COOP Budget Committee Meeting 8/28/2025

001With the quorum present, I'd like to call this meeting of the co-op budget committee to order at 6:33 p.m. This is a regular meeting of the co-op budget committee for the month of August. We took off the month of July as is our practice and we're um back in session and we'll continue on our regular schedule as we um start the new fiscal year with our with our um students in class all students in class starting today. Um the agenda for this meeting was posted in advance as required and I'd like to introduce myself Darlene man and the members present this evening who include Tom Enright Melanie Le Tom Solon Brian Rder Raul Blanche and Tony Sinizy Dave Blenn has an excused absence for this evening. I'd like to welcome our uh the district's new

002BA Lance Fino um this evening. I hope the members if you haven't um introduced yourself to Lance um prior to the meeting please do so afterward. But welcome. And I'd like to also introduce Tim Green from the um auditing firm for the district. He joins us at this time of year um on an annual basis for probably the last five or six years or so you've joined us in office. So I appreciate your time this evening. Um if you could all please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Um, tonight we'll appoint Tom Enright as our meeting observer. And I'm going to bypass

003the just I know the approval of minutes doesn't take long, but in the interest of you know respecting Tim's time for joining us this evening, I'll move those kind of um administrative items to later in the meeting. Um seeing no public this evening, um we'll skip bypass public input as well and um as proceed to the audit overview. So Tim, as I mentioned, you've join us um annually. I honestly I don't recall how many years your firm has been the auditor for for the entire district. And so we certainly do appreciate your time this evening as you come to um review not fiscal year 25's audit but fiscal year 24's audit. The U business office spent time with Tim and his team over the summer to work on the the the necessary items for the

004FY25 audit which was I'm assuming completed and they're underway with their supplemental information. So we're discussing and what I shared with everyone is the audit from fiscal year 24. >> Correct. Yes. Uh once again I'm Tim Green with Robert Tim Green. Yeah. I have been I don't recall how many years you've asked me to come but I've been the auditor I believe for 15 years now probably >> yes >> uh and I appreciate the district's um support of our firm as well so uh certainly mutual uh understanding and agreement and you know uh history that we it goes back um so from there I'll try to hit some of the highlights I try not to be long-winded but also if I skip over something that you had a question on obviously I'm happy to take

005any questions that you may have. Um, so I'll jump right to page one, which is, as I tell you every year, but I know there's some new faces. This is what I'm hired for is this first letter. Um, I'm hired to give an opinion on your financial statements of the school district's financial statements as whether or not they're fairly presented. Um, and there are no material in the statements. And once again, um, I am pleased to announce that as you saw, the school district received a clean opinion. there were no um issues with any of your opinion units. I gave you a separate opinion um on different aspects of your financial statements. Um you have governmental activities which are which are the first two exhibits which I'll discuss a little bit and they are on

006a full acral basis kind of like a business. They're designed to be somewhat similar to a business's financial statements. And then you have governmental funds which is represents your general fund, your food service fund, your grants funds. Um these are modified acrruel. So this really is more current resource-based. Um and then depending on the size, it's either a major fund or a non- major fund. Um and then if it's not a major fund, I give you an opinion on collectively the remaining funds that you have. So you see if you were to read this, you can see multiple opinions referenced. Um a lot the information within our letter is certainly very standard um in accordance with standards. Um we dis we always going to discuss what our role is versus what uh management's role in

007the in the school board's role is. Um and then we also discuss uh the various components of your financial statements that we do assist in preparing. Um we take the school district's data and then we will uh put it in the form of the financial statements. the school district will take it back, review it, make sure that they understand what's in this data and it is consistent with what they presented to us in the first place. Um, so with the school district taking on that responsibility and accepting responsibility for the financial statements, we are allowed to do that. It's called considered not a test service. That's not an audit service. It's just a separate um service that the standards do allow to be combined, if you will. Uh, after our opinion letter is the management

008discussion analysis. This is drafted by the school district, the business office. Typically, um we don't give an opinion on it, but we do um review it for consistency and indicate that in our letter that this um is consistent with the data that was presented for audit, but we're not um making judgment on information within it aside from again the financial information being consistent with the rest of it. So, I don't usually have much to say on that. Um so I'll jump right to the financial statements themselves. Again I mentioned exhibits one and two are full acrual basis and you can see there's just one column called uh for your governmental activity. So this is a combination of all governmental activity um including capital assets including long-term liabilities such as your debt your count your compensated

009absences your net pension liability and your oped liability. Um so the very bottom number for on exhibit one you can see your total net position was just over 3.5 million. Uh in comparison your total net position the year before was 2.8 million. >> So you can see an increase of just over 700,000. >> Yes. >> Do you do a trend analysis to compare say five 10 years? >> I have I have about six years I'm looking at or six seven years. Yep. >> Um two years ago you were three million. So you've I'd say your the baseline the last three last three years is about um 500 to a million higher than the previous three years. U again this is a full acrruel basis. So any new lease improvement so your efficiency projects maybe um

010changes in the pension liability calculation that is done by this the pension the New Hampshire retirement system can have a big impact on that number as well. So fluctuations do occur and almost are expected. Exhibit two, this is again full acrruel basis. This is statement of activities. Um you can see on the full acral basis the total expenses for the school district was um almost just about 27,500,000. Um it this statement breaks down program revenues as you as a component of those functions of expenses as well as general revenues. And of course um how school districts work. Um you can see 26.5 million is general revenue because your your school district assessment from the towns um and then your state aid u benefit the school as a whole. They're not targeted to any specific program.

011So they're considered a general revenue just supports the whole operation. So as I said you can see u began the year 2.8 million end of the year 3.5 million an increase of of a little over 700,000. Now as we'll get to exhibits four and and six will give you a basically a crosswalk between modified acrruel and full acrruel and what items show up on one statement and don't show up on the other. Uh but moving to exhibit three, this is your governmental funds. This is your balance sheet for your general fund, food service, permanent fund, and your non- major funds as an aggregate column. So you can see that first column, the general fund, um total assets just over three million, total liabilities, uh 360,000. You had total fund balance of 2.6 million. Of that

012it's broken down into four out of possible five categories. you have non-spendable fund balance of uh 227,000. This represents prepaid items um which means a prepaid item is an asset um at the end of the year but your cash has been used for that prepaid item. So on July 1st it becomes a reduction of fund balance. So you keep it non-spendable. You don't want to double double count it at the end of the year. Um you have committed fund balance of 890,000. This actually represents your um capital reserve and expendable trust funds that are reported within the general fund for financial statement purposes. You do keep them separate um when you account for them and when you budget. Um but in this financial report you do combine them. You have assigned fund balance uh 400,000.

013This is any rolled POS um or any other incumbrances um uh that are put forward by the board or by the um management. and you're left with an unassigned fund balance in the general fund of $1.1 million. Um, compared to the year before, that figure was 800,000. So, you have an increase of about 300,000. Um, the year before that, we're we're drifting back into the COVID year. So, you had fiscal year 22, your number was 1.7 million under sign fund balance. The year before that, you were up to just over two million. So, you can see it's come it's come down. Um, but as a baseline, if you were to go back to fiscal year 19 and 18, those both those years you were around 600,000. So, it's I I would consider it very consistent.

014Um, also when we get to the end, I'll show you you could see the the surplus your budget surplus figure. So, I took that number and said how much of your unassigned fund balance relates um excuse me, how much budget surplus compared to your overall budget. And that number has been uh pretty consistent. You'll see when I get to it, I'll go over it again, but you're about 4% uh budget surplus if you look at revenues and estimates of your total budget. Um uh other major funds you can see on exhibit three is the food service fund. Your uh the bottom the total fund balance of the food service fund at the end of the year was just under 500,000. One the one finding you will note at the end of this is an excess

015of fund balance in food service u being a essentially a break even the program is designed to be a break even program. Um obviously during fiscal year 22 and 23 um they had um basically every lunch was free and there's a lot of federal influx of funds there. So, consistent with every school district, everyone's I kind of saw the result being a rise of that fund balance. So, I don't know what kind of um pressure the state's putting on school districts to spend that and how fast, but I know the school has been spending that down um slowly, but it has been coming down um the fiscal year 23 fund balance for the food service program was 650,000. So, you're you're down to 480. And I looking at the results from fiscal year 25 already

016it was it went down another 50,000 or so. So it's going down. Um >> I think we had to submit a whole like spend down plan once you hit that once you're over >> the amount that you're allowed to keep. They >> give you a certain time frame to spend down the balance and >> yeah it's >> make some improvements. >> It can be challenging because you you know you're not allowed to reduce prices or anything. >> Correct. Correct. >> There are limits. might not want to increase prices, but yeah, you it normally requires some purchases of, you know, replacing equipment or expanding um some of the the things that we have in our for our food service um area. >> Uh on exhibit also on exhibit three, the other major fund is a permanent

