Hollis Annual Meeting 3/17/2026

001Thank you, Mr. Wallace. That was wonderful. It's always a pleasure when we get to see the hard work of our students and the work of our teachers and staff and be shown tonight, which is great. Next on the list, I would like to recognize all of our veterans and our serving members of the armed forces. Could you please stand so we can give a moment of recognition? We do that at every meeting, but I always taken back at how many members in our community have served. It's very, very honorable. Um Next, I would like to have Carol Roy introduce the members of the Hollis School Board. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for coming tonight. I'm Carol Roy, the chair of the Hollis School Board. I have Rafael Zach, he's our vice chair. And Wake Di

002Pasquale, she is our secretary. We have member Jessica Lahens and member Jonathan Fontaine. Thank you. Uh next, we'll ask Tom Gehan, the chair of the Budget Committee, to introduce the members of the Hollis Budget Committee. Thank you. Uh I'm Tom Gehan, the chair. At the table on your right is Mike Harris, the vice chair. Mike Levitt, secretary. Uh Joe Garuba is the select board representative. He's not with us tonight, although he may be in the line, as I believe Chris Hyde as well. Um Mark Kost and Darlene Mann. I would like to ask our new superintendent, Gina Burkskog, to introduce um SAU staff that are with us tonight. >> Good evening. Thank you everyone. I'm Gina Brookskag. I'm your superintendent. With us here, we have Lauren DeGenaro, assistant superintendent of student services. We have Dorothy

003Flaherty, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. We have Lance Flamino, business administrator. We have We have Lance Finamore, director of facilities. We have Candy Fowler, principal of Hollis Upper Elementary School. And we have Paula Zwicky, principal of Hollis Primary School. Thank you. The snafu with the slides will probably be one of 10 tonight. We don't Lawyers don't use PowerPoint and we also can't add. So, you'll pick up on that pretty quickly. Um so, I am helped tonight by the assistant moderators Melissa Willis, Erica McDonald, and Dre Mason, of which I could not do my job without them. And I would also like to thank the supervisors of the checklist and the all the assistant counters that we have here tonight who really make these meetings work. Thank you very much. All right. So, the couple

004of administrative announcements, the um announced the results of the Hollis articles that were we just elected on last Tuesday. There were two members that were elected to a three-year term of the school board. Ann and Raffi were reelected. There were two members of the budget committee that were reelected for a three-year term, Darlene and Mike. And the And Lovett has been uh uh elected as the um school district clerk. And the school district treasurer is Claudia DeFraine. And just in case you didn't realize, there's two opportunities to have fun like this this week. On Thursday night, you're the co-op meeting is going to be right back here at 6:30 p.m. The first order of business that we have tonight is setting the rules of the meeting. Um but just in case anybody doesn't know, this

005is being live streamed. If you want to text somebody and tell them they can live stream it so they can figure out when the bond is going to be called for a vote, that's where they would want to be watching. They're on the SAU 41 website. You have to kind of click through, you'll find the board meetings, and you'll find the meetings on demand. There's voter information that you can also find on the SAU website under the voter information tag, you'll find the school district warrant, you'll find the MS-27, and you'll find this presentation. The first order of business tonight is setting the rules of the meeting. So, I will be proposing the operating rules. This body, this legislative body, everyone in this building is a member of the legislative body if you're a registered

006voter in the town of Hollis. Um you will have to approve the rules for the night because this is our this is your meeting. Um if you want to change the rules after they've been adopted, it takes a 2/3 vote to change those rules. We use Robert's Rules, but really only as a guide. And um one of the You can find all of the rules on page 213, and it's kind of in the yellow in your in your um in your book if you want to look in your town report. Um one of the things that I want to point out is rule seven talks about that the moderator if there is a speaker that comes up you have two minutes to speak and the moderator has discretion to allow an individual to talk longer

007than two minutes if they have questions and continue to ask questions. I'm exercising my discretion at the beginning of the meeting and unless you overrule me, I will not be extending time at all tonight beyond the two minutes um for questions. Um I we've got a lot to do tonight to deal with and I want to keep us on schedule. If you have more than one question, you can ask a compound question. If you have more than one question, you can hand it to a friend or get back in line, but one question in that two-minute segment. State law describes my job here as presiding over the meeting and regulating the business thereof, but this again, this is your meeting. It's important that state law says that no person shall speak at the meeting without

008leave of the moderator and no person should speak unless there is an order. Um So Um we can change the rules, but we can't change anything that is state law. One of the things that changed between last year's meeting and now is the amount of time that we have to give to petition warrant articles. In the past, that has been something that was a rule that this body could set and we typically set it at five minutes. The law changed last year and the petitioner now gets 10-minute presentation for any petition warrant articles. Um we only have one to tonight's meeting, so that will be good. When you want to speak and you can come to the podium wait until I recognize you, speak clearly, speak into the microphone so the live stream for those

009folks that are listening at home, will be able to hear you, and the entire room will be able to hear you. You were given this voter card to demonstrate that you were in fact a registered voter. So, please take that with you to the podium. You'll show it at the podium. You'll state your name and your address. Your comments, when you're at the podium, should be directed to me, the moderator. They shouldn't be directed to the voters, and they shouldn't be directed um to anyone else back here or in front of me. Speak only once until others have had an opportunity to speak. Speaking at the meeting tonight, each voter speaker will be limited to 2 minutes. Again, that 2 minutes includes the answers to questions. I'm probably going to say that a few times

010tonight until we get past the bonds, make sure that no one is surprised by that change in the rule. 5 minutes for sponsors of amendments, 10 minutes for sponsors of petition warrant articles, and your time cannot be yielded or transferred to another registered voter. So, who may speak at the meeting? Again, registered voters, that's the reason you're going to show your card. Um members of the school administration, so they can present answers to question. Um district council, Minutelli can speak. She's here at the table. You want to raise your hand so that I can see who you are. We have new district council. Um so, it it the face is a little different up here, but we do have district council who may be here to answer questions. Um others are only allowed to speak

011if they're not a voting if they are allowed by a majority vote. Again, I'm going to try to keep order here. No person is allowed to speak without leave of the moderator, and when I and all persons shall be silent at the desire of the moderator. I hope I don't need to exercise that rule tonight and um ask for people to be quiet, but hopefully we are all have a high level of decorum and professionalism tonight as we work through um the articles on the warrant. If you have a point of order and you are concerned that you need to bring something to my attention because I'm not following the rules of the meeting as they were set, that is something you can say point of order. That can be done at any time. The

012only purpose for doing that is to appeal my ruling. It's not for questions or motions, and you need to indicate to me what rule has not been followed, and then I can take that under advisement as to whether I agree. There may be amendments to articles on the warrant. If you have an amendment, if it's more than a couple of words, please write it down so I can make sure that I have it correctly, the voters can make sure that they can hear it, and also the clerk can make sure that when she's doing the minutes, that we have the amendment or the proposed amendment correct. Um bring it to me when it's proposed. Dollar amounts in are just final amounts, so don't do 10%. You give us a whole number, and budget amendments can

013only affect the bottom line unless you're zeroing out a line item. Um so the the budget is a final number. Is the operating budget as it's um been proposed by the budget committee on the MS-7 uh 27 shows how the governing body plans or this 27 for the Hollis School District, um how the governing body plans to spend the money, and actual discretion of the vote over how that money is spent is of the governing body. With one exception is um if the a line item is zeroed out by this body, then the governing body cannot use money for that item. Other than that, the budget is a bottom line. Just want to take a second. I know you guys are all trying to come in. I know you're all still trying to get registered.

014If we can just I can hear you in the back or coming from the back. If we can just try to keep the noise volume to a bare minimum if we can, so we can get through the rules, so we can have the meeting go as promptly as we can. In order to end debate, you can only ask a motion to end debate after you've been waiting in line. That motion is not debatable. You may not make that motion after you've made a speech. And the moderator may find that that motion is out of order if not sufficient people have had an opportunity to debate. Um, ending debate requires a 2/3 vote in order to pass. So, if 2/3 of you want to end debate, we will end debate. Another motion that is often brought

015up at town meetings is a motion to table. The purpose of that is to pause consideration of an article. It must be brought to the floor first. So, if you new folks, if it means that at least need to read the article and announce that that article is um, open to the meeting. That motion to table is not debatable, just requires a simple majority. If we have an article that has been put on the table, that can be taken off the table by a simple majority. And it can be restricted from reconsideration. A motion to reconsider. Motions to reconsider it is the purpose to reconsider something is not because you didn't like the vote. The purpose for a motion for reconsideration is because there's something that has been learned by the legislative body that needs

016to be discussed and was not previously discussed. That motion is debatable, requires a simple majority, and must be made by a voter on the prevailing side. Motions to restrict reconsideration, always a favorite. Motions to restrict uh reconsideration does not prevent reconsideration, it only controls when that reconsideration takes place. If there motion for reconsideration prevails, it requires that the reconsideration be at least 7 days after today. It can be applied to any previous to vote, is not debatable, and in order to make a motion to restrict consider reconsideration, you have to have the floor. And that can only be uh passed once a vote has been declared. So, you can't decide to restrict reconsideration before we have counted the votes. It is unnecessary to restrict reconsideration on the bond vote, because it can only be reconsidered

017after 7 days. The order of the articles that articles um should be will be taken up in the order that they are unless there is a motion to change the order. The bond article must be acted on first. So, the first thing we're going to take up is the bond, and it must be um acted on before we can move on to another article. Um we must act on all the articles one way or the other before the end of the meeting, and the order if you would like to change the order of the articles requires a 2/3 vote. If appealing the moderator, if you believe that um my interpretation of the rules is incorrect and you would like to appeal, you should make that point of order immediately after I have made the ruling

018to challenge the ruling. Appealing the moderator's ruling requires a second, and a majority vote will overrule the moderator. So, a majority of you can overturn my decision. And is the challenge to overruling the moderator should be a direct application of the rules. So, the first But, so many of you I Yeah, the line is really long. Thank you all for coming. Yeah, I mean this is great. We rarely get a full house for a Hall School District meeting. And I am very glad that we have this kind of turnout. All right, I'm going to tempted to try to just take the Okay. All right, so can we I get a So, the first um order of business is to accept the rules of the meeting as presented by the moderator. Can I get a motion,

019please? I have a motion by Mike Harris and a second by Chris Hyde. All those in favor of the motion, please indicate by raising your You're right. I had people too many people in front. Yeah. All right, I'm going to need um lines not to come down the middle. Um are you all looking for a middle a middle letter? All right, so because of where you were standing, I'm sorry, these guys had to help me out. I did not realize he was at the podium. So, can we just kind of push you guys to the side or even like queue you guys up over here, sort of like we would, just so we get some room to the podium. Good to see you. I'm well. What's that? Oh, what's this? It looks like it looks

020like it might have collected a few people. Okay. I don't know. I I think we got it. Is it the mic working now? Yes. We can cut Melinda's trying to part the waters. All right. Mr. Garuba. Okay, I believe the motion is on the floor already. So, is it um am I in order to offer an amendment at this moment? Um I will rule that you are You would not normally be with a motion with a motion that's already been seconded, but because I did not see you at the podium, I will allow you to make the motion. Thank you. Um Madam Moderator, I move that we amend rule number 26 on page 214 of our books. And my amendment is to change the ending of that rule. Uh it currently says, "If the motion

021passes, all debate ceases and the underlying motion is brought to a vote." So, my amendment is to add the words "all debate ceases and the underlying motion is brought to a vote after all voters waiting in line have had at least 1 minute to speak." Okay, does does Okay, so that's his motion. Does it have a second? It does have a second. All those in favor May I speak to my motion, Madam Chair? You may. You Thank you. Who Can I get the name of the second that was up there? Okay. Thank you. Okay, this meeting represents an opportunity for all of our residents to be heard. It's an opportunity for us to come together and to collectively decide on the best path forward for our town. I believe that if a resi- if residents

022have prepared a speech and are waiting online, uh we should be sure to allow them the opportunity to be heard. So, please vote in favor of this motion. Okay. Anybody else? Is there anyone else in line for the purpose of speaking to the amendment? Madam Chair, is it um appropriate to vote when everybody's still waiting online to get a card? At this point, yes, because we need to get the meeting moving and if they wanted to take part in a voting on the rules, they would have come in time. So, you've got a couple people behind you. I just want to confirm that So, order. You'll get thrown out before you even get a voting card at this rate. So, we're going to be respectful tonight. If you don't have the floor, you're not going

023to speak. If you have the floor, you have leave to speak. We are going to be respectful. We are trying to try to get to the meet- meeting as soon as possible. That also goes to the folks who were booing Mr. Garuba's motion. All right. Is there anybody else in line that wants to speak to the motion? Mr. Mason. I think this is a bad amendment because the moderator is already going to allow sufficient debate. You know, enough time for people to do to express opinions on both sides. At that point, when the line is going all the way out to the door, you're 2 minutes each, you're adding another half hour to another hour to the debate, at which point before when people have basically made up their mind. So, I rise in opposition

024to the motion. Is there anybody else on the amendment? Yeah, hi. Louis Esposito Pierce Lane. I guess I'm just confused because I can't see the amendment. I tried to pull it up the annual report. So, to vote on something that seems very significant in such a short period of time, I don't see where the amendment is. I can't see the yellow pages that you all are talking about. And I'm >> the annual report on page 213. >> Annual report is in the back? Okay, I'll go grab that. I apologize. Okay. So, where is it? The full text of the rule in is a motion to end debate is not debatable and requires a 2/3 vote to pass. The motion is not in order if in the judgment of the moderator there has not been sufficient

025debate. To be fair to all voters, the motion may not be made after a speech. The motion may be only made after standing in line. If the motion passes, all debate ceases until the underlying motion is brought to a vote. And Mr. Gruber wanted to add after all voters who want to speak in line I've had 1 minute the opportunity to speak for 1 minute. Do you have the opportunity to speak for 1 minute? So, I that's the So, the change in the rule would allow after the motion to end debate is carried, the voters in line would have 1 minute to speak, which is half the time that they normally would have to spend. Is there anybody else in line to speak to the amendment? Yes. My name is Jim Kelly. I'm in Crestwood

026Drive. I'd like to speak to this amendment. I'm sorry. I missed your name. James Kelly. Thank you. Many of you can remember a painting by Norman Rockwell where the gentleman stood up at a town meeting and it was called freedom of speech. Incidentally, this painting was of a farmer who was against an amendment and a warrant article to pay for those schools. Whenever you restrict speech for any reason it's what the CCP does, it's what the Politburo does. Freedom of speech is sometimes lengthy and is sometimes inconvenient. It is sometimes boring. That's a very low price to pay for everyone to have the opportunity to voice their opinion. I vote and I support this amendment for that reason. Thank you. Anyone else in line to speak to the amendment? Yeah, Pam Nex statement on Old

