receive great value and benefit from the critical work done by this office. We are fortunate to have one of the best, if not the best, superintendent in the state of New Hampshire. Yep. >> [applause] >> I'd like to point out that the student enrollment and the SAU budget are not linearly related. If we experienced an enrollment drop of 10, 20, even 50 students across the SAU, it would not change the volume of work needed or the time required to meet the needs of all districts in a material way. I'll be speaking primarily to the apportionment line, appropriation line, sorry, and the co-op portion. So, we are we are appropriating a proposed Oh, sorry. A proposed budget of $2,560,328. That

082is a roughly an increase of a 121 122,000 dollars or 5%. Alternatively, the adjusted budget is set at $2,540,642. That's a difference of roughly $19,700. The co-op portion, what we're voting on this evening is $1,230,494, which is a increase of $59,216, or roughly 5.1 percent. The adjusted budget for for our portion is $1,221,033, or a delta of about $9,500. The main drivers, uh as we see from year to year, are related to salaries and budgets and benefits. Salaries have increased by $67,693, roughly a 3.5 increase, which aligns to this our local regional CPI. Benefits have also increased by $44,550, mainly due to health insurance increases of 15.1% and dental insurance increases of roughly 4.4%. Thank you, Mr. Rotatori. >> Thank you. Clicker, please. Rob. >> You don't need this, do you? >> Everybody want to

083walk away with my clicker. By law, we will be voting on this item by secret ballot. The uh it passes or fails based on the simple majority of all three districts combined. We already have the ballots from Brookline. We already have the ballot the votes from the Hollis school district. So, we'll take these and do it. So, is there any discussion on the article? I should mention that the article is not amendable. Yes, ma'am. >> Susan Hate from Brookline. I just have a question on the adjusted figure. Is that last year's budget amount? Are we reverting back to last year if this doesn't pass? >> No. >> Um that's determined by a calculation. It isn't just simply last year's number. >> What's the percentage difference from last year's number which we paid to this year's

084anticipated or adjusted? >> Uh well, last year's >> Right. >> Last year's budget that was approved is the but is the budget line there. It says F- FY 26. So, FY 26, last year's budget was 2,044, um 444,505. >> Okay, so the co-op portion was 1,171, 278. That's what was approved. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Mr. Power. >> Eric Power from West View Road in Brookline. I wanted to talk a little bit about this article. Um this SAU budget is going up rapidly. We're We're spending um for every student K through 12 in the SAU, we're spending uh over $1,100 on the SAU, which is a lot of money. Um pay increases are 3.5, CPIU was 2.7, so we're or that. Um this SAU budget used to be $1.4 million 10 years ago and now

085we're up to $2.6 million. Um We also added a second assistant superintendent this year. We were down to one assistant and one superintendent. Now we're back to two assistants. So, I would recommend that people vote no on this warrant article and I did have a question about this district database manager that's appearing in all the school district budgets why it isn't in this SAU budget. >> Rob? As I understand it, you're you're asking whether the the amount as a portion to each district is different. >> No, I'm asking there's a there's a line item in the Brookline, Hollis, and Co-op that says district database manager. In the Co-op, it's $40,000, but I see it appearing in all of them. Why wouldn't that position be in the SAU versus being in the um it versus being

086as a line item apportioned to the different districts as a line item, not as an SAU expense. >> Um if I understand your question, why is it is why is this a separate warrant article? >> No, why is it line item for a database manager appearing in three different budgets and not in the SAU budget? >> Okay. The database manager position is supporting the districts. So, in in keeping with other employees of this uh activity or this type of activity, one district they get hired as an employee of one district and essentially rented out to the other districts so the cost is distributed, but they are not specifically dealing with the SAU administrative database activity. It's for what's going on in the schools. >> I recommend people vote no on this. We have a 93

087vote no lead, so vote no at the secret ballot. Thank you. >> Just so people understand, the polls are not open yet. Until the debate is is finished, you can't vote. Yes, ma'am. >> Good afternoon. My name is Karla Garcia, and is 266 Depot Road. Uh I'm going to talk a little bit regarding the enrollment. Uh even if schools have fixed costs, declining enrollment means fewer students are being served, so keeping the same budget just raises the cost per student and overburdens taxpayers unnecessarily. So, I think we cannot just say it doesn't matter. >> Thank you. Yes, sir. >> Joseph Hartman, 51 Mountain Road, Brookline. Since this uh legislative body doesn't appear to want to have debate with all the noise going on, I just move the motion. >> There's a motion to end debate.

088Is there second? Yes, sir. Brian Brian Loveland. If you are in favor of ending debate on this article, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, please raise your cards. And the eyes have it by 2/3. >> [clears throat] >> At this time, we can vote on this article. The polls are open. >> Well, that's happened before. >> Mhm. >> Is there anybody in the room who still needs to vote on Article 1? It is time to vote. If you need to vote, do it now, please. If you still need to vote, raise your hand so I know you're still working on it. Seeing none, I believe I can close the polls now. The polls for Article 1 are closed. The counters can count. Article 2. To see if the school district will

089vote to raise and appropriate a sum of $31,716,292 for the support of schools, for the payment of salaries for the school district officials and agents, and for the payment of statutory obligations of the district. This appropriation does not include appropriations voted in other warrant articles. Majority vote required. The estimated tax impact is $6.05 a thousand for Hollis, $9.13 a thousand for Brookline. Recommended by the school board 600, recommended by the budget committee 500. Moved by Darlene Mann, seconded by Holly Babcock. Ms. Mann. >> What's that? This evening's operating budget of $31,716,292 represents a 3.8% increase from the current year's operating budget that we are as applies to this current school year. Um that but that guidance that budget was developed through our guidance and budget development process, which begins initial discussions with the budget committee

090about understanding uh goals and parameters of the budget begins in September, but I have a feeling that the budget process begins probably over the summer in the SAU office as we work with administrators on aligning their needs with the goals of the district. So, once we get to the budget committee, we do begin that discussion and we implement what's called a guidance budget. And so, what that does is put an upper limit on the operating budget that we would consider for the district. That upper limit is economically based in CPI or inflation. and we apply an inflation factor to a reduced level of the budget. So, we do not take the whole budget and apply inflation to it. We reduce the budget by several items, including special education costs, salaries that are increased through collective

091bargaining, and debt service. The reason why though, among others, but those are the primary drivers because those items where collective bargaining is concerned, the increases are calculated and we don't feel like we should be adding inflation on top of whatever, um, increases are already, um, calculated through a collectively bargained agreement. Debt service is a legal obligation and we have amortization schedules and we know exactly what we're going to have to pay, so those expenses shouldn't be increased by inflation. And special costs are, um, special education costs are unique part of the budget that's driven programmatically and by student needs. So, once, um, the guidance budget, um, is determined and we develop the guidance, um, the budget adjustment factor, what we what results was a $212,000 increase in the budget due solely to inflation. What the

092the administration returned to the district was a budget that fell $377,000 below budget committee guidance. Our guidance was originally 32.1 million and, um, based on under-running that, um, that cap, we're we have the budget of 31.7 million dollars this evening. We wanted to recognize the amount of collaboration and prioritization that went into, um, under-running that guidance cap. Um, it took significant effort on the part of the administration and when faced with the decision amongst budget committee members of whether we should recalculate and lower guidance because the district was under-running it, we felt it was important to to rather than reduce that guidance amount to show that the district did come in below what we would have anticipated, and we wanted to recognize and appreciate those measures. >> [applause] >> So, the major increases that we

093see in this budget going forward for the 26-27 school year is a $529,000 increase in bond debt. If you recall from last year's budget, we approved two bonds for improvements to the middle school and solar. And the first year of a bond is always an interest-only payment. So, as we look into fiscal year 27, the 26-27 school year, we see that in the amount of bond debt go up to 1.155 million due to the increase of the principal payment on those two bonds. So, the long-term debt service for the district is what I have um behind me. The large blue area to the left was every all of the long-term debt on the middle school and high school. That's expired. We no longer have that. The yellow section is related to the turf field. It

094has a few more years left on um those payments, and then you see uh the other uh bond that was approved. I believe it was the prior year for um or a couple years, yep, 1 2 3 years prior for improvements in HVAC at the high school, and then the energy efficiency and solar initiatives. So, the arrow is pointing to the $1.155 million to show the increase from where we were in this current year to what we are legally obligated to pay next year. Um going back to this chart, the next um largest increase in the budget is a $511,000 increase in benefits due to increases in health costs of 15.1% and a more modest 4.4% increase in dental, which is still significant, but not nearly as significant as the 15% in healthcare costs. We

095have contracted increases in salaries of $227,000, and I believe the next article is for support staff increases, and that will be voted on separately. We see about $30,000 in field maintenance and facility rental expense and about $90,000 in um facilities improvements um for both schools. On the new items section of the budget, we're seeing a decrease of almost $200,000 from the prior year, and that's for various um curriculum-related um equipment, laptops, lighting, and security more security cameras. And in student services, we see a $318,000 decrease in program-related costs due to changes in student needs that we're anticipating into the '26 and '27 school year. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Is there discussion on the budget? Mr. Power. >> Yes, Eric Power, Westview Road in Brookline. Um I think this is a is a pretty high

096budget. We're up again this year, and I want to make a motion to amend, Mr. Moderator. And I wanted to have a new operating budget of 31,391,000 $827. And further to zero out two line item numbers that I can give you. >> Just a second. All right, I'm looking at my MS-27. >> They're in the um the the detailed budget. >> In order to zero things out, it has to be a line in the MS-27. >> You can't line You can't do a a sub line item? >> I don't believe so. Counselor? >> It's It's It's typically within the posted budget. The MS-27, but is there a line? >> Yes. >> I'm not sure what line item you're >> He hasn't He hasn't identified it yet, but My My statement was in order to zero

097a line, it has to be a line on the MS-27. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> So I can't like zero out 10.2400.810.03.00? >> Unless it's on the MS-27, uh what line What page are you on? >> I was in the detailed budget. >> Yeah. Okay. The answer, I believe, to your question is no. >> And then I will just stick with the amendment to the warrant article as I stated the new figure. >> Okay. Uh Eric, could you please repeat the line number you're talking about? >> You're talking about the new figure? >> No, the the line item that you're uh proposing to zero. >> There's two of them. I'll give you the first one that I wrote down. >> 10.2400.810.03.00 >> You got that, Darlene? And the second one? >> It's the

098same number except for the last four digits are 04 .00. One line item is 1620 $1620. The other one is $6010. But you're saying, Mr. Moderator, that that's not possible. >> Unless it's a line item of the MS-27 and uh I look to my expert over here on bud- anything budget. Um >> Are Excuse me. Are those amounts included in the amount of the reduction or are those in addition to? >> They're included as part of the reduction. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> That account code isn't a specific line item in the MS-27. >> It is or is not? >> It is not. It is not. >> Okay. So, the answer to the question is no, you can't zero those out. >> Okay, that's the I'll take that answer. I don't agree with it,

099but that's what it is. So, I'll stick with my original motion of just changing the operating budget figure. >> The number I have is 31,391,827. Is that correct? >> Yes, it is. That's right, Mr. Moderator. >> Is there a second? Yes, sir. Your name, please. >> Steve Sekochia, Brookline. >> Steve >> Sekochia. Do you wish to speak to your motion? >> Yes, I would, Mr. Moderator. Um this is a very modest decrease from the proposed budget. It's about a 1% decrease or $325,000. Um if you look at what we have going on, we have taxes that are really out of control. Um this is actually keeping the budget level with CPIU, which was 2.7%. So, it's letting the budget, despite losing 53 students, it's letting us it it's keeping us with inflation even with the

100loss of students. Um I'd also notice note that, you know, the the minutes show that we had 1.44 million dollars of unexpended funds last year. So there's obviously a lot of extra There's There's a lot of money in there that we don't necessarily have to have. Maybe it was there for a contingency and we have a separate warrant article for that. So I would ask the voters to support this amendment for this very modest decrease, but to help give some tax relief to the taxpayers of Hollis and Brookline. Thank you very much. Mr. Sikora. >> Uh Steve Sikora of Brookline. I had a question regarding clarification to the um the the increase in benefits, the health and dental that was >> relevant to the motion? Okay, well, right now we're debating the amendment. >> You

101called me up. >> Yeah, thank you. Sorry. Does anyone wish to speak to the amendment? >> Karen Bridger Buttonwood Drive in Hollis. I'll be very very brief. Um SP2 sounds fantastic because it has all day voting. SP2 has a deliberative session in which citizens can make amendments just like this, slash the budget, and that's the budget we would have for ballot voting. Want to make sure everyone understands that. In 2018 >> to the amendment to the budget? >> It is because this is what can happen in deliberative sessions. And I want to make sure people understand if they vote for SP2, you can still tweak the budget. Do you think I'm out of order? I can stop. >> I think you need I understand your point, but I think it's not direct to the amendment.