017fund. This is the trust fund. This is funds held by the trust funds for the high school. Um again, they they are considered part of the school district's financial statements. Um but basically the school district sees that the income on an annual basis. Um they don't have control of the principal or the actual investments themselves. It's done by the trustees of the town. Uh and then there's a column for other governmental funds. Uh that those figures are broken down further in the back exhibits. Um starting with exhibit 13. Um and it's made up your student activities fund, your athletic revolving fund, uh your miscellaneous fund, which uh represents miscellaneous programs funded through donations or grant or local grants or or other such sources. And then your federal grants fund. Uh the total you can see

018um fund balance for those other governmental funds is 315,000. So moving on, exhibit four. Again, as I said, this is a crosswalk between the two different accounting bases. um and how those balance sheets the balance sheet of your governmental funds uh corresponds to the net position of your governmental activities. So you can see your you have um your governmental funds you had just over four million combined fund balance. Um you add your net capital assets of about almost 22 million. Um you have acred interest on long-term debt of about 100,000. You have all your long-term liabilities, your your bond and note that's outstanding, your capital lease payable, your compensated absences, which is um acrruels of sick and vacation that um can be paid out upon termination for employees. Your termination benefits payable. Uh the school

019district has a benefit for I believe for teachers if they retire a little early, they and they have certain longevity and certain age. There is a benefit there. Um and then your net pension liability again almost 19 million. That number is determined by the state. Uh they put out a report every year. Their auditors and their actuaries put out a report that breaks it down by uh ent every entity that's in the system. And so the school district just incorporates that data right into this report. >> How volatile is that has that been? um it had the fluctuation for I guess for you would be about um 5% maybe it fluctuates that it's the interest rates it there was a period of steady rates and then obviously year and a half or so the rates

020went up and so that kind of got incorporated into that latest um valuation but again I think the next one will be pretty consistent again because rates haven't really moved as much as they did that first year u and And then deferred inflows and outflows are related to pensions and oped liability. Exhibit five is uh your governmental funds statement of activities. This is revenues and expenditures for your governmental funds. So you can see the general fund total revenues uh just under 27 million total expenditures uh 26,400,000 which results in excess of revenues over expenditures of $400,000 uh a small transfer in of $7,000. Uh and then a total net change in fund balance in the general fund of 414,000. Uh again food service you can see there was a a decrease of 180,000 as I

021mentioned. Um and then your permanent funds had an increase of 40,000 which is primarily investment earnings. Exhibit five or exhibit six, excuse me. Uh this is the difference between the revenues and expenditures on a your modified acrruel basis to your revenues and expenses on the full acrruel. So you can see you know almost $900,000 of capitalized capital outlay um depreciation expense of a million dollars. um repayments of your bond and leases uh is a reduction of a liability versus an expense. Um and then the changes in um you can see that to answer the question too, there's a $300,000 or almost $400,000 difference in pension expense on the full acral basis compared to your um general fund expenditure basis, which is just truly your monthly contribution requirements. Exhibit seven, this is a budgetary schedule. Um,

022statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes of your fund, unassigned fund balance on the budgetary basis. So, you can see your original and final budget. Uh, were there any changes for unanticipated expenditures or it was a year that you needed an emergency appropriation out of retained earn retained fund balance? Do you have a final budget column that was different than your original budget? There's only, as you know, there's only a few um methods for having a difference in budget than what is uh approved at the district meeting. So um you can see the net change in fund balance on the for your budget was $855,000 decrease, which is basically what you're saying you expected um to that's what you're used that's your fund balance you expected to um offset the appropriations. Um but you can see

023the actual variance on that far right column was a positive about almost 1.2 million. Um you can see if you were to look at the double the underlined uh columns for total revenues you can see that the budget uh was estimated revenues was 26 million3 736,000 and you had an actual revenue of 26,794,000. So you had a positive variance there of almost 60,000 and then for your expenditures you had appropriations of 27,266,000 and actual expenditures of 26 million of around 150,000. So you had a that's where your you had a million1,120,000 positive variance there. >> Do you know remember what led to those? I'm guessing it was probably combination of special ed expenses and things like oil expenses. Well, probably. >> Does that ring a bell with you? >> Um, >> it's usually special ed

024that swings it. >> Yeah, usually special ed does um swing a lot of it. And if we had any um uh vacant positions sometimes that, you know, the vacancy gets offset by contracted positions, which sometimes cost more, but but lately it has been the swing in special education. But I really >> I'm wondering if it had to do with um the difference between projected, you know, the guaranteed maximum when we had that. >> Yep. Yep. That that could be it. >> I could look back, but >> yeah, off the top of my head, I'm just not >> I just calling >> I think it's windfall stuff as opposed to over budgeting. >> Correct. Yeah. So, and if you look at exhibit 16, it does break down more by function. Um, there >> it's not it

025doesn't drill down of course by the your line items, but special your special education had the biggest positive variance for sure. Um, after that, student support and your your other which is your personnel benefits probably. You might have had some fluctuation there too. The big thing there, if I recall, was they projected a very high um GMR that year and it came through quite a bit less than what it was. But that whole projection thing has changed now, hasn't? It's no longer It's now fixed. It's now a fixed rate that they give you. >> It's a fixed rate in the fall. >> Can they give to you? Yeah. So, exhibit eight, uh, this is a budget schedule for your food service fund. Um, food service, I know, um, the budget amount just comes from the

026DRRA forms, and I think that number sometimes stays static because you're estimating equal revenues to your appropriations. So, you're um, sometimes that just can be a number that's placed there. Um, I would encourage the school to kind of get more, you know, look at your figures, try to be more realistic with that amount because again, understanding you still have to you have to still have to explain this, but you're not you're you you're increasing the bottom line, but you're not increasing any tax revenue. So, it is um if you know, so you're $400,000 difference in what your actual results are compared to that amount that's put on your tax on your budget form. Um, so I would encourage maybe some fluctu some changes to that. >> Are we high or low? you're low your your

027appropriations 400,000 your actual 800,000. So what you'd be doing is you'd be increasing your um local revenue source to basically match that. >> So we we did author the board authorized a price increase. Would that >> well that your your results are fine. It's the budget itself. It's just what what number goes on that budget form that MS-22. So, so when we have food service, it's a self-funding mechanism. So, revenues are going to equal expenses. But what Tim is is saying, so what happens sometimes is that, you know, we know the amount of staff, we know and and we've um have gotten used to over time kind of assigning that number and and not really deviating. So, his um recommendation would be to >> kind of go back and re-evaluate that. >> Are we under

028budgeting or over budgeting? >> Under budgeting. >> Okay. So I propose that uh for the next meeting we should have the food service staff come and brief us to understand. >> We did we did the food service overview this spring. >> I don't think they're the ones who's going to help us with the financial side. I think we're going to be hitting up plans for that stuff. >> Yeah. So, it's going to be probably a more um you know a better evaluation of you know where the staff sits with it's it's because it's predominantly food food costs and staff costs and that and then the food costs and which are offset by the um revenues we receive from the government. So, it's really just getting a a more accurate reflection of what it's going to

029be. So, what that does do though, >> just as a reminder, if you're increasing the budget, we would be offsetting um any increase on the revenue side, but if you're going to look budget to budget at just a flat number, you would be seeing it percentage increase that we would have to explain to the community, >> but it's it's not um an increase that's related to the the um general operations of the of the school itself. So, you have to kind >> tax impact, >> correct? It's a Yeah, there's a direct offset to it. So, >> so should we uh be using the previous year's number as the budget moving forward? >> What I would expect and we could continue to talk about is there might be a a better number that's put in there.

030So, the the food service piece is in the part of the budget um it's the transfer section. Um and we have been holding that flat um year-over-year. So, it's just getting a more accurate number that we put in there. So that'll >> we're spending more and we're charging more but we haven't reflected it in the budget. >> Right. >> Was just thinking that um this should be really a reflection of the population of the school student population. >> There's a whole bunch of other factors. >> There are so many factors that can contribute to the the >> cost of running the food service program. >> Right. It's not aside from that students. >> Pardon me. >> It's not at all proportional to the students unfortunately >> because that was what I was driving at. If

031there's a way to look at it and look at the population of the stu enrollment this year versus last year if it goes up then food costs or you know service there's some you know trend analysis that you could put toward it. But what you're really looking at is, you know, just, you know, even even making a step to say, um, aligning our budget to where actuals ended up for FY25. That gets us closer to kind of, you know, where it realistically is, which is something that's going to be different from FY24, but maybe just aligns it a little bit more. I mean, but, you know, we obviously have um we've we've and we've had staffing issues in um with our food service department and things like that. So that also contributes to um while

032we have a spendown plan and are spending down those balances, we are probably um we're responsible for providing a a certain level of you know number of meals to students and we're doing that with less pe with fewer people. So we're maybe not incurring it. You know, I there are just a lot of components to it. So, >> regulatory changes in what had to constitute the menu >> and the food purchases and the cost of the food. It's and the weird thing is to to your point, Tony, that menu has a really big impact on how many kids choose to buy meals, right? >> So, it's almost disconnected in a weird way. >> Y Thank you. So on the negative side of things, we increase that number substantially. It increases our budget, increases our percent

033increase. Something we're not looking forward to. So just >> Exactly. >> There are other >> percent um >> Yes. >> In round numbers, what's it what's the deviation that we we had? >> Uh about 50%. >> No, no, not percentage wise, actual dollars. >> So twice as much. One's a big chunk of change. >> So you can, you know, slowly but >> yeah slowly would be good. >> Yeah. So what we we have budgeted for the last few years in that um for our food service transfer is 400,000. So >> and again your expenses your expenditures are higher because of you're trying to spend down that fund balance. So I don't think that's your baseline every year going forward. I think you're you're you'll see some regression because once you get your fund balance to

034where it should be, I'm sure you won't have as much spending. What's an ideal number for fund balance, do you think? Or >> it's so it's basically 30% of your total expenditures. So if you're at 800,000, your fund balance should be around 160. If you're at 500,000, you know, it should be 150. So you're right now you're at four your fund balance is 480. So >> total expenditures for the program. >> Instead of at at 800, it's 160. That's 20%. >> Sorry. 240. You're right. Correct. >> So, is it 20% or 30%? >> It's 30%. Yeah. My math is wrong. >> Okay. I just was I It was a nice round number and I wasn't sure which >> Yeah, I was Yeah, I was doing the math wrong. It is 30% for sure. >> Okay.