027Drive. I feel like enough >> I Where's your voting card? I haven't gotten this I have a a line holding because I can't get it yet. Then you're not in order. No. You've not been recognized. Okay. Can I just say >> You don't have the floor. >> I Enough is enough. Let people >> have the floor. >> Let people speak because this decision >> not have the floor, Ms. Hicks. >> this this Give us a chance to check in. All right. I don't see anyone else to speak to the amendment. Do you really have anything to speak to the amendment again, Mr. Gruber? Um, I really feel strongly that people who showed up here though this meeting is noticed at 7:00 p.m. So, for people who showed up here at 7:00 p.m. that is being

028on time. So, if the check-in line is going past, I don't feel it's appropriate to take away people's opportunity to participate because it takes a little time to check in. So, I'm going to rule that it is the appropriate time to vote on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment, please raise your hands. Counters, can we just make sure because of the importance of this vote can you count down the first just one second? Can I get my counters in order? I don't believe we've ever had to do it for the rules, but I do think it's this is important enough that I will put counters in place to make sure that we have a count on what this vote is because I think it's going to be decided. And I want to

029make sure that it's clear that the will of the body, what the will of the body is after we get this vote. Belinda, do we have voter counters in place? Christa's here by Drew. Got Mr. Barber over here. Okay. All right, you guys, we're good. Okay, again, thank you. All those in favor, please raise your cards. I know, I certainly am. That's right. I could get on this Uh-huh. >> Oh boy. Considering All right. Counters tell me that they have that vote taken care of. Counters, back in your positions, please. All those opposed to the amendment, raise your cards. Keep your hands up until your counter has given you an indication that they have finished your section. Who's got the front of the room, Atlanta? I know there's a lot of folks. Three on the

030scoreboard and 29 in this section. All right. So, on the amendment, it was 146 in favor of the amendment and 184 against the amendment. Because of the number of people that I see stretched out, I'm going to give a 10-minute recess, but I'm going to gavel this meeting back in at 7:45. So, if you don't have your card by 7:45, which is an hour after this meeting started, you will not be able to take part in the vote, whatever vote comes up next. If And I will entertain another motion on this amendment, which is not typical, but I will base upon the number of people that we still have waiting. So, again, 10-minute recess, 7:45 I'm going to gavel back in the meeting. I will permit, if Mr. Guruba wants to make a motion, I

031will permit it. No speakers, we will take it to a vote with counters. Got it? So, folks, we got a lot of new people. So, if we can maybe quicken the line back there. If you haven't been here to town meeting before and you're not sure what's going on, quickly check yourself in and then if you'll go to that back left table where you see Erica back there with the red shirt, either she or Melinda Willis, who was up here in the right in in the front, or Drew Mason, who I can't see right now, but either you can go to the back corner or the front and you can come and get a quick lesson in town meeting. They can answer your questions, but try to not be asking questions of the folks at

032the table so they can get as many people through the line as possible in the next 10 minutes. Oh, Oh, of course. It's just too far. All right, guys in line. Make sure you have your driver's license out. And if you don't have your driver's license, you're going to need to again come meet one of my moderator assistant moderators who can try to find somebody who can verify your identity, but make sure you have your driver's license out. That will make it much quicker to get you your voting cards. Okay? Be prepared when you get up there. Name, address, and driver's license. >> Mhm. >> Less than a minute to get your ballots and find your seat. Silence in the meeting, please. Silence in the meeting hall. I know there's still lots of people in

033the back. We gave a 10-minute recess. It is now 7:45, 45 minutes past the time that this meeting was noticed. So, I don't see Mr. Gruba. Maybe Mr. Gruba no longer wants to make his motion. Um I see him now. First time he had somebody standing in front of him, and this time he was sitting down. Mr. Gruba, would you like to make your motion again? It's not on. There you go. Okay. Madam Moderator, I move that we amend rule number 26 on page 214 of the guidebook. I amend that we I move that we amend it by adding the words "after all voters have had a chance to speak for at least 1 minute." Does the motion have a second? Pardon? Again, Diane, do you have the second? Di- who's Sh- Do you have

034her name up top? Okay. All right. >> Ollie and Garuba. Okay. Counters? What's his name again? >> one second. I have a I I said I would let you make your motion again. I said there was not going to be any speaking to it. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. Thank you, Madam Thank you, Madam Chair. >> All right. Counters? Can we take your places, please? All right. While they're getting in place, the amendment, rather than stopping the speakers in line if the motion to end debate passes, what what Mr. Garuba's motion what Mis- Mr. Garuba's amendment would do to the rule would mean that we would have a motion to end debate. It would be seconded. It would be It would be successful. It would take 2/3 of the room to end

035debate. If it passes, then we would allow the people that were still in line, nobody's running to the line at that point, would have 1 minute rather than 2 minutes to speak. Okay? So, it would still require 2/3 vote to um to end debate. All right. The amendment would just allow 1 minute for the speakers in line. All right. All those in favor of the amendment to allow the speakers in line 1 minute to speak, please raise your voting cards. >> Keep them up because I have not got the sign yet. Counters, if once you finish your section, you can give your section the motion to put their cards down. Lost track of Melinda. Thank you. Next year we should put her on a bright colored shirt like we used to do the toddlers on

036the playground so we could find them. Okay. I got the signal. All right. All those opposed to the amendment, please raise your voting cards. Keep them up until the counter for your section has given you the sign that you've been counted. If you're just coming in, make sure you have your driver's license out. You're ready for the table with your driver's license, your name, and your address. Yeah. >> All right. The motion passes. The vote was 287 in the affirmative, in favor of the amendment, and 241 against. So, the the rule will be if there's anyone in line after a successful motion to end debate, those speakers will be given 1 minute. Again, I will not let anybody else in line at that point. Are you waiting for now or you wait For after the

037rule. Okay. All right. So, now we're back to the original. Can I get a motion to accept the rules as amended? So, Chris Hein is moving, Mike Harris as the second. All those in favor of adopting the rules as amended, please raise your voting cards. All those opposed. Finally, motion carries at 7:54. We have rules. All right. Mr. Perry. Madam Moderator, happy Valentine's. Oh, no, it's not Valentine's. It's St. Patrick's Day. I would hope I got treated better on Valentine's. I have my green on, too, so. Uh I'd like to make a motion to change the order of the articles to move article eight To follow article two. Correct. Are you unclear what your motion is? No. You want it to be the third article tonight? >> I I apologize. It would be a follow

038article one. Okay. Eight to uh to actually be second in line after article one. >> Okay. Um I'm afraid I'm not sure what I can't really read the So, do you have a second to your motion? Where did that come from? Okay. Um John, the board chair. All right. You got a motion is second. Counters, I hate to do this, but I'm concerned that this is going to be another one of those. So, let's go ahead and get you in place. May I speak to the article or the to the motion? You Yes. I I just wanted to say I think with the size of the crowd I'm sorry? Oh, sorry. Um that I think with the size of the gathering that we have here today that the most number of people will be able

039to participate in both the the bond vote and the the school budget vote and therefore having it earlier in the agenda, I think would be advantageous for that. Okay. Counters, are you in position to take the Yes, Mr. Mason. I think this motion is a bad idea. I suspect I I I I applaud the idea of moving the budget forward, but until we know the result of the bond vote having the budget voted on is premature in my personal opinion. So, I say vote no. All right. So, the point Mr. Mason's trying to make and I just want to make sure that we everyone who's new here if the bond it'll because the bond the box has to be open for an hour it's going to take at least an hour and 20 minutes after

040we open the ballot box before we're going to know the results of the bond. So, there is a possibility that somebody might want to make an amendment to the operating budget for the schools if the bond fails. Mr. Hyde, are you coming are you waiting to be recognized? I was just talking, yes. I was just thinking that one way around this might be to have the amendment changed to allow for the adoption or the take up of the budget discussion to happen at the first opportunity after the count is known from the bond. All right. Right now we have a motion and a second. I think I have to take a vote on what's on the floor first, although I like your suggestion. So um hopefully you all think the suggestion is really good. I'm

041going to try to be really wild here. So, I'm going to say let's try with just a card vote not counting. All those in favor of the amendment understanding that we're going to have another amendment right after that. All those in favor of the amendment raise your cards. Okay, all those opposed? Okay, the nays have it. Okay, so Mr. Hyde, do you have a motion? I have a motion to take up uh the budget article, article eight, I believe, uh at the first available opportunity after the conclusion of the counting of the bond vote. Okay. Do we have a second to that amendment? Drew is seconding it. All right. Mr. Belanger. Jim Belanger, Plain Road. I'm against this uh amendment, this motion to move the budget after article one is decided. What's going to happen

042is we're going to hear article one, we're going to hear article the budget article, and everybody's going to go home. And I I'd rather have people here to hear the rest of the articles. All right. This requires a two-thirds affirmative vote because it's a changing of the moderator's rule, which was to take them in order. Do I have my counters in position? Because I guess I will take we'll have them count for this one. Unless when we vote Melinda, are you in position? Where is Ted? Okay. All right. All those in favor of the amendment to take up article eight as soon as we get a decision on article one, please raise your cards. All right, keep them up cuz we have to have a two-thirds vote, and I certainly can't declare from this view

043that there's a two-thirds of you. >> Counters, when you um can release your voters, can you Melinda, is this middle section Are they good? They're all counted? They're done. Are they done in the back corner? They're done. To my left? Ted, are you done with the left-hand side? Okay. I can see Krista's still counting. Emily Wise? What Oh, okay, I see it. Um Can Emily Wise please go back to where you checked in? You left your license. Okay. Voters get back or counters get back in position. All those opposed to the amendment, please raise your voting cards. That would permit all of the articles to be handled in the order that they are on the warrant. Keep them up and let them count. Thanks for your patience. It's a lot easier to determine a simple

044majority than it is a 2/3 vote from here with hand cards. It all kind of blurs together. So we can do it. >> Okay. The motion the um motion to take up Article 8 after we announce the results of Article 1, which is the bond vote, carries. The um motion needed 365 votes. There were 494 in favor and 59 kind of opposed. So. All right. So, if we can now take up Article 1. Actually, Mr. Gehan, do you have a Do you have a presentation? Thank you. I'll try to be expedient. Um first item this came up at the town meeting and want to stress this tonight. Um we you'll find if you attended or reviewed the um presentation from the public hearings, the tax impacts that are calculated on some of these uh warrant

045articles has changed. And the reason for that is summarized in this slide. I as the chair of the Hollis Budget Committee works closely with the co-op Budget Committee chair, who actually is Darrel Man, who happens to be on the Hollis Budget Committee as well. Um to coordinate so that you see calculations and concepts in the same way whether you're at the co-op meeting or at the Hollis School District meeting or the town meeting. Um In order we had some questions to the calculation and we got guidance last week from the Department of Revenue Administration, which is the tax authority in New Hampshire. Um We decided that we well, we we realized we're not in compliance in prior years and we decided that despite being midstream between public hearing and town meeting and annual school district

046meetings, we needed to make the change so that we're compliant with direction from the state. You can see at the the bottom I in such slides the tax base for calculating the rate per the DRA is the the prior year. So, 2025 valuation of the tax base. What we had done historically was add 1% with an assumption for growth. Second bullet is revenue offsets can only be credited to articles that generate revenue. Previously, we had spread that proportionally um to all the articles that appropriate money. And finally, last point is the estimated tax changes as a result of these two changes were overwhelmingly the result of the change in the valuation. You can see here 98% of the changes for the town of Hollis were due to using the 2025 tax base versus 2025 tax

047base plus 1%. Um not on the slide, I just want to comment that again particularly since these um the changes in the adherence to the state guidance caused the tax impacts to go up, we wanted to make sure that that was fully disclosed so people had confidence in those projections. Um the school board, the select board, um all the public officials have been acting in good faith. We literally made this change last Thursday. All right. Uh we're going to cover these in some detail when we get the operating budget article, the first article or the first line item here in the operating budget, you see an increase about 4%. This is driven largely by uh prior approved collective bargaining agreements and by um special education costs. Uh having said that, despite the significant increase, uh

048there was significant efforts to reduce the operating budget. When we get to article 8, you'll see that there's some reductions in staff and some other steps taken to try to minimize the increase. Uh warrant articles uh went down up primarily because of the bond article. State aid uh fluctuated a bit. Revenue was down primarily to uh state special education aid. And we get down to the bottom lines, uh total tax effort increases 8.2% because we're not assuming any growth in the tax base. That is this is the expected uh increase in the Hollis portion or the Hollis school district portion of the total tax rate. Total tax rate here is uh all the components. I'm not going to read each off individually. Uh the yellow lines are those that we vote at at these three

049meetings, the town meeting tonight and co-op meeting on Thursday. Uh you can see the town, if everything passes, um would go up 6.6%. The local tax for the Hollis school district would go up 8.2 and co-op would go up 5.7. Uh overall, uh it's kind of distorted. I think it's 6.2% increase in the rate if everything passes. Okay, there we've got a new concept that we've introduced this year as a result of a vote taken at town meeting last year in which Hollis voters supported a recommendation of the select board that new committee be created called the capital expenditure advisory committee. Uh that the select board took that recommendation and and stood up that committee and the purpose of that committee is to work with all three of the taxing entities that affect your Hollis

050property tax bill. Co-op, the Hollis school district in the town so that we can have a better view and a longer term view of potential long-term debt coming down the line. Um so there are three types. I'm going to show a couple graphs here in a moment. There are three types of debt that you'll see. The first is approved debt is exactly what you would expect from approved at a prior town meeting or a prior prior annual district meeting. Voters elected to uh approve a bond. The second category is proposed. Those are the long-term debt uh articles that are this year. So the uh Hollis Primary School expansion in the town we had the um transfer station wall rebuild. So that's proposed. And the final one, we've always shown those. The final one is potential.

