001is here. Is that great? With a quorum present, I'd like to call this meeting of the co-op budget committee to order at 6:30 p.m. This is a regular meeting for the co-op budget committee for the month of May with the agenda posted in advance as necessary. I would like to introduce myself Darlene man and the members of the budget committee who are present this evening which include who include Tom Enright Melanie Levake Dave Blenn Brian Rder Blanche Tony Stenzy Tom Solon our school board representative has an excused absence this evening and I'd like to welcome Kelly Sely our BA um to our meeting as well. If you could please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.
002One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That's the hardest part of meeting up doing a 180 says the other retired guy. I'll ask at this time if there are any agenda adjustments for this evening. Um based on some prior uh conversations, we will have some not necessarily announcements after our general business, but just maybe some information that we'd like to share among um budget committee members. So, we'll make sure that we do that. Um for the month of May, Melanie is our process observer or meeting observer. And at this time, I'll move on to the approval of minutes from our April 24th meeting. And I'll take a motion to approve them um as amended. The amended um version was distributed with the meeting materials based on some track changes um from
003RO. So I'll take a motion to approve the 424 minutes as amended. So from Melanie, seconded by Row. There any additional comments, questions? Seeing none. Um, all those in favor of the minutes as written. One, two, three, four, five, six, opposed and David is abstaining. Okay. Move on to public input. Seeing none present, we can um move right on to the general business portion of the meeting, which tonight um for our typical agenda item for the month of May um includes a food service overview. So, this is the time of year that Kelly puts together the presentation. Um, kind of walks us through how things have have been going in food service and things we can anticipate. And so, at this time, I'll turn it over to you, Kelly. And I did share the um
004presentation with everyone in advance of the meeting. Um, so I don't know if we have it to be available on the screen. I don't know. I didn't give it to Joe. So, okay. Well, we'll just w talk through it and um if there are any questions, if anyone has a device, they can um see it on there or maybe share with the person sitting next to them. So, okay. All right. So, um the staffing structure has not changed. Amy Cassidy is still our director of school nutrition, and let me just say, she does a fabulous job at what she's done over the few several years that she's been here. for the second time. By the way, uh she's really turned around all the programs in all three districts and she is supervised by the business
005administrator and we split her time out among all three districts in the following way. Co-op 50%, Hall is 26%, Brooklyn 24%. And when uh we are all fully staffed, each one of the schools has a head cook and the high school has five food service workers in addition to the head cook and one of them has been vacant for this entire year. Um the middle school has two food service workers as compared to the five at the high school and one of those positions is currently vacant. In addition, she has uh 25 hours of administrative support and that is also split between all three districts. So just in in add if you don't mind questions throughout Kelly. No, that's fine. Um so just in addition to the obvious um responsibilities of you know menu planning,
006food serving and things like that. Um could you share a little bit more about um kind of that administrative support and some of the tasks that that that may involve like um management of my school bus and things like that? Right. Um ordering. Yeah, she I mean I probably don't know all of the things that she does, but she definitely uh supports Amy and you know Amy's passing off a lot of the administrative work to her for each one of the districts. And I know one of her big jobs is to try to collect dollars from parents who don't pay. Um, and she's uh she helps in the schools as needed. Like if maybe there's just no subs that day or something, she'll also work. She was a food service worker, so she has those
007skills as well. So the other things Amy and this individual are doing are looking at, you know, ordering and things like that, right? and they're looking at, you know, making sure that each school is meeting the requirements that they need to meet, you know, federally mandated requirements to make sure the program is running as it should. So, I have a question. Yeah. You had a position that was not filled for a whole year. Yeah. But you're obtaining support through part-time workers that are just volunteering or perhaps coming in part time. Right. Right. So, are they picking up some of the slack from the absence of a full Oh, definitely. And this is the first year in, I don't know, like five years that we've actually had a number of subs. Usually, we have like one
008or two, you know, throughout the whole district. And now we have a healthy amount of subs. I mean, they they're not going to fill every situation that needs to be filled. So, I can tell my wife not to come here. No, absolutely not. We need her. We absolutely need her. So she's not retiring for the second time. For the second time. Okay. So we belong to part or we are part of the national school lunch program. And some of the points to point out about that program is it's federally assisted. It's available to public and nonprofit private schools or public and nonprofit private residential child care institutions. And the primary focus obviously is to provide nutritionally balanced lunches to children each school day. And what do we get out of that? We get cash subsidies.