102>> Okay. I retract my statement. >> Yeah. Mr. Loveland. >> Brian Loveland, Tady Brook Road, and I speak against this amendment. The CPIU adjustment that is that is being proposed was does not take into account the fact that increasing costs that are non-discretionary. So, it doesn't not it actually Well, it may sound not legitimate on the surface. If you dig into the numbers, you'll see that it isn't actually that applicable because if you look at the individual line items, not all of them can be gained in. And also the fact that there's unexpended fund balance shows how fiscally responsible the board and the school district is in that when they do get allocated money that they don't the have a need for, it gets held and not spent. So, I would vote against this and

103vote for the SAU and school district's very reasonable budget proposal. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Yes, sir. You're speaking to the amendment. >> Speaking to the amendment. Tyler Frediani of Westview Road, Brookline. I am rising to speak against this amendment as the gentleman before me was pointing out. This concept of basing our operating budget based on CPIU, consumer price index for an urban area, is a very irresponsible way to devise a school budget. This index is effectively a basket of consumer goods, and it measures inflation on those particular items. And the expenses that the school incurs are often service related, labor, technology, all things that will experience reasonably higher inflation on average than the index. So, if we vote to adopt this amendment that is only going to allow for a budget increase based on

104CPIU, while there is going to be a gross increase in the budget in terms of real purchasing power of our dollars and the value that goes to our schools, this will represent a decrease in what our schools are able to provide our students. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Jonathan Fontaine, 42 Iron Works Lane, Hollis. Um to build on the CPIU component, I would also point out that the health care costs raised by double-digits this year, and an arbitrary reduction of 1% does not necessarily take into account the long period that our Bud Com and our Co-op boards have taken to arrange the numbers we have, and the number of revisions it's gone through, as well as that heavy impact of a 15.1% increase. >> Mr. Orlando. >> Yep. Uh Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road,

105Hollis. Um I'd like to seek a motion to end debate on the amendment. >> Motion to end debate on the motion. Is there a second? I need a face I can recognize. All right, Ms. Kellner. If you are in This requires a 2/3 vote. If you are in favor of ending debate on the amendment, but not on the article, please raise your card. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. We are now voting on the amendment. The amendment would change the number on the screen to 31 million 391,827 dollars. If you are in favor of the amendment, please raise your cards. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the nose have it. So, coming back, the operating budget is unamended. You wish to speak to the to

106the article. >> Yes. Steve Sekochao, Laurel Crest Road, Brookline. Um in regards to the increased cost of health and dental, which was listed as one of the significant driving factors of the budget increase, um can someone speak to and clarify if any of that cost was passed on to the employees or if the taxpayers are absorbing the entire amount? >> For a single plan, the district covers employees um in the professional that Now, I'm I'm just speaking um are the the any of the incremental changes to the caps are in the support staff. Correct. So, okay. Yep. So, for the professional staff, we have 100% of a single plan and 90% of a two-person or family plan is paid for by the district. >> Okay, regards so there was no increase in the employees' contribution

107to their own benefits passed on to them, even though of the significant increase in cost. >> They They would see an increase in cost because the rates are going up, so their share would increase. >> increase but not an increase in percentage. >> No, they're They're still paying 90% of the higher amount. >> Okay, the reason I ask is as a lifelong public employee, I see, not of this district, um I see uh very regularly um increases in the percentages, and that's you know, that's although not ideal, and I don't like it, that that's very reasonable to expect that that you know, when there's a significant increase, um you know, that that it's it's it's shared. Again, it's that the cost of the benefits is shared, so I just want that clarification. Um so the

108all the all the this legislative body knows that they are that this uh the school district, the the board is being extremely generous to their employees um with these benefits as they're not increasing what the employee is expected to to pay. So, that's I just wanted that clarification. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> [applause] >> Yes, sir. Excuse me. >> Uh Mike Lahens, London Lane Hollis. Uh uh every year we see the the graph the graph that shows the budget, and when control for inflation, the line is always pretty flat. Uh but like a lot of people are remarking on, our taxes don't seem to feel so flat, and uh it feels Well, why is that? Um well, it's because we can see that graph that it's not really the budget really isn't changing based on

109inflation, we got to look to the state. Uh the state for about a decade has been abdicating responsibility for funding schools. Uh that's not my opinion, that's the New Hampshire Supreme Court on number of occasions. >> [applause] >> Uh that also includes the recent legislation around the educational freedom accounts in which basically takes our funds, our money that we, you know, pay to uh the state and uh towns and give that and subsidize wealthy families, especially recently, to send their kids to private school. Uh if because we're here, we have a direct say in what's going on. That's one of the wonderful things about these town meetings. So, it feels like we should be able to do something. The problem is slashing our schools here doesn't really do anything. That kicks it down the road.

110What we can do is, well, November's coming up. Uh talk to your state reps. I think there's a few here. Let's talk to your senators. If they don't have a plan to raise their state revenues, if they want to expand uh school vouchers, they're not serious about fixing the problem and reducing taxes. So, don't hurt our schools for that. I'm done. Thank you. >> What is your point of order, please? >> Liz Barber, 5 Broad Street. This was not relevant to the conversation here. Uh requesting that people talk to their state representatives. We are always open and available. However, we should be talking directly to this budget, not campaigning against uh policy. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Mr. Solon. Tom Solon, Shady Rock Road, Brookline. Uh I want to point out that the school budget,

111unlike our own personal budgets, we have to plan for worst case. And the reason for that is that we don't have the options of getting more money if we fall short. So, the budget has to be conservative. As a result, if things don't go worst case, there is money left over. It goes to the unassigned fund balance, and we in general seek to give as much of it back to the taxpayers as as possible. The school board voted recently to plan, it's not a guarantee, but it is a a commitment to make every effort to return at least $500,000 of the current unassigned fund balance at the conclusion, if it still is available, barring unforeseen circumstances. And I've been told recently that that number is potentially uh as much as $700,000 based on the ability

112to uh be uh conscientious in the expenditures to date. But again, we don't have the ability to come back for a second cut. So, that's why we do have to budget conservatively and give the money back when we don't use it. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Mr. Ben Case. >> Yes, sir. Aaron Ben Case, uh Delrode in Hollis. So, I think everybody in this room is feeling the impact of increased costs for healthcare. And we're dealing with it ourselves. So, here we are now talking about a budget that is trying to cause us, the taxpayers, to cover the increased cost of healthcare for our employees. We're already paying for it for ourselves. Why do we have to cover someone else's? Why don't you find a way within the school budget to deal with it like

113the rest of us have to do. >> [applause] >> Ms. Whalen. >> Krista Whalen, Webster Road. I want to thank the budget committee for all of their work that they do all year long to work through four rounds of budget and really take the time to look at it and they're a conservative group that are not looking to spend a lot of money and they take care of our taxpayers and they take care of our students. And I also want to thank our administrators and our school board for bringing in a budget below guidance, which serves our students, our community, and also takes care of our taxpayers. Thank you. >> [applause and cheering] >> Yes, ma'am. >> Uh Bonnie Bruno, uh Milton Place, and I wanted to um speak to Article 2 and the budget

114regarding how we keep bringing up that it affects our property taxes. I have a very high property tax. I do not have any kids in the school system, never had kids in the school system. I'm perfectly fine pitching in for the overall commonwealth to support public education and to support students that add to my community. And I think they not make the connection that there are reasons why our property taxes are high and take that ire and look at other places where that could go and not keep dropping it on our community and not keep dropping it on our public schools. It's not in a vacuum and it's all related and we should remember why our property taxes are high for many different reasons and support our public schools in the process. >> [applause] >>

115Mr. Orlando. >> Nick Orlando, 266 Depot Road, Hollis. Um I have a quick question in terms of rules. Am I allowed to make a statement and motion something or just >> Depends on the motion. You can make a You cannot make a statement and then move to end debate. >> All right. Well, then I move to end debate. >> [applause] >> Is Is there a second? Marcia All right, there is a motion to end debate. It requires 2/3. If you are in favor of ending debate on Article 2, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. It is now time to vote on Article 2. If you are in favor of the budget as written, $31,716,292, please raise your cards. I want to count this,

116so hold them up. >> Okay, you can put your cards down. All right, if you are opposed to this budget, please raise your cards. Okay, you can put your cards down now. Thank you. >> And the vote is yes, 221. No, 212. The article passes. >> [applause] >> Motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 12 2. >> Mr. Moderator, I'd like to challenge the vote. >> At this point, you didn't act fast enough. Right now, there's a separate motion on the floor. The motion on the floor is to restrict reconsideration. If you've got going to challenge, you have to be there right then when the vote is announced. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration >> Point of order. >> Yes. >> Gentleman who um made the motion to restrict was not at the podium.

117>> That's correct. >> And he made it from the field. That is against the rules. >> In this case, the moderator has the freedom to recognize anyone that I want to. And in this case, I wanted to recognize the first person who came up with a motion, which was Darlene Mann. >> that motion. They did not come forward. >> Anyway, my ruling is that her that motion was in order. >> Mr. Moderator, I think we're going to challenge we're going to challenge we're going to challenge your ruling. >> Okay. >> Can you clarify in your rules that I I recall at an annual district meeting that you can make you can make a motion from your seat. Anyone could make a motion to restrict consider reconsideration from their seat. If I've attended these meetings where

118we've done that. So, is there is there something in the rules? I mean, that has been accepted procedure at these meetings for multiple years. Isn't that correct? >> That is correct. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> So, the issue right now is my ruling was the that I can accept a motion to restrict reconsideration from here over here, not necessarily at the podium. >> Was there a second? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And who was the second? Raul? Who? Raul? Okay. So, is there a discussion on the motion to overrule the moderator's ruling? >> Joe Garuba, 28 Winchester Drive. So, [sighs] all of us here are at town meeting as equals. So, if someone needs to make a motion, uh they need to come to the podium and be recognized. I've seen meetings and I

119can recall meetings outside in um outside uh during COVID where almost all the motions were made from the dais and that's completely unfair to all the people that are out here. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Jonathan Wilson, 5 Deer Run Road, Hollis. I recall on several occasions you pointing out that you could not hear the person, asking for the volume, asking for them to repeat themselves. So, I think if you get that accommodation, we all should be able to hear the motion, get that accommodation. The best way to hear is at this podium. That's why we're opposing the ruling. >> [applause] >> Ms. Power. >> Diane Power, Brookline. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mr. Moderator, I don't recall um first of all, I didn't hear the motion to restrict reconsideration. And furthermore, I don't recall you