035Thank you. >> So, you're closer than I said you were. Uh, okay. So, after that, after your basic financial statements, which ended with exhibit eight, the food service exhibit, you have notes to financial statements. These are designed to beformational to support your um accounting principles that the school district abides by as well as uh describing significant balances that you have. Um I don't read through any of this for you, but I you know if you if you had read through and had any questions, I'd certainly answer them. Um but they are pretty um standard and and pretty informative, I would say. Um a lot a lot of it is based on the your pension liability. a lot of uh required disclosures disclosures on that as well as the OPED liability which is tied to some

036of it's tied to the retirement system and uh another portion is is tied to the school's own actuary report um annually or every two years you hire uh an actuary to do a full valuation of your other other post-employment benefits. Uh the other the only post-employment benefit that the school district provides um and this is only in accordance with government accounting standards is the ability for an employee when they leave to continue on the school district's health insurance program through COBRA. Um that ability was determined by the standard accounting standards board to be an implicit benefit that you're earning while you're employed. So being part of a poolled health insurance program, you have a you would theoretically have a lower rate. So um as I had to tell someone recently, this is something that this

037standard was designed for big cities who actually provided post-employment benefits other than pensions. They would they would provide health insurance and they provide some other sort of tangible benefit. Um, but Gazsby, and this is we're 10 years plus into this now, but Gazsby had to apply that consistently to everyone. So, unfortunately, all my clients see this benefit, see this liability. And fortunately, it's just on your full acral statement. It's not something you budget for. You're not you're budgeting your monthly health insurance premiums. That's the only effect that you have. >> And how long does that benefit last? Forever >> basically. Yeah. Yeah. So, the actuary, it's, you know, it's always a rolling 30-year calculation and and they're looking at they're using their actuarial talents to determine the life expectancy and the rate changes and and

038so like I said, you're the school district's paying a few thousand dollars every two years and then they pay and then you usually have to get an update if there's significant changes in interest rates, which like I said there was last year. Um, so there was probably an update done. Um, is is it's I luckily I don't have to defend it but I just have to say you have to comply with it unfortunately. So >> is it just for Cobra is Cobra just one of the elements of it? >> It's well it's it's that's the example basically it's for the health insurance itself for the ability to so I mean that's the only way that I think >> but that how long does that offer of extended coverage last? >> I'm not sure and it

039would be a factor in the calculation itself but it's calculated every year based on your payroll or based on >> based yeah based on census data. Yeah. Your census of your employees, the premiums of your health insurance, the market rates and so on. >> Uh there are some required so there's required exhibits for uh your pension liability. You're required to do a 10-year um status. Basically 10ear listing of the various information such as the your proportion of the total liability. Um, >> so sorry. >> Payroll information. >> Um, and as well as required schedules for the OPED liability. Um, OPED, uh, the school district has not complied with that for 10 years yet, but you're you're at eight now. You have eight years of data, so you're getting there. And then your final um, exhibits

040are the combining balance sheet and combining statement of revenues expenditures for your non- major funds. As I said, um, just briefly, student activities has a fund balance of around 42,000. Uh, your athletic revolving fund has about 40,000. Your miscellaneous fund has, uh, 230,000. Um, and then your grants has zero fund balance, which is, uh, how grants work. You're you're only recording revenue when you expend it. So, you should always be at zero. Uh then the last three exhibits 15, 16 and 17 are just detailed versions of the general fund budgetary uh ex statements. Um as we went through you can see the expenditures by function and the positive and negative variances and is also statement of revenues. Um and then exhibit 17 this is a schedule of changes in unassigned fund balance. I think this

041is one of the more useful schedules. Uh you can see the school district started the year with unassigned fund balance of 804,000. Um voted to appropriate 450,000 of that and then the remaining math doesn't work but there's typically some adjustments between um setting tax rate and final audit figure. Um but the fund balance used to reduce the school district assessment was 405. uh revenue surplus 65,000 unexpended balance of appropriations of 1.1 million uh resulting in a budget surplus of almost 1.2 2 million uh when you had an increase in non-spendable fund balance of 41,000 which result is a corresponding decrease in unassigned. Same with any changes to committed fund balance. So in this case you had a decrease in committed fund balance of 25,000 which resulted in an increase in your unassigned fund balance of

04225,000. That budget surplus figure as I said is is roughly 4% of your total appropriation. Um the year before that was that same calculation was 3%. Uh the year before that was 6.8%. So on average for the seven years of data I had, you're at 4.87. So your rate smack where you typically are. >> Is there a preferred number for that? >> There is not um >> zero. No, actually I know it's not zero >> because you because if you're if you're running at zero that means you have a high risk of have a special >> meeting versus >> No, but I didn't know some sometimes the state gives gives target numbers for for some of these balances like the 30% that he was saying for the >> right yeah they >> um I believe

043the only target number that they have is is your actual unassigned fund balance as a a total that's usually between eight and 17%. So, um your fund balance happens to be similar to that number. Um it's not related to that, but oh, it is derived from that, but it's just because they're similar that but so anyways, I could do the quick math and say you're about 4% or so. Um the last page just our letter to management where we identify uh any findings that we had, any issues we saw. Um as you can see and as I discussed the only note we had was on the food service uh fund resource management was was the compliance term. Um again your the food service fund balance as a result of the previous few years uh is

044higher than is allowed under the federal program. Um and so the district this is not the first year so I believe there's already been a spending plan in place as we said. Um and again the last three years you've seen a decrease so you're you're working towards it. You just still have excess. So uh other items that we may have talked to staff about. Sometimes we'll just correct issues or recommend frictions if there if it's a minor issue while we're there. It's it's more efficient that way essentially. Um I would like to see I think it'd be a good idea to put your estimated revenues in your accounting system. I know the boards get a lot of reports that have estimated revenues, but they're actually not put into the system um or they haven't been.

045So, I think that's a good idea. And then I believe I discussed with you as well and I've discussed with the district there that fund 23, which is that miscellaneous fund that we were referring to. There are some of those accounts that have money that's um might be available that may just be there because no one knows that it's available. And so >> just as a point of reference, we took that back to the to the board and we went we dug into it >> and unfortunately it's not that they're not aware of it. Many of them are so specifically earmarked >> that we um can't access them except for very special circumstances which we haven't had the need arise. Yeah, that that I was when you when you said the amount I kind of

046put a little asterisk for fun 23 because it's something we we I would say we look at as we go through the budgeting process like every couple of years but that's the exact issue is that many of them are earmarked with very specific >> and last year hearing that >> I don't know how we manage that the money just sits there and >> there's a lot there is a lot of yeah and there's a lot of accounting of it and you know that's one of those areas where they're keeping spreadsheets and the business office and everything. >> So, I don't know. >> Um, the business office could work with me or and and with DRA and everything to figure out what's allowed or not, but there may be a chunk of that that can be

047>> moved with the trust funds and just held there until the one year you need it. You just it's requested that way. >> Okay. These were I I know some of them were donations and things. Yeah. >> For very specific causes. >> Is can those get moved out? >> I that's that's just it talking to Dr. legal getting a >> DRA would be I think the first one that the board the business officers just contact them. Um a lot of it would require an establishment at a at a district meeting to establish a trust for those purposes and then you could so it would be a couple multi-step process. >> Some of them apparently are pretty esoteric too. >> Um what is the detriment of its current situation? >> Just additional administrative work essentially to

048track them. you know, monthly they're updating they just have all the accounts and so some yeah some don't have any activity but some do. So they're just updating that monthly and making the file for the activity so when it gets audited it's all available. So >> would it be any less work if it was separate trust >> but once it's off once it's in the trustees you're no longer dealing with it >> they're not part of but are they part of the audit? Yes, we'd get a we get the MS9 from the trustees and then any activity of course we the business office would still have requests to use that money and everything. >> So the greatest benefit is to the day-to-day operations. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> That's all I have to explain