051That is this new category, the findings or output of the capital expenditure advisory committee that um is not it's in planning. It's not approved, it's not on a warrant article, it wouldn't necessarily be here on the article next year, might not be on the article in 5 years. Possibly could never come up. But again, we're trying to be responsible voters who want to have a better more comprehensive and a longer term view of potential expenditures. All right. So, one of the effects here of proposed bonds and again, proposed bonds are those things that are before us in this cycle this year is because the way bonds are um taken out, you typically don't pay an entire bond payment in the first year. In some cases, you may pay an interest-only payment, which is a reduced

052payment, or in the case of the town, those bonds will not have any payment in 2026. So, as a result, when the tax impact is calculated, and again, we have to follow the guidance from DRA from the state as to how we calculate that, we in a sense underestimate the impact. So, what we have here is the impact as stated in this year's meetings, and in yellow, you see what it would be if we had a full bond payment in the year. So, you can see that the town, the calculated rate is 4.55. If we were paying a full bond payment on the transfer station wall and the solar array for DPW, that would be a 4. or $4.68. So, about 3% higher than uh the tax impacts are stated. Same thing with the uh

053Hollis School District, the HPS um bond. This isn't quite as big a bite because there is an interest payment contemplated for this year if it passes. So, instead of the rate going up 8.1%, it would go up 14.8%. All right, Tom, just 1 second. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. All right. So, here's the first of the graphs. This is just the approved debt. The three colors are the red is the town, the green is the Hollis school district, and the blue is the co-op portion that comes to Hollis. Uh the vertical yellow line is this year. So, you can see um and these it's important to note these numbers are corrected for inflation, so it's all 2025 dollars. Um if we layer on what is proposed at this year's cycle, I don't know if it's very

054clear. I don't know which of these is the pointer. Uh Okay. Thanks. Center. I'm not going to try to use a pointer. Um the narrow red region in checks is the uh transfer station bond in the DPW solar array, which were approved Saturday. And the green diamond section is the bond that is being discussed tonight. And finally, this is the work of the outcome of the work of the capital advisory committee. These are bonds that could come forward at some point in the future. They've been slotted in the different time frames because, you know, we have to have some estimate of where they might come in, so we can put them on the graph. Um you can see three bunches there. First is a land acqui- And again, 97% of this purple region is due

055to a prospective or or prospective um public safety complex in the town. Be a million and a half dollars for land acquisition next year. Uh 15 million, I think, 5 years after that, and then 25 million for a new fire station 5 years after that. Again, that that's in planning stage, but we want voters to be aware of what might happen in the future. And then the final slide, three regions again. The gray is the approved. This is how much of your tax rate goes towards paying off long-term debt. So, it's a percentage of the tax bill. You So, you can see the gray peak to the left side of the graph reaches almost 12%. That was back around 2003, I think. About 12% of the tax bill went to paying off bonds. It's come

056down steadily. You can see in the current year um the orange and the purple again are Orange is proposed for this year. Purple is potential at some point in the future. You can see it jumping up a little a little bit again, but staying roughly under 10% and going down as time goes forward. Thank you. Now, we are to Article 1 to see if the district will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of 19,384,375 gross budget to finance the design, demolition, construction, permitting, and equipping of renovations and additions to the Hollis Primary School to include improvements and renovations of the building interior and surrounding exterior site of the project to authorize 19,384 375 of such sum to be raised through the issuance of bonds or notes in accordance with the Municipal Finance Act RSA

057Chapter 33 to authorize the School Board to issue and negotiate such bonds or notes and determine the date, maturities, interest rate, and other details of such bonds or notes. To authorize the School Board to apply for, accept, and expend any federal, state, or private funds that may become available in respect to the project to be applied toward the project to reduce the amount that may be that must be bonded or pay debt service on such bonds or notes. And to further raise and appropriate the sum of 484,600 609,000 to make sure the first debt service payment due in the upcoming fiscal year. 3/5 ballot is required for a bond vote. The school board recommends the appropriation 500 and the budget committee recommends the appropriation 530. This article is moved by Carol Roy and seconded by

058Raffi Zack and we have a presentation by the school board by Anne Wake Pescola. The Can you go just 1 second? I need to the Let me just read the estimated tax impact, as you can see from the slide, is 21 cents per thousand and that's roughly $155 for $745,000 average home. That is the first year of the bond. Thank you, Anne. Well, good evening, everyone. I see a lot of green out in the audience, so thank you for choosing to share your St. Patrick's Day with us. Um let's get started, shall we? Uh we're going to start tonight with a video to summarize uh the situation at the school. I want to begin by saying there are two mistakes in this video. The first one is um a statement that the building was built

059in 1957. That was actually the first expansion. This building was built in 1952 and that the latest addition was in 1978. That's what's in the purple. Um in the video it says 1976. So, without further ado, let's get started. Over the past 13 years I've been here at Hollis Primary School, we have gradually seen an increase in students. We've also seen a growth in our kindergarten, a growth in our preschool population, a growth in our intensive needs population and all of these programs take up space. The school has more requirements now put upon it from the state and from federal agencies. So, we don't have the classrooms that we used to have. Those classrooms go to things like occupational therapy, speech therapy. We have been doing everything that we can to use every possible inch

060of the building. We are just busting at the seams and we have nowhere else to go. We used to have a very beautiful library that was really the heart of the school and we had to move the library to the smaller space here and turn the library into three classrooms. With that, we've had to take a lot of things that no longer fit in our library and put them in storage. We have moved special ed case managers into smaller spaces. We have doubled up, tripled up staff members who are working with smaller groups of kids, so now they're working in the same room. We've also also had to move one of our preschool classrooms into the hallway. When the PE teacher goes out for PE and takes his class out, he has to walk right

061through the preschool classroom. I also have a cafeteria that's my gymnasium and that directs the entire schedule of the building. I can't have lunch and PE going on at the same time cuz they use the same space. But, I think what's most visible to the community is the traffic problem. We don't have enough space on our lot to get cars off the road, so we have cars pulled over on the side of the road. Even with the assistance of a police officer, we cannot get all the cars in and out without creating huge congestion on state route 122. All of this together is a part of this problem with enrollment and having a building that was built in 1957 and we may have outgrown. We put together a enrollment committee to really study what are

062alternative solutions other than the obvious of, you know, just increasing space in the primary school. We went through every single space including the bathrooms to see what the use was and what we could use it for. We talked to the principal and the staff members at the Hollis Upper Elementary School and we explored the possibility of moving the third grade to that building. >> We studied quite a few options, but unfortunately we're limited with where we can place kindergarten and first grade. They have to be on the first floor. So, it doesn't matter what we do to grade levels that are on a second floor, that doesn't open up space on the first floor. So, before we ever even looked at any floor plans or drew any pretty pictures, the first thing we did was

063catalog every single space in the building and really identify, okay, how many students are going to be using each one of those easy peasy spaces and what size those really needed to be to address the curriculum. We took that document which was so carefully vetted by the enrollment committee and the administration and then translated that into the plans. The proposed gym can fit a middle school basketball court. >> We have a panelized movable partition that goes down the middle of it. We can have a lunch in the cafeteria on one side and on the other half we can have physical education. It just makes for a building schedule based on academic needs and not a building schedule based on when I can have lunch. This project also has thoroughly examined better ways to fit more

064cars on the property and off of the street to allow for better flow of traffic. I'm excited about our music teacher having the space that she will need. I'm excited about our PE teacher having the space he will need. I'm excited about inviting our community into our multi-purpose room where I can say, "We're having a Veteran's Day assembly. Please come." So, we we've done a lot of work in this building. We've put solar panels on, you know, HVAC work. But, for the most part, the actual shape of the building and the size of the building have not been altered since 1976, I believe. That's what makes this project unique because now we're going to be addressing enrollment needs projections to really right-size the building looking towards the future. We have done everything that we can

065to use every possible space in here. We have cleared out closets to make them offices. We have moved people in with other people to make sure that we are using our space as we can. We understand that a lot has been asked of the town of Hollis. We would not be making this ask if we didn't think it was absolutely necessary. I would like for voters to know that at every single possible stage of this process, we have taken into consideration so many possible solutions. I've been on many committees here to further bonds projects, whatnot, and this is the most thorough committee I've ever been a part of, and I feel really comfortable representing the best possible option. It would be amazing to come in and not have to do a jigsaw puzzle of who's

066going where, what programming am I going to have to eliminate. It's so much time spent on this jigsaw puzzle that could be better spent on the curriculum, the academics, the students. We want to start planning. We want to start creating. We want to start doing for our students. Okay. So, this video does a good job of giving a good overview of the challenges that are facing the Hollis Primary School, but it really cannot be addressed in such a short period of time. So, I want to focus on some things that I feel haven't really gotten enough attention during all of the community outreach and education that we have been working on over the past year. Um one thing I want to explain about the classroom space. This summer, we ended up realizing that we were

067going to have a much bigger kindergarten class than was projected. And so, in the middle of the summer, we had to make that snap decision to add a classroom and a teacher. That took our four case managers, and we had to put them into administrative offices. The administration moved into a corridor that was built filmed there that's meant to be for a copy room and a pathway from the main office to a hallway. We have three administrators there. They have no confidentiality or privacy when speaking with students. Um but, the case managers are people in our school that work with our most vulnerable children. These are kids who have specialized needs in their learning, but also they are the most susceptible to distractions. And so, we pull them out of the general education classroom and

068we give them this specialized instruction to improve opportunities for them. But, by cramming the children into this small space that was never meant to be an educational space, this past year we have not been giving them the optimal learning opportunity that they deserve. Um the library that was converted in FY25 to three classrooms. That is a place where we used to offer enrichment opportunities for our children. Children who are advanced, children who want to experience chess. We were able to pull children from different classrooms and put them together in groups that we call zone of proximal development because that is how children learn best and our specialists could work with them. We no longer have the space to do that. The nurse's office. We have not talked about this. The nurse reports to me that

069she sees anywhere between 25 to 35 students a day. When you increase the number of children in a building by the law of averages, you are increasing the number of children who have complicated medical situations and issues. So, we're not just talking about the sniffles and the upset tummies that come with elementary school. Of course, there is that. But with that volume of children moving through her office throughout the day with only two cots and one hydraulic bed that's meant for lifting for children with special needs, those beds are consistently in use. Those children with special needs also often require some privacy. Right now, they have just a little curtain. If we were to have this proposed design, they would have the isolation to provide them the dignity that they deserve. Safety concerns have not

070been spoken about enough with this project. So, we have course have talked about the cars lined up on 122. While it is common in any town in any municipality to have some slowdowns during drop-off and pick-up around a school, we have all these cars on the road. We have cars that end up having to jump in and out trying to get into the school. We have a school resource officer there directing traffic, and he and our teachers regularly witness the near misses that happen daily, and also the danger that they put themselves in by being on that road. The proposed plan will alleviate some of that congestion by getting those cars off of Route 122. Our outdated entrance is another concern. It does not meet Department of Homeland Security standards. Part of this proposal is

071going to allow that double bus system that we have in places like the upper elementary school that makes our children safer. During pick-up and drop-off, we have no fire lane. So, if there were to be an emergency on that campus with children, staff, or guests, that could cost minutes getting our first responders onto the campus. If you are like me and you have ever witnessed an emergency of that caliber, you know minutes can be the difference in somebody's life. Lastly is vulnerability. This we also have not talked about enough. I'm going to jump ahead a couple of slides here to show you what I'm talking about. Here is our existing building. When we have deliveries for our cafeteria, which is located here, delivery trucks drivers have to come up to our entrance where our office

072staff is way back here trying to assert the identification of people here. They bring their deliveries where a door is propped open and they have to walk down this hallway where all of our children are to make their deliveries to the kitchen and then they go back, get more, and do it again. If we had a more updated system like most schools do today for safety, those delivery trucks would never have to breach an entrance. They would come around the outside and come right here. So, the next thing I need you to understand is that every step of this project, one of the ethics of our community, um of our committee, in addition to transparency, has been looking at everything from a value perspective. We want to make sure that Hollis taxpayers are getting the

073most for their dollars. Um with that, last year the town authorized us to spend $164,400 to perform this study so that we could prevent present the extremely comprehensive designs that we are presenting to you today. We put out requests for proposals. We had a rigorous bidding process and we ultimately chose Banwell Architects. If you want to raise your hand, Brett. & O'Neill Civil Engineers and EEI Energy Efficient Investments to help us with this. Um these were chosen for multiple reasons and it's all documented um through Hollis School Board and Hollis Budget Committee meetings. Um but we have had experience with Banwell and with EEI in the past in projects with the SAU and they have a history of not only delivering delivering a quality product, but a product under budget. So, according to Bud Com

074and their calculations, starting in fiscal year 28, which will be the most expensive year of the bond and subsequent years, that will fall those amounts will be diminishing over time. Um in FY 28, the average home in Hollis will be paying about $1.25 a day. So, what do you get for a buck 25 a day? With this proposed design, you get that enhanced office that we talked about here, the enhanced um security entrance that is up to the standards of the Department of Homeland Security. This is where the current multi-purpose room is. Um you're going to be getting about 12,500 sq ft of renovation. That's going to give us classrooms here and a classroom space here and it's going to fill in that space where the pre-K is right now with actual usable educational space.

075We'll then have about 18 uh sorry, yes, 18,950 sq ft of new build. That's these classrooms here and that's this suite over here. I know that some people have been concerned about the multi-purpose room and its size. Um in the video you heard it said that it could fit a middle school size basketball court. Let me be clear, that is not the reason why that size was chosen. That size was chosen because of the dual purpose or the multi-purpose of that room. This is a size that allows for this dotted line here as explained by Brad in the video for a partition. Because of that partition lunch can be happening here and PE can be happening here. Lunch here will be for our upper students, second, third graders, while our little ones are having PE.

076When lunch is over, we will have the space in our schedule to then allow our older children to use the entire space. We then have the relocated kitchen and any equipment that we have currently, most of that is able to be reused. We don't have to buy everything a new. We have a dedicated library space. We won't have to worry anymore about that going away because that is on the table if this is not approved today because we need the space. And we would have a dedicated art and music with appropriate storage. Something else that we would be getting here is going to be updated septic. Our septic is currently over 30 years old and that's going to create some additional play space and much needed parking. Um which I'll be able to demonstrate in

077a minute. I want to talk for a minute about how we've been trying to be thoughtful of value and there have been so many ways that we have tried to maximize value for this project. I'd like to just point out a few. So, it was imperative that we maintain the playground spaces. We were given multiple designs that we presented to the community in September and everything there is available for you online. Um and when we talked through these possibilities, the location of the playground was important for a number of reasons and one of them was to replace a playground is extremely expensive. And so we're able to maintain that, our nature trails, and above ground pole pain instead of burying it, which is typical these days, but it's not a need, so we are not

078doing it. Our sufficient classroom space should last for many, many years. The last expansion, 1978, last 48 years. There is absolute reason to believe that this expansion would outlive the life of the bond. And of course, we're going to be limiting our vulnerability to inflation. So throughout this process, as we tried to pare down this project, if you looked at the plans from September, there was a parking lot planned for in the SAU, and a vehicular bridge over the water. We pushed back and said, "Gosh, do we really need that?" And it turns out, after further analysis, we didn't. And that was great, because without impacting the wetlands, we won't have to apply for permits. We didn't have to put in that expensive vehicular bridge. It brought down the cost, though you all didn't have

079get to see that. Um and we are able to accelerate the start time of this project. So that helps limit that vulnerability to inflation, and interest rates are good right now, and we could try and take advantage of that. Lastly, you saw um the last point on that bullet was, we are located in the historic district. No matter if you are just moving around town, or if you're a guest to our town coming to pick some apples or choose your pumpkin, you're going down Route 22, and this is what you are seeing. The primary school is the most prominently visible school in our town. So we have taken pains to ensure that this is a tasteful design, keeping with the character of the town. You can also see here the savings that we tried for

080with the masonry. Very typically, you can see in elementary schools masonry going right up the facade. We don't need that. We kept with the hardy board siding that is already consistent, but the masonry here protects our building from salt and plows, again ensuring longevity. So, here is our existing site with this wasted space that we have here, which would be converted when we improve that septic to much needed parking and enhanced areas for the children to play, maintaining this the playground and here are our additions, our cars and our fire lane. Our phasing begins tomorrow. So, if this ends up being proposed and approved, we are ready to go. And so, what is that going to do? We're going to start with that septic. We're going to move on over the summer and get this