009We get um USDA sourced foods for very low cost. And we get uh access to free training resources and program assistance, if you will. And what do we have to do for that? We have to make sure our lunches meet the federal requirements that are produced by the USDA. And then we have to make sure we're offering free and reduced price lunches to the children that are eligible. And so that free and reduced percentage becomes important um not only because obviously we want to be able to accommodate the families that need that type of support but it also contributes to certain levels of grant funding that is or can become available at the state level. So um since I believe our reduced and free um our free and reduced population is relatively low um during
010COVID when all those err funds were available when um there was only one segment of those funds that was based on a per student basis otherwise they were significantly driven by the free and reduced percentage of students and for that reason as an SAU so the three individual districts really didn't qualify ify for um as significant levels of funding than other that other than other districts who had higher percentages of free and reduced lunches. That is correct. So how uh the expenses and revenues are broken down if you were will in categories we have salary food we have non-food and we have equipment and then the revenue is broken down into local state and federal and the federal is based on what the previous uh page was all about those requirements um and the state
011is just a very small amount that we get I think it relates to breakfast. Uh so lo most of our revenue is coming from local food or local funds, sorry. Uh food service does have a fund balance and so whatever is over or under in terms of the year will go against the the fund balance that is maintained. And we can't hold more than three months of an operating cost in our fund balance for food service. So when that does happen, and it has recently, then we have to do what they call a spend down plan, and that's purchasing equipment or um other, you know, mechanisms that we might see for uh spending those funds. And there's a list of things you can do and you can't do. And so we try to spend all
012the money that they're, you know, telling us we have to spend. A question on that was um thinking that to the audit that was just done 59 page audit cover and there was a reference to the food service was was that in regards to not spending down enough? I think there was something like that in there in the audit that spoke to. Yeah, I mean we have had the spend down plan for two or three years now. So I think there's reference to not spending down enough to meet the the level right and each year we try we have a plan that we have to submit to the DOE and we do spend that but then the next year we are probably in the same situation and we have produced another spend down plan and
013if you don't we can talk to the auditor about that um in August because I did share the audit report with everyone that was for the audit through last year kind of in advance um but if you do kind of miss if you're actively trying to spend down the funs they're going to allow you the time to do that um for the most part. So, um as long as you're kind of in an active, you know, plan and you're executing it, sometimes things aren't available and and things like that. So, there is a little bit of latitude. They don't want it to extend so much, but you need to kind of be actively working towards spending those, right? And one of the biggest problems is if you buy a piece of equipment that um maybe
014needs electrical or plumbing or something, you can't do that while school is is happening. So, they give you the deadline at the end of the year. That's when you're supposed to spend it, but obviously you can't install plumbing and electrical when we're trying to feed kids. So, we try to do that in the summer, which goes beyond the deadline, but to Darlene's point, they do allow for that. Is the three-month uh threshold state law or locally established? Uh, I believe that's probably USDA mandated. Okay. Well, the for the for that it be three months, but the three the the level is based on our local. Sorry. Yes, it is. So, in theory, what would it take to increase that to maybe four months or five months? Well, we don't have that ability. It has to
015be three months. It's Yeah, that's that's a federal requirement that it be three months. Okay. Worth. Okay. So yeah, we don't have that choice. Yeah, we can't we can't monkey with that. Okay. Okay. So Melanie has a question. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. So the funds you said are federal. Are they tied to the Department of Education? Um, no. They're tied to the USDA. USDA. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uhhuh. Okay. So some of the challenges that we've had in the past and this was really coming out of COVID were the supply chain issues. They were so inconsistent and the cost was just really skyhigh. Um and then we the commodity foods the um what did I call them before the USDA sourced foods those were very hard to get. So we ended up having