049of this report. Further questions I'm happy to answer. >> So the overall grade is >> three. Three. Great. >> So, I did I just I'm not sure if everyone is aware of some of the issues that have kind of come to light um this week in some other districts. So, I think your um your attendance at tonight's meeting um aside from the fact that we've been doing this for years as we mentioned kind of confirms in a public setting and in our minutes that you know as a budget committee we're looking you know you're coming um to to complete the district's audit. We've been with, as you mentioned, your firm has been doing conducting the audits across the SAU for a long a long time, over a decade. Um, we annually um have this review

050completed as a budget committee. We review it as well. Um there have been issues in the news lately with a with another district specifically who's facing a tremendous um shortfall um that's been brought to their community and some and based on information in media alone seems that um maybe some of their audit practices may not have been as diligent as this districts is. So, um, I appreciate you taking the time to come and and, you know, walk us through this process, but I think one for me, one of the things where I just kind of say I don't know how other dis every other district doesn't have this requirement because we certainly have requirements when the audit's complete to submit it to the state >> um, and on an annual basis. So I don't know

051how districts get to the point where their audits are incomplete for a period from say five years ago, >> right? >> Yeah. I I don't either. >> Especially if if you have you know that district that size, they they would always be required for a federal audit anyways. So >> Right. Right. >> And that's corresponds with the regular audit. Um, >> but as you know, I do sometimes have to remind or have to explain to clients or just entities in general, we're not a part of your we're part of your control system on the very back end where we're not coming in to look at your records on any sort of timely basis to correct and catch errors. We will hopefully find significant and again we're we're here to give you an opinion on materially

052misstated financial statements. So there's a material level that maybe sometimes it's higher than you might think. Um we certainly do plenty of um understanding of how your systems work, what your controls are, what your processing controls are. Um and then we certainly test those. Uh but we're not required to if it's not a federal audit to ensure that those processes catch everything. >> I would I would like to actually follow up on that point. So part of what happens during an audit isn't just asking for reports that come out of our system. you do spend time, maybe you could talk about this for a minute, interviewing staff >> and talking through exactly what their processes entail and then through the reports and and supplemental information that's being requested, it reinforces whether we're following the procedures

053that our you know our staff is aware and and do do the does the actual doc document actual documentation align to the understanding of what the practices are. So a lot of time is spent >> like ISO practiced do what you say what you're going to do and then prove that you're doing what you say you're doing. I mean literally yeah exactly we >> yeah we inquire about the the >> the true you know h say for payroll a payroll transaction you know okay is the HR department is going to the board's going to approve a hiring or the superintendent or what's that process and then you know what's the what's and then skip forward to the what's the weekly or bi-weekly payroll process you know who's required to do time sheet who just has

054a salary contract and therefore you just calculate that number every the same amount every time and and how do you track if they're earning taking vacation time and so on. So then how does it get who's entering the system, who's reviewing it, what reports are they reviewing, stuff like that. So we're we're trying to understand that and then we're going to and then we're following you know transactions through that system as well as a test. Um >> so you'll make sure that um a a contract is signed and and like on file with our in our you just in our business is our business files. a person will have offered will have offered a teacher um a contract at a certain rate. We have a signed document that's signed by the board. It's signed by

055the um individual. It's in our system. They're being paid appropriately on a p per pay period basis. um that amount has been approved by the board as manifests get approved like it is a complete end-to-end review to make sure that um even for that that individual are all of their personnel documents in in in order. >> Is that is that true or you do are you sampling >> that's true for a small sample sampling? Yeah, we're not looking at five, you know, your 250 employees, but we're looking at some >> and I agree. We, you know, are, you know, as a payment, >> you're not going to catch you're you're hoping to catch systemic problems and not >> Yeah. >> isolated errors. >> Yeah. Yeah. We're looking Does the district, you know, if the district

056doesn't even keep a file of contracts together in one place, maybe there's that's more likely than someone might slip through the cracks or as an example, not as not for your district, but just in general, like those types of like say systemic things. No, I mentioned that just so that people understand there it's it's a lot more than just >> they shouldn't broad brush the news onto and and assume that everyone's at the same level of risk or uncertainty. >> Correct. >> So So are we highlighting the benefits of the findings in the annual district meetings? >> Yes. documents like the executive summary as a exhibit >> that we have in recent years made public statements of the positive outcomes. Whether we're highlighting it as much as we can or should um that's an opinion

057and particularly to your point in this environment is probably worth um preemptively making stronger statements. >> Yeah, I imagine these are on the website. They are. >> Yeah, but I looks at them. >> I would I would make sure at the annual district meetings we give everyone a book for them to follow all the details. >> It would be nice to >> include it as an exhibit of performance. >> Question. >> Um I'm fairly new with this this team. So um are these audits required for every um every school district or is it you know >> my understanding because they're I mean you're required it's There's some allowances for independ for lo local local versus hiring a firm but I don't think a school I don't think any school district small enough for that sort

058of difference. I think you are required to over your um >> okay >> I know their town size is population I know there but there's also the RSA that requires an audit within basically a year after your close of your year. So >> is that only for public schools >> pro? Yeah. >> I think it's a condition of of receiving funds. the government >> f well yeah a separate audit for federal uh if you reach a if you reach 750,000 which is about to go up to a million dollars of federal money you're required of more um a governmental audit which is >> I mean if if you're a purely private institution accepting no funds other than people showing up and give you a check the only one who would probably be looking for an

059audit would be at IRS if they saw there was something going on there >> right the state requires audits as being subdivisions of the state. So, >> and things like our food service program, um our grants and things like that that they um can go through individual audits as well or compliance monitoring from the state to make sure when we're reporting um into grants management to um be essentially reimbursed for activities and things that have been approved to be grant funded. um those individual um programs can be can go through compliance monitoring. Um every year the the DOE um picks a subset of districts to review um their their practices in the same way and in addition to a regular audit that a district would go through. Um and they typically pick those um they

060use a a scaling a grading system to rank um the risk of each district and they'll pick districts from low, medium, and high risk categories. It isn't just if a if a um district is considered high risk. It could be just because of the the sheer amount of money that it would get, but it doesn't mean um compliance monitoring is only for a district that gets a lot of money. could be on a district that gets a small amount of money as well. So, >> so there are many many levels that >> we're subject to review and and >> audits and approvals. >> I have a question. We now have a new leader in our business business office and uh I've been in on the school board long enough to I think I this is

061the fifth business administrator that I've had association with and each one has different methodologies of of building their team and operating their team. the last several years under Kelly have seemed to produce really positive results. Not to say the others didn't, but but that it did. Is there anything that you can pick put your finger on that this district in in recent past has done really well that in terms of getting the results that you are aware of that you think are worth highlighting? Are there any opportunities that you see of things that this district might do differently that would improve the situation? And I just sort of gut reaction. >> Well, I mean, the first thing that came to mind is they're always um the prep work that they put in for us to

062show up that first week of August, which is, you know, five weeks after the year's over, is is tremendous. And I think that obviously would speak to what you're doing throughout the year because if you have to clean up everything in those five weeks then clearly you wouldn't be prepared by the beginning of August. So, >> so keeping up with it along the way, >> keeping up along the way. And then I always, you know, if there's opportunities to down to push down some of the some of that audit work to, you know, staff levels, but that's more of a I'm not sure what the workload is in general on, you know, your staff at the time being. So, I wouldn't ever say you could do it. I just would say, you know, there's always,

063you know, some of the stuff I do for audit is not complex. It's just time consuming, you know, maybe. So if there's transition of that time for focusing upper level for other things then but I but it may already be sufficient as it is >> the sort of things that are important but don't seem urgent at the time and they just don't get done. >> Yeah. I mean there's always right. So we, you know, we came in August, we got 90 80 to 90% of it done, tested balances we needed to test and so on, but there's there's a few things that we're going to be waiting on and we always are cap, you know, schedules and capital assets which is updated once a year and it's not really has no uh daily focus I

064imagine of management or even the boards. It just has it's just figures that need to be in here. So, >> is there any >> priority wise >> any uh resources or training that would be particularly valuable to a new business administrator in understanding the um the element of doing what you described because I don't I I don't know what the state offers for that. Well, there's so the Association of School Business Officers officials, excuse me, joining that networking there. Obviously, everyone's in the same boat around the state. That's always been I appears to be a good resource to to BAS. Um, New Hampshire GFOA is a little more town centric, but still governmental accounting based. So, it's really it's a lot of information on the accounting aspect of what goes into uh government accounting. So

065that's another and those so those are meet regularly. They have you know they have a big network of people that communicate regularly and answer can answer a lot of questions that way. So I I imagine those are useful. That's what I would certainly recommend. >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah. >> And good question. Thanks. >> Well, seeing no other questions, I will thank you again uh for your time this evening. We do sincerely appreciate it and um offer my kudos to the business office for being ready for that um audit the first week in August. It is a a short window and I think as you said it's a testament to the amount of work that takes place during the school year so that they're >> um prepared for for your visit because as

066a reminder when your firm comes you're doing all of the districts not just the co-op. So um everything's in triplicate actually. Whatever you asked for they have to provide it for >> probably it's the color coding system has not failed them in all my time. >> What color are we? >> Purple I believe. Right. >> As long as we're not red. >> There's no red. I don't think >> uh Brooklyn. >> Oh. >> Great. Well, thank you very much. >> It's my pleasure. Thank you. >> Good to see you. >> Thank you. Okay. I'm going to um let's see. >> Is green. >> Um I'm gonna move on. We'll go we'll get to the minutes um at the tail end of the meeting. I want to talk a little bit about um give a little