120acknowledging that that motion received a second. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. >> [applause] >> Ms. St. John. >> I just want to reiterate what I said before is accepted procedure. I have sat in the audience and had people make motions to restrict reconsideration from this area multiple times. And Yes, it happened. Do you you want to watch the video? Watch the video. I mean, I was here. I mean, everybody else was here. My other point is is that when you made that motion, multiple hands went up to second, myself included. So, if you want to have a second and you didn't write down a name, my hand was way up there from the back. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Joseph Hartman, Mountain Road, Brookline. Is there any place that has all the rules that you abide

121by? >> This is a compilation of all the laws of the state. >> Okay. >> This is it. >> Yeah. But every town moderator does stuff differently. >> Yes, that's correct. >> So, that's what I'm referring to. When we go from Brookline, where we're told we that's how it's recognized at the podium. Period. So, when we come here and it's different, is there a place that I can say this is what's different here? I'm not for or against either way. I just want to know what rules we're playing by. >> I understand your question and this is an unusual case. But part of the moderator's job is to make rulings on an instantaneous basis about things that aren't specifically covered by the rules. And then it is the legislative body's prerogative >> Yep. >> to

122change change the rule. >> Okay. So, it could have been as the last person said, it's been happened before, but that doesn't mean it has to happen continuously and forward. Forward, you could say not necessarily. >> No, but you I'm going to maintain consistency within this meeting, if that's what you >> this meeting, but not I mean, year from year it could change. >> It could change and I have changed my rules over year over year, depending on what voters tell me. >> Okay. And that's so, it just gets confusing when certain little things like well, this one, it's unique. >> I acknowledge your your concern. Mr. Loveland. >> Brian Loveland, Tadi book code. Motion to end debate on overruling you. >> Okay. Motion to end debate on uh the motion to overrule the moderator's

123ruling. If you are in favor of ending seconded by Mr. Blin, Is that If you are in favor of ending debate, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. >> That's true. >> So, let's be clear what we're voting on. Let me be clear what we're voting on. In the book, my rule 29 says the motion is in order at any time the voter has the floor. So, what constitutes having the floor? Having the floor means I have recognized them. They might be here, they might be there. It is my choice as moderator. So, my ruling is that I recognized the the person who made the motion. It was in order and we can go ahead and vote on it. The appeal is that that

124was incorrect and that because the person was not at the podium, um they didn't have the floor. So, if you wish to sustain my ruling, in other words, agree that the motion was in order, you will vote yes. If you uh wish to overturn my ruling, then you will vote no. If you So, if you wish to sustain my ruling, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you wish to uh overturn, raise your cards. All right, we're going to count it. Is everyone clear what we're voting on? I've tried to make it as clear as I can. So, if you wish to sustain my ruling that the motion was was made in order, please raise your cards. >> [laughter] >> The motion >> Okay, you can put them down. If you wish to overrule my

125ruling, please raise your cards. Yes. >> Thank you. You can put your cards down. The vote to sustain my ruling was 217. The vote to overrule was 209. The ruling stands. Now, motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 2, right? If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration of Article 2, please raise your cards. >> Is there discussion? >> No. It is not debatable. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. I haven't announced it yet. No. All right. Okay. Now, um I have the vote here on Article 1, the SAU budget. In Hollis, sorry, in the in the co-op, the vote was 202 yes, 240 no. In Hollis School District, the vote was 217 yes, 190 no. In Brookline School District, the vote was 476 yes, no. The total

126vote, which is what matters here, was 895 yes, 1,026 no. >> [applause] [applause] >> Motion to Motion to reconstruct the >> Second. >> [laughter] >> Moved by Ms. Mann, seconded by Mr. Mr. Lovlon. No, sorry, Mr. Fontaine. Mr. Fontaine is If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration of Article 1, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Moving right along here. Article 3, which is Hessa contract. To see if the school district will vote to approve the cost items for the second year of a 3-year collective bargaining agreement reached between the Hollis-Brookline Cooperative School and the Hollis Education Support Staff Association for the 2025-26, 2026-27, and 2027-28 school years, which calls for the following increases in support staff salaries and benefits at the current

127staffing level. For fiscal year 2026-27, the estimated increase is $131,512. And further to raise and appropriate a sum of $131,512 for the second fiscal year, that's the 2026-27 school year, such Excuse me. Such sum representing the additional costs attributable to the increase in support staff salaries and benefits required by the new agreement agreement over those that would be paid at current staffing levels. Majority vote required. The estimated tax impact is 5 cents a thousand for Brookline and 3 cents a thousand for Hollis. Recommended by the school board 6-0-0, recommended by the budget committee 4-0 with one abstention. Moved by Holly Baplock, seconded by Kate Stoll. Ms. Stoll. >> Good evening. The support staff contract was voted on and approved in in in its entirety last year. It addressed critical staffing needs and supports hiring and

128retaining quality staff. The article tonight just speaks to the second year of the three-year contract. This contract is not sandbornized, which is why we are talking about it again tonight. So, who's included in this contract? We have our administrative assistants, instructional assistants, paraprofessionals, custodians, our food service workers, and our building maintenance supervisors. The salary increase for on step support staff will be their step plus 2.75%. The salary increase for off step support staff will be 3.4%. With respect to health caps for health insurance caps, um changes to these caps include an increase of $83 for the single plan for a total of uh $1,123. For the two-person plan, we're looking at an increase of $140 to $1,898. And the family plan increase of $157 to $2,125. Total cost of this agreement equals $131,512. Thank you.

129>> Is there discussion on Article 3? Mr. Orlando. >> Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road, uh Hollis. Like to make a motion to end debate. >> Well, seeing no debate, I'm just going to declare the debate closed. So, it is time to vote on Article 3. If you are in favor of the Hessa contract at $131,512, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. >> Motion to strictly reconsider Article 3. >> Motion to reconstruct reconstruct Motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 3. Moved by Ms. Mann, seconded by Ms. Cook. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration of Article 3, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Article 4, the facilities maintenance expendable trust fund.

130To see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate up to the sum of $300,000 to be added to the previously established school building and facilities maintenance expendable trust fund. The sum to come from the Hollis-Brookline Cooperative School District's June 30th, 2026 unassigned fund balance available for transfer on July 1, 2026, and no amount to be raised from taxation. Majority vote required. The estimated tax impact is zero. The potential foregone tax reduction is 7 cents a thousand for Hollis and 11 cents a thousand for Brookline. Recommended by the school board 6-0-0, recommended by the budget committee 5-0-0, moved by Holly Derulu Babcock, seconded by Kate Stall. Ms. Babcock. >> Good evening again. So, the school building and facilities maintenance expendable trust was established previously to help defray the cost of big ticket maintenance

131items. The purpose of this standalone Oh, wait, let me move forward. Sorry. The purpose of this standalone account is to segregate funds for some of the major maintenance needs and to allow carryover to spread costs over multiple budget cycles. This fund alleviates the existence of major financial spikes due to non-routine maintenance costs. The funding source of this article is the unassigned fund balance or surplus that may exist at the end of the current fiscal year. If surplus funds are not available, this article will not be funded. The process or oversight of the fund is the following. Major expenditures are proposed by the administration to the school board. The school board then evaluates and holds a public hearing, and school board makes final approval of the expenditure. The fund utilization of This is a list of

132potential maintenance projects that are not included in the operating budget. The items listed here are items that need to be taken care of if this article passes, if we have a surplus, and if they are approved by the school board after a public hearing. So, we have some ductwork at the middle school for $20,000, ductwork cleaning. We have roof phase three of five at the middle school for $150,000, and we have track resurfacing at the high school track for $130,000. We're trying to move forward with the Hollis-Brookline Middle School roof project to expedite the solar project, and the track needs resurfacing because at this point two lanes of the track are unstable, and we're not permitted permitted to host track meets given its condition. Track at both the middle school and high school are our

133most highly attended athletic programs. These are programs where students are included. They are non-cut programs. So, um we ask for your support on this one. Thank you. I'm done. Are the clickers on? >> Thank you. Discussion on Article 4, Ms. Hopelco. >> Chris Hopelco, Moor Hill Road. Um Um you proposed that you're going to take this from the unassigned fund balance available in June July. What is your anticipated What is your balance of the unassigned right now and what is your anticipated um figure for the end of June? >> As of right now, we have $1.5 million if all articles on the warrant are are funded um as um as written, we are looking for reductions of 801,000 with a projected fund balance uh to possibly be returned to the taxpayers of 761,000. >> Okay,

134thank you very much. >> Mr. Julian. >> Mike Julian, North Pepper Road. I'm speaking out in support of Article 4. I think that uh $300,000 is a nominal amount of money. There's been some prudent thinking on where this money would go to and all those things seem like reasonable duct work, track and field, maintenance, and uh having a fund like this is nominal to our pockets. Some of it's going to be used from assigned funds as the previous question just mentioned. Ultimately, um you know, between 7 and $11 per 100,000 based on your square uh based on your property value, I think that this is pragmatic, um reasonable, and shouldn't be partisan. So, I'm speaking in support of Article 4. Thanks. >> Mr. Orlando. >> Uh Victor Orlando, 26 Depot Road, uh Hollis uh motion

135to end debate. >> It's a motion to end debate on Article 4. Moved by Mr. Orlando. Is there a second? Mr. Perry. All those in favor of ending debate on Article 4, please raise your cards. Thank you. All opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Now, we come to vote on the article. If you are in favor of $300,000 for the facilities maintenance trust fund, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Motion to reconstruct recon- restrict reconsideration. Say that five times fast. On Article 4. Moved by Mis- Ms. Mann, seconded by Mr. Blanchette. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration on Article 4, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it.

136Article 5 is the contingency fund. To see if the school district will vote to establish a contingency fund for the current year for unanticipated expenses that may arise, and further to raise and appropriate up to $125,000 to go into the fund. This sum to come from the unassigned fund balance available for transfer on July 1, 2026. And no amount to be raised from tax taxation. Any appropriation left at the end of the year will lapse to the general fund. Majority vote required. The estimated tax impact is zero. The potential foregone tax reduction is 5 cents a thousand for Brookline and 3 cents a thousand for Hollis. Recommended by the school board 600, recommended by the budget committee 500. Moved by Holly Babcock, seconded by uh Kate Stall. Miss Babcock. >> Thank you. The purpose of

137the contingency fund is to cover unanticipated major expenses that might arise during the school year. For example, the funds might be needed to help defray the cost of an additional classroom teacher if there's a dramatic increase in summer enrollments or to help defray the cost of an unexpected maintenance need such as an elevator. The source of this funding is the unassigned fund balance or surplus. Unused funds are intended to fund the following year's contingency fund. Thank you. >> Is there discussion on Article 5? Yes, ma'am. >> Carla Garcia, 266 Depot Road. I'm just here to oppose the article. >> Thank you. Mr. Orlando. >> Um Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road, Hollis. Uh propose end debate. >> Motion to end debate. Moved by Mr. Orlando, seconded by Mr. Glenn. If you are in favor of ending

138debate on Article 5, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Now it's time to debate Article 5. If you are in favor of appropriating $125,000 for the contingency fund, please raise your card. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Motion to restrict reconsideration by Article 5, moved by Ms. Mann, seconded by Mr. Blanchette. If you are uh would like to restrict reconsideration on Article 5, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Article 6, open enrollment. Shall the Hollis/Brookline Cooperative School District vote to adopt an open enrollment school program designating the Hollis/Brookline Cooperative High School HBHS as open enrollment school pursuant to NH RSA 194-D for the