016to purchase food that we normally got for very low cost. So that was a rough time frame for sure. And then when we went through the period where we were getting free meal free meals that also increased participation and the the short we were severely short staffed during COVID. So that was just I I don't know how we all survived that but um so what still remains in FY25 of those past challenges is staffing. We are still short staffed in in all I think every single district is is not at full staff yet. Um but as I mentioned before the substitute pool is really strong and active this year. So we are doing much better in terms of staffing and uh getting through the day with and not burning out our our workers. And we're
017still experiencing uh high costs of food and paper goods. The prices in general are still even higher than last year. The food fruit and food trays continue to experience increases every single year. Meal counts. Uh this is sort of a historical view. And I left FY10 there because that was the last year that we had really good uh meal counts. And you'll see that if you follow down to FY24 if you're looking where that's almost the exact same amount as FY10. So we have recovered from COVID and our previous issues with lower meal counts and we're really on track to stay at that level or even beyond it as well. Is that the combination of lunch breakfast and lunch? No, breakfast is below. So that's only lunch. That's only lunch. Wow. So according to these
018numbers, free is about 20 to 25%. Um I'll take your word for it. I didn't do that math. Um the breakfast uh well that free if you're talking that's the free during co if that's what you meant by the free. Yeah. Yeah. 2122. Right. Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. Um and breakfast is really astonishing as well. In FYI 17, which is when I think we started the breakfast program, we had 1,604 breakfast meal counts. And now in FY24, we ended that year with 7,245. So we definitely have made a difference in breakfast and they say that's the most important meal of the day. That's because the price of eggs are high. Don't go to school. I was going to ask you the price I was going to ask you earlier what you're paying for a price
019of egg and I said no I'm not going to ask that question to the numbers here I have to ask you yeah I don't know that number okay and then um just the next page is our historical financials you can see the trend there from FI13 forward uh last year we did you will see that we did overexpend but that was on purpose because we were in in the spend down plan And that is true as well for this year. We are trending about the same uh to end the year. It may be a little bit better, a little bit worse. So can I ask a question? Yeah. You were talking about the meals and how um they went up as high as 7,000. What were the factors and did that 7,000 become the new
020normal? Well, I don't have the presentation, right? No. Um, well, when I think what really did it was COVID because it was free. Breakfast was free. So, we had meal counts of 17,000 and 37,000 during COVID when it was free. So, the next year after COVID, FY23 was 9,951 and it's dropped then to 7,245 and this year right now through March is 5,315. So, I think it's on track between the nine and the 7,000. But what really I think improved our numbers and hopefully they will remain stable or increase was the free uh breakfast and the free lunch in in uh during co uh Okay, so accomplishments. Um, I leave this on here every year because I'm so proud of what they do. But they have an administrative review that happens every three years and
021the reviewers are consistently impressed by the program and Amy has had no findings since I've been here. So, um, she does a great job. Health inspections are also the same. They continue to pass with praise. Couple of events that they have tried new this year are the uh New Hampshire harvest of the month. That's a monthly thing obviously and there's new recipes that go with that. They also are doing international menu days. So they're featuring food from Ireland, Greece, Canada, India, etc. And then this one is pretty cool. They call it talk to me Tuesday. And this is where students have the opportunity to provide feedback or give suggestions about how to improve the program. So they've reached out to the students and parents are also able to provide that feedback. And then the recipes
022they are trying to do more and more from scratch. And some of the examples at the risk of making everyone hungry would be sweet and sour chicken, baked potato bar using local potatoes, Korean rice bowl, Nashville uh hot honey chicken sandwich, the Tuscan grilled cheese, fish tacos, and then ham broccoli alfredo pasta. Another cool local connection was sample day. They uh put out cool mint pea salad and that w recipe came from a Hollis resident and they are also active this year on Instagram. They're highlighting, you know, each different school. Maybe they have a special day or special food that they're serving and they're also highlighting the food service staff that want to participate. Kelly, are there opportunities for um the teams to support I don't you know I don't know if there ever like