081continuing with getting rid of that leach field and maximizing our spaces here, doing renovation while the children are away for the summer. We will then add on while the kids are in school. Our professionals know how to do this with the school on keep our kids safe and in the summer of next year, we wrap it all up with number four here. So, in summer of 2027, the project is completed, the kids go to school and in 14 months our town has something to really be proud of. Just to our visualization, this would be that new play space. There's the maximization of the old leach field. Um our heat pumps and infrastructure that are existing on the roof, they are not pictured here. They will stay in place. All of that work that we've recently

082done will be preserved and the new construction will not have those that duct work on it. Some more visualizations. Here's the front, the expansion here allows for more parking. We push back the landscaping, again making it 90° instead of the angle that it is now, our fire lane for safety, two lanes of traffic to get our cars off of the road. In summary, there may be other options out there, but this is the one that resolves all of the problems that the primary school is facing. This takes care of our classrooms, storage, scheduling, specialties, nursing, parking, and the safety concerns all identified by the Hollis Enrollment Committee in a 2-year process. Um it is opening the doors for greater educational and curricular opportunities for our children. The locking doors from the new addition allow for

083a space that could be rented by the town in that multi-purpose room, and it gives all of this to our town in 14 months, protecting us against the vulnerability of inflation and increased interest rates. I do hope as you consider tonight, what do you want for the residents and the children of Hollis? Thank you very much. Okay, I'm going to open the floor for discussion on Article 1. Please, as you all come forward, let's try not to be duplicative. Let's try to be civil. Let's keep in mind that babysitting closes in 20 minutes. So, this room is going to get doubly occupied very shortly if we cannot take this to a vote rather quickly. I assume that most of you, despite the fact that you asked to be able to everybody talk in line, would

084like the opportunity for everybody to vote tonight. Ms. Barber. Thank you, Madam Moderator. Ms. Barber, can you identify yourself and state your address? Yeah. Liz Barber, 5 Broad Street. I'd like to begin by thanking the Enrollment Committee for their work. Having served on the Farley Building Committee, I appreciate the amount of effort that goes into a project designed to benefit the children and families of Hollis. Tonight, I'd like to raise some concern, the same concern that I raised at the December presentation by the Enrollment Committee. I believe that the committee has expanded their scope of work far outside the task of studying enrollment and evaluating space constraints. The project focus has shifted from a study committee to a building committee, and the committee membership must reflect that shift. While dedicated to their task, the majority

085of the eight-member committee is composed of school administration and staff and school board members. Missing are members with the technical and planning expertise needed for a building project of this magnitude. Given the scale and complexity of the proposed addition and renovation, it is appropriate to transition to a dedicated building committee. A building committee would include Hollis taxpayers with backgrounds in construction, engineering, HVAC, building codes, and related fields to ensure a thorough and informed review of needs and solutions. A real-world example of this shift took place in Stratham, New Hampshire in 2024 when taxpayers rejected a $50 million bond. After defeating the $50 million bond, Stratham formed a building committee that included the input of resident engineers and building professionals. The committee reevaluated the needs of the school, and last year, Stratham voters approved a bond

086of $11.9 million to fund the renovations at Stratham Memorial School, a 76% savings. We should vote this proposal down tonight, and our next step should be to form a building committee. Now is the opportunity to recruit members who represent a diverse group of construction professionals and residents, including young parents and older taxpayers, all who value our schools. We share a common concern. We all pay taxes, and we are all invested in our schools. Thank you so much. Hi, my name is Victor Orlando. I'm on 266 Depot Road in Hollis, of course. Um I want to speak with the actual enrollment numbers, and I'm using the enrollment numbers from the New England School Development Council, the same numbers that the school board is using to predict what our future enrollment will be, and also I cross-referenced

087them with the Department of Education in New Hampshire. So, just a little background, um we had a enrollment spike in 2018 where we went from 378 students in Hollis Primary to 396, but since then, for the I'm sorry, we had a spike in 2022 to 2023 year. Um since then, it went from 396 to 392, down to 386 right now. Now, these are November snapshots, again cross-referenced with the Department of Education of New Hampshire and the New England School Development Council, the same ones we have posted on our website. Now, I know they brought this slide up, but if we go to our website or the Department of Education's site, it shows different numbers. Now, the other thing I want to bring up, too, is our expected kindergarten class for next year. Um looking at

088the New Hampshire Office of Planning and Development, along with the New England School Development Council's numbers, we only have approximately 82 students living in Hollis right now who would be eligible to go to kindergarten next year. If we simply move forward the current enrollment for each grade 1 year with those 82 students and we just assume 25 people in the pre-K class, that's only 366 people. Now, that's a huge drop and that also correlates with the fact if we look at our third, fourth, and fifth grade classes right now, they seem to be abnormally large, again coming from that 23 to 24 spike. Now, I don't believe that the current enrollment is going to stay the way it is right now. If we look at the historical percentage changes, for example, for the K through

08912 for the entire district, we can see a 21 student drop year-over-year from last year to this year. Thank you. I I think you and I agree and I have asked the school board to put this back to article one and I will hold the meeting until you can get it back to article one. I've asked you three times. First two times were nice. Third time is not. I was very clear I wanted this to be in one one presentation so I could control it. Thank you. Okay. Next speaker in line, please. Uh thank you. Mary Castelli, Lorenzo Road. Do you have a card? Thank you. Um and I thank you, Madam Moderator. I'm wondering if the uh board can address what will happen to the school if the bond does not pass? Sure. Um

090this is something that um Mrs. Bicki and I have talked about quite a bit. Uh we first have to just kind of look to what has happened already. We have We've collapsed rooms. We've had to bring people together. We've as Mrs. Bicki said in the video, we have exhausted all the possible space or rather she and her staff have. Um so we came up with a list of what would happen. So the first thing that would happen would be an increase in class sizes. That would be immediately beyond the agenda. Um next is going to be putting specialists on carts. So that could be art and music. And ultimately then we're going to have the dissolution of the library because we would need that space. Um there are some things that would still have to

091be done. We still have to renovate the entrance of the building and it's not clear how that would be done. Um but that needs to be done so that we meet the standards of Homeland Security. We are still going to have to update the septic one way or another. It's more than 30 years old and we need that space. And then we would have to come back to this town and we would have to ask for more money again to continue studying this problem. We would need to do some sort of renovation because once again, we don't have enough rooms going forward. Uh so those are all on the table at this point. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, Pam Hicks, 8 Maple Knoll Drive. Thank you. I just want to say the enrollment committee originally

092identified three classrooms. What is being asked to approve tonight is something very different. It has grown into a 39% expansion of the Hollis Primary School adding 20,000 square feet and committing taxpayers to more than 28 million in repayment over 25 years and this does not even include ongoing operations, maintenance, and staffing costs. We all support our schools, but supporting our schools also means making decisions that are sustainable for our entire community. Families move here for the schools, and many leave once their children graduate. Educate and evacuate. But many have left and haven't left. And right now, many are struggling to keep up. When you drive around town, you see that homes have deferred maintenance. This isn't by choice. It's because many residents are just making it, and many are not. And we're absorbing 7 to

0938% increases year after year while everything keeps rising. And wages and pensions are not keeping up. We're now being asked to layer generational debt on top of that. This is about sustainability. It's about whether Hollis remains a place where people can stay and live, or whether we become a place that prices out the very people who built it and pay for it. We all want strong schools, but strong schools must exist within a sustainable community. The question isn't just what can we build, but if we can build. And we have to make the best of what we already have. We have to take care of our buildings, and we have to phase improvements without overburdening taxpayers. This is not an enrollment crisis, and generational debt should never be the first option. There are other options.

094The district's own analysis shows we can make this work in the near term by using Hughes, giving us time to evaluate what's truly needed. And the Varley building could be a real long-term solution, allowing the primary school in Hughes to flow properly for years to come. What is being asked is too much, and by 2030, someone with a $750,000 home would have over $6,000 with their their tax bill reaching over 20,000. >> Ms. Hicks, your time has expired. One very quick announcement. I have either the good news or the bad news that babysitting has been extended till 10:00 p.m. Godspeed to the primary school teachers tomorrow. Please identify yourself, please. Hi, Carla Ramirez on North Pepperell. I support our schools and have volunteered over 1,500 hours in classrooms, but this article is too much of

095an ask from our community. This started out as an ask for three classroom spaces and has snowballed into an expanded cafeteria, library, more offices, and even a relocated kitchen. a nearly 40% increase in square footage from the initial request of just three classrooms. This is out of control spending that I will not support. As the budget committee chairman, Tom Guihan's comments were transcribed from February 10th public meeting. Over the last 3 years, the aggregate increase in our taxes is 34%. 34. That is not the rate, that is the average tax bill. If everything this year goes through, schools and towns, our 4-year run rate will be at a 41% increase. Something he does not believe is viable. I agree with him, and I thank him and vice chair Harris and selectman Guruba for their time

096reviewing this article and their opposition. I feel our town has finally reached a tipping point in property taxes, and to reach a 41% increase when adding these articles and the last 3 years increases is unsustainable. This is a bloated article. I love our students. I love education, but I am a no vote. Thank you so much for your time. Hi, David Sullivan, 86 Worcester Road. Um my wife and I moved to town 27 years ago and one of the primary reasons were the school systems. And through the years we have supported the schools on multiple occasions, but unfortunately, I cannot support this one. Um at the public hearing, I brought up the uh Farley building and uh just for the record, I'm the Dave Sullivan that always brings up the Farley building. There's another Dave

097Sullivan here, so I apologize. Um I don't believe the Farley building has been been given an enough of a look. Uh this town, this community had already invested about a half a million dollars in that building in the last 10 years. Uh we developed a comprehensive plan for the building as a community center, but those plans could easily be uh transferred to make back to a viable school. And just my own opinion is that the sixth grade could move to the Farley building, easily transition to the middle school, and the third grade could move up to the upper elementary school, therefore allowing space in the primary school uh in this original configuration. Um and Pam mentioned uh generational uh debt. Um to put that into personal perspective for myself, I just became a grandfather 10

098months ago and when this thing is paid off, I could be a great grandfather, and that's a little scary. I just don't think we can afford this at this time. Holly Durlo Babcock, Hayden Road. I move the question. You move to end debate? Yeah, I move. Do you have a second? What's your name? One more time with your name. Chelsea Leonard from 55 Hill Road. Chelsea Leonard. Chelsea Leonard, okay. It takes a 2/3 vote to end debate. Everybody in line gets to speak 1 minute. I can't see the end of the line. If you're at the end of the line, I know who's at the end of the line. Okay, you should have I would expected you someplace different. All right, so 2/3 vote, I'm going to ask my counters because I think it's important

099if we're going to end debate to make sure that we have 2/3 and I don't eyeball it. I'm sorry, there's just a lot of you and it's hard for me to eyeball those things. So, we get my counters in position and then we're going to vote on the motion to end debate and call the question. Um Do we have substitutes? Anybody want to count? Um What elected officials do we have that are not already Mr. Guriba? You'll count? Did you need a counter? I do need I need two. Eric Roy, go count. Um sorry, I can't you you got it? You've got We're good without Mr. Gruba? Okay. Counters in their place, let me know when you guys are there. I think I actually lost Melinda, there she is. All right, do we have all

100the counters in place? Okay, all those in favor of ending debate, raise your card. I don't know, maybe I could have called it. I just All right, put your cards down for a second. All opposed. The eyes have it. I can call 2/3 I I agree from the card in. All right. So, now I need to adjust my clock here. Go ahead. I'll hopefully get figure out my timer here in just 1 second. So, everybody in line and uh Mr. Butow will be the last speaker. Uh I did your card and Yeah. Okay, and so Madam Chair, you'll have to help me on this because what I was going to do, most of what I've uh planned on saying has already been said with respect to not examining viable alternatives and generational tax burden. What

101I was going to do was make a motion to table this. And I don't know how that works now that we've stopped debate. That motion would not be in order. >> Okay, then I'm done. Okay, can Chris Hope Pelkey, 100 Hill Road. For years we've trusted Tom Gannon as an analyst's figures. It's clear to me that the Hollis Preschool Special Education program is creating issues at the primary school. The program needs a thorough evaluation including a cost analysis for a few years and presented to the public. The number of preschool special needs children and their disabilities vary from year to year. These children require programming alongside their typical peers as role models in the least restrictive environment. Programming can be individualized and and provided on a continuum. It can be a regular early childhood program,

102a home program, early childhood special education program, a separate service provider, a separate school, or residential. These children can receive can be two tuitioned into one of those programs and related services could be provided by the Hollis Primary School or perhaps the Hollis Primary staff at the various preschool. All options must be fully explored with a cost analysis. Hi, Kimber Harmon, North Pepper Road. I'm going to reiterate what Liz said and what Dave said. We served on the Farley building and it is a building that we already own as a town and it doesn't matter if it's the SAU that owns it or the town that owns it. It's a vacant building sitting there and we need to preserve it and use it. Perfect opportunity, eight classrooms, has a full working attic, can be offices.

103You can turn a pre-K or a sixth grade into it. But it's something that the town already owns and it is a detriment to all of us if we don't use it in some sort of fashion. We need to be fiscally more responsible instead of just adding everything new. Thank you. I'm James Spears, 34 Buttonwood Drive. I encourage everyone to to vote no on this amendment and here's why. Um when I do my budgeting, I don't have unlimited resources that I can choose everything I want. I have to economize. I have to pick everything I need and then maybe get I get a few of my wants and I have to say no to things so I can say yes to other things. And so while the presentation was great, the committee almost said no

104on nothing. And so we have a ton of other things that are coming down the road. And so a yes vote for this bill would be a no vote for the police and fire. It would be a no vote for other things that are equally or more important down the road. So please vote no, send this back um to a committee that can economize and say no to things so we can have a much more reasonable thing that meets our needs that more importantly says yes to the other projects that are coming down the road. Thank you. Time. Al Fulchino, uh Pine Hill Road, Hollis, New Hampshire. I'm reading a letter from Senator Avard that he wanted uh his constituents to hear. I'm going to skip over a few things just to make it briefer.

105Two of the biggest challenges he says facing New Hampshire families today are housing affordability and property tax rates. Yes, Ms. Shanley. Uh Senator Avard is not a resident of Hollis. Al Fulchino. I am. I'll tell you what. I talked to Kevin Avard >> I will I will allow him to use his 30 seconds if he thinks this is his statement. Apparently, he does. Okay. He would like you to all know that the state >> what you would like us to know? I think it's valuable. I'll allow it. I took I'm amazed. Okay. You use it on my time. He wants the town to know Yeah. Reset my clock, please. I'll set the clock at 45 seconds. >> He wants to know that the State House has made great efforts on sending money to the community.