139purpose of enabling the district to admit non-resident students to HBHS with 100% of its eligible resident pupils permitted to attend HBHS and 0% of its resident pupils in grades 7 to 12 permitted to attend open enrollment schools located outside of the district. And further, to limit the number of non-resident pupils who may attend HBHS under the provisions of RSA 194-D to no more than four students total with no more than one non-resident students being admitted to each grade 9 through 12 with zero non-resident students permitted to attend Hollis/Brookline Cooperative Middle School. Estimated tax impact is zero. Recommended by the school board 600, recommended by the budget committee 410. Moved by Holly Babcock, seconded by Kate Stahl. >> So, a little history on open enrollment. Um RSA 194-D was established as an effort to allow students

140to attend public schools outside of their resident district with the funding following the student. Um prior to the fall of 2025, only two districts had adopted open enrollment in the state of New Hampshire and Hollis/Brookline was not one of those districts. So, why now? In the fall of 2025, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that ascending district is required to pay tuition under RSA 194-D even if the sending district has not opted into the open enrollment program. Dozens of districts across the state are considering language like our Article 6 during this town meeting cycle and some and many actually are approving similar language to our proposed article. I just want to take a moment to step aside and explain that there are other ways that students may leave the district and have the funding follow

141them. For example, some identified students with special needs may require an out-of-district placement in order to best meet their needs. That decision is made with parents, a a team of teachers, and special educators, and administrators, and that's what they work through. That process is not impacted by open enrollment. Also, in rare instances, a student and their family could apply to a change of school assignment due to a manifest hardship or based on the best interest of the child. This is covered by another law, RSA 193:3, and details for that process are outlined in HB Co-op policy JCA. Again, that is a completely separate process than the open enrollment process. What this article basically does, and it's confusing, but it's there, is it opts the district into the open enrollment program, but it sets limits on

142its usage. Schools that opt into open enrollment can limit the number of students that leave. Without this article, the district faces unplanned and significant financial exposure. Let me move on. So, our plan of action here, if this passes, is to protect the school district from unanticipated financial impacts based on the new interpretation of the law of students leaving and us having to send Hollis-Brookline taxpayer money to other districts to support them in another school system outside of our town. This preserves budget stability because we're not funding students to leave another district, and budget stability is important because it's predictable. If it's more predictable, if we know who's coming. It also protects programs by limiting the numbers of students who can come in cuz we protect the capacity of our programs. So, even though our high

143school may be able to take more bodies in, we have limits. We have science classes that are just under the limit. We don't want to end up having students who come from other towns taking away opportunities from students who currently live here, whose parents and families pay the property taxes in Hollis and Brookline. So, we're trying to manage that. This retains local control and it ensures that Hollis Brookline tax dollars remain in Hollis and Brookline. I'm going to stay up here. I'm done. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Oh, the clicker. I keep forgetting the clicker. >> Discussion Article 6, Mr. Garuba. >> Joe Garuba, 20 Winchester Drive. Thank you, Ms. Babcock, for bringing this amendment at this warrant. Um I would like to move to amend uh the warrant. Uh I would like to change

144the last two sentences. Um I'm going to read from uh after RSA 194-D, which will say uh to no more than one student instead of no more than four students. And uh the other changes are just to change uh the word student to remove the S and make it singular in two places. I have the amendment written out and I can pass it on if I get a second. >> Okay. The motion is to further limit the amount of students from out of district who can come in from four to one. I'm sorry. >> With the language of the slide >> Yes, sorry. This one? Okay. Uh moved by Mr. Garuba. Is there a second? Sir, your name? Gabriels? And for Ephraim Gabriels? Gabrielson. Okay, I would like to restrict discussion to the amendment. I

145realize it's very tempting to get into the question of open enrollment, but we'll have ample opportunity to talk about that once we've dealt with this amendment. Mr. Garuba. >> Thank you, Mr. Moderator. So, uh you specifically heard the reasons why uh the school has brought this forward, and it's critical that we pass this. We need to pass this so that we have some protection because we would end up being the receiving district in many cases, and adding students to our school is going to um reduce teacher time that's available to the students uh that we send to the school. It will increase traffic. So, I I I'll touch on this more later. Right now, um my comments specifically about the amendment are that this very language allowing just one student just passed at the Hollis

146School District meeting uh uh 2 days ago. So, we know this is legal. Uh it's been supported uh in the previous meeting. And changing that number from four to one will reduce all of the problems that I will touch on when we address the meeting uh the war- article subsequently. >> Thank you. >> Discussion on the amendment only, please. >> Um Chris Opalca, Moorhill Road. Uh the amendment is written just amending the number of students in >> Yes. >> grade seven and eight to zero number. And he's reducing it to one student in for grade nine to 12. And it says 0%. Um permitted to attend an open enrollment school. Tuesday night we were told we couldn't have percents. I mean, of course 0% of 0 is 0. But I did learn math. My mother

147was a math major and teacher. >> The 0% refers to people leaving the school. >> Right. >> So, we can have a percentage in there. The number of students coming in is just a whole number. So, we're allowed to do it that way. We were advised by legal we can do it. And he's suggesting to change the four to a one. And then the other one per grade. So, it wouldn't be one per grade, it would just be one. >> This article is all based in reaction to the proposal in the legislature. Presently, it's not law. Open enrollment enables school choice. Competition is good. That is what our country was founded on. You cannot give choice to those coming in and no choice to those who would like to leave. That is not fair to

148the Hollis residents in grade 7 to 12. Vote no on the article as written. If you are for school choice >> please. >> Excuse me? >> Stick Stick to the amendments, please. >> Okay. Vote no for the amendment if you're for school choice. Is the school board and the co-op budget committee afraid of losing some of the state adequacy education aid, which is based on the average daily membership of the Hollis co-op? My understanding is the state adequacy education aid is based on where the student attends school. So, I have a question to the uh >> What is your question? >> Are they afraid of losing the money? The ADM also help How does this affect apportionment? >> You You have basically have time for one question, so pick a question. Please. >> How does

149it affect apportionment? >> How would this affect apportionment? >> You want to answer the adequacy question? Apportionment The The average daily membership number used for apportionment is based on the average daily membership as calculated throughout and at the end of the year. So, whatever that number is and whatever that distribution is between Hollis and Brookline, that would be the number that we use. So, if we have one number one one student um if we have no students going out, then You have no the >> So, it doesn't matter what town they come from. >> It doesn't matter what? >> What town they come from. >> No. With the >> No, because all all of that will be calculated as as they calculate the the daily attendance at the school, and then that's >> So, you're

150really not losing then if you're replacing it with the student. >> Okay. So, I think So, speaking to the attorney, the way So, they would be tuitioning in. So, that amount of money that we receive from them would be apportioned according to the apportionment formula. Does that make sense? So, it would be we would apply the apportionment formula to it and divide it between the two as revenue. >> It it goes into revenue. >> Goes into revenue, right. >> But, she was asking about the the enrollment the the average daily membership part though. >> We don't know where they come. >> Yeah, we don't we don't know where they're going to >> Yeah, they they don't have >> Yeah, no they no they don't know. I don't think they will. >> What don't you know?

151>> The number of students that would apply to the policy book of the district sorry too. >> Clearly, you asked a difficult question. >> Clearly, I was thinking about this. >> I appreciate that. >> You and I were at that hearing. >> So, it if you had in the incoming tuition would be considered revenue and apportioned consistent if you know, if there was a a fund balance consistent with whatever that standard apportionment formula is. And you currently have students and can have students that come in that are not residents outside of open enrollment. You can have you I believe you have students through you know, best interest or manifest hardship and that's so that's already occurring. Nothing's going to change in terms of how non-resident students are counted. You will just have additional revenue potentially

152of with the amendment one non one non-resident student. >> So, are you saying that tuitioned in students are treated differently than the pile of kids that are residents of Hollis and Brookline? >> What do you mean treated differently? >> What do you mean What do you mean treated differently? >> The the money. The pile of money they bring in. >> I I can't I don't think we can answer that. >> As I understand it, ADM only deals with resident students. So, if you invited 20 kids in, it doesn't affect the ADM used in the apportionment formula. That's my understanding. >> Any revenue that a tuitioning student brings into the district counts to co-op counts to the revenue number that gets reduced from that um gets at the end of the gets added to revenue gets

153come and anything that um is excess revenue to what was budgeted. So, if we had additional tuition because students tuitioned tuition in and we have un- underruns in expenses. Those two things get added together and become part of the unreserved fund balance. And the unreserved fund balance that gets returned to taxpayers offsets the tax effort that your community would have to raise. >> Let's Let's move on. >> Okay, I just feel it's not fair for the students of Holliston. >> Let's move on, please. Paul, speak to the amendment, please. >> Yeah, I do. Uh Jason Nason, 244 Worcester Road. Um so, I just have a question before we change the number. Why was four chosen one per um level? >> So, we wanted to support the idea that students could come here, but we didn't

154want to overtax our programs. So, we originally started with five. Um I think it was a little bit more arbitrary. Like, we thought we could handle that. We kind of look at like what our class sizes are about if if we had five students that showed up for one class, how would that impact that? So, for example, we only teach one section of AP Physics 2. Would we Do we have room for four or five more students in that one class? So, we're trying to look at the the whole picture. Came up with the number five. At the public hearing, people wanted us to push the number down. And we're not necessarily disagreeing with that, but we thought, "Okay, we'll take it down to four and make it one per grade." So, we're trying to

155be reasonable to reflect the idea that maybe some students from out of district would like to come here, but we're also trying to protect our current students from being bumped out of a class. So, they register in February. They make their class list. We don't know how many students are going to want AP Physics 2. If we have students that come from out of district, we're not going to treat them differently. They're going to put their name in as, "I want to take AP Physics two, we don't want to bump people who pay the kids who parents are paying taxes here to not be able So we we were balancing all of those ideas. >> Okay. So so it's more it's a possibly slow adoption of the program. It's not a legal >> be. We

156We could look at this again next year. We could bring this back to you next year and say we we have a capacity for more. We If the law changes, we may have to come back with different ideas. This was a beginning start of opting in to open enrollment so that we could limit students leaving so that we don't have money following. Although I do agree with the speaker that there's much more of a chance of us being a receiving district. >> Okay. Um is there a minimum amount of students that we're required to >> I'm sorry, I can't hear you. >> Is there a minimum number of students that are required like are we asked to need to have one? >> One more time. >> Is there a minimum number of students required to

157>> One. We have to have one. >> One must be continuously enrolled in the school. >> Yes. Right? We have to be option. We have to have >> The option one must >> The option of one. Yes. >> Right. Understood. Thank you. >> Right. I'm going to say >> Anyone else needs to speak to the amendment? >> I was going to propose ending discussion. >> Minutes six. >> Real quick, just so people know this Uh Whoa, sorry. Can't hear everybody. I'm sorry to your ears. Mike Julian, North Pepper Road. As others have stated, this is uh something that's being discussed at the state level. Hasn't been adopted. So should the state adopt it, this will be a moot point. I support this amendment because um or and the bill because it gives us protections by

158opting in um and one being the minimum lowest amount gives us those protections and control. It can be revisited next year should the state not pass it. I also think it was brought up at the Tuesday meeting by Mr. Victor Orlando that this open enrollment usurps the benefit from our Hollis-Brookline teachers have their kids attend um if there's capacity. So, I want to also put it out there having one is the minimum viable number while also still maximizing the opportunity for teachers that are in this district to send their kids here. And it was mentioned that it was on annual one year to one year basis that gets reconsidered. So, support the minimum number to give us the protections, see what happens at the state level, revisit next year is is what I is why