023administrative meetings were just to doing like a coffee service or anything like that. Do they support those types of functions in the schools or um maybe not so much a coffee service but for instance when we have a professional development day for the whole school they are often asked to do like salads and wraps and stuff like that. So yeah, they do and they do a number of other catering things as well, but I'm sure that's an area we could improve on, but that's kind of hinges on being fully staffed. Exactly. Yes. And and for you know, if there are events like um I don't know if there are school dances or homecoming events happening and there wants to be food, it would it would be contingent on staff being available on weekend. Absolutely. That's
024a totally a volunteer thing. Yeah. Okay. So, some of the challenges for next year that Amy has identified is getting our eligible families to do the free and reduced paperwork. That's, you know, going to probably going to be on this slide forever and ever and ever. But the good news is that they can apply online, which hopefully will, that's new, I think, this year. Um, so they can hopefully hopefully that makes it easier for them to apply. Um, and then as I've mentioned a few times, getting to and staying fully staffed is still going to be a concern. The subs are a help, but it's always good to have that consistent person that comes in every day rather than five different subs that you never know what you're going to get. Why Why are we
025having a hard time staffing? We are having a hard time. Is it We are having a hard time staffing anywhere you go. We have Paris positions that we can't fill. we have to go out and get contracted there is because we have to have that person to um meet the needs of some of our special ed students. So it's a consistent problem in all of our support staff maintenance as well custodial. It's it's not immune. So the rates are there. It just the the pool is shallow. Yeah, it is. It is. So it's not really specific to food service, which I guess I'm making it sound that way, but it's not. No, I just wonder if it was, you know, if we we're half what they're paying other districts or whatever. Well, we did, that
026was part of the problem and we did go through um a renegotiation with our uh our unions and we did get uh wages increased, which was huge, but and it helped. It did help. We were really bad off during COVID. Um, and now things have gotten better, but we're still not able to get everyone everywhere. It's everywhere. It's And I'm not saying about the school services, my business, everything. It just nobody wants to work. It seems exactly. I don't know where they're getting their money, but you were saying that the paperwork for free and reduced lunch oftent times doesn't get filled out when people need it. Do you know what the reasons are? Or is it because of the complexity of the form? People being embarrassed or it might be the latter. Um I don't
027think they're really complicated to fill out. I think it's just sort of an activation energy. Uh there might be some um some people that don't want to fill it out because that does to their in their mind have a stigma perhaps. But you know that they need a free they need free and reduced and we suspect but we don't know until that form is filled out. So we're hoping that doing it online where you're not having you're not exposed as much to so there's there's a link like on on the website I believe so. Yes. And I'm wondering if it's part of um the online registration process or if it could be included. That's a good question. I think it might be, but I will ask. Is there a way to have like a an
028afternoon or something or evening or Saturday where families come in and get assistance filling that out kind of privately? I know it's I know I I believe that it would be more of a self thing, you know, like they just they don't want to walk into school and ask for help. So, right. Yeah. But if there was times for somewhere even outside of school, maybe the town hall or something where people come in and get help filling out nonchalantly and okay just so the kids don't go without because of parent pride. What is the embarrassment factor at the parent level or at the student level? Um probably the parent level because the students really don't participate in that form filling out. So Right. And every student has like a card. Okay. That's because I know
029when I was in school, the kid had the blue card that I don't think there's any free lunch and you knew that student. No, every student just has a card with an ident and so when they bring that to the Yeah, there's no one. I mean, they could certainly purchase things with cash if they bring it, but essentially it's in, you know, a system and no one would really know either way. Yeah. I don't think that that stands out. Just a question. the parents, do they have to produce tax forms? Anything that or is it the honest system? Just take what they say? No, I think you do have to prove that you need that you're eligible for it. Yes. I don't know exactly what that looks like. I've not actually filled out the form