067bit of a legislative update. Now, typically by this meeting um some law firm or another has put together a complete um overview of legislation that passed. the law firm that's done it in the past didn't do it yet this year or at least I didn't see it but I was able to get my hands on the schoolboard association legislative summary which I will share with everyone but I didn't get it until today. So um I included a legislative update on the agenda because I just knew of a few things but the summary certainly did help. I will pass it along um to everyone and distribute it. But I did want to mention a few of the pieces of legislation. Um I'll mention two that operationally affect the schools um the most. Um and Tom can

068speak to those a little bit when he gets to his schoolboard update. And I just want to mention some of the financial aspects. So the two big I think operational ones that got a lot of attention were the New Hampshire parental bill of rights and the cell the bell-to-bell cell phone ban. Um the New Hampshire um parental bill of rights uh is a comprehensive summary of what many districts I think already have in place in policy about what parents, you know, can and cannot request and things like that. And operationally, I'll look to Tom and the board to see if there are any updates to our policies that need to be made to make sure we're aligned um to the requirements in that um bill. And the other one was the um Belltobell cell phone

069ban. um which by law requires our students to not use phones or personal communication devices um like Apple watches or glass as smart glasses or you know any other things that are are out there um from the the bell at the beginning of the day to the until the dismissal bell. So, um, if there were some, if you looked at the agenda to the, um, most recent schoolboard meeting, there were lots of policies that were being addressed and that ban was, um, that requirement was a topic and Dawn sent out some the draft minutes earlier today. Um, from that, um, when was your meeting? Last week. >> Last Wednesday's meeting that had a really good comprehensive overview of the discussion that the board members had. So, um, while I have a senior this year and

070haven't even seen him yet today to see how the first day went without being able to use a cell phone, um, it that is in place uh, districtwide and students will not um, be using their phones. >> SAU wide. Yes. And statewide. Um, and but that ban, I learned from um, your minutes that the middle school already had a policy of non the students not using their cell phones during the day. they could have them but not use them and they had had that in place for a couple of years. Correct. >> So um but now it is a you know I think there'll be some more attention um put on that uh by our staff to ensure that students are are free from distractions and focusing on the work at hand. They do still

071have Chromebooks and um we'll use those accordingly but the your cell phone will not be your you know personal device. I think for those of us who've been doing this for a bit, there was a lot of attention on bring your own device policies before before COVID, so it's more than five years ago when not every student had a Chromebook and things like that. And so we've really kind of come full circle now to saying, "Okay, Chromebooks are great and available to the students, but cell phones will not be." >> But the implementation of that is yet to occur. >> No, no, it's in effect. >> Well, uh, what did I read then? about the school board u involving the community in the implementation. Uh >> we're looking to get uh community input on the

072specific wording of the policy. >> Okay. >> And that and that's actually a requirement of the bill the law itself was for all the districts for districts to do that. But on a >> it's and it's more a question of knowing that this is the law. What are you where do your concerns lie and how can we address the concerns knowing that personal devices are not part of the um tools available. So for example, parents who have concerns about communication um uh parents who and and the the biggest concerns are coming from parents, not from students. Parents who are concerned about finding out about changes in athletic schedules that >> used to be texted to the to them. >> Um what alternatives are is the public looking for knowing that cell phones a text from

073their kid is not going to be the method of communication. >> So there's all right there's still quite a bit of discussion to go. Is that accurate >> as far as what happens in the school? No. >> The the ramifications of what hap what's happening in the school is >> so what the implic is that basically what's going on now? you are the recommendation is that you not bring any device into the building. >> Okay? >> If you do bring it into the building, it cannot be brought out at any time during the day. >> Okay? >> So, what stops a kid from going outside using it for an emergency or using it for something they need to do and then >> to leave the to leave the school, they need permission. >> Kids can't

074just go. You can't >> I'll go for a smoke break. >> no, no. >> No, because the doors are locked. They can't wouldn't be able to get back in. >> I've kids in high school and junior high school and >> there was some dilemas with that. >> Just take the time out. This should this discussion should occur at the school board. >> Yeah. So, that was that was the next point I was going to make was that I brought it up because those were the two big operational ones. I wanted to put it out there just so that you kind of all know what's happening. But there was I would encourage you to look at the last um schoolboard meeting, review the minutes. >> They they we really want this discussion to occur in the

075place where it can be addressed >> because the next school board meeting the next two. So we have first reading of the policy. It is part of the packet. I would suggest everyone who's interested read read that at a minimum and if they're if they've got the patience and the stamina to um there was both a discussion and a policy discussion. >> So both of those which were fairly extensive. I'm getting into my schoolboard report but that >> sorry well that's okay. >> That was the big thing >> but Dawn's minutes are very comprehensive. But the key is that the policy is at the moment a work in progress, but the actual implementation has already taken place. >> It was required by law. >> Yep. >> Um, so with so, uh, thank you. I appreciate

076just kind of taking that a little bit out of order. I just kind of wanted to start with that before we get into the some of the financials. So, I'm going to talk about I don't know maybe a dozen o of of of the the big hitters. um in in numeric order, House Bill 138. Um this requires uh if a district already requires tax impacts to be printed in the warrant, this would require anything that has a multi-year impact to include a multi-year tax impact. Does that only if it's included by um what would be the word by but but you know by uh a vote as opposed to >> yes >> discretionary. >> So exactly exactly. So what we typically what we've seen for pro probably the f past five years has been a

077petition article to put the tax impact on the warrant. >> Yeah. And it is it is in place in Brooklyn. >> It Yes. So in Brooklyn, um any future um item like a CBA that's going to be sandized by in in a warrant by including say three years worth of finanized >> depends what the warrant >> if the warrant requires a like a has a multi-year impact. So yes, for a samberized CBA because we're stipulating three years for approval >> in a district that requires the tax impact to be part of the warrant, not here in the co-op. Um they would have to write put in three years of estimated tax impacts. >> So if a three-year contract nonsized, do you have to put the three years in? >> No, >> you don't. >> No,

078because you wouldn't be including the financial impact in the warrant itself. >> Okay. So a bond you would have to put for so many years. >> Yes, a bond would have to be for five I believe it's five or six years. >> And those costs are they increasing year to year or they will be flat from year to year. >> It depends on the structure. >> The estimates the estimates that get put into for a bond we would know what bond payments are. And to estimate a tax impact I mean you can do it a couple of different ways. You can make assumptions about tax bases. you can use just the current, you know, the the year that you're in and say we're going to hold that tax valuation for the community, the tax base

079um amount flat and we're going to estimate what the tax impact is going to be. So there >> you can >> so so it is an estimated impact and you would put as much value to that as a person attending the meeting to say if now I'm going to I'm going to tell you what the estimated impact is, you know, for five years from now. So >> with a little note that said estimated We it would yes it's all estimated. Any tax impact is estimated at the time of of balloting or a warrant because >> nothing has been finalized. Our estimates don't get finalized until November. Our tax bases don't get finalized until November. Adequacy gets finalized in September. So everything is an estimate. This is just requiring the estimate to be expanded over a

080period of time if it's a requirement in your district. >> Does does tax rate play into that estimate? What? >> As a starting point maybe, but how can you go beyond? >> No, just does the tax rate >> play into the tax impact calculation. >> I I don't know if I'm following you, but the tax rate is a result of the t the >> net because the tax rate is is there are many things that affect the tax rate and a lot a lot of it has to do with things like um the assessments and stuff. >> Yeah. >> So if do does the T I I don't know how to how you calculate the estimated impact. Is the tax rate a factor in that calculation? >> The tax rate is going to be an

081output of that >> okay >> calculation. We can spend time on that. >> No, the reason I was asking is there anything that pre prevents someone from saying well we think the tax rate is going to go down and therefore versus someone saying we think the tax so what you're to address that. >> Okay. You you go ahead. Do you understand? >> Yeah, I understand what you're saying. >> I'm I'm gonna I'm going to state this right now. I have a I am I have supported these um the petition warrant articles to put the tax rate on there. I am now going to be writing the petition warrant article to repeal it for Brooklyn. And here's why. Um so what these tax estimates do is they basically say what is the cost of this? divide

082it by your tax base and that's your tax instment. For most warles, that's perfectly fine. That's it's exactly what you want to tell people. It's what we always tell people anyway. However, when it comes at least to the town, um the big one of course is the budget. If you just take your budget and you divide it by your expense, you're going to project a a tax impact that is enormous because the town has millions of dollars of other revenues that come in that offset that. But you can't take that into consideration when you're doing the tax estimate for for the warrant article. Most of a lot of our income comes from vehicle registrations and things like that. Millions of dollars. But we have to ass but when we're creating the tax rate to put

083on the warrant article, we have to assume that all of those revenues are zero. >> Really? >> Yes. >> Or you choose to we are required. This was the DRRA specified this is how you do this >> and you have to do it that way. So last year when we had the warrant article we said oh our tax rate is going to go up you know more than double even though that was not true in the slightest. And next year we'll be doing the exact same thing. And so that's why I'm gonna I'm gonna argue for us to repeal that because it it makes no sense for the budget warrant article. For the other articles, it makes sense, but for the budget, you're just telling people you're going to double triple your your tax rate.