159I support the amendment. Thanks. >> Can I just clarify one thing? I just want to clarify one thing. This is current law. This is current law. Yes, there's another there's an amendment or a new law or whatever that's up in Concord, but this is current law. >> Uh Victor Orlando >> Mr. Orlando >> Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road, Hollis. Uh motion to end debate on the amendment. >> Motion to end debate on the amendment made by Mr. Orlando. Is there a second? Mr. Blend. If you are in favor of ending debate on the amendment, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Now, we are voting on the amendment to Article and we are changing this number of four to one making that singular. So,

160it reduces four to one. If you are in favor of amending Article 6, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the And the amendment passes. >> [applause] >> Now, we come to the article as amended, Mr. Guruba. >> Thank you, Mr. Moderator. So, I have a a different story at this point. I am grateful that the school board is looking to protect us from the things that are going on in Concord. Um it's important that we pass this to give us that protection. And I think someone mentioned there's some stuff going on in the State House, but it's important that we talk to our local representatives because, you know, we're all here paying expensive taxes in Hollis. We pay a premium for our houses. So, we want to

161make sure that the money and the time and the effort that we're all here putting into the district is going into our schools and our students. So, please vote yes for this. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Tyler Frediani, Westview Road, Brookline. I rise to speak in support of this amendment. Um So, I believe we in this room mostly are aware of the fact that the budgeting process is very complicated and does not correlate directly with the number of students. Um this open enrollment policy that supposes that we can have students bouncing around and just let the money follow them and that will work out and solve the complexities that it introduces is just not true. That is completely overlooking all of the very important details that go into forming a budget. Um I believe

162this was already addressed in the presentation in terms of the concept of budget stability. There's a lot of planning that needs to happen. There are fixed costs that we have to consider. There are so many elements that open enrollment really doesn't solve for us. And in light of that, I believe that even if you think open enrollment is good, until there are better and sounder laws passed on, it would be wise for us to adopt this article now, and you could always revisit it later if open enrollment policies make more sense to you later. But as they are now, they are horribly reckless. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh my name is Kai Yang Zhang. I'm living in Auburn Lee Hollis. Uh so, on Tuesday I confirmed that even if that's 0% allowed to leave the

163district, but from other channels you can still send out your kids to other districts. So, I want to uh reconfirm that now today. So, just let everybody know you have other ways to send your children outside of the district, even if this article passed with 0% outgoing. >> You want to confirm that the 0% is is legal? >> Uh 0% is definitely legal. I want to confirm that even if this article passed as it is, you'll still have other channel to send out your children to other district. >> So, you have other options in terms of sending your child to another district if you choose a charter school, if you choose a private school, if you choose to home school, there's EFAs, there's other obviously there's the manifest hardship program that I already talked about

164that's very rarely used, but it's possible through appeals process and there's also obviously students with special needs sometimes go out of district but in terms of being able to just go to another school system you could do that you could apply to go to another school system and you'd have to pay the tuition. This prevents us from having to pay for that. >> Thank you for confirming. >> Under understand that the legislature is in session and no one knows what's going to come out the other end in terms of open enrollment. This is as they say this is something that applies to current law now. >> Yes sir. >> Joseph Hartman Mountain Road Brookline. Just a general question because we talked about money leaving if a student were to go and also money coming in

165if a student came in. Do How How does that get decided how much would go out per student or in per student? >> So the answer to that is the current law is 80% of the sending district's per cost per pupil. So if a student was coming from Milford to us it would be 80% of their cost per pupil. If we were we If we pass this we won't be sending anybody. Okay? >> Thank you. >> Mr. Orlando. No no no I want to hear from him. >> He's He's not old enough that be a violation. >> Uh Victor Orlando 266 Depot Road motion to end debate. >> Motion to end debate by Mr. Orlando seconded by Mr. Staniewicz. If you've heard enough on open enrollment and you're ready to vote please raise your cards.

166Thank you. If you are and want to keep talking about it, raise your cards. Thank you. And the motion and motion to end debate passes. If you are in favor of the article to allow open enrollment as amended to reduce the number of students from four to one, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, please raise your cards. And the eyes have it. >> Motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 6. >> Motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 6 moved by Ms. Mann, seconded by um Mr. Blanchette. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration on Article 6, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Article 7. This is a petition article regarding displaying assessment core scores and rankings on the website.

167To see if the Cooperative School District will vote to require the Hollis/Brookline School Board to prominently display current and previous year's state assessment scores and state rankings on the school district website header visible on every page. With said information to be updated within 30 days of the official release of scores by the New Hampshire Department of Education. Estimated impact of zero, the school board does not recommend this article by 600. Moved by Mr. Orlando. Is there a second? Mr. Power. Based on the discussion we had at the Hallsville District on Tuesday night, it is my understanding that this article is advisory only. It is not mandatory on the school board. Mr. Orlando. >> Thank you. Um so, same thing I said on Tuesday night is basically look, whether we like the school Uh well, first

168I'd like to say I do appreciate the school board showing the scores at the beginning of the meeting and going over them. Um that's the discussion we need. Um but whether we like the scores, we don't like them, whether they're fair or unfair, we have to wear them on our chest. They're a scarlet letter if they're bad and they're a banner of pride if they're good. What we need is we need them to be posted prominently so we can see them, so we have full transparency. That's what it's about. Next. >> [applause] >> Discussion on Article 7. >> I just want to clarify something. >> Sir. If there's a question, they can answer. Right now, it's time for the voters. So. Sorry, Holly. >> So, it is my understanding, and please correct me if I'm

169wrong, that students who opt out of these tests are counted as a zero. Um before I continue, can we get clarification on that? >> The man is coming. Thank you for your question. That was my understanding as well. We got clarification today from the state. The data that is posted on the website is not yet um altered by that calculation. That calculation is done after the state collects the data and before they send it to the federal government. So, the federal government gets the reduced numbers. The numbers that are posted on the site are not altered by that 95% rule. They are only impacted by the fact that not all of our students take the test. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Susan Hate, Brookline. I just want to make a point for consistency purposes. That says

170Hollis Brookline School Board. This says Hollis School Board. So, if we're looking at this, it's incorrect. So, just for consistency >> What What is What are you waving? >> The warrant articles that were out in for publication. Warrant article number seven says to require the Hollis School Board to permanently display. >> Mr. Moderator, if I can speak to that. I I know the submitted warrant said go >> The warrant as posted, as opposed to what may be published, the warrant as posted, and you can see a copy there and there, says to see if the cooperative school district will vote to require the Hollis Brookline School Board. So, what matters, the legal document, is the posted warrant. Yes, ma'am. >> Bonnie Bruno, Milton Place, Hollis. Um for this petition warrant article, not really sure of

171the timing on this, but I'm going to want a count like the way he had a count on, you know, the people who count the blue cards, not that private ballot stuff, but I'm going to want to ask for a count. Just want to know when I do that. >> Yes, you need to request it, and there need to be >> want to count the ballot >> You need to be um have five people who also wish to have it. A total of five. >> Okay. So, do I just yell that out like >> No, just have them stand up. >> No, no, when do I tell you so I don't miss it and get into all that sort of hoopla we had around last year and something. >> I would like to have a

172count. >> So, if you're if you the request is that we count this by cards, not a secret ballot. >> Correct. >> Count it by cards. If If you're interested, please stand up. I see five. That's good enough. >> Thank you. >> Uh Mr. Orlando, you've already talked to this. So, I'm going to let Mr. Guruba, the other Mr. Guruba, go. >> No, I'm I'm okay for now. Thank you. >> You're okay. >> Darlene Man, 29 North Ave Road. I wanted to understand if um perhaps legal counsel can provide a clarification on whether this is advisory or compelling to the district. >> It is advisory. >> And so, if it's advisory, it means Can you explain that? >> It meaning it's informative as to what the board, you know, what the legislative body would like

173the board to do if it passes, but they are not required to do it. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Um Kate Elkins, Mason Road in Brookline. This is so silly and stupid and I would please just advise everybody to not pass this. So, I don't even know why we're having this discussion actually about this. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Mike Julian, North Pepper Road. I'd like to make a motion to end debate. >> Moved by Mr. Julian, seconded by Mr. Orlando. If you've heard enough on this and you're ready to to end debate, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards and the eyes have it. Um now it is time to vote on petition article seven. If you you're in favor of the petition article uh

174we're going to count this. That's right. Are we ready? If you are in favor of this article, please raise your cards. >> Thank you. You can put your cards down. If If you are opposed to this article, please raise your cards. Thank you. You can put them down. >> You ready? >> And the vote is yes, 182. No, 227. The article is defeated. Motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 7 moved by Ms. Mann, seconded by Mr. >> Boschert. >> If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration on Article 7, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Article 8. To adopt SB2. This is a petition warrant article. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 40:13, known as SB2, to allow official ballot voting on

175all issues before the Hollis-Brookline Cooperative School District on the second Tuesday of March? The estimated tax impact is zero. The school board does not recommend this article 6-0-0. The budget committee does not recommend this article 5-0-0. Moved by Eric Power. Is there a second? Diane Power. Can you pull up the PDF on Article 8? Mr. Power. >> Mr. Moderator, are you going to change the slides for me? Are you going to change the slides for me? >> Yes, I will. >> Okay. Go to the beginning, please. It's not at the beginning. >> Next, you want Sorry. That one? >> Yes, thank you. >> Yes. >> So, Article 8 is adoption of SB2, which is also called official ballot voting. Um it really eliminates voter disenfranchisement. And SB2 enables all Hollis and Brookline voters to participate

176in the important school district meeting process. So, if you're watching at home, you're not participating cuz you're not here. Next slide, please. This is the uh warrant article wording. It really says so we adopt the provisions of RSA 40:13 to allow official ballot voting on all issues before the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District on the second Tuesday of March. So, you would vote on things on the second Tuesday of March on election day. Next slide. So, SB2 became law in 1995 and the legislature saw a need for an optional form of town meeting that allowed for all-day ballot voting. And constituents were were saying, and it's true today, that their participation in traditional meetings were facing many practical obstacles. They're elderly, they can't drive at night, they can't sit long enough and wait out the

177time it takes to vote. You have couples with children, one has to stay home, people travel or work for the military. Myself, I'm a Air Force veteran and I had to miss many meetings cuz I was away. Desire and desire to and the ability to vote absentee. Some people want to have a secret ballot, they don't want people to see how they're voting, so you don't have that under SB2. People already know how they want to vote, they just want to do the vote. Um people also want to think a little bit more and fact-check the arguments presented. And then also the desire to have greater participation, the will of the people. There's more people just participating in SB2. Next slide. So, for those who aren't aware what SB2 is, it's a method to conduct

178the town meeting in two sessions. You have a deliberative session, called the first session of the meeting, that's held in early February. And then in um and then you have your ballot voting session, which is the second session of the meeting, that's actually held at the same time as our town and school district elections, second Tuesday in March. Next slide. So, Brookline does use the SB2 for our Brookline school district. We adopted in 2016, so we've been using it since 2017. It has worked very well and has resulted in a 14-times increase. So, 14-times increase in voter participation versus our prior traditional meeting. Voters prefer to be able to vote on warrant articles on election day or by absentee ballot. And there was an article this year to try to rescind SB2, but it 55%

179said, "No, we like SB2 and we're going to keep it." Next slide. So, generally, um it's the same as a a deliberative session is the same as this traditional meeting format. It's open to all voters present. You have debates, you have motions, amendments. Um each warrant article is brought to the floor for debate and potential amendment. The change The the real difference is that you finalize the warrant article that goes to the ballot voting session. So, it becomes a question on your ballot uh on election day. So, the final vote of approval or disapproval is by the ballot. Um all articles get a ballot vote. There's no table in of ballots. Every single warrant article, whether it's a school district warrant article from the school board or a petition warrant article, they all get onto