106They have changed the revenue sharing programs, room and meals tax. They've increased the money coming back to town by 115%. An increase of over 400,000 to up to eight from eight 400,000 to 860,000. His main goal that he wants to communicate to everybody here is you cannot keep out pacing the costs that the citizens can afford. And I've made it brief for you, and I appreciate the extra time. Thank you so much. Mr. Greba. Joe Greba, 28 Winchester Drive. All of us in this room are owners of the former school known as the Farley building. It was just last year that we saw an article brought to town meeting to refurbish that building for only $5 million. Granted, that was for a community center. But the costs of converting it to a school have yet

107to be determined. So, what I would like to see is plans drawn up to use the Farley building as a means to address our school expansion needs. Thank you. All right. If anyone else wants to mention use of the Farley building, I'm going to deem that redundant and ask you to sit down. Good evening. John Rubio, Farley Road. >> Your voting card, please. >> sorry. Thank you. Um I think I'm about to be a little unpopular. Uh, I'm new to Hollis and I, as a new resident like here, like everyone, I want more money in my checking account. I want my IRA to grow. I want the stock market to to do great, but I also believe we need to support our schools and our children and our teachers because as a reminder politely to

108everyone, I think one of the main reasons home values in Hollis have continued to increase is because every time I bring up that I live in Hollis, the first thing people tell me is the schools. And we sit here, we make these decisions, and I was really disappointed moving here this summer and hearing what happened with the Farley building. And I just think that schools, public schools and teachers are part of our democracy. Our schools and our teachers never get enough support. Buildings across the country are falling apart, and we are not the only state struggling with this. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Michael Ahearn, Swan Lorenzini. Uh, there've been comments on the the Farley building and also how there's like three classrooms that that's what started all this. I'd like to actually hear from

109the Enrollment Committee and the board about like what's that about? How true is that? What's going on? Yeah, there does seem to be a misunderstanding. We were never charged with um, coming up with three classrooms. We were charged with examining a problem, and it happened to be that in that year there was a three-classroom deficit for the next year. That was the first problem we took care of. We prioritized it. It was certainly not the only one. There were many many problems as we've enumerated here. Um, to answer your question, um, about the Farley building, uh, I There are many reasons that we They're just thoroughly explained on the Hollis Enrollment Committee website, but I very recently talked with the fire marshal, and I asked her, "Am I clear in understanding that there would be

110problems with putting pre-K in the Farley building?" And she confirmed that yes, for the same reasons we have those issues at the primary school, we would have those problems at Farley as well. Thank you. Mr. Loveland, you were at the back of the line, correct? Mr. Boutot got out. You will not be in order when we'll be taking a It was only the people in line that we were going to Yeah, you were The person who lined up behind you is the one I'm scolding. I'm sorry. Not you. Not you. Go ahead. You have the floor now. Identify yourself and have Yes, thank you. You're voting I'm Loveland, Todd Boutot. No, right now the school is too small. Even if our town was not going, no, we need to support this renovation to support our

111educators and have the school not continue to provide one of the best educations in the state, which I was lucky enough to grow up enjoying. The um it's the renovation is very uh cost-conscious and focused on what our needs are. I'd support this uh renovation and I encourage you to as well. Thank you. Thank you. All right, that will conclude debate. Now again, this is a um bond vote. Means that the ballot boxes have to be open from 1 hour. We're going to do things and it requires a a 3/5 majority vote in a favor. We're going to do things a little bit different. Before you guys all start running around, just let me give some instructions. We've got two boxes in the back. We have one box up here in the front. You may

112only vote one card. You may not vote your neighbor's card. You may not vote your wife's card. I realize you think you're one, but you're not tonight. You may vote one card in the box. And be honest about it. Don't go put one in this box and go put one in that box. And while after you get to vote, you're going to be able to pick up your ballot. It's going to be a different color in the back for the SAU votes. The Yeah. I thought you were you were three in the back? In the back. You have three Is that ballot I'm not understanding. You said that to me. Okay. But that's going to be for the SAU. That That's going to be a You're going to take bond votes in that box. Okay.

113That's what threw me when they were saying no. Okay. Just a clarification. You can vote your bond card up here, but to get your SAU ballot, you're going to have to go to one of the tables in the back or somebody at the select at the at the table. So, box here you can put your um green card in. Be sure to fill it in. Don't X it out. Fill in your and one vote. Okay, hold on. I just I want to make sure everybody hears the direction before we open the boxes. You fill in the box the Fill in the circle. Don't put an X through it. Don't put an X through both of them. Fill in the circle on the card. All right. We are going to open the polls at 9:08. >>

114Work through the lines as quickly as possible. As soon as we can get most people back to their seats, we're going to try to move along with the the meeting tonight. We can do business while the bond ballot box is open. Hold on. >> It's true. Oh, yeah. Great. Yeah. It's true. It's true. >> Right. It's hard to hear everything they Right. My first time I just moved here. Yeah. What time is that? Thank you. Yeah. >> Let me out. Oh. Oh my god. Hi. Oh. Yeah, beyond me. I don't They're saying they don't have any balance. They're saying we don't have balance. We're going to need it. Yeah, like I looked at the Yeah. Something to celebrate. Uh-huh. That's awesome for you. Yeah. They have a lot of firsts I never knew of. Yeah.

115So it's water. Those guys are the hard workers. Yep. Yep. There are a lot of people I know. I hire them and My daughter is probably But she works a lot. And and She stopped now. >> All right, guys. I don't want to add to the confusion. I told you to pick up the SAU ballots while you all were up. There's only one person in the building that can overrule me, and that's the checklist. So, they said there was so much confusion with folks still trying to pick up their green ballots that they didn't want to hand out gray ballots, and they were not handing them out. So, at some point here, we're going to have to have an opportunity to go pick up your gray SAU ballot. Sorry for the confusion, but that's why

116folks are not getting them. It's not because we don't have ballots. It's just they aren't willing to hand them out until we get some of the folks that are still coming to in the door trying to register to get their green ballot so they can vote for the bond. All right, thanks. Pamela Kirby, Pamela Kirby, if you're still in the house, I have something you might need to get an SAU ballot. >> Testing the backs. Speakers, okay. That's good. >> I don't I don't know. Oh. I know. No, I'm I'm all in. All in today. I don't I don't think I I don't >> Okay. Carol fixed this and now I don't know what she did. Well, I can If you guys can make start making it back to your seats, um the box is

117going to be open till 10:09. Hopefully, folks are quiet as they come in and still need to pick up their ballots. But because lots of us have to go to work tomorrow, I would like to be able to move this on to Article 2. All right, please take your seats. Please take your seats and please keep as silent as possible under the circumstances. All three ballot boxes will remain open till 10:09. Can we please take the volume down in this room so I can read the article? Thank you. Going to bring article two to the floor. Please take your seats or exit the meeting, please. Article two. Shall the school district vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $827,498 $827,498 as the Hollis school district's portion of the SAU budget of $2,560,328 for the

118forthcoming fiscal year. This year's adjusted budget of $2,540,642 with $821,135 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 the school administrative unit. The school board recommends this appropriation 500 and the budget committee recommends this appropriation 710. Ann, you didn't switch out the presentation. Okay. All right. Thank you. I apologize. All right. So, there's the article two, recommended by the school board 500, recommended by the budget committee 710 with an estimated tax impact of 36 per thousand is the tax rate and $265 for a average single family residence. Remember, this vote will not be announced tonight because our vote has to be combined with the two other school districts that make up SAU 41. Um

119this article was moved by Carol Roy. It was seconded by Raffi Zack, and we have a presentation from the uh school board by um Raffi. Thanks. Um hello. Um so the SAU Thank you. The SAU budget uh was uh put put together by a committee within the the SAU, the SAU being uh composed of the Hollis School District, the Co-op, and the Brookline School District. Um and the vast majority of the budget goes to uh salaries and benefits. Um all of this is part of the the SAU administrative staff. And uh we have the uh main budget drivers shown on this slide here. Um the uh you can see the the salaries at the top there. Um this had the the target at the 3.5% um increases uh to match the CPI for the the

120regional area. And uh we saw insurance uh jumps this year, uh 15.1 for health and 4.4 for dental. Um so that um those two were the were the big uh drivers here uh with some uh smaller uh bumps up bump bumps up uh for inspections, liability insurance, utilities, uh and some software. Uh so this um brings the increase of uh 5% to 256328. The adjusted budget um is uh shown there at 2540. So, around uh 20,000 below. Um that's the number that it goes to if this article uh fails. Um and I think that's that's all I have. Uh welcome to questions. Okay, I'd like to open the debate on Article 2. Does not appear that there's any debate. Okay, so folks at the back table, will you be willing to hand out the gray

121Yes, the thumbs up. Okay. So, this one has to be a ballot vote. Just like the last one, but it does not need to be open for 1 hour. So, take your green card, go to the back, pick up your gray card, and then you're going to come to the front. There is one box up here, and make sure you put it in the correct box, and not put it in the bond box. And again, only vote your own vote, not your wife's vote, your husband's vote, or your neighbor's vote. I am going to lose my >> pants For the last one you cut off the bottom. pants I don't need article two And I'll try my best. Hallelujah. >> Mhm. >> Make your way back to your seats because I know there's still some

122people trying to get their gray ballots, but if we can get most of you in your seats and the volume at an appropriate level, we can move on to Article 3. I'm going to give folks just a few seconds to get back to your seats. Okay, I'd like to move the meeting on to Article 3 is to see if the school district will vote to approve the cost item included in year two of the three-year collective bargaining agreement reached between the Hollis School Board and the Hollis Education Support Staff Association for the 2026-2027 school year, which calls for the following increases in support staff salaries and benefits at the current staffing levels. It shows that 2026-2027 is an increase of 189 98,801 dollars. And further to raise and appropriate the sum of 198,801 dollars for

123the second year, 2026-2027 school year, said sum represented the negotiated increase over the 2025-2026 salaries and the fringe benefits. Majority vote is required. The School Board recommends this appropriation 5-0-0 and the Budget Committee recommends this appropriation 8-0-0. This was moved by Carol Roy and seconded by Raffi Zack. And we're going to have a presentation by School Board member uh Jessica Lahans. And if we have anybody new here who's trying to figure out why we're voting on the second year of a school board contract, there's two ways that a school districts can vote. You can either vote in the first year and approve all of the cost items for each year of the CBA, or you can do it this way and each year it has to come back before the governing body. The first way

124is called Sanbornizing. This is not a Sanbornized contract, so you all need to approve the second year cost increase. is the reason why this is coming forward. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Moderator. So, just to remind folks of the historical context of uh this warrant article, this is the second year um of this contract. The first year um this was negotiated um because we were really struggling maintaining uh paraeducators in the school. Last year we had 38 paras, and 10 of them were contracted positions. After enacting the first year of this contract, we have 35 paras and only one contracted position. Um also for reference, um when we have to contract a paraeducator, it's approximately three times as expensive. So, using this uh contract, we were met our goal of uh decreasing uh contracted paras.

125Um part of the reason for that was that the labor market is a difficult labor market. Um it's possible to get uh jobs for $15 an hour for unskilled workers and providing health insurance at 25 hours a week. Um we were losing paras to co-op in other neighboring districts because we didn't offer health insurance for 30-hour a week employees. Every district bordering Hollis, except for Brookline, offered this benefit, which put us at a significant hiring disadvantage. Um so, you can see the cost increases here broken down. The first year, last year is up there at the top. This is the second year in the middle, which is uh circled in the Excuse me, in the white square. Um the cost of the contract is including the step increases for paras, which is a 2% increase

126plus step for paras that are for paras and support staff that are on the step table. For those who are off of the step table, it is a 2.5% increase and that accounts for 47,000 $703 of this increase. The rest of the increase is accounted for by health insurance changes. Um you can see that this our health insurance for the Hessa contract is capped um versus percentages, which helps manage costs. Uh you can see that 4:30 hour employees um the expense is $1,150 a month and the cap is estimated to be about equivalent to 100% of a single plan cost um plus a $1,000 opt-out for those who opt out of insurance and that accounts for the remaining amount of this expense, which is a total of $198,801. Um just some highlights of this year's

127contract. Again, the major change was providing 30-hour employees with health insurance. Um we have maintained caps on the health insurance. The union also in negotiating this contract accepted lower pay increases to accommodate the new insurance opportunities. Um our goal was to attract more candidates, eliminating the need for contracted positions. Um and as you can see there again, we have that stat about how many contract positions were able to eliminate. All right, is is there anyone who wants to speak to article three? Okay, seeing none. Can I have my counters, please? We'll take the vote on article three. We can get the counters in place. Are you coming up to count or are you just walking in? Otherwise, I'm going to Uh, you were not my counter. You coming to swap, Ted? Erica Krista in the

128back, Drew up front. Got four counters. You good, Melinda? Okay. All those in favor of Article 3, please raise your cards. All right, you good? Is somebody Drew, you had this section up front. Are they good? Drew, are they are they good good up front? You've counted this front corner? You can put your cards down, sir. Okay. You can put your card down. He's got you. Krista, are you good? Krista, do you have everything? Okay. put their hands down now. We All right. All right. Counters back in place. All those opposed to Article 3, raise your card. While they're counting, for the viewers at home, or if somebody's listening on their way in, you have 8 minutes to come vote on the bond before the ballot boxes will close on the bond at 10:09. So,

129if anybody's still en route, or you think somebody's still en route, they need to get in the building. I think I think the outcome of the vote is probably clear. The number is what we're waiting for. Okay, so Article 3 it passes 270 to 62 nay votes. So, the motion carries. Article 3 passes. Okay. All right. Anybody in the house who still has not put their ballot in for the box for Article 2? That is the SAU vote. Okay. So, at even my watch is now dead. 10:03, I'm closing the box for the SAU vote. Vote is cleared closed on Article 3 2 2. And we go to Article 4, which is the SAU building maintenance fund. To see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate up to the sum of $23,970

130to be added to the previously established maintenance expendable trust for administrative and associated structures at Four Lawn Lane in Hollis, map 56 lot 2. This sum to come from the Hollis School District's June 30, 2026 unassigned fund balance available for transfer on July 1, 2026. No amount to be raised by additional taxation, majority vote required. The board recommends this appropriation 500. The budget committee recommends this appropriation 800. Moved by Carol Roy, seconded by Raffi Zack. We have a presentation by John Fontaine. You can just advance it if you want. Maybe. All right. Good evening. Um as it outlines, this comes up every year. Um and as some of you may know, we own the building next to HPS. And effectively, there is an expendable trust utilized for maintenance, um which is funded through rent uh

131to the SAU. Um overall, for any expenditures that come up, the administration will bring them to our attention, and then they will get voted on by the committee and evaluated. Um next slide, please. Just one more. The projected opening balance is 88,765 um with the rent funding proposed at 23,970. Um some proposed projects next year would be to do some maintenance on the roof at approximately 32,000 uh with a remaining balance at the end at 80,735. Yep. All right. Don't see any discussion on Article 4. Okay. So, we'll take a vote on Article 4. Are you coming forward on Article 4? Go ahead. Okay. Chris Opal, Commodore Hull Road. Just was wondering um how much is in the unassigned fund balance right now. The It's said the funds are coming from the unassigned fund balance.