084>> Okay. >> And and it's no no realation to reality at all. >> Okay. Little sidebar. Okay. Number two. >> That's number one. >> Yeah. >> Number two. >> I got to go to England. Okay. >> Okay. Okay. We're we're going to we're going to make up some time. House Bill 200. This one requires um in districts that have a tax cap. Um a three-fifths majority to override a tax cap. To institute a tax cap takes a three-fifths majority. To override a tax cap. That will now take a three-fifths majority. It used to be a simple majority. It would now be a three-fifths majority. And >> one other piece of this that does affect our district is that the SAU budget warrant has to move to the beginning of the warrant. >> It has to

085be the first or just early. >> Move to the beginning of the warrant. >> So >> I will that is what the wording of the >> So that means it would go before the bond stuff because I thought the bond said the same thing. You know, these are questions for legal counsel. I'm reading what is in the bill. Move to the beginning because the concern was for it to pass. It then contributes to what you know, we usually we do a lot of things and build to the budget in some cases. Uh the co-op uh kind of puts its budget in the middle. Um Hollis puts its budget at the end. But this is to ensure you know the SAU gets funded and um it's in it would be uh it it would be within

086the tax cap and anything that comes over it if something were to go over would were to go higher than the proposed the tax cap that's in place that gets addressed a different way. >> That's part of 200. So the town moderator at the beginning of the meeting when he going through the rules he could say okay for today's meeting I'm going to define the beginning to be the first three >> we leave it to legal counsel but when when we when we when when we do have to put forward CBAs and bonds and and the SAU article I think legal counsel would help us determine >> they they do help set the order but I was just curious if they use the same wording for this as they do for the the >> I

087don't I don't know if like the CBA is is listed as first or something like that. This just says at the beginning. >> Um, House Bill 228. I will say that when this um is distributed, if you click on the summary that I'll send, if you uh click on the hyperlinks for each bill, we'll give you the bill text and the representatives and senators who put these forward. >> Well, they're different websites. So on House Bill 228, >> um this one addresses speaking time for petition articles. >> Uh so now um the initial name on a petition article is considered the sponsor. That sponsor can can assign the sponsorship responsibility to somebody else. But essentially um speakers to petition articles get 10 minutes. >> They put a specific time in it. 10 minutes minimum >>

088in the law. >> Um, >> so if they're only for two minutes, we can take a break then. >> Okay. So, >> no, but what that means is if you have seven petition warrant articles, you now have a minimum of 70. >> Now, I have not spoken with our moderator. Um I'm going to assume that um any the way the meeting is man and this is an assumption on my part not having spoken to our moderator but I I don't know that this speaking time precludes >> um action by the legislative body that wants to table an article or things like that. So I'm going to leave that respon I will leave certain things to legal counsel. I'll leave other things to the moderator. I'm just telling you what is in the bill. Um >>

089any stop going to the meeting? >> What? >> Okay. House Bill 374 >> um speaks to the calculation of tax cap and budget caps. So >> what's the number? >> 374. Um if you recall last year, one of the big um changes that went into uh RSA 32, which is the um the RSA that we operate under as a budget committee and talks to how we budget and things like that, um was the implementation of in in the tax cap language, the inclusion of language that allows for a budget cap as well. But in addition to that, it determined how a tax cap um is defined. So you would take uh an inflation factor times a change in daily membership and that's how you would determine what a tax cap is. But the language is

090a little bit unclear and so it was left up to interpretation. And I think the first time it was passed, it really um wasn't necessarily accurate in how you would actually do the calculations. So HB375 374 clarifies that. So um there's some clarification to how you would implement tax and budget caps. House Bill 394 is I know Tom Solon, you are a favorite, which removes a voting um requirement for our school board member. It's still um defines how our budget committee needs to be formed which is um one member per member of the school board plus one. So we do have that unfortunately our school board member can't vote anymore. Um we I have spoken um with the chair of the um school board um explained to her how much we value the input of

091the schoolboard member whether it's with a vote or not um and similarly they value the input and our attendance at their meet at at their meetings which really hasn't taken place over time. So I think as a committee we can talk a little bit about um maybe if there are important topics or several times a year myself or any any of us can attend the meetings um to give perspective as well and just to be um a little more present with the school board itself. So Holly and I spent some time talking >> just to piggyback on that during the the periods when the school board is discussing and considering the budget itself. That would be really helpful to have uh representation of the budget committee besides the the school board member present um in

092the same way that you seem to find value in the school board being here for your discussions. >> That's easy enough to take care of. So, >> and hopefully there'll be a new piece of legislation that resends this one and puts the voting privilege back in place. Um, that one was put forward I think by a single um representative and it had come up before um I think it was someone in the north country and that in that person puts up a lot of language about co-op and that's specifically for co-ops. Um so for the the school board member at the Hollis budget committee is still a voting member. This was specifically for co-ops. So, the person who put this together, they, like I said, it's been probably two or three years, and a lot

093of that individual's um bills that get put up, they're very pointed to the management of co-op budget committees and school boards. And I'm not sure what district it is. Um, it is the North Country. And this one went through. So, uh, we'll see what happens this time around. House Bill 557. Um, this adds that uh something that needs to be added to the warrant or ballot um for the budget is the average cost per pupil for the preceding year and scores um for in proficiency in language arts, math, and science added to the warrant >> or the budget. >> Yep. So you add >> what was it the >> cost per pupil for the preceding year >> cost is that the >> so the last published year >> is that the cost per pupil from

094the state as opposed to the weird ones that >> cost per pupil for the Again that's undefined. I would say as uh business officials we would probably come together at at that NASBO group on a monthly basis. What what between this and another requirement which I'll mention momentarily the NASBO is is um trying to make sure business administrators are aligned to how this information is provided. And I would uh I think with pretty with a lot of confidence I would say the average cost per pupil would be the last one that was published by the state on the state website. That keeps everybody consistent with the calculation and um it's not ambiguous and the information is available for any member of the state or you know anyone on the internet to go and see where

095the information is from. Similarly, the state does have a web as part of its website um it does publish our language arts, math and science scores. So, I would say probably that's where those are going to come from as well. This is on top of last year's requirement that requires with the posting of our um budget some um information that includes 10 years of costs per pupil on an um inflationadjusted basis, a listing of the higher uh the top five administrative salaries and average salaries um on an inflation adjusted basis for I believe it's for teaching staff. So that information in certain graphs, in certain font, on certain sized pieces of paper will need to be published with our budget materials itself. But that's that was last year's law. >> Does that mean it becomes

096part of the um annual report? >> Yeah. >> So was that in your presentation last year? >> It was not because the bill was passed and then the implementation of it was delayed to until this upcoming budget cycle. And these ones that you're talking about >> are in place right now. >> So they will impact the the upcoming one. >> Yes. >> And these are just for co-ops. >> This is for everybody. Public schools. >> This one's for all public schools >> and homeschooling or other entities. >> I'm not sure about charter schools or things like that. I just know how it affects us. >> Okay. >> So we publish hours >> in there. Would that be like state averages and other pieces of information >> to give people in the town comparisons to how

097we're doing compared to the >> We're not comparing our well the the information that we are required to publish doesn't compare us to anything. It just stipulates what it is for our district. >> But wouldn't it be good to do that? >> Not not at the that meeting which is already five hours. It almost sounds like the business administrator will have to hire an assistant to just focus on creating all the data. >> Well, it doesn't have to because it's all going to have to come out of this committee. >> The state is all part of the budgets. >> The state already has all of that information on their website. They publish it all. >> Yeah. And if you want to compare us, I mean that cost per pupil >> report is there. I think

098we should spend maybe we I'll add that to an agenda item and we'll go walk through the website and we'll see everything that's available. So >> because whenever I've looked, we do pretty well as a comparison, >> but we don't do bad well in raw numbers. >> Right out of >> moving on because it's 752. >> It's always good to >> I'm sorry. What was that number again? >> Uh that that one for the cost per pupil and the and the proficiency scores was House Bill 557. Moving on to House Bill 771. >> This is the open enrollment bill. >> 771. 771. The way this stands right now is that there is no broad open enrollment requirement across the state. You may engage in open enrollment agreements with other districts. It is not a requirement

099to do so. So if you want to, you may and establish whatever your tuition would be and whatnot, but you can only engage in open enrollment activities with the district you have an agreement with. So no one can call the the business office or the superintendent and say, "I live in NSHA and just want to come to your school." Our response would be, "Well, here's as a parent, are you experiencing an educational hardship?" and you would work that through your the superintendent channel. Um, if you'd like to pay tuition and we have space in our classes, here's here's on an individual basis what it is. And that parent would be responsible for that tuition. But there is no open enrollment agreement. So someone can't just say, I live in NSHA. I want to go to