180the ballot. And the operating budget has a proposed budget and then a default budget, which is typically lower based on prior year's expenses. There's a whole law about that. So, if you defeat the proposed budget, you get the default budget. Next slide. So, the balloting session consists of the consists of voting on each warrant article, yes no question. There has to be at least 30 days between your deliberative session and your balloting session. So, that gives a lot of time for voters to get informed on what they're voting on. Voters are smart. The balloting is held during a normal town election, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and in Brookline we stay open to 7:30. Uh voting is by absentee ballot. Also, that's available. Um some will argue that voters are uninformed. You have to go

181to the meeting to understand, but you have a deliberative session and you have plenty of time to learn. So, realistically, voters do get informed. There's ample time and opportunity. And the biggest thing about SB2 is no voter is disenfranchised. Everybody can vote. So, your elderly, your disabled, your couples with children, business travelers, college students, snowbirds, military members, and shift employees can all vote. And it also increases voter turnout on election day. >> [applause] >> Next slide. Next slide, Mr. Moderator. So, this is a graph showing in the blue box when we were under traditional and then in the red box under SB2. Next slide. Just builds it. So, you can see we only had about 71 voters at our meeting when we had the traditional meeting. We went to the deliberative session, we've averaged 75

182voters and it was 123 this year. Um but you also get all the voters on election day. So, we've had an average of 892 voters. So, we have 967 voters vote weighing in on warrant articles instead of 71. That's 14 times increase. That's That's very significant. Next slide. The other thing it does is it increases voter turnout cuz you have actually more to vote on than just the candidates. So, you can see the voter turnout was under 15% when we didn't have SB2, and it went up to 23% once we had SB2. So, it's an average of 75% more in the turnout. Next slide. Just to give an example what happened in Brookline this year. We have 4,097 voters on the checklist. We had over 1,000 ballots cast, a 26% turnout, the highest ever. We

183only had two contested candidate races. We had five zoning amendments and three official ballot questions, but the what the draw was was the SB2 ballot for the school district. So, SB2 greatly increases election turnout, and you get a better result for your school district when more people participate. Better reflects what you're doing. Next slide. So, SB2 as a 1-hour ballot votes, so if you're at home, you can come in and vote over the next hour when the box opens. It does require a 3/5 majority to adopt. Next slide. And in closing, I'd like everybody to think about voting yes to adopt SB2. You get your deliberative session like the traditional meeting, the balloting session, accessible to all, and it eliminates voter disenfranchisement. Everybody gets a voice. Higher voter participation under SB2, higher voter election turnout

184under SB2. It will result in school decisions that are more reflective of the will and desire of residents. Let's enable all halls in Brookline voters to participate in this important school district meeting process. Next slide. That's it. Thank you very much. >> [applause] >> Discussion on Article 8. Mr. Garuba. >> Thank you for recognizing me earlier, Drew. Unfortunately, I had to stand up there to protect my right to speak, because in the past I've been arbitrarily shut down. Um, I'd like to thank the board members for their their time and dedication in working to propose this and the residents who came here tonight to support uh town meeting uh process. Um I'm happy and encouraged to see all the enthusiasm at our meetings this week. Earlier in the week, I saw more people take their

185personal time to show up and take part in governing than I've seen before in my 11 years that I've lived here. That turnout shows how deeply we all care about the town and its future. That's the point of this meeting, a better outcome uh for all by participation. However, I think it's sad that we can't just listen to one another. Some groups debating the rules ad nauseam for advantage over the others disrespects the process. If we just spent the time listening to those who dedicated their time and energy to participate in this meeting, we would be more productive and we would have a better outcome for all. SB 2 might seem like it allows participation by more of the community members, but this is an illusion. In effect, it takes away the responsibility of architecting

186the future from the residents at large, this body here tonight, and places it in the hands of a few, which are then subject to their beliefs and desires. This surely will have a significant unintended consequence as a few choice architects will set the agenda, the ballot with less input and oversight by the residents. Once that power leaves the town meeting, we lose our voice and we lose accountability. As the choice architects will set the agenda and the vote will be a cathartic illusion. Please join me in voting no on SB 2. In the past, uh before I came to New Hampshire, I came from New York and I experienced similar governing bodies where the outcomes were not what was expected by uh the populace at large. And the I ask that if the residents reaffirm

187their preference is town meeting yet again for numerous times, I ask that this wish be respected by fellow residents and SP2 not be brought back as a petition for 5 years. Energies would be much better spent >> [applause] >> Your time is up, Mr. Grube. >> by participating in good faith at future meetings by all. >> [applause] >> Mike Julian, North Pepperell Road. I'd like to appeal to fellow citizens of the co-op to demystify some of the claims that SP2 doesn't allow for dialogue. As Eric mentioned, there is a deliberative session. And Mr. Grube just mentioned outcomes weren't in anticipated in New York. Well, this is New Hampshire, the last free state in the north. And we can look no further than to Brookline Brookline and Mount Vernon that recently enacted these and under the

188guise of participation rates. And that's the angle I'm going to come from. We should be enacting legislation that allows that maximizes participation rates so all voices are heard. And Tuesday, 17% of the populace showed up, roughly 900 people. If we get the 25% participation rate, we're not this is going to be a fire hazard to be here. So there's a safety concern. Why should 20% of the populace determine the rest for all? So it's about accessibility and representation. And some of the people who are most impacted by SP2, Eric had mentioned a few of them, are protected classes. So I looked at some demographics in Hollis recently from 2003. These are approximate. About 6% of female households, no husband with children, 2% are below the poverty line, how how I grew up, 3% are people

189of color. Do the 11% of the Hollis Brookline cooperative that represents that group, do their opinions not matter? Does their voice not matter? I would like to see a whole reflective vote with all diverse backgrounds, whether I agree with those backgrounds or not. We need participation. That's the fabric of a healthy community. And then I was heartened by the seniors showing up in droves to vote. but what a shame. Out of respect, we owe it to ourselves to provide convenience to those seniors. Think of your grandfather or your parent, if you're blessed to still have them here, 80 plus. Should they be here at that time of night? I think with the maximize petition rates, support SB2. This is the best way to have the maximum participation and allow all voices to be heard, whether

190you're the sent opinion of ours or not. So, please join me in supporting SB2. Thank you. >> [applause] >> So, someone left their >> Yes, sir. >> Joseph Hartman, Mountain Road, Brookline. Um Not going to be as dramatic as anybody else, but I do support SB2, but here's why. Um a case in point uh with the being able to vote absentee, my wife had to travel to Chicago last um whatever week we voted, I guess last week, week before. Um she was able to do it through absentee ballot and at least was able to vote her opinion, which was in favor of probably every spending item that was on there. So, she supported the schools, but was able to do that through absentee. The second one is if the article, especially for the budget, is

191written is similar to what Hollis or what Brookline has, it has a default budget, which is very close to the previous year's budget. So, if it the if the deliberative session gets hijacked, then it could be really high or really low, but the voters would at least be able to choose to reject the hijacked budget and then take the default. Um this meeting, however, if someone hijacks the meeting because it's a bad weather and they're able to get the numbers out, whether it's a super high budget, they add 10 million or take away 10 million, then you're stuck with that, unless especially if somebody forgets or they reconsider or they do actually do the reconsidering and then may to prevent it from being changed. But let's say this budget earlier passed and everybody went home

192but we forgot to reconsider then it could be brought back up and hijacked and brought down to whatever anybody else wanted or up whatever one else wanted. So this meeting is more dangerous than SB2 when it comes to being hijacked. So I don't understand why that point is ever made. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Mr. Locke. >> Me again. No, Brian Loveland, Tady Brook Road. No, motion to table Article 8. >> Okay. There is a motion to table Article 8. Is there a second? Ms. Cook. This article this motion is not debatable and it requires a simple majority to pass. If you are in favor of tabling Article 8, please raise your cards. If you are opposed, raise your cards. All right, we need to count it. Are we ready? If you are in favor

193of tabling Article 8, please raise your cards. >> Someone is upset. Why are you over here and not over there? Okay, you can put your cards down. If you are opposed to tabling Article 8, please raise your cards. >> 1 Thank you. You can put your cards down. And the vote was yes to table 197, no 208. >> [cheering] [applause] >> Mr. Orlando >> Uh motion to end debate. >> Motion is to end debate. Is there a second? Mr. Julian This one requires 2/3. If you are in favor of ending debate, please raise your card. Thank you. If you are opposed and the eyes have it. >> [applause] >> Now, I'm going to do something a little different here. We are not going to vote at this time. We are going to proceed because multiple

194articles here require an hour. I am not going to sit here for five consecutive hours and and hold the meeting. What we're going to do What What we're going to do is continue on to article nine and then 10 and then 11. >> Jonathan Wilson motion to challenge speaker. >> If there was something said there, I couldn't hear it. Let this gentleman speak. >> Motion to challenge the speaker's decision. Do I have a second? Thank you. >> LET'S VOTE. >> The The gentleman who made the motion. Jonathan Wilson. Okay. My ruling was to go ahead and proceed to discuss articles nine, 10, and 11 as necessary so that we can do all the voting together. >> [cheering] >> The appeal is to say, "No, we want to go vote sequentially. So, if you are in

195favor of sustaining my ruling, please raise your cards. If you are opposed, raise your cards. Okay, then we're going to do that. >> Sorry, point of order. Is it possible to vote to not have discussion on the other amendments and then just vote as they are? >> There There was to You mean to end debate? >> To end debate on the others because people mostly know where they are going to vote. >> When we get there, we can do that, but we're not there. Right now, we are voting on Article 8. >> But that's my question is can we make the to do it your way and vote for all of them right now? Is it possible to wave the discussion on 9, 10, 11, and 12 and then vote for all of them right

196now? >> No. Given Given what what was decided by the legislative body, no. So, it is time to vote. Yes, Melinda. >> Can you please re-explain very clearly what people are voting on in the back of the room? We couldn't hear what was a yes and what was a no. Thank you. >> We are now voting on Article 8. So, if you are in favor of adopting SB2, and it's a ballot vote, it's an hour-long ballot vote. If you are in favor of adopting SB2, then you would What? >> [cheering] >> I'm sorry. Please don't be so unruly. We're trying to have a meeting and know what we're voting about. >> Miss Willis. >> When last vote that you just did about whether we were doing sequential voting or not. >> Yes. >> In the

197back of the room, there was so much noise otherwise in the back of the room, we could not hear your explanation on on what we were voting on. >> Okay. Nonetheless, what the the it was voted to overrule my ruling and we're going to go ahead and have this vote. Are the are the ballot boxes and the and the counters ready? No, not quite yet. I heard your motion and I'm not going to do it. We don't have ballot clerks tomorrow. We don't have Sorry. Yeah, we did, but that doesn't We don't have We don't have supervisors tomorrow. The ballot is no is open now. The time is is 11:01. I will close voting on this article something around 12:01. Yeah. We will No. But, three of them are another hour. I don't know why

198they would they >> Mhm. >> Is there anyone here who needs to vote? Well, you have an hour to do it. So, we're going to start up with Article 9. >> Will you announce when this vote ends? I mean, it takes an hour. >> Takes an hour and I opened it 11:01. >> Thank you. >> So. Article 9. Petition or warrant article on adopting a budget cap. Shall we adopt the provision of RSA 32 {colon} 5-E and implement a budget cap whereby the school board or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that is higher than $27,500 per pupil cost cost times the average daily membership in residents of the school district as of October 1 of the year immediately preceding the proposed budget year plus an annual increase for inflation using CPI-U for

199the Boston-Cambridge-New Hampshire, Massachusetts-New Hampshire area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as of October 1 requires a 3/5 majority vote of the school district. Estimated tax impact zero. The school board does not recommend this Article 600. The budget committee does not recommend this uh uh Article 500. Voting will be by secret ballot. Polls to remain open for at least an hour. Mr. Power. >> Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Um I'm the primary petitioner of Article 9, adoption of a school district budget cap to provide fiscal guardrails for our schools. It really helps enable all halls and Brookline residents to afford their property taxes. Next slide. This is the language the moderator just read. Basically, it sets a initial $27,500 expense per pupil. And then each year the uh average daily membership is used to

200to calculate the budget cap and I'll go into more details. Next slide. So, the school district budget cap places an initial limit on the proposed spending on the warrants that the that the school board and the budget committee can put forth. And that budget cap is calculated based on the per pupil cost that you adopted times the number of students by a metric they call average daily membership in residence. This This average daily membership in residence or ADMR is reported by the Department of Education every October 1st. It's the same figure they use for their state adequacy aid when they give us aid to the each of our school districts. Each year the per pupil cost is adjusted based on inflation. So, that will adjust by CPI-U Northeast per the warrant article that we proposed.