030or seen it, but there was legislation. And I think I don't think it's moving forward now, but I think earlier this cycle, I think there was a piece of legislation that um allowed any family would have allowed any family qualifying for Medicaid to qualify for free and reduced lunches. So they wouldn't have to fill out paperwork or anything like that. But I don't think that's moving forward. Yeah. Okay. So um we also in terms of challenges have the continued high costs of the food and the supplies and especially in light of our students who want quality fresh ingredients. So you know that's sort of the price you pay for getting that. Um and then another big challenge is the high negative balances that we have. families are are just not paying and some of them
031that absolutely are able to pay just aren't. And we haven't really come to understand what that's about. But so my daughter was in school and she told me probably just a year ago that that she didn't, you know, she didn't eat lunch because she hadn't paid for her lunch, but she didn't ask me for the money either. So um it's interesting that that you say that. Yeah. Well, and but yet we have I mean they send letters out every single day. So they send it to the parents. Yeah, I believe they do. And so so now emails come to parents. Yes. Um when your balance to but it but it I think it has to hit a threshold. Yeah. Because by the time when I when I get them and I'll just say it, I
032get the email hits. I said, "Oh no, he didn't tell me." And my son didn't tell me that, you know, we had a negative balance. And then my husband immediately texts me like, "Are you taking care of this?" I'm like, "I paid the $20. It's fine. We're all set." But it does make you get like, "What do you mean that's not paid?" So I'm like, "So, but you can easily go online, you just, you know, transfer it and it's fine." But I do I get so like, "Oh my god, I can't believe it." But I think it gets triggered at probably somewhere between the $10 and $20. Yeah. Probably for the emails. And then, you know, we have we send out letters. We get the principles involved calling. are making phone calls. I mean, I
033don't think they can make an improvement on how they're trying to collect. So, how high just in general for the district are $10 or500? Well, I know I I got involved in I was sending out letters from the BA. Um I was sending out, you know, anywhere from $50 letters to I think there's some that have $700. But but in total for the district, are we at like $10,000 for the co-op? No, it's at the end of the year it will probably be maybe $7,000, let's say. Yeah. So, I think I just found her retirement business. Connection Kelly over there. There you go. I got it. So, um I So, I know that my school box is is the method of payment. Yes. For um some families. And so, Um I wonder um for like
034graduating seniors um my understanding is that if they have an outstanding like obligation that they I'm not sure in in this district if they can't walk or don't get their diploma or something like that. Correct. But I anticipate that if there's an outsanding food service balance that would be considered by the time they're a senior an obligation that needs to be paid prior to graduation. Yes. Yes, you can. And so, as we just said, my school bucks is the traditional way that things get paid. But I just wondered if there's if there's any other portal or means of collecting those funds where a parent can just go online and pay like or or for an outstanding obligation, would they just like write a check to the district? They can write a check to the district
035or they can go on to my school bucks. Otherwise, I don't there's not really a way to do that. Venmo PayPal. Yeah. No, there's no or anything like that. So, we don't have anything set up for that. Have you had students that have not got their diploma because of um lunch? I don't know if we withhold the diploma, but I know you can't walk through graduation. Can I say something? When my daughter was a senior, she was the I believe the treasurer of her class, and one of her responsibilities was to chase after kids who hadn't paid all their dues and all their fees before they graduated. Yeah. And that and she was also involved with the year And there were some internal communications that stressed the need for uh pain. And sometimes I don't
036know if you have those mechanisms. We do. Yeah. Sometimes it's related to getting their parking passes for junior or senior year, going to prom. Yes. Things like that. Yes, we do try to hit all those creative ways of getting those dollar kids. Yeah. Right. Because if you know if kids don't get a parking pass, they're going to find a way to get their parents to Send your picture to your book. You got um Okay. And then lastly, uh and this is a terrible problem to have, uh is that our students are demanding more and more creative food choices. So that is kind of a challenge. It's okay to say no to these kids. So some of the ways that we're trying to deal with um the future success as you will the strategies is you
