001All right. Going to call to order. The special meeting of the Hollis School Board is Wednesday, July 2nd, 20125. Um, normally we don't have a regular meeting in July, but we needed to be holding this public hearing. So, that is the purpose of today's gathering. Um, so I will accept a motion that the board recess until the conclusion of the public hearings on the retained fund balance and special education trust fund. So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Excellent. All right. So, we are recessing at 6:17 p.m. Um, and now our deliberations. It doesn't have a public input portion of this, does it? I think it's a separate It does not. It just has um she's a separate outline for the public input for the Oh, that's why would it be white
002public hearing? Thank you. Sorry about that. I was like, "Wait a second. Where is this?" Apologies. My computer is deceased and I don't have access to a power cord up here. So, that's all right. Thanks. Thanks, Miss Leens. Thanks, Member Leens, for coming in clutch. My pleasure. This and then I don't know if you want to. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, um, I'm gonna open the floor for public comment right now at 6:17 PM. Do you want me to read that first? Yes. Okay. Just kidding. I'm not opening the floor yet. This public hearing is conducted in accordance with RSA 198 20- C to obtain public input on the expenditure of funds from the retained fund balance. Gina Bogers, superintendent, spoke of discussions had on 11624, 11825, 4225, and 5725, and 6325 meetings concerning the potential
003for a negative fund balance at year end. The negative balance is the result of contracted staffing and special education, which are pair of professionals, and in our support services. Options for addressing a negative balance include holding a special meeting to request additional funds which on its own results in additional costs or utilizing the FY26 retained fund balance which if not used would be returned to the tax base as it cannot be carried from year to year. Revenue has exceeded the estimates budgeted for the reasons I just described which resulted in a lesser amount of overage than would have otherwise been the case. The administration has been vocal about this all year and responded with a support staff contract that should alleviate the issue going forward. However, there remains the need to close out the current
004fiscal year. Being requested is the use of the full amount of the retained fund balance, which is $284,000, and an additional public hearing will be conducted requesting authorization to use up to $50,000 from the special education trust fund should unknown costs result in the negative balance exceeding that which is projected at this time. And now I'm going to open the floor for public comment. It is 6:19 p.m. I do not Are you here to Would you like to speak? Okay. Just want to make sure. Um so there is nobody here who is wanting to speak at this time. Um how long do we want to leave it open at all? We don't. We can close it. Okay. So, I am going to close public hearing at 6:20 p.m. and then we'll move to the next
005one. And we're going to move to the next one. This public hearing was conducted in accordance with RSA 19820-C to obtain public input on potential expenditure of funds from the special education trust fund. The projected year-end fund balance is negative. due to the number of contracted pair professionals the district had to hire during the fiscal year. A public hearing has been conducted on the request to utilize the full amount $284,000 of the retained fund balance to address the negative balance. And the purpose of this public hearing is to address a request to expend an amount up to $50,000 should the negative balance exceed that which is currently projected. The current balance in the special education trust fund is $166,000. So, I'm going to open the floor for public comment on this public hearing, which is
006the special education trust fund here at 6:20 p.m. Still no. It's okay. You can just hang out. No problem. Okay. I'm going to declare the public hearing on the special education trust fund closed at 6:21 p.m. Just for fun. Okay. So, now I need a vote to reconvene or do we just reconvene automatically? We reconvene automatically at 6:21 p.m. Um, and now we're going to move into deliberations to see what action the board will take regarding the use of the retained fund balance and potential use of the special education trust fund. I'll take a motion to approve the use of the full amount of the retained fund balance, $284,000, to address the projected year-end negative balance. Um, Carol, just to ask a question first. Sure. Um, do we want to discuss it? Like, can we
007move make this motion and then discuss a little bit? Yes, that's exactly what we do. Great. I just want to make sure. Uh, so moved a second discussion. Um, Gina, maybe you could just I was like, you better say something. I know. I know that we had said throughout this year, right, that we were having huge budget costs because we were having to contract paras, which is so much extraordinarily more expensive than being able to hire them directly. And so we knew that this was a possibility the whole year and also we were hoping to not have to do that and actually we were hopeful that we might not have to do that. And so I just was wondering if you could update us about what changed. So um you know as we get closer
008to June 30th and we uh close out POS um or um potential late bills come to us uh we realize you know we get closer to figuring out whether or not we have enough money or we don't. So some years it works out in our favor and money is returned and then things come out in the black and this year that was not the case. In addition to contracted services, there were also some placement shifts that required additional funds that had not been budgeted for. Um so unfortunately we are um well I mean fortunately we have the special ed trust that we have the ability um to have a mechanism for additional funds and we have the retained fund balance which its purpose is really to help us out in situations like this. Um, what