201And the budget cap is not a hard stop. It can be overridden and exceeded by a uh by a 3/5 majority ballot vote on any warrant article. So, the budget cap is a soft limit and you can go over it with a with a a 3/5 vote. This is a new enabling law that was passed in uh 2024 by Senate Bill 383. Next slide. So, the Just to give you an idea how this would work, um the to- Well, we have a total we had a total proposed budget in 20 FY21 that was just under $25 million. And you saw today that we have a total proposed budget that's about 33.5. So, what we've seen in these 6 years, um we've had some inflation for sure. It was uh CPI-U Northeast has been about 24.5%

202but we've also seen a drop in enrollment of about 12 and a half 12.2%. So we've gone down from over 1200 students to 1061 according to the Department of Education report on October 1st. So we've we our cost per student, believe it or not, has gone up 53 over 53% in just 6 years. That's a lot of money. So we are our cost per student is rising more than double the rate of inflation. And I think if you look at that, most residents are finding this rate of school spending increases and the property taxes that come from it to be unsustainable and unaffordable. Next slide. So here's a chart showing the in the bars it shows the student enrollment starting in FY 2006 till the present and you can see we had we had a

203steady enrollment then it's been dropping steadily. We actually lost 53 students in the co-op last year. But you can see the total budget is is this red line and it's skyrocketing. Um it's gone up a lot in the past few years especially. You can see how steep the curve is. So we're looking at you know a budget a sobering budget of $33.5 million and we have 1061 students. Next slide. So just to get people an idea of how this would work if you had a school district budget cap and you didn't override it this would give you the graph trajectory of what our spending would have been if we had a if the school district budget cap existed in 2006 and we had adopted it with CPIU Northeast and you can see that the the

204budget we would be seeing if we had the budget cap, we would be at $21.3 million if the budget cap was in place and we if the budget cap was in place and we didn't override it. But, you can see that we're over $33 million instead. So, what you can see is the budget cap would let you make small changes over time, which can actually save you money. So, that's what the budget cap is all about. It helps you plan to a sustainable budget. Next slide. This slide is actually similar to the slide the budget committee showed, but it's showing in the red bar graph and the blue, it shows what our actual cost gross cost per student is. This is actually the total budget divided by the number of students, not the same number

205the Department of Education used. They subtract out about four categories of expenses, but this is all expenses in. And you can see the green line shows where we would be if we were able to keep our cost per student tracking inflation. We would be at just over 20,000 instead of over 31,000. So, this is what the budget cap would help us get to that this green line over time going forward. Next slide. So, the the school district budget cap provides reasonable fiscal guardrail, making small adjustments each year to keep spending sustainable. It gives guidance to the budget committee and the school board. It tracks really what residents can afford, scaling with inflation and scaling with the number of students. It encourages prioritization in the budgeting process, you know, prioritizing wants versus needs. And there still

206is the ability, like there is in any cap in New Hampshire, there is an override mechanism by a 3/5 vote for truly urgent needs. And if it's not truly urgent, then it won't get the supermajority, and we we don't need it. Next slide. So, I'd recommend everyone vote yes on the school district budget cap. This is a 1-hour ballot vote, and it does require the 3/5 majority to to The budget cap is really a smart mechanism that the legislature has given us. It enables all Hollis and Brookline residents to afford their property taxes. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. >> Ms. Cook. >> I move to pass over this article. >> A motion to pass over means that uh we are done. We don't need to talk about it anymore. We don't need to vote

207on it. It is It is gone. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Loveland. Is there discussion on the motion to pass over? Seeing none, if you want it is There's a simple majority vote. If you are want to simply end and stop dealing with this article, then you would vote yes. If you want to keep talking about it and maybe get to a vote, you then you would vote no. So, if you are in favor of passing over this article, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. >> Mr. Moderator. >> Motion made to restrict reconsideration on Article 9 of the motion to pass over on Article 9, which will have the effect of restricting re- reconsideration of the base article. Moved by

208Ms. Mann, seconded by Mr. Blinn. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration of the Passover of Article 9, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Go back to the other presentation, please. Article 10. Petition warrant article to adopt estimated tax impact on warrant articles. This one does not require a ballot vote and does not have to hold it for an hour. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32:5 Roman numeral five-B requiring that the the annual budget and all special warrant articles having a tax impact as determined by the school board shall contain a notation stating the estimated tax impact of the article. The determination of the estimated tax impact shall be subject to approval by the governing body. That means the school

209board. Estimated tax impact of zero. The school board does not recommend this article 600. The budget committee does not recommend this article 410. Moved by Eric Power, seconded by Diane Power. Mr. Power. Okay, go to number 10. 10. There we go. >> Thank you, Mr. Moderator. This is Article 10. I'm the primary petitioner. This is to adopt tax impact notation. This is really a transparency article. It gives you transparency in the warrant on the warrant articles. So, it really enables all the Hollis and Brookline residents to understand the tax impact of warrant articles. Next slide. And this is the warrant article that the moderator just read. It's RSA 32:5 Roman 5-B. That's the one you can adopt to require that there's tax impact in the warrant. Also, I'd like to keep in mind that the

210school board and the budget committee can actually do this if they wanted to. This just requires them to put that in the warrant. Next slide. And this is the actual RSA that that talks about the tax impact. And the law has actually been updated this in the recent year that if you have a multi-year warrant article, you have to show the tax impact for the first five years. If it's if it's if it's less than five years, then every year. But, you get to see the tax impact on a bond, which I think would have been useful in Hollis because I think there was confusion there about how much the tax impact was on the bond after the first year. Next slide. So, DRA, Department of Revenue Administration, does give guidance. They have a technical

211assistance to school districts and towns to tell them how to do this tax impact and calculate it so that it's an honest estimate. And it does use offsetting revenues, so it's not just how much it costs, but it it does if you have revenues that you have estimates for, you do count that. So, it's it's the best guess or the best estimate of the tax impact. Next slide. So, here's an example of this year's Article 3, which was our operating budget. So, that's the the what's in white up there. What's in yellow is really what the tax impact notation would be if you if you approve this warrant article, you would see it in future years. It says there's an estimated FY tax impact, and it tells you it's $5.99 per thousand in Hollis, and

212then $9.04 per thousand in Brookline. It's all it does is it puts it in the warrant article instead of in the presentations they have to find, it puts it right into the warrant. So, that's what it would look like. Next slide. Now, if you have a multi-year impact, this is article one, I think, from last year, which was the $5.3 million uh dollar um uh boiler LED warrant article. So, you can actually see here, you can see the first year um it was 3 cents per thousand and 5 cents per thousand in Brookline, but then you get to see actually it jumps up the next year. So, you can actually see what's happening for the first five years, and that helps inform voters on what's going on. If you only saw the 3 cents, you

213might say, "Oh, it's not so much." But, then it jumps up the next year. This provides that transparency. Next slide. And I know this is a little hard to read, but this is the warrant for this year, the approved warrant, but you can see the red letters there. It's really just a a statement after each warrant article on what the tax impact is. It just lists what it is for Hollis, and lists what it is for Brookline. Next slide. So, really the tax impact notation, it really increases transparency by providing estimated tax impact of warrant articles for each town posted in the warrant, in the official warrant that you would see in the back. The tax impact is estimated by the budget committee and approved by the school board. As I mentioned earlier, if you

214have multi-year warrant articles, you get to see the tax impact for the first five years, very useful for like things like bonds, leases, and collective bargaining agreements that are sandbornized. It has been adopted by the Brookline School District. We have it been used it there and we also have adopted in the town of Brookline. And everyone likes it. It's very useful, very informative to voters. No matter which side of the aisle you're on. Um it it also in the the really including the tax impact in the warrant provides fully full disclosure of the tax impact for more informed citizen voting at the school district meeting. And if it's especially valuable if you adopt SB2 because it would go on the SB2 ballot along with the question in the warrant article. Next slide. So I recommend

215that everyone really if you want it there's nothing that's wrong here with this. It just gives you the tax impact. It puts it in the warrant. It supports enhanced transparency for all the warrant articles that we're considering so you know what you're voting on and how much it's going to cost. Um next slide. So I recommend everyone vote yes. This is not a ballot vote unless somebody asked for one. You have to vote yes by a simple majority to adopt tax impact in warrant articles for next year and there forward. And it will enable all halls and Brookline residents to understand the tax impact on all the warrant articles. Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. >> [applause] >> Just a reminder. Um voting on article eight started at 11:01 and we will close the polls

216on that approximately 12:01. Maybe a little later. Yes, sir. >> Tyler Frediani, Westview Road, Brookline. Make a motion to pass over the article. >> Motion to pass over. Tell me your last name again, please. Tell me your last name again. >> Frediani. F R E D I A N I >> Seconded by Ms. Cook. Discussion on motion to pass over. Seeing none, if you are interested in passing over Article 10, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. That's even closer. I think we better count this one. I would like to to give a vote of thanks to my counters, Webb Scales, >> [applause] >> Ted Barber, Liz Brown, Erica McDonald, and Melinda Willis. Are we ready? Ready. All right, if you are in favor of passing over this article,

217please raise your cards. Tyler Fried What? Fried Go ask him. He's right there. Go ask. Thank you. You can put your cards down. If you are opposed to passing over this article, please raise your cards. So, what is it? >> I have one. I don't want to put a chair on here. It's too likely to trip over it or fall or something. Yeah, too dangerous. Probably and probably the safety people would come right over and say, "Take it down." Okay, you can put your cards down. Thank you. And the vote is yes to pass over 169, no 136. The article is passed over. Motion to restrict reconsideration. Moved by Darlene Mann. Seconded by Raul Blanche. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration on Article 10, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are

218opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Here. >> Article 11, adopt a local tax cap. Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32:5-B and implement a tax cap whereby the governing body or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that increases the amount to be raised by local taxes this year's base that is higher than the prior fiscal year's amount of local taxes raised last year's base adjusted for inflation using the inflation index CPI-U for the Boston, Cambridge, Newton, Mass, New Hampshire area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the change in attendance in accordance with RSA 32:5-B {comma} Roman 1-B estimated tax impact of zero the school board does not recommend this article the budget committee does not recommend this article 500 moved by Eric Power seconded by Diane

219Power Mr. Power, can you put up article 11, please? Mr. Power The microphone is off. Rich, the microphone is off. >> Off? Can you hear me now? >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Um, this is article 11 adoption of a local tax cap. It provides fiscal guardrails for our schools. It's similar to the school district budget cap, but it's a little bit different, so I'll explain what it does. But, it does also help enable Holliston and Brookline residents to afford their property taxes. Next slide. So, here's the language that the moderator just read. Um there's no dollar figure in this. It just specifies that you use the inflation index CPIU for the Boston Cambridge Newton Mass and Hampshire area. And basically, uh go to the next slide. So, a local tax cap places an initial limit