100your school. That cannot happen unless we make an agreement with NSHA that says here's what the that would be. So to open enrollment got a lot of attention. Um, so I just want to be clear, there is no open enrollment in the state. However, we are required to add lines to our budget that um, on the expense and the revenue side that address open enrollment. So, it's a line it would be populated with zero because as of right now, we're not anticipating entering into any agreements, but you have independent of tuitioning, >> right? So, that's House Bill 771. House uh Senate Bill 292 addressed um special education aid. I think they actually went back to calling it catastrophic aid which we um moved away from. Um one of the things that happened this year was

101that uh special education or catastrophic aid was funded at a level much lower than anticipated by many all districts. This uh bill requires that a cat a special education catastrophic aid to be funded at 80% of the entitlement. Now, there's still some um interpretation of what that 80% means, but it does provide a threshold at some point so that it really wouldn't be as low as it was. >> Is that so? That's that's assumed to to provide an increase. >> Yes. depending on how you interpret that. Yes, that's true. Um and and my last is this gonna be my last one for tonight? I think it is. Looking at my notes. Um okay, Senate Bill 295, which was for um EFAS, the educational freedom accounts. Um there is a new requirement that allows 10 thou

102um 10,000 um students to sign up um for an educational or families to sign up for an educational freedom account. There is no longer a um the threshold has been extended to such a degree that it's like it it essentially is not a um poverty level threshold. Okay. >> It's it's 10,000 families. It can include siblings and so it it >> so it's a first come first serve. >> It is a first come first serve. There are priority um uh cases. So if someone is truly at a poverty level, they would be put in in the list in the queue higher than someone who's not. Um, so it isn't just a first come, first served and you get you you get um the amount of money. Uh, $39 million was attached to the cost of

103this bill. It's currently at $50 million and is over budget and it just went into effect on July 1st and there's a wait list and they haven't gotten through all of the um >> the applications yet. >> So that's just a little aside. any I I'm assuming any additional funding comes from the educational trust fund and um they have just some issues to work out with um the payment uh the the payment to individual families aligns itself to uh the elements of adequacy aid. So there is some money associated with base aid and you know other elements but it it comes out to be around $5,000 a student. So that's how you got the 10,000 times 5,000 is the $50 million. >> Does does it require specific budgetary consideration? Does does any of the funding

104come directly out of a district's uh payments? >> That is an excellent question. I don't know. I'm assuming that since the state established the the the level that the state is taking over the the payment of it as opposed to because what used to happen is the EFAs would be charged back percentage of it to the districts. We were very minimally affected um as a co-op. Um, but I will follow up on that because I I don't know. I'm assuming it's a state state level funding because they they removed the income threshold. >> So that'll probably show up in the statewide property tax. >> Yes. >> Adequacy. Maybe the adequacy rate. >> No, it's not adequac. The adequacy that the district receives is completely different. The structure of how they pay. they pay per student

105through the EFA is aligned to the structure for adequacy, but it it's two completely separate pools of money. And so, as I say that, I'm going to say that the state is going to take over that, but I will verify that for you. >> Thank you. >> So, that those are those are my good news, >> just a few highlights, >> little topics and highlights this evening. But, as I said, I'll I'll get that um all out to everybody hopefully tomorrow morning. Can I just add something that I think it's really important and I'm very impressed that you go over this because it's going to impact our taxpayers at the end of the day >> and we want them to know that you know we're here to make you aware of these things. >> So

106all the school boards should do this and do we do you do that on the school board? >> Do we do what >> uh go over the bills that impact the education the schools? individual board members look at different things to them to a large extent. We rely on input from this group and from the um administration who follows it very closely. >> Yeah. Because I mean there are things in there like you know new definitions of certain things that related to special education. There are so many levels >> literally hundreds of them. >> Hundreds. Hundreds. And then um most of it makes it through to us because in the past our legal teams have alerted us because they watch it very closely and they say either you need to look at policy or you

107need to look at funding for for these elements. I don't know the method, but the short answer is the school board is usually notified. I am not aware of anyone on the school board who has taken the action item to become an expert on it. >> Yeah. And this um actually the New Hampshire School Boards Association will come to a meeting if requested and um to talk to the board. >> Yep. and give an update and they'll they can target they can do a broad overview or they can target um their comments to their input toward specific areas that you're interested in. So um I recently was able to attend one of those overviews and it was really you know 20 to 30 minutes and they gave a very comprehensive view and addressed any questions

108of >> they have been doing previous years webinars on it but I don't know if they are anymore. Um they pro I think they will be having ones but that the one I was in attendance at was just in advance of that. >> That's overwhelming. >> It is it's it's a lot and I mean there you know this is through you know Barrett Barrett Christina and his team that I mean >> Barrett and Will were in Brook in Brooklyn on Tuesday night talking about school board responsibilities and they're they they said they've already done over 50 of those. Mhm. >> So these >> Yeah. There's >> there's only five people in that office. >> Right. Right. >> I was going to mention that because of her >> u exhaustive look into all these bills, we're

109going to have a great description of the uh meeting minutes >> and and honestly, >> we have the best meeting minutes writer in the business. >> We do. Don Don. >> So that would be a way to educate the the public. >> I I thought I had it up. Where is it? for those who read the minutes. >> Yes. >> Between the people that are supposed to be watching >> uh tonight plus the ones who read the the meeting minutes. >> I thought I had it open. >> I don't know. >> Who doesn't have a vote on it? There's so many things >> and I think at the district meeting we should have in the actual presentation one or two charts that talk about new legislation >> and highlights >> and basically to how things

110may look a little different this year because of all this. >> So the you just to let everyone know the legislative summary is 240 pages long. >> So there's a lot in there. You can certainly search on the bills I mentioned or um there's a great summary at the beginning and you could, you know, pick keywords and things like that, but it's exhaustive. >> You sent that to all of us. >> I will send it. I just I was just able to kind of get my hands on it today. So, >> um >> there's that. Let's see. Is there anything else, Tom, you'd like to add from a schoolboard update perspective? >> No, most of our time was was spent on uh some polic items going through the uh cell phone ban and uh just

111getting some some general updates. We did not have a uh what month is this? We did not have a July meeting. >> Can you just run through the names of the uh high school administrators because there were some changes. >> We have a new principal. >> Jacob Hess. The short answer is no. >> Jacob Hess. Wonderful. And um Yolanda Flamino is still um an assistant >> and Cole Etton is a new assistant um principal. And is there a third? >> Cole Edin. >> Yeah. >> Really? >> I don't know. >> Is there a third? He >> um Tracy's back so she was my kids class. >> Um >> might be spacing on her. >> Oh. Oh, we had her name in the presentation. >> Lane. Yes, Lane is correct. He's a good kid. >> Okay.

112So, just kind of to let everybody know and just Tom, really quickly, we're fully staffed and our are from a teaching staff perspective. All positions are filled. >> Yeah, I think the only issue is we still have a couple of par positions open. I think >> Can can I get a couple words on the assistant superintendent? Who is it? Oh, >> should I know her or him? >> Yes. >> What's your question? >> The assistant superintendent I've asked a couple of times. >> What's DOT's last name? >> Dorothy Flity. >> She's from uh Beverly Mass. >> So, she's new. >> She's new to the district, but she was an existing uh assistant superintendent in Beverly Mass. >> Okay. Yeah. >> And she's she's uh assuming the roles of um curriculum development, >> which was Previously,

113Gina's >> Yeah, >> focus. >> Thanks. >> Good enough. >> We still have and and Lauren Daneiro is is now assistant superintendent of student services where she had previously been director of student services. >> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, just taking a few minutes. I'd like to just >> get us ready for the FY27 budget planning process. Go ahead. >> Do we have the final budget and actuals? Uh, >> not yet. >> We'll have those in September. I did speak with Lance about that and said we'll have those in September. >> Um, sometimes there are changes as a result of the audit and some shifts and things that need to take place. So, so from an FY27 budget um planning process, since we have some newer returning members, just kind of wanted to

114walk us through a little bit of kind of how the fall will unfold. Um in September, we since we meet the fourth week of the month, we might be able to get a preliminary first view of the budget. Um those discussions are probably taking place at the district level right now with administrative teams as things are kind of getting underway and like I said since we are a fourth week of the month um have a fourth week of the month meeting schedule we've usually been able to get a very preliminary view in September because in August I mean I'm sorry October we um put together our preliminary guidance view which is kind of directionally um with input and evaluation of the kind of puts and takes and any information that we have at the time,

115any known information about collective bargaining agreements that might be coming up or things that we know are being implemented. Um directionally where we view the budget going for the upcoming year for FY27. As we move into November, we'll get some um you know, we continue to get refined views of the budget, but we will also get information related to um adequacy estimates for the upcoming year. The state is in the process of publishing where um adequacy is finishing um or in place for 26, but they will also publish estimates for 27 for every district to use in their planning process. Um we during this se kind of September to November window, the SAU budget subcommittee will have probably some Zoom meetings to talk about the SAU budget and work on um the SAU plan for