037know we're still trying to find ways to get fully staffed which is you know as we've discussed not unique to the rest of our position our support staff positions the equipment upgrades that we did la was it last summer or summer I I've lost track of the years here but those have been a huge improvement in terms of giving uh students choices in variety. The food it looks better just because it's displayed in a better way and it's so much faster for them to to grab. I think the lines the have been reduced. They they're not as long as they used to be. So we're trying to do some a few similar things in the middle school uh that would should be able to um give the same improvements in the middle school that we
038saw in the high school. Um and then they are working on ways to increase the participation especially reimburseable breakfast. So there's reimburseable food and then there's alart we get the federal funds for the reimburseable food but we don't get any for alocart. So it it appears that kids are really want to grab something and take off and that's their breakfast. They don't want all the components of the re reimburseable breakfast. So we lose out on that. But you know that's a teenager. Oh, I don't want that. I just want this, you know. So that's a something they need to figure out how to get them to take the whole shebang yard stick. Okay. And then continuing their active media, I mean their uh social media presence is another thing that they want to do because
039they do feel like that does they hear feedback that says, "Oh, I saw that on, you know, Instagram or whatever." And then their talk to me Tuesdays, they're going to continue to do that as a forum for feedback and suggestions. And then um being creative, capturing student attention, and making sure there's a wide variety of choices. Those are the things that they're working on. This talk to me Tuesday. Is that where the kids come and say we want better food and more? Yep. I think maybe we do a talk to me Tuesday. Forget about me Friday. Maybe. Kelly, is there a concession stand up at the field, the turf field? Not now. We are working on that with the booster club and trying to decide where where a good spot would be because there's a
040lot of leads up there where when we built the turf field we encountered that. So we're looking into that and I suspect in the future there will be a concession stand. Okay, great. Any other questions? Any others? Well, how would the concession stand affect the food service? Well, there there could be a determination made about h how that's run. So, it could be run through the food service. Um Oh, so each club doesn't do it or you the booster club could do it. You could contract out to have somebody come in to run it. There are a bunch of different ways you could you could do it. I mean, it could be something as simple as, you know, it's only, you know, packaged snacks and bottled waters and drinks, but it could have, you know,
041a fryer to make French fries and a griddle to make, you know, hamburgers and hot dogs or things like that. Yeah. Yeah. that could be a full kitchen and I don't I don't know what all you know the requirements are how big it would be what the usage is of the field but there's an opportunity there for um the district to run it as for as part of the food service operations but then also for the you know if the booster club is running it then they're going to be you know taking a percentage of the profits to support all of our programs but but the the kids themselves like honor society or any of them can come in to do volunteer hours to sell at a window during a game or a playoff or
042you know something like that. So there's possibilities there. Yeah. Yeah. We're in the football club for about 10 years getting volunteers to cook and it just you so some so then it can be an opportunity for food for food services but you will lose money on that. Okay. So great. Well, thank you. It's always um I think we learn something new every time that you present the information. It's good to see where the history um has been and it's nice to see that we're kind of getting back up there with the um the counts and things like that. So, yes, thank you and thank Amy and her staff for everything they do for the kids because it's an impress I mean the the level of meals that get served is staggering when you really think
043about it. So, and kids are hard to please. So, no first world problems. Great. Okay, Kelly, it's all like on you tonight. Um, so next the next time the Kelly show. The Kelly show um is our um monthly uh revenue and expense report. So if you don't mind taking us through that to see where we stand. It's going to lead into another discussion that we'll have as soon as Do you want me to do that right after? Yeah. Well, I have I have a copy of that. So I'll pass that out. Oh, okay. All right. So, if you fast forward to the end, you'll see that we have a projected fund balance of uh $63,000 and Oh, thank you. And uh that is as a a result mostly of uh some of the things that