132And they're going to go into the maintenance trust. I'm going to take this one. So, this is actually the money that we collect as rent we own as a school district for Lund Lane. The three separate school districts pay us rent over the course of the year of 23,970. That money sits in the unassigned fund balance until it is moved into the maintenance trust fund with this vote at this meeting every year. So, it's not affected by the rest of the unassigned fund balance. It's where it's parked when we receive that rent until we can move it into the fund balance with this vote. Okay. And uh since now you're telling us also that 23,970 is what you charge for rent. How long has it been at 23,970? 3 years, 5 years. It was increased

133to that amount. I think it was right before right around the COVID response time. >> five or so more. Um Um And how often do you increase it? Not often enough probably. But you do have to keep in mind that each of the three school districts participate in that. And so as the SAU governing board, which is comprised of the Brookline school district member school board members, co-op board members, and Hollis board members, they as a board of 17 people then would take a vote whether or not to accept that increase. Um we actually were just discussing whether or not to look at another increase. Right. Okay. And um how often do you Your time has expired. >> I did ask part of the question. How often do you do it? I didn't I didn't

134even hear the end of your question. I'm sorry. It was after the time had expired. Okay. All those in favor of article I close the debate cuz I don't see any other speakers, correct? All right. All those in favor of article four, please raise your cards. All those opposed. Article four passes. And we are 1 minute from closing the ballot box for the bond. Let me see Somebody have a timer going off on my bond box? You did. That's it. All right. So, perfect timing. We're going to close the ballot box for Article 1, the the bond article the box is closed. Okay. They are counting. Hopefully, we will have those results soon. All right. Article 5. Article 5. To see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate up to the sum

135of 125,000 to be added to the previously established school building expendable maintenance trust fund. The sum to come from the Hollis School District's June 30, 2026 unassigned fund balance available for transfer on July 1, 2026. No amount to be raised by additional taxation. Majority vote required. The school board recommends this appropriation 5-0-0 and the budget committee recommends this appropriation 8-0-0. This is moved by Carol Roy and seconded by Raffi Zack. We have a presentation by Raffi. Thanks, Liz. Um so, uh this is an annual warrant article. Um nothing nothing too new. Uh some uh because the this fund is appropriated from the unreserved fund balance, uh one of the benefits is that it can highlight some of the building projects um so that it has uh some tran- uh some transparency for the for the

136voters. Um and also another benefit is that it can by having this fund for it, we can have avoid uh spikes and try to keep uh budget changes flat. Um the process for this is that uh it is proposed by the administration. Um it's evaluated by the school board and then presented to the budget committee where it returns back to the school board for the final decision and approval. Next slide, please. Um so the items for this year are Hughes focused being that we had um the bond vote tonight for HPS. Um with this uh plan, the opening balance and the ending balance will be projected at the same level of $188,000. Um the first one there that you see is $55,000 for basketball courts, so that's repaving and for the hoop. Um the next

137item is $35,000 for flooring at Hughes. Often times flooring comes in phases. I believe there are two more phases at the same level that will come in upcoming years. Um the third item at $20,000 is end-of-life soundproofed walls um that will then be sheetrocked. And the last item is for cabinet replacements at $15,000. Um that's what I have. So, any questions? I'll open the floor on Article 5. No one doesn't appear there's any discussion. Okay, all those in favor of Article 5, please raise your cards. All those opposed. The eyes have it. Article 5 passes. Now we're cooking. Article 6. 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 the sum of 95,000 to put

138into the fund. This sum shall be raised by taxation. Any appropriation left in the fund at the end of the year will lapse to the general fund. The school board recommends this appropriation 500. The budget committee recommends this appropriation 800. Moved by Carol Roy and seconded by Raffi and we have a presentation by Jessica. Um okay, so this is another warrant article that we have each year, so it isn't anything new. This is a legally established reserve that addresses unexpend- unexpected expenses that could arise during the school year. Uh any money that is not spent out of this fund is returned to the general fund, which means it goes back to the taxpayers. Uh this amount of money represents 0.5% of the operating budget, so it creates a meaningful safety net for us without creating

139an excessive uh financial commitment. Um it might cover expenses like if there were a facilities issue, a boiler exploded in the middle of the year, something like that with that we needed to address that there wasn't money set aside in the operating budget. If there are any questions, folks can come ask now. With your mic on. I open the floor on article six. Does not appear to be any debate on article six. Oh. Thank you. Hi Anna Halassa, uh Broad Street. So I just I'm curious, what is the existing slush fund that exists or does it empty out every year? I just seems like there's a lot of pockets of money. >> It empties out every year. Anything that is not used is returned to the taxpayers. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else? Okay. If

140you want to speak to article six, start making your way to the podium so we can uh Greg Wilhelm, 34 Alcox Lane. Uh my question to you is how does that money get returned to us? As small as it may be, I I'd like to know all I see is more I'm spending, not less. I think there's probably someone else who could better speak to the actual financial mechanisms that I don't know if someone from the Bud Comm wants to speak to the mechanism of that. If the funds are unexpended, it's called lapsing. Lapses to the general fund. The school board can vote to retain a certain amount of money. It's limited, much more limited than the town, and that money rolls back to the voters, is counted as revenue in the next budget cycle.

141Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. All those in favor of article six, please raise your cards. All those opposed. The eyes have it. Okay, here to article seven. One that I feel like I should say this one's based upon current law. We'll see what it looks like by the time we get done with the legislative session, but this is the article seven. Shall the Hollis School District vote to adopt an open enrollment school program designating both Hollis Primary School and Hollis Upper Elementary School and open enrollment schools pursuant NHRS A 194 D for the purpose of enabling the district to admit up to one non-resident student to HPS or Hughes under the provisions of RSA 194 D with 100% of its eligible resident pupils permitted to attend HPS and Hughes and 0% of its resident pupils

142permitted to attend open enrollment schools located outside of the district. The school board recommends this article 500. The budget committee did not take a position on this. Um moved by Carol Roy and seconded by Raffi Zack and we have a presentation by the board by from Carol Roy. Thank you, Madam Moderator. So, as she alluded to when she introduced this article, there is current legislation going through Concord that is going to call that's called open enrollment. It is going through several different iterations. Um one school district has been sued over this when they said they wouldn't pay for their student to go attend somewhere else. I'll get to the explanation of that in a second. Um and it was under legal advisement that many, many school districts now are putting this type of article on

143their warrant in order to protect them financially. The open enrollment parameters are that a student can go to any other open enrollment community, any other open enrollment district. Their sending district has to pay 80% of what they spend per pupil in their own district to the receiving district. The remainder to be paid by the parents of the student. Um the receiving district is not in charge of providing transportation. Um but the bigger issue, number one, obviously, we are asking you you to expand the primary school. We don't have room to bring students in, but in order to be considered an open enrollment school, we need to be able to admit at least one student. So, that is why this is written as such. And 0% would we fund to go elsewhere because that would actually,

144if we had five students leave and the cost per pupil that we spend, say, is $15,000, you can do that math of what is going to be having to be paid out to other schools. This language protects you as taxpayers from having the schools that you are funding with your tax dollars from being paid to other districts. All right, I just want to clarify a couple of things and I had not heard this presentation. There were two things. I'm sorry, my day job is working as counsel for the Department of Education. Two things I want to clear up. One, no school district has been sued. Um there was a decision of a local board that was appealed to the state board and that was appealed to the Supreme Court. Number two, under current law, no

145parent has to pay to send their kids to an open enrollment school. There's only one open enrollment district in the state uh right now. Well, I guess before this legislative cycle started, there was only one. There's a handful of different districts that have done just what you guys are getting ready to do tonight. All right, I will open the floor for discussion on Article 7. Hi. Sue Homola Mendelson. Um I have a have an issue with the zero amount of students that can leave. I mean, we we often hear about our great schools and we feel like they're very competitive. And I'm not really sure that the need to actually solidify that nobody can leave. I mean, you may have a a parent that there's there might be one program that, you know, fits her

146needs better, but I I really feel like um our school district is very competitive. I think open enrollment can actually be a bonus for us, but I think it's a little discriminatory to say none of our students can take advantage of this as well. Thank you. Thank you. Is am I able to clarify anything? Matt Murdock, Meadow Drive. I too have a problem with the 0% and I'd like the motion and amendment to change that to that resident pupils with cause will be permitted to attend open enrollment and the reason being is I have a daughter who um doesn't have options at the school to participate in programs cuz they're not offered here. They are offered at larger school districts and I think for that reason we should allow some of these students that like

147I said we have a good school system but sometimes there are special needs. There are programs that aren't offered through this school system cuz they cost too much and everything else with budget. So for that reason we should be allowed to um have an option to send our children to a district. As you pointed out, it's on me as a parent to then transport that child which is a burden I'm taking but I do not want our article to completely forget prevent me from having that option. Okay, is there a second to his motion to add the words with cause? Okay, there's a second. Is there any debate on the motion to Hold on, before we get to the motion to amend, I believe this is an illegal amendment because I believe under 194D it

148has to be a number. I wanted to just confirm this with All right, district council agrees with council for the Department of Education. Sometimes that's not the case but okay, so I will tell you it has to be a number and I will tell you that there is a mechanism for your child to attend another school district under 1933. So, RSA 1933 will do exactly what your amendment will you want it to do. Everyone in the school has told me I'm not allowed. I'm sorry. I've called I've talked to athletic directors of both schools and they will not allow me to do it. So, I I not your place, but I'm just saying I've been told by school school board that it's not permitted. Matt Madam Moderator, may I >> instead of 0% I'd like

149to propose >> would There is Manifest educational hardship is the statute. There is no limitation on how many kids can So, um that's the statute. So, it's not a legal it's not a legal amendment. So, we won't take a vote on an amendment that is on the floor that is illegal because the 194D requires it to be a number. So, your time is up. We can't put an illegal I am going not going to put an illegal amendment on the floor. Point of order. Sure. I would like to speak to the amendment whether you decide that it's legal or not. I think the voters here should be able to speak to this amendment. We're it's not on the floor. It's not Sorry, Joe. It's not on the floor. All right, do we So, it's not

150on the floor. Does anybody else want to speak to article I'm sorry. Yeah, so it it The law what she what she clarified and I thought I said but didn't probably say I said it had to be a number. It needs to be a percentage between 0 and 100. If you want to if you know somebody wants to make a legal amendment, that is how you would do it. So, you have the floor, Mr. Griffin. >> Spee uh Madam Moderator, uh I believe that if you're going to deem the amendment illegal because it uses a percentage, Article 7 as written, No, the amendment did not have a percentage. It said for cause, and I'm saying it has to be a number. Because that's what 194D requires. >> number, but I'm saying I'm reading it. It

151says a percentage. So, would you accept an amendment instead of saying 0%, would you accept an amendment? And I'm asking this not to the moderator. I'm asking this to the to the District Council. Would it be legal to uh amend the article to say 1% instead of 0%? May May the Council speak? You can come to the podium, Allison. Attorney Minutillo. Thank you. Yes, the percentage where it says zero needs to be a percentage from zero to 100. All right, I'm moving >> Okay, you you You're no longer in order, so uh because I can't offer an amendment after I asked if a question how to make a legal one? If you want to amend, you need to do that at the beginning of the presentation. I had to get the Town Council's opinion before

152I amended. I would like to amend the number to say 1%. Is there a second to his motion to amend? It's seconded. Okay. Is there a debate on the motion to amend to increase the 0% to 1%? Does not Oh, wait. We got somebody coming from the back. Are you wanting to speak to the amendment? >> No, I want to make a motion to table this under given that you first brought up this amendment and said that there was loss there was legis- that was in it was going through conquered. What is the rush? Then you said that there are districts that have been sued, which you since corrected. >> Stop. Point of order. You made a motion to table it. That's all you can do. Correct. >> So, that's not debatable. So, all those

153in favor of tabling Article 7, please raise your card. All right, I'm just Sorry, you're right. He did not get a second. Point Put your cards down. Thank you for whoever's reminding me and part of it is I've got bells going off. Okay. Do you have a sec- Is there a second for the motion to table? He has a second. Okay. Who's the Who's the name for the motion to take Mike Julian, North Pepper Road. And the And the second for that motion. Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road. It's It's Mr. Orlando. He's the petition war article the petition war for the next petition war article. Okay. We've got a motion. We've got a second. All those in favor to >> Are you tabling the amendment or tabling the article? They asked to table the article

154cuz we did not Well, What's the motion? We're voting on the amendment. All right. Go back to the amendment. All right. Everybody clear on what we're voting on? I apologize. All those in favor of the amendment to incre- You want to speak to the amendment? Okay. Michael Ramondi, Olson Drive. I just I'm not sure what the enthusiasm for this is. We're here uh budget-conscious people are making a lot of arguments for keeping costs down and we're effectively willing to double the cost of certain students to leave our district and I'm just confused by that, why that excitement exists. Why would we want to double or effectively double the tuition for certain students who choose to go elsewhere? I would think the option would be to perhaps move to that district. Thank you. Okay. Are you

155speaking to the amendment? Are you speaking to the motion to table? Because there if Amendment? Wait, are you speaking to the amendment? John Gruba, Meadow Drive. I'm speaking to the amendment. Um I just want to point out that uh tabling the entire thing is probably unwise. >> The tabling is not debatable. So, I asked you if you're going to speak to the amendment. >> I support the amendment because I think we need to pass something relative to this and not table it. Carol Roy, South Merrimack Road. The current per pu- per pupil cost in the Hollis School District is approximately $23,300. If you have a 1% that you let go of the 683 students that are currently enrolled in the Hollis School District, you're sending $160,000 out of this district to somewhere else. If So,

156I don't agree with the amendment at all. I do think we need to pass something tonight. Thank you. Are you speaking to the amendment? >> I'm speaking to the amendment. So, specifically the amendment changing uh from 0% to 1%. If we don't pass something here, the reason this article in general is on here is because if we don't pass something and the state goes ahead and passes open enrollment, we will be the receiving district and we will have no control. This amendment or this article is the only thing that prevents us from getting more than one student that's not a resident into our schools. Yep. Are you speaking to the amendment or the motion to table? >> I just have a question on the general article uh real quick. Um Then if It's It's really

157quick. >> But we're on the amendment. And And now I at least know where we are in the in the meeting. So, we're on the amendment. Is there any other discussion on the amendment? Yes. Chris Hopewell, 1 War Hill Road. I'm really confused on this. Um At a February 10th Hollis Public School Public Hearing, someone suggested that maybe we should really be looking at the math and see if it would be cheaper to allow those kids to go out of the district if they choo chose, and we pay the tuition for them to go versus a $20 million bond. I think you remember that meeting. I was just I I'm This wouldn't be said Is this to the amendment? How does this impact the your >> Because I'm for the amendment that we put so

158We cannot keep We cannot hold our kids hostage. And that amendment by uh the uh amendment doesn't hold them hostage by having 1% at least 1%. Okay. Kimber, are you speaking to the amendment? Yes. Kimber Harmon, North Pepple Road. Does this amendment allow kids from Massachusetts in particular, Pepperell, to come into our school district? It It is a New Hampshire law, so I don't believe that state lines can be crossed. Can you confirm that? We can set policy to to specify that, but that is not how the proposed law is written. Okay. Are you just speaking to the man again? Matt Murdock, Meadow Drive. Um I just wanted to rebuttal the the numbers about the 1%. Again, I wasn't trying to look for 1%, but the math doesn't quite follow, cuz if whatever the number