116any uh changes to the um budget or headcount or anything that is going to um affect SAU administration on Lane. Um as we recall for um in the district that budget is allocated to each of the districts. So we do look at that in total. It's the fourth budget for the business office and has a its own um planning group that is comprised of a finance or budget committee member from each district as well as a schoolboard member and the administrative team. So that would be Lance, Gina, and Lauren and probably Dot as well. So, we'll do that in the kind of September to November time frame. And as those updates and um draft and preliminary budgets are developed, we'll I'll be bringing them here um to this meeting and sharing everything with you. Uh

117and that budget goes to uh public hearing and governing board approval in December. um it's publicly noticed, shared and discussed and that process itself for the SAU budget is completed essentially by the end of the year for inclusion in the warrant um and the public hearing documents that we have in February. I don't know if are there any collective bargaining um negotiations this year? >> Not for the co-op. >> Excellent. So we know um where uh the professional staff agreement was samberized. One of the items um that Tom Enright brought up in the spring was as a budget committee for us to really kind of dig into the contract in a non-contract year. And so I think in September maybe we can start doing that. I'll make sure everybody gets a copy of the most

118recent collective bargaining agreement and we can decide as a budget committee what areas um we'd like to just you know dive into and evaluate and consider maybe identify some metrics. >> I would greatly appreciate that and uh and I could address my uh issue briefly at that time too. >> We'll include that in the >> issues. We'll include that in the September agenda then. Um so once we get to November and we have more information on um enrollment adequacy and we continued cleaning and refining the budget through guidance and meeting guidance or coming in under guidance which we've done for you know in for I don't know the last three or four years. Um we just keep refining that process since there are no collective bargaining agreements. Um, usually we're looking at at the output

119of that process by the end of January, but we won't have that on our plate. So, um, just kind of depending on how all those views of the budget go. Um, that's how we're going to spend, you know, December and January just refining it, make sure we're we're aligned. We'll have a public hearing at the beginning of February and our March meeting will be at the beginning of March. So that >> gets us through this the planning session. >> I want to be running for office. >> You are? >> It's your seat. Okay. Well, and yeah. So, we'll figure out who's running and and whatnot. Um, >> must be somebody else, too. No, just you. >> It might this must be. It's probably Dave. If Brian isn't saying he's up, then >> I don't know.

120>> We'll figure that out. >> I'll figure it out. So um so just at a fundamental level for FY27 we've established there are no collective bargaining agreements. NHRS rates will be fixed because they were changed um >> for this year and they're in place for two years. So we know what the NHRS rates are. Um, and we would be talking through as we're evaluating the budget and any capital needs that the facilities committee identifies and if there's anything like on on a large capital scale like we have the um bonds and the projects that have been in place for the middle school and the high school but if there's any other large scale item that'll come up and you know through the budget process itself. So that kind of keeps us busy enough for September

121through de through February. I'm happy to add any other, you know, some of the things we mentioned tonight aside from the collective bargaining agreement. Um, talking about some of the reports and information that is available on the state website and I think um we could spend time talking about um adequacy aid. Uh there are changes that get um made to that uh grant on a on an annual basis and uh the DOE gives does has a lot of very good information available and um it's something probably we haven't done in a long time as a budget committee. So if anyone wanted to delve into that, I'd be happy to um work through a discussion on adequacy and you know really any other kind of component to our process. Um maybe the tax calculations um because

122we do with the Hollis budget committee, we have a tax model that tracks um rates and impacts since probably the last 20 years. Um and we do it uh for each for um Brookline as a town and at each school district and similarly for Hollis. It's pretty comprehensive. It's a just a great place to look for historical information and look at historical trends. So that information I can review and we can spend some time too talking about those required reports that are going to be necessary to go with our budget and talk about um what exactly needs to be included and uh inflation. There's a there I will say there's one um slight dev slight change that I would have to the NASBO uh calculation of inflation and I think after I I think I

123would recommend um us and I can get into this in a little bit more detail but um we the chair of the Hollis budget committee and I have a pretty comp comprehensive inflation model as well and um feel that it really captures what's necessary for those reports better than the one that's been proposed to the business administrators. So my um proposal at the time would be to work with the model that we've been using in all in our districts for at least 10 to 15 years. So those are the highlights. >> Couple of requests. Um I'd be interested in seeing how we choose to budget expenses for um heating with the switch from oil to propane. Um and I've been told that the co-op or at least the SAU is now going to be the

124the lead on the contract uh pricing model because of the consump we're the biggest consumer. So, I'm just I don't I'm just curious to see if it if it drives any kind of change in the the number that needs to that will affect your guidance. That's number one. Um, and the other is I'm curious if we can u look at anticipations for insurance, >> not not just um uh benefits insurance. I'm talking about insurance because I know from homeowners insurance and and and commercial insurance the u recent storms and things on a on a national basis have resulted in underfunded insurance companies. So I'm wondering how that's affecting us along with people exiting the market. >> Okay. Um, it is Royal and Dave Blend that are up for re-election next year. >> Great. Thank you.

125>> Okay. Any other questions, concerns? I think we have a lot to cover, a lot of ground to cover in feels like a lot of time, but it tends to go pretty quickly. So, um, I don't believe I have any more announcements. I would like to go back to the approval of the June minutes since that was something I bypassed earlier in the agenda. Um so at this time I'll take a motion for um to approve the minutes as presented from our June meeting. Motion by Tony, seconded by Raul. I don't know if there are any comments, recommendations. Having having not had a chance to read him yet, is there anything I should care about? >> Weren't you a he >> Yeah, that's speaker at the >> That's why I'm asking. >> We did the

126facilities overview. Um Lance was here and did the facilities overview >> and I'd like to abstain because I was not here. >> Okay. >> Did you read them? >> I did. >> Well, you can you can still vote on them if you think that they're good enough. >> You really want to? Sure. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I'm just wondering if was there anything over remember Solen stated it likely he would stop attending meetings. >> Oh yeah, that was that was that was a highlight of the meeting. That's for sure. >> It's an accurate uh >> And here you are. And here you are. >> Thank you. >> Well, I didn't I didn't attend the uh July meeting. >> We didn't have a July meeting. >> I didn't attend the July meeting. >> We missed you.

127I didn't even attend the school board's July meeting. >> Wow, you had a you must had a crazy summer doing all these other things. >> Yeah, Melindy Pond. >> Okay. Um, seeing no adjustments, all those in favor of the uh June minutes as presented. >> Sorry, Tom, I cannot count your vote. >> Oh, that's right. I can't even vote on minutes. >> 600. >> Oh, so it doesn't matter if I read it or not. >> No, let's have a vote anyway, but not not count. >> Can it be defined? No, it's way it's easier if I don't vote because that way >> one because Tom would have voted yes would have voted to to support them. >> Um, are we going to meet in December? And if so, I'm going to guess that we're not

128going to meet on Christmas Day. >> We're not meeting Christmas Day. I know. I'm sorry to disappoint. >> And don't meet during Hanukkah either. >> Okay. I'm not sure when Hanukkah starts. So, >> it's the whole month. >> Now, I know it's only eight days. So >> that's because of Adam Sandler that >> That's right. So for I Well, we have the same issue in November as December. Um because the fourth Thursday is Thanksgiving as well. >> So if we could go to the third Thursday in November, that would work for people. Oh, wait. Let me just run through all the meetings. So we'll skip. So September would be September 25th. October would be the 23rd. That's a five week five Thursday month, but the 23rd is the fourth Thursday. Then we could go to

129the third and actually that kind of works having the fifth week because it would be four weeks later. If we do November 20th >> and then December 18th. >> Yeah, third Thursdays are hard for me. I could I could probably do one of those, but taking both of them, >> okay, >> would be difficult. >> All right. Um I we can't do the third Wednesday because those are the schoolboard meetings. >> Well, they aren't in November or December because we move it so that the some other district can move theirs up a month. So, ours will be on the 12th and the 10th. Okay. I mean, we could push to a Do Mondays work for people? >> I mean, do you want to do it on the third Wednesday? Is that >> I don't know.

130That's what I'm kind of checking. So, if it's a third Wednesday, it's the 17th >> in December. Okay. Back to the >> 17th. Mhm. Um Okay. And then we'll be back on track in January. >> And November. We're going to move that one to >> Do you want to move that one to the 19th as well? Move to the Wednesday. The 19th. >> We can do that if that works for everybody. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And then in January 2026, oh that's another five Thursday month. So we would do um Thursday the 22nd and then our I know figuring out the calendars for the public hearing will be upcoming kind of during the fall. So usually somewhere in that first week of February is a public hearing and we don't meet at the end of

131February. We go um we meet at the end of January. We do the public hearing for February and then the March meeting whenever that >> Do we got a date yet? >> No. >> Okay. I think we have plenty of agenda building items um moving forward. So at 8:21, Tom, I'll look to you as our process observer this evening. >> Great meeting. >> My headache is only mild. there on Wednesday. >> That's it. >> Great. Um, and if there are no other questions, concerns, items for discussion, seeing none, I'll take a motion to adjourn at 8:22 p.m. from >> So moved >> Melanie, seconded by Brian. >> All those in favor? >> I >> six and I know Tom would would make it seven. and spirit. >> Thank you everyone. >> Thank you.