044are happening in uh special ed. We have um savings and changes in our contracted services as well as uh changes in our out of dis out of district services which have resulted in um uh money available and there's always hiring and vacancies that have also caused those um numbers to go up. I mean not go up but to have a a balance. Uh we also have um a balance in our facilities which is somewhat due to utilities and heating costs. Our installation of the the propane burners in the high school have resulted in some savings there. And we also have savings in our bus and vocational ed transportation as well. And lastly, we have uh savings in uh benefits mainly due to the vacancies and plan choices that um that uh I mean actually the
045health insurance is not a savings those are other savings that we're seeing. I have a quick question. Yes. Is anybody tracking the or comparing the projections that were made before the energy conversion was made? At the time, they used to have big estimates as to we're going to save so much money a year uh once we installed this capability. Now that we're having the capability, we're making having savings. Okay. Okay. Is anybody comparing what how far off we were or whether we're on track or whether we're saving more than we had planned or do we know what that is? Sounds like a great thing for Kelly to present at the next meeting. But I I think having you know having the both uh quantities be close to one another basically provides feedback on the accuracy
046of the estimates which has trust and on what we're doing regarding energy conservation for example. Okay. So that's a way to provide the quantitative feedback to demonstrate that what we're doing is exactly on track. Sure. Okay. Let me see if I can pull something together for next meeting then. Okay. So, um I mean that's really it. We um with that projected fund balance, we always go to the school board and um ask them to fund in this year some things that might be in the next year's budget or just some issues that have come up. So, that's our next So, that's the summary that I just handed out um to everybody and I sent out a little bit earlier today. So, this um the items in this memo were discussed at last week's schoolboard meeting.
047I'm not sure what I'm sure Tom would have talked about this this evening. Yes, I'm sure. Um, so I'm not sure what decisions were made, but these were um the items that were brought to the school board for consideration. And they and they did approve these, but contingent on um making sure that we return at least $200,000 to the taxpayers because that 200,000 is what we always say that we're going to uh return to the taxpayers when we go through the budget process. So, if we can fund all three and the those are in order of of importance, then we will and they approve that as long as we can return 200,000 to the at least 200,000 to the taxpayers. And these were all FY26 items. Well, not exactly. I can explain it a little
048bit if you'd like, but that would be great. Dave has a question. Okay. Well, no, I just had a question. The anticipated 600 thou 63,000. Is that also because of positions not being filled that salaries included in that too? There is some of that. Yes, definitely. But it's really mostly I would say special ed uh changes. Yeah. Changes in special ed costs that have caused that. Okay. So the number one the ADA renovations in the middle school for the year school year next year. we will need to make some renovations and we did have an estimate but the estimate was not enough and and the scope of it kind of changed as well over the course of uh understanding the building and what it does have. So we do have funds set aside for that
049but we needed more. So the school board approved $52,000 more uh so we can meet the estimate that we now have for those that summer project. What is that number? The 52 plus was the total. It was I think it was like 116,000 total. Oh, okay. So, not bad. Okay. Yeah. Um, and the second one, the lab tables, we reduce the FY26 budget by about $12,000 with the idea that we would request these funds from the school board at the end of this year just to make the budget for FY26 a little lower and not jump that entire number. So, we will be purchasing lab tables for the middle school in FY26 and then using some FY25 money for this $11,000 right here. And lastly, um this relates to the facilities project that was approved
050by the voters. Uh the middle school will be getting solar panels, but uh the middle school needs new roofing. Not every single part of the school, but most of it needs new roofing. So, we have in the budget enough for one section. So, the committee wanted to try to get funding for a second section. So, that would essentially speed up the process of the the solar installation on the middle school. So, that is the third thing that was approved by the school board. So, just to in my mind go through a simple calculation here. Okay. So the projected fund balance is 603. Uhhuh. And we don't want to go below 200,000. Correct. So there's 403,000 available to uh potentially spend. Well, not exactly, but go ahead. So the additions 1, two, and three adds up
051to roughly u 237. So 237 where's the 25709 comes from? Okay. So um if you look at the previous paragraph where the very one the one that starts under recommendations it says because of known price increases in April on interactive flat panels and our and our computer devices. The auditors agreed to let us purchase this year but expense to FY