159is is if we're spending that much money on that student whether they're here or going, the the revenue is still coming in from me as a taxpayer. My taxes from living in this town are still being paid, and they're still going to the school. And it will if it follows my child to the outside school district, that's money you aren't spending on her. So, when she has an option to do something that she can't do in Hollis, that's beneficial for my child and all of the children. So, I understand the concerns here. I don't think a 1% of the people are going to leave. We We love to say our schools are awesome here. I don't think it's 1%, but I think we need a number because I don't think it's fair to everyone in

160this town to say you are absolutely not allowed to send your child and look into this open enrollment. Thank you. Anyone else on the amendment? Mr. Pluto. >> Um I have a question about does the percentage have to be a whole number? Have fun, Allison. Seriously. I I wouldn't think so. It It needs to be a percentage between 0 and 100. Thank you. Uh in that case, I would recommend that the amendment not be passed. I'm against the amendment at that level, but perhaps it could be re- somebody could propose a lower number like 0.1%, which would only be six students. Anyone else on the amendment before I Karen? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you were in front of Karen. Go ahead. Yeah, my my name is Haiyang Zhang. I live in Auburn

161Lake. Uh so, I have a simple question. If I remember correctly, you mentioned that even without this amendment, you set that to 0%. Uh you still have other channel to send your child to other district, correct? Under under hardship, you can still This doesn't affect any hardship reason why a student could be sent to another district. Is that what you mean? So, it's I I just want to recollect what I remember from what the moderator said. Uh she said even if this is 0%, you have other channel. Say if your child has uh chosen some program not exist in this district, you you have other means to send your child to other district, even if this zero. Is that correct? It's called the hardship. Under hardship? >> It's called under hardship, yeah. Can you Do

162you guys have detail on what that qualifies for? Can you Correct. Yeah. So, this article only pertains to one law, open enrollment. There are other um there are other statutes. The one one that's being talked about is RSA 1933 that refers to best interest and manifest educational hardship, which is which is a different process and which is not impacted by this article at all. So, this 0% or with the current amendment 1% is open enrollment only. No other process is impacted um, other than open enrollment. Yeah, okay. So, thank you for the clarification. So, just everybody know, so even if it's set to zero, you still have other channel to send your kids outside. >> I'm sorry, your time >> Thank you. Karen. Karen Brejoux at Buttonwood Drive. I just wanted to make sure the

163school board could clarify that if your child is having a hardship, they are able to go someplace else. There is a different RSA that does that. 100%. This has no impact, as our legal counsel just mentioned, and I apologize I didn't say that in my opening statement about this article. It does not affect that. So, the educational hardship laws still stand. They are not in the proposed law and they are not affected by this warrant article. This is solely in response to the law that is currently being debated and likely coming to pass soon or coming to I don't think this is necessarily relevant to the amendment at this point. So, I um, against this amendment because um, if a child is already needing to go to another place, there are provisions for that and

164I don't think we need this amendment. >> Okay. All right. On the amendment only. On the amendment, I would like to make a motion to amend the amendment to 0.1%, which is allowed No, it's we cannot there when there is a on the it's on the The is on the floor. We must vote on the amendment. Vote it down, and then we can amend it again, but we need to take a vote. And I've already said this This is the second time I've said this, I think. So, do you have anything to speak to on the amendment? Sounds like it would be you would like them to vote no. Yeah, I would like you to vote no, so that I can amend the so I can propose an amendment to 0.1%. Thank you. >> Great.

165Anybody else on the amendment? That's not duplicative. Chris Hopewell, Gilmore Hill Road. I just wanted um ask, how does this article or amendment affect your policy on the admission uh tuition and non-resident students? >> I don't see that that's relevant to the amendment. It's money. It's I rule the question out of order. I don't believe it's germane to the amendment. All right. Anyone on the amendment? Okay. Matt Murdock, Meadow Drive. Just I just wanted to address the hardship issue because I have looked into it. >> That is not relevant to the amendment at this point. It's relevant to >> to the 1% that we're talking about. Go ahead. And the reason being and the reason I'm requesting 1% at open enrollment is because the reason the open enrollment is there is hardship does not work

166for everyone. Thank you. Okay. Closing the floor on the debate on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment to amend Article 7 to make rather than the last 0% make it 1% of the resident pupils would be attending to attend open enrollment schools located outside of the district. Raise your card if you're in favor of the amendment. Oh, it's going to be I'm going to need counters cuz I'm not sure All right. Let's say that let's take the day. All those opposed to Article 7, all right, it's very clear. All right. The amendment fails. We have a motion to table that we need to vote on. It is a motion to table is not debatable. So, all those in favor of tabling Article 7. All those opposed. Okay. So, Article 7 as written

167is currently on the floor. Now, your amendment would be in order. Are you You want to speak to the You want to speak to the article? I have one question I just want to ask real quick. Is it germane to the article? >> Yes. Go ahead. Uh Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road. Um my question is regarding the great benefit we give some of the teachers who teach in our district who are out of district, you know, they live in a different district and we allow their children to come to our district to learn, which is a really good benefit which I think a lot of teachers like. Does the one open enrollment limit our union agreement with them allowing them to have students in our district? Can I I'll take that. Thank you, Victor. Um

168currently, only if there is room in the grade level where they are requesting is their request brought to the board for consideration and they are charged a percentage of tuition to bring their children into the school. Um we don't have a lot of room in the schools, so it's not often that we can grant that. And that has to be renewed on a year-by-year. It isn't just your kids and they stay through sixth grade. Um so this doesn't have anything to do with that. Um they are separate policies, separate things addressed. So just to clarify, this is not affecting the teachers' ability to bring students in and then my next just a little quick follow-up question, which gets choice first? Does the teacher's student or the teacher's child who wants to be a student here

169get choice first? Does the open enrollment get choice first in this case? I mean let's say there's one seat available in first grade. Does it go to an open enrollment or does it go to a teacher who has a child who can fit that spot? I don't know. We haven't had to deal with that. Um do we have a We'd have to make a policy on it. So if you feel strongly that it should go to an open enrollment student versus a teacher's child, we could have that as a as a board policy. I'd rather go to the teacher's child, but I just wanted clarification on that thing. >> Yeah. Thank you. Jonathan Wilson, 5 Deer Run Road. Um I wanted to just get some clarification from council um on why why we're proposing it

170this way, the zero thing, and does it can you guarantee that this doesn't open us to potential lawsuits from a parent who wants to send their kid out of district and we have this zero policy. How do we come to this decision? So this article is based on the current law as it exists today. And with the case that was mentioned previously, every student in Hollis could attend an open enrollment school in another district should that they choose to do that. So this is based on the current law which allows you to limit that from a percentage of 0 to 100 for your resident students. Um I mean, I can't guarantee anything in that context, but this does allow protection based on the current status of the law. Right. So, if we set a policy

171that says you can't leave, and then that doesn't potentially open us to a a new lawsuit from that parent who wants their kid to leave? I did I'm sorry, I just hear your question. Um so, if if we set a policy that says your child is not allowed to leave our district, essentially, under this law, that doesn't open us up to a potential lawsuit from the parent? This uh setting the percentage of students that can leave under the current law is required, and the percentage needs to be 0 to 100. That is a choice that's left up to the legislative body. Okay. I think I know Yeah. Um I'm just going to make sure we're not missing >> leave the district anytime they want, and then they have to go to a place that would

172allow them to tuition in. The open enrollment law would basically charge back the sending district. Yeah, it it seems like we're open to a lawsuit. >> hold we're not holding anybody here saying you can ever leave. It's just under under this law. Okay. So, I I would say um I am I am opposed to this. Last I checked, New Hampshire is a live-free state, uh and this sounds like Hollis is saying if you if there exceptions if you live in Hollis. It's live free >> Your time's expired. Charity >> Hi. Charity Bell, 25 Forest Drive. It's incredibly important for people to understand that this is not a new idea. It's happened across the country, and it has been universally disastrous for strong school systems. What this allows people to do is to move into a

173school system that is perhaps less financed, less supported, and then choose to send their kids to this school system without paying the taxes, paying the a bit of the tuition perhaps for the time their kid is here. If you want to build a new school, this is the way to make sure you absolutely have to do it. We are far far more likely to be a receiving school over which we have little to no control than we are to be a sending school. So again, if you would like to build a new elementary school sooner rather than later, bigger than the one that's already been proposed, don't allow this to be voted on, which allows us to control who goes to our school, not where kids go, but who comes here, and allows us to

174limit it to the Hollis kids that we built it for. James Picarello, Depot Road. I would like to make a amendment to move the amount of outbound percentage to 1/4 of 1%, which maths out to one student who is allowed to leave under this policy. Okay, I just want to make sure I understand. You want to change the 0% to 0.25% of the resident pupils may be permitted to attend an open enrollment school. Yes, ma'am. Okay, now that I've clarified what the amendment is, does the amendment have a second? Mr. Garabedian will second it. Is there any debate on the amendment? Feel like we've had a lot of debate on this already. On the amendment? Yes. I I believe the math is a little wrong. Um A quarter of a percent of 600 students is

1751.707. 683 * 1/4 of a percent comes out to 1.7. >> 1% Oh, you're right. All right. I just fiddled around with it a whole bunch. That's how I got to 1/4 of a percent. Yeah, it's it's one and it's one and three-quarters of a student. Apple calculator for the win. It's late. None of our math skills are terribly good at almost 11:00 p.m. Just Tom Gehan's. Anyone else on the amendment? Okay, all those in favor of the amendment, raise your card. All those opposed? Okay, the amendment fails. All right, so now we're back to the article. All right, is there debate on Article 7? At Yes. Hillary Casadevall, Federal Road Hill Road. I want to call the question on Article 7 and move to vote. Okay. Is there a second? All those in favor

176of any calling the question, any debate? All those opposed? Okay, eyes have it. So, all right, so now we can take a vote on Article 7. All those in favor of Article 7, raise your card. All those opposed? Article passes. >> Okay, we have a motion for reconsideration. To motion to restrict reconsideration made by Darlene Man and seconded by Mike Harris. Okay? So, on the motion to restrict reconsideration for articles three through seven. All those in favor of restricting reconsideration on articles three through seven. Okay. All those opposed? The motion to restrict reconsideration on articles three through seven passes. Okay. All right. While we spent a lot of time on article seven, I got a couple goodies. Article one, the bond, required 525 votes to pass. We had 285 yes votes, no votes. The motion,

177the article, fails for a total of 875 voters, which is mighty good number. So, thank you for everybody that who came out. So, article one failed. So, Okay, I have a motion to restrict reconsideration on article one seconded by um Um all fun Jonathan Fontaine. Can't even hear at this point now. All right, I have a motion to restrict reconsideration on article one. All those Oh, But don't need it on article one. And that's because our we can't we don't need an article motion to restrict reconsideration on Article 1 because it's a bond and it would automatically be in 7 days. So, what a motion for to restrict reconsideration does, it doesn't mean that we could never do it before the end we could still do it at some point, but it would mean you

178would have to do it in 7 days and we would have to notice it in 7 days. As long as we close the meeting, we won't be having to take a revote on Articles 3 through 7, but a bond always has to be voted on 7 days later. So, we don't need a motion to restrict restrict reconsideration cuz the legislature did that for us in the municipal act. All right. Now, I promised that we would do um the budget, which is um Article 8. Funny how we got there. I'll be cut All right. Yeah, the the results of the SAU budget, which remember these get rolled in to the other two districts. There was 217 yes votes, 190 no votes. So, at least for the Hollis School District, you had enough votes to pass the

179SAU budget. We'll have to see at the conclusion of the co-op meeting, which is Thursday. Thursday. All right. Sure. On the SAU Article 2, we had 217 yes votes, 190 no votes for a total of 407 votes. Mr. Boutot. I think well, it's a little exposed factor, but I thought we weren't supposed to announce the vote on the SAU ballot until all votes had been counted by all districts. No, we always announce Okay, even though the vote of one district can affect the future votes of other districts. It's Brookline's is already out. It's public. Okay, thank you. On article two, I have a motion to restrict reconsideration on article two by Darlene Maughan, seconded by Mike Harris. All those in favor of restricting reconsideration on article two, raise your card. All those opposed, the eyes

180have it. Article two um is the restricted reconsideration. All right, now we are to article eight. If I could remember which hand the clicker is in. Article eight, to see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of 18,417,466 for the support of schools, for the payment of salaries, for the school district officials and agents, for the payment of statutory obligations of the district. This appropriation does not include appropriations voted on in other warrant articles. The school board recommends this appropriation 500. The budget committee recommends this appropriation 710. This has been moved by Tom Geagan and seconded by Carol Roy. And um the estimated tax impact on this, you can see it on the slide, is $6.18 for a $1,000 home value and $4,607 for the average single-family residence. Mr. Geagan.

181>> It's too late in the evening for me to to do math on the fly, so I'm going to try to stick with the slides. All right. Uh each year in the school district and the and the town for that matter, uh the budget committee deliberates and provides guidance to the governing body, in this case the school board, where we want to see the budget come in. You can see the numbers here. I think the salient point is the proposed budget is about $7,000 under the guidance provided by the budget committee. Um first thing we always cover is staffing changes. You can see here uh this budget, if passed, will reduce one uh regular education teacher. It will also reduce uh 0.6 support staff. Um those positions are filled positions, so I believe unions would

182be informed that job actions would occur. The final point is uh four education support staff, uh instructional assistants. Those have been budgeted but empty for some time, so in a sense it's a cleanup and a reduction. Uh we always cover the top increases and decreases. Uh the increase you see is a significant increase in the classroom teacher salaries. That is a direct result of the vote at uh I think it was last year's meeting where the contract was approved, so that goes into the budget um uh essentially without it's a non-discretionary increase. Special education tuition, uh I think I spoke about this at the outset in my remarks, that seemed like quite a while ago, um that a significant increase in the overall budget is due to increased needs in special education. Um the numbers

183show an increase, but again, with those increases in special ed, there were savings found in other places. For example, the staff reductions that I just spoke to on the on the prior slide. Um you can see one of these special ed increases, tuition uh going up. The school board for years has strived to keep as many Hollis students in Hollis as possible. Uh the sense is that we can provide the best services for them here locally. However, there are cases in a case-by-case basis special education is reviewed and the professionals assess that there was a need to um uh utilize some out-of-district services. Teacher retirement, that line item is uh speaks to the role of the Hollis School District as employers of all the staff. Uh they participate in the New Hampshire retirement system and

184as the employer we're required to make uh mandated uh contributions to the retirement plans. Another special education cost, the out-of-district services I just alluded to. And finally, health insurance uh went up about $57,000. That's a relatively small increase of just under 3%. Major decreases, I talked about some of the staffing decreases. That's the first item line item of savings, about $70,000. And the next one, replacing computer equipment, we're going to have a similar theme with the math textbooks. Um in the course of trying to meet the budget guidance and limit increases, the uh administration and school board deemed that they could get by with with existing uh computer equipment and math textbooks through the coming academic year. The line in between those two, retirement benefits, there is a uh element of the collective bargaining agreement

185that allows, I believe it's four teachers, if they uh declare that they're going to retire before certain date, they get a small stipend. Um we had some last year, nobody declared this year, so that budget line item goes to zero. And finally, bond interest, we uh still have a couple of long-term debt items out there. H Smart, the capital improvement plan, and I think H step is still has a year or two to go. And the debt service on that goes down by just over $28,000. And I believe that's it. Thank you. Okay, I'll open the floor on Article 8, the operating budget. Uh Victor Orlando, 266 Depot Road. Uh I'd like to propose an amendment. Last year, our proposed budget was $16,950,312. I'd like to propose that the new budget be amended to that

186total times a 2.4% rate of inflation to bring it to $17,357, $119, and 49 cents. Yeah, we're going to need that in writing cuz it was very difficult to to hear. Sorry, I'm talking. >> it up in writing? Yeah. Well, I need to read it out so so I can get a second. Okay. And can you can we round up because normally we do. We don't go down to the cents. Really, great. Sev- Okay, so the motion to amend is to reduce the budget from one from $18,417,466, reduce it down to 17,357 dollars and a 123 120. So, 17,357,120. So, 17357120 is the amendment. Do I have a second to reduce the budget? Okay, I have a second. All right, all those Okay, so uh who's um Dave Dave Perry. Dave Perry. Thank you. Okay.