009does that mean? We had placement. Did you say placement shifts? Um, yep. So, when there are student IEP decisions that are being made, sometimes placement or services change and sometimes that can fluctuate um costs pretty dramatically. Okay. Um, so is the 284,000 what is in our retained fund balance or is that how much we are in the red? It wasn't I'm sorry it wasn't clear to me. Sure. So, we are because things are continuing to finalize in July and into August, the auditors are going to tell us exactly how much they're determining is like that cut point of you need this much more money. So, we're requesting the full 284 plus, bless you, plus potentially up to 50,000 more. Yes. And we think that that will make us absolutely in the black. When we come
010back in August, I'll have a better answer for you. Um actually I might have the final final answer for you. The audit should be complete but I'll absolutely have the audit report with that final number in September. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Are are we expecting that balance to get hit at all by the So there was an article recently in NPR fiscal year 25 on the Fed side is holding back education funding. Are we going to do we know if our state or anything's going to get hit by that and trickle down to us or um so what they're holding up on are some of the federal grant programs and so that wouldn't affect FY25. Okay. Uh so for example, we should be accessing grants that should have opened July 1 and we don't even
011have a clue as to what potential allocations are being made. We know that the money should be there because it's like a two-year budget cycle. So, it was already was already there. Um, the likelihood of those grant funds being available in 207 is pretty close to zero. So, what you'll see as u we started to build our budget requests for FY27 is um the grant funds that we've historically received from the federal government. I'm shifting to the budget just in case they all disappear. I want to be able to continue to program as we have been. Yeah. And I only asked because again it was affecting fiscal year 25 and not the projected futures. So that's why I was asking. Yep. Okay. Um I have another uh question. So obviously we're not going to talk
012about the specifics of any kiddos's IEP meetings at this meeting. Um and we have a responsibility to right fulfill the IEP requirements for any kiddo. Um I it seems like maybe the placement shifts were unexpected given that we are having to um access the retain fund balance. And so I guess I am just wondering is there anything that we could do for us to think about to not be caught off guard by a placement shift like this or um maybe it wasn't unexpected or you know you can correct anything I've said there but well we know the special ed trust hasn't been around for that long and that's one thing we did put in place to help support us if something comes up that's unexpected or not planned for. Sometimes it's a move in or
013a move out. Sometimes it's the opposite. it's a move out and that and that helps us. Um sometimes there's just a dramatic shift that we've done everything we can and um you know some costs are unavoidable. Uh but that is one way that we can um you know plan proactively. Um I will share with you moving forward that we did have to move forward with the additional kindergarten teacher that was not budgeted. Um, not only does that give us a space constraint, um, but for the first year in many, many years, we didn't have a contingency fund for FY26 because the budget committee was concerned about, um, you know, the overall budget and the contract sizes, etc. So, we don't have a contingency to help support that additional kindergarten teacher, but we did have to
014move forward and hire them. So, already we're starting FY26 um, a little bit tighter than we typically do. Thank you. on that. What is the current enrollment for kindergarten? Um, as soon as you I said it, I thought you're probably going to ask me what I can tell you what it was in June. Yeah, I know what it was. Students and our meeting it was already up to to 86 when we met. It was 89 at the meeting. Actually, I don't know if was it 89. I was about to say 89, but I thought because I said, "Call it, don't tell me until it's 88." And then she's like, "How about 89?" So, I would imagine it's it's um in the '9s. I personally already know of a family that moved from one town to
015Hollis with a kindergarter. So, if they're planning on attending, we're we're at 90. Yeah. Okay. I know of a family that had theirs doing private and wanted to switch over to us. So, yeah. Who knows? I don't know if they're registered yet. I mean, most of my colleagues are worried about declining enrollment, so I guess it could be worse. Absolutely. Any other discussion on this one? Seeing none, all those in favor of use approving the use of the full amount of the retained fund balance of $284,000 to address projected year- end negative balance. Thank you. 4 0. Thank you. Uh I will accept a motion to approve the use of an amount up to $50,000 from the special education trust fund should the year end negative balance exceed that which is projected at this time.
016So moved. Second. Any discussion on this one? I think we addressed this in the Yep. I'm just glad we have it and thank you taxpayers for always approving it. I know, right? All right. So, seeing no more discussion, all those in favor? 400. Thank you. Um, there is nothing else on this agenda for tonight. So, I will take a non-debatable motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn. Second. Second. All those in favor? The remote meeting was adjourned at 6:29. Thanks team. Appreciate it.