220on the proposed tax effort. So, it's not a spending cap, but it's a really a tax effort cap. And a tax effort is your total spending minus your total estimated revenues that you put on the MS forms. Um if the school district gets more revenues from state or federal aid or grants, the spending can increase because it's really a a cap on the tax effort. So, more revenue lets you spend more money and still have the same tax effort. So, each year the local tax cap is the previous year's tax effort, whatever that is, times the change in inflation and then times the change in the number of students. Again, this uses the same metric that the school district budget cap used. It's the average daily membership in residence, and that's reported by the Department

221of Education on October 1st every year. Um the inflation index in the worn article is CPI CPIU Northeast. And just like the school district budget cap, the local tax cap can be overridden exceeded by a 3/5 majority ballot vote on any worn article. And this is actually relatively new law. It was passed in 2024 by Senate Bill 383. Next slide. So, just um see what we've been doing. I talked about these numbers a few minutes ago, but um we went from in FY21 from 29.9 million to this year 33.5 million. Inflation was a little under 25% enrollment was down 12.2% but our our cost per student we're just spending more and more money. We went up 53%. We were spending about 20,600 and now we're about 31,600. So, we're really outpacing inflation by more than

222double the rate and that is a concern cuz it's that's what makes our property taxes unaffordable. And in Brookline this is the largest percentage of our taxes. So, most residents find this rate of school spending increases and resulting property taxes to be unsustainable and unaffordable. Next slide. So, here's the slide you saw before but this is just showing the the spending in the red line and then the enrollment in the blue. Next build the next slide, please. So, this is actually showing what would happen if we had adopted this local tax cap back in 2006 with CPIU northeast and you can see here that if if we didn't have any overrides, you could see that the blue and the green line would be close together but the red line starts diverging more and more especially

223in the last year. So, it shows how much we've been really spending in the past five or six years much much greater than inflation even with declining enrollment. So, that's that's the challenge here and what the local tax cap does is it puts guardrails on so that you are you know, not spending as much money you're you're really prioritizing your needs versus your wants. So, if we had had the local tax cap in place, we would be at about 20 just under $27 million with no overrides instead of over 33 million. Next slide. Again, this is a slide from before in the school district budget cap. We can see that we have been the green line would show if the expenditure per student tracked inflation and we're more than doubling that. Next slide. Just to

224give you an example of this year, if we had if we had adopted this local tax cap last year, um the total budget last year was over just about 32.2 million. We had about 7.8 million in revenue. So, we had a net tax effort of about 24.3 million. So, the way you would calculate the tax cap would you'd use the change in the CPIU, which was 2.7%. You would change by the the change in the students and we lost 4.76% of the students. And so, your new tax cap would take into account those two factors and I show the formula there. Um we would get a tax cap of 23.8 million roughly. But, we do have estimated revenue. Remember, this is a tax effort cap. So, the estimated revenues of about 7.8 would be put

225back in and that would be what you could propose for spending. So, your your max spending would be at 31.7 million dollars for all your spending. So, that's what you would be using as a cap when you are going through your warrant articles. Next slide. So, the local tax cap provides reasonable fiscal a reasonable fiscal guardrail. It makes small adjustments over time to keep the spending sustainable. It tracks what residents can afford and scales with inflation and the number of students. It can actually coexist with the school district budget cap. You can have one or the other or both. And it really encourages prioritization in the budgeting process wants versus needs. And again, like any cap in New Hampshire, it can be overridden by a supermajority vote of 3/5 for truly urgent needs. Next slide.

226So, I hope people will vote yes to a vote adopt the local tax cap. I'd like to mention that we have a local tax cap in our Brookline school district. It's it's a fixed percentage, not an inflation based at 8%, and I think it works really well to help keep the spending prioritized. Um, this is a one-hour ballot vote, and it needs a 3/5 majority vote to adopt. Um, this would really If you pass this, it would really enable all halls and Brookline residents to afford their property taxes, and I think that's something that's really important to strike a balance between taking care of our students and keeping property taxes affordable. Next slide. That'll be it. Thank you very much. >> [applause] >> Okay, discussion on Article 11. >> Jonathan Wilson, 5 Deer Run Road.

227Uh, I want to make it public that I want to make a motion to stop reconsideration on Article 8 regardless of the outcome. >> Um, until we have the vote announced on Article 8, that motion is out of order. >> Okay. I just want to make sure that it's on public record in case it passes and someone tries to reconsider and subvert the will of the voters. >> Ms. Mann. >> [applause] >> Ms. Mann. Could I have 54 and 55? And 52, you could start at 52. Yep. You can go right to 52. Just click it. Okay, well, I'll get started. These are just a few comments I'd like to before I make my official comments about my position um against this article, I wanted to clarify some misinformation that was presented. Uh we moving

228into um 26 FY 26 and 27, especially moving to 27, we have a three student change. Um regarding the CPI um let's move to um the next slide uh 54, please. Oh, I have it. I can go. Our cost per pupil is nowhere near $30,000. As I stated earlier, our cost per pupil at the at the last time it was calculated by the state is 23,000 $444 per pupil. This is a a slide that combines uh the change in enrollment from at fiscal year uh, fiscal year '09 '10 to uh, the current year that we're in. It also includes the budget and the inflation-adjusted budget. So, rather than um, the chart that was earlier presented, this chart has an untruncated scale that starts at zero. And you can see that the trends themselves are a

229little bit more level than what's been presented. >> [applause] [applause] >> Uh, I think that's it. Thank you. You can You can go back to the article. The last thing. Oh. Okay. So, to the comments at hand for the on the item at hand. While this may look like a way to stop tax rates from increasing, after analyzing the proposed methodology, the result is a tax effort and budget that are greater than what you approved this evening. The CPIU that was referenced for in the in the calculation that was shown was far below what would have been used at in the October timeframe when we're establishing um, the budgets. Budget Committee would have used a CPI of 3.3% versus something in the two range. The Budget Committee is evaluating evaluating data using methodology and that

230considers economic factors, legal obligations, and the impact of changing data points, and the administration delivered. After looking at all of those things, without the implementation of a tax cap to it to enable us to tell us where we should have ended up. The items that significantly impact taxes and tax rates happen after the budget is determined and approved, like we did tonight. State aid revenue, unreser- um unreserved fund balance and valuation have a significant impact on tax effort and tax rates. State aid in its various forms is significantly impacted by legislation decided in Concord. And final student counts and expenses are submitted as of June 30th. So, we have a ways to go. District revenue includes the unreserved fund balance from the prior year. And estimates of unreserved fund balance used during the budget process

231are consistently below the actual unreserved fund balance at the end of the year. To determine the resulting tax rates, town valuation is determined in the fall after the school year has started. To align to the Department of Revenue and require administration requirements, we've estimated the highest tax rate impact possible by not assuming an increase in home valuations. The proposed formula uses current CPI and current and prior year student trends to determine future impacts and doesn't consider future enrollment trends in the budget year in development. You have a budget committee that analyzes, oversees, reviews, and delivers a fiscally responsible budget and resulting tax effort. We update assumptions >> [applause] >> We update assumptions and information throughout the process, and we delivered, without a tax cap in place, the tax effort of estimated at 25.6 million on

232a budget of 33.5. If a tax cap had been in place, the maximum tax tax effort would have been higher at $26 million with a budget of 33.8. You elect people to evaluate all of the elements that comprise a budget and resulting tax effort. We don't need a tax cap to do the job for us. Please vote no on this petition warrant article. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Miss Hicks. >> I'm [sighs] Hicks, 8 Maple Knoll Drive. I'm not going to say this well, it's late, but I just have the comment that we have our boards and there's just such tone deafness from all of you. We have to do something. As residents, we're begging you to slow down the spending and to be more fiscally responsible. And we don't know how to have you

233stop doing what you're doing. >> [applause] >> So, at any rate, I just we've got to do something. And like in Hollis, our our average tax bill right now before our increases is over $14,000. And the decisions that you people are making is the difference between residents here of them making decisions as to whether or not they can continue to live here. I do not think you understand how many people are strapped. And I don't think you understand how many elderly people we have in this town that are not going to be able to continue to live here. And I charge every single one of you. Go back. Do better. Spend less. The contracts that were just approved for our teachers and under the teacher our police and fire, we love them. But the the

234contracts are irresponsible. And they are an absolute burden for the people who are trying to live here because we all have families. We all have to pay health insurance. We all have bills. But I just wish you all would do better because you're not listening to us. >> [applause] >> Kimber Harmon North Pepple Road >> Miss Harmon Miss Harmon >> Kimber Harmon North Pepple Road, I'd say it's prettiest road in Hollis and I move the vote. >> Sir I don't I didn't under >> She made a motion to move to the vote. >> Uh She is as I understand it, she is making a motion to end debate. Is that correct? Well, that's what it is. So, um That is Kimber Harmon. Kimber Harmon Is there a second? Mr. Julian This requires a 2/3 vote.

235If you are If you are ready to end debate and move to the vote, please raise your cards. If you Thank you. If you are want to keep talking, please raise your cards. And the eyes have it. I'm going to hold up the vote for just a little bit >> Mr. Moderator >> because Yes. >> Would it be out of order to with no debate uh raise a motion to pass over the article? Or must the vote be taken? >> Yes, it would be out of order because we've already agreed to end debate. >> [sighs] >> I'm waiting for another couple of minutes because we've almost done with an hour on Article 8. So, I'd like to uh to get there, but I can't do it until an hour has occurred. So, All right, it's

23612:01. I am going to close voting on Article 8. Are you ready for Article 11? Melinda, are you ready for Article 11? Almost. This is a ballot vote, requires a 3/5 majority, and will last for an hour. Are you ready, Melinda? Okay. The voting on Article 11 is open. It is 12:02. >> Mhm. >> I have the art the vote on article 8. Which is to adopt SB2. It requires a 3/5 majority. Super majority. Yes was 216. No was 234. The article fails. Mr. Fred Eanni. >> [applause] >> Okay. Make your motion, please. >> Motion to restrict reconsideration of article 8. >> I hear multiple seconds. If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration on article 8, please raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it.

237The article is restricted. At this point we can I guess not. We can look at Article 12, which is any other business that may come before the meeting, or we can just simply recess until we have the vote on Article 11. But, we can't adjourn until we have the vote on Article 11. Is there anyone who has other business to bring a forward to the district? Seeing none, I'm going to declare us in recess until we hear from Article 11. What uh It will be By my clock, it will be 12:02, and it is now um Sorry, it'll be 1:02, and it is now 12:32. So, approximately a half hour. Here you go. >> Mhm. >> It is 12:02. Uh sorry, 1:02. I am now closing the voting on Article 11. >> [applause] >> Amen.

238Amen. >> Mhm. >> I have the vote on article 11. This was uh requires 3/5 vote to pass. Yes was 106, no was 210. The article fails. Yes, sir. Is it Is your mic on? There's a little on-off switch. >> Yes, it is. Oh, there we go. Uh Brady Halligan, 17 Birch Hill, Brookline. I motion to restrict reconsideration article 11. >> Uh a second from Carol Roy. >> [laughter] >> If you are in favor of restricting reconsideration of article 11, raise your cards. Thank you. If you are opposed, raise your cards. And the eyes have it. Article 12. >> Mr. Moderator. >> Is there anything to be taken up on Article 12? >> Seeing no argument on Article 12, I move that we adjourn the meeting. >> The motion is to dissolve the meeting. Is

239there a second? Cal Roy. All in favor of dissolving the meeting. Thank you. All opposed. We are done.