187I'm going to open the floor to the amendment. We're going to take only discussion on the amendment. Is this germane to the amendment? Okay, perfect. >> Carol Roy, South Merrimack Road. Uh I don't agree with the amendment because it is taking a number that did not take into account the not yet voted in teachers' contract that passed with an overwhelming majority last year. We cannot go back to a number that did not include what are current expenses. Thank you. Anybody else to the amendment? Got one coming from the back. I think Tom White and Beachy there. Are you to speak into the amendment, right, Tom? Tom Gee on Broad Street. Um I rise in opposition to this amendment. Um the budget has been crafted over the course of 5 months. Um I think folks who've

188followed the town meeting in this meeting, you know, I'm generally a voice of spend less. However, I think this would be reckless. Uh it doesn't recognize mentioned in the increases that the uh one of the reasons the operating budget went up is because this body voted last year to approve a contract that adds 260 or 270,000 dollars. Also, there are significant increases in special education costs that if this amendment were to pass, we would be required to cut regular programming for students because we're required by law to provide the special education services. Um I'm sure there are many other programs that would suffer as a result. Thank you. Anybody else to the amendment? >> Mike Cremondi, Hollis uh in Olson Drive. So, I just heard that uh the teachers contract was uh passed and could

189not be changed so that therefore it sounded like we were locked and didn't have this as an option. Wouldn't that just mean we'd have to find the savings elsewhere in the budget, cutting something else to accommodate the fixed teachers contract? Is that the case? Can I get an answer to that, please? Yes. Thank you very much. Any other discussion of the amendment? Okay, closing debate on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment, raise your cards. All those opposed. Overwhelmingly, the motion to amend fails. So, now we're back to Article 8 as it was proposed by the school board and the budget committee. Ms. Babcock. Hi. Holly Babcock, Hayden Road. You're going to hate me. Um I would like to make an amendment. But I know you it should be round numbers. It's I

190would like to amend the budget $160,000 up. So, I'd like to add $160,000 to the budget. I don't have the book in front of me, so um and I that that's my amendment. I'd like to speak to it also, but I don't know the process, so She wants to even increase the budget by 160,000, but I need to have a total number. So, if I can get Darlene or Tom to do some math. I'm sorry. >> Well, God knows we don't want the lawyer doing math. I think Jonathan has it. Do you have it? Oh, oh, I just I touched it. Go have her read that number. Okay. If you did the math 18,577,466 $18,577,466 Can I see that one last time? So, okay. 18,577,466 >> 18,577 What was the last 18,577,466 18,577,466 Okay. Is

191there a second to the motion to amend to $18,577,466? The second, Amy Keltner, up in the corner is the second. Any discussion to the amendment? >> Can I speak to it? Um I'm proposing this because I feel like this committee has done some amazing work on the bond, and I think they need to do more work. Unfortunately, I think that they need to go back and re-look at some of the things that were suggested, maybe form a new committee, but that is not free, and they'll might need to look at the the plans and rework them. And so, this is $4,000 less than what was given last year, but uh or approved last year, I should say. So, that's why I'm suggesting it, so that we can rethink, because I think the need was made

192very clear today, and I think that many of us can agree that there's a definite need, and we need a solution. So, I think we need to go back to the drawing board. All right. Any other discussion on the amendment. Seeing none. Um all those in favor of the amendment to amend Article 8 to $18,577,466, please raise your cards. All those opposed. Okay, motion to amend fails. Now we're back to Article 8 as written. Uh Crystal Palmgren Hill Road. Uh just in one of the slides that uh Tom had talked about um special ed out of district services. I'm I can't remember, but maybe you could verify. Um do we are we adding uh staff like a speech and language person in order in order to service children in say a charter school? Something tells

193me I heard that, but I can't I can't remember. I'm sorry. Um Correct me if I am misspeaking, Lauren. Uh cuz Lauren is our assistant superintendent and is in charge of all this. Um A child that lives in our town and attends a charter school, we still are responsible to provide services to them. Um Correct? Okay. I just want to make sure I'm saying all of the things correctly. Um It's not targeted to them. It's just their benefit from living in this town with this district. Um Whatever needs do arise for our special education population, we are required by law to fulfill them. Whether that means that we have to add staff or amend spaces in order to provide those services. So, is this adding staff, this uh category that Tom had? A portion of

194this budget does address that. A portion of say the hundred and sixty some odd thousand or so? I'm sorry, I can't hear you from there. She said it's going to a myriad of needs. Okay. Thank you. Uh John Worthington, four Emerson Lane. Yeah, with regard to the special education, since the increase was so large, I just wanted to understand what's driving that. Is it more is it an increase in the number of students or an increase in the spending per student or some combination? Increased needs of students lead to more spending per student. That's just how that works. Um to address uh some of the other questions and and chatter I've heard, the moment a child in our district turns three, if they have identified needs, the day they turn three, not at the beginning

195of the following school year, but that day, they become the responsibility of the district. So, that's why when our pre-K program is talked about and about the space needs that they have for those intensive needs classrooms, that's kind of what they're talking about. It's not just the kids coming right into kindergarten and just attending a typical pre-K. We are responsible for them from the moment they turn three. We have seen an increase in some of those needs, and then we are obligated to fulfill them. I would love to provide more detail, but it's very confidential, obviously. So, I hope that suffices. Sure. Thank you. Hillary Casdevan, Federal Hill. I'd like to call the question and move to vote. We have second. All those in favor of calling the question and ending the debate. All those

196opposed. Motion carries. Okay. So, all those in favor of Article 8 as written, please raise your card. All those opposed. Motion carries. I think I heard it from Darlene and seconded by Carol. The motion on the floor is to restrict reconsideration of Article 8. All those in favor of the motion. Okay. All those opposed. The motion to restrict reconsideration of Article 8 passes. Okay. The only article we currently have left is Article 9. Article Where are my petition warrant My petitioner for number nine, if you can make your way back up to the front. All right. Article 9 is a petition warrant to see if the school district will vote to require the Hollis School Board to prominently display current and previous year state assessment scores and state rankings on the school district website header,

197visible on every page, and said information to be updated within 30 days of the official release of scores by the New Hampshire Department of Education. The School Board does not recommend this article. And it was misprinted on the original warrant. The School Board does not recommend this article, and it was a vote was 311. It was This has been art moved by Carol Roy and seconded by Raffi Zack. And the petitioner on article under current law you get 10 minutes, but please don't take it. I'm going to I'm going to keep it really brief. So, my main thing Sorry about that. I'm going to keep it really brief. Um whether we like the scores we get on the assessments or we don't like them, whether we feel the test is fair or we feel the

198test is unfair, we should still have public available access to it. Should still be displayed prominently and easily for us to find it. Um it's a scarlet letter for us if we're doing bad and it should be a banner of pride if we're doing well. If we're not doing well on the test, then we should talk about it and it should be a point of conversation. It shouldn't be something we're hiding from and we're not showing anywhere. Um that's the whole thing. Thank you. You were only the petitioner Thursday night. Um Mr. Beto. I move to table this amendment. This this article, excuse me. Okay. So, do we have a second to the motion to table article nine? Um I don't know. I think Holly had it over there. Holly Babcock is the second. All

199those in favor of tabling article nine. All those opposed. Oh. All right. I think I need to count. I It was pretty close. Can I get my counters? Sorry. >> Just need for the majority to table it. We got everybody in place? Okay. All those in favor of the motion to table, raise your cards. Okay. Think you guys have Okay, all those opposed. Keep them up. It's close. Are you good on that side, Ted? Okay. In the middle here? Down here? Are you all Melinda, you got everybody on this side? >> Okay, so Yeah, motion fails. There was 87 who voted to table and 104 voted no. So, the article nine is open for debate. Do I get to do our piece before they open up the floor? Yes, you do. Sorry. We'll allow the

200school board to have their rebuttal. But, I would have been happy to have tabled it and have saved you the time. No worries. Um I agree with Mr. Orlando. We agree with Mr. Orlando that our scores should be visible. And in fact, the SAU agrees with that as well. The superintendent already has in progress right now a whole extensive data dashboard that is being built with all of the scores for all of the districts, uh including Hollis who we're here obviously talking about tonight. That is going to be on the website starting this summer. I think we're launching it. So, this is actually already going to be addressed by something that's being built now. Okay. All right. Now, we can open debate on article nine. Mike Julian, North Pepperell Road. Um even though you uh

201it's already being addressed by some dashboard, what is the issue with codifying this into law and what is the issue with transparency? This is I I get that that these are going to be published, but there is no issue There shouldn't be an issue with us passing this if that is the case. Yes. Jonathan Wilson, 5 Deer Run Road. Um New Hampshire is a live-free state, so thank you everyone here that voted to say that Hollis is also a live-free town. Um living free starts with transparency. So, I would say vote yes, vote for transparency, and vote for living free. Robert Mann, 29 Nartoff. I'd like a clarification, Madam Moderator, is this um compelling or is this advisory? Uh advisory. Thank you. So, whatever the turnout, um I don't particularly support this because I I

202happen to know the efforts that are already in play to do something very similar. So, um I stand in opposition to this, uh and um thank you for that clarification. Brendan Chiki, uh 168 Witch Hazel Springs. Uh I also oppose it as written, um mostly because of the visibility that it's pushing. While I do think it should be accessible, having it in the website header visible on every page as it's written seems a bit excessive, and given the um other effort underway to display these, I will be voting no on this amendment or article. Uh Michael Ahearn, 1 Wren Drive Lane. Uh Someone said So, someone said that what's the harm in showing it sooner rather than later? My question to the board is, what's the harm showing it sooner rather than later? Thank you.

203There is none. So, the data dashboard is going to be updated every time there are test scores to share. So, that's why I was saying it's going to be addressed. It's going to be in a whole thing. Joe Revere, 28 Winchester Drive. Uh I heard some comment that um this article may be advisory. I'm not really clear on what the grounds for that would be. I would like the legal counsel to support that position with the legal reference, because I don't see that this is advisory. May I? The body has the authority to raise an appropriate funds and to take action that are that is set forth in RSA 194. This is not specified in any in either 32 RSA 32 RSA 194. It is within the purview of the school board and the superintendent

204uh and the administration to make that determination, and therefore it is advisory. Okay, thank you. Is Barbara are you raising your Yes. So, speak. Thank you. Liz Barbara, 5 Broad Street. It says require. If we vote to require, this is a petition warrant article. Why do we even have petition warrant articles? Why did someone accept this? If it's not correctly written or to the law, it's required. We are asking with our vote, if we choose, to require. Legally the board is required to put articles petitioned articles on the warrant if there are enough registered voters that sign the petition, so that is why it is on the warrant. Um and the wording needs to remain as it is in the petition. It seems as though the board has indicated that they are planning on doing

205it even though it is advisory. The The law is essentially that unless it is obviously illegal, it has to go on the warrant. And all of the case law basically aligns to it's it's more likely than even to put it on the warrant even if it's possibly illegal, but this one's clearly advisory. It has to go on the warrant. This one's advisory. Okay, thank you very much. Makes no sense. You're right, Mr. Hi, Sue Homola, Mendelson Drive. So, if I understand this correctly, something is advisory if it does not have a dollar figure. Is that correct? A dollar figure is what the the body votes on. So, is this warrant article able to be amended to say to see if the school district will appropriate $1 to require the Hollis School Board to primarily display

206current and previous years assessment scores and state rankings on the school district website header. Is that the problem because there's no there's no money attached to it? Warrant, you cannot add an appropriation to the warrant because it wasn't warned as part of the warrant when it was posted. Okay. Um I will say as a comment, um I think that you have a lot of people who are here very late at night because they would like to see this information more accessible because right now it's very difficult to find things on the SAU website. And I think that it's a little tone deaf to sort of shut that down by saying, "We might do it. We might not. We'll We'll take it under advisement." I just That's all. Thanks. Can I reply? Mike Julian, North Pepper

207Road. I'd like to follow up with what Sue said. I think it's also wildly inappropriate for the moderator to say that she would like to have seen this tabled. I think that's very biased in your position as moderator. So, number one, and I'd like to move to motion to end debate. Motion to I didn't hear I don't know what you just said. He's moving to end debate. I said The first thing I said, I think it was biased and inappropriate for you to say I would have rather seen this tabled when we were voting for it. You You absolutely said that. It's recorded. You said that as moderator. That's inappropriate. And the second thing is I'm motioning to end debate. Is there a second? Point of order. I can't GIVE A SPEECH AND THEN MOVE

208to end debate. It's clearly in the It said in the rules You can't do it. All right. Understood. Does the motion to end debate have a second? Second. He can't >> he would have just said the point of order said he couldn't do that. Yeah. So, the The motion was not properly made is the real issue, and now that I kind of go through the Rolex of my brain. So, there is no motion on the floor to second at this point. Mr. Gruba. So, the question as to whether this is advisory or not, I'm not sure I'm entirely in in agreement with that determination, but what I'm really wondering here is the voters are saying this is important to put this on every webpage. I hear the school board saying there's going to be some

209data dashboard, but if the voters are here saying they want it on every webpage, I think it would be very disrespectful of our elected officials not to follow the guidance. Linares 145 Broad Street. I'd like to move the question. Do I have a second? Amy Kelner All those in favor of moving the question closing debate. All those opposed. Motion carries. All those in favor of article nine. Please raise your cards. All those opposed. Motion carries. All right, can I get a motion to dissolve the meeting? Tom and Mike Harris. All those in favor of dissolving the meeting raise your cards. All those opposed. All right, don't forget you get to come back for more fun on Thursday night for the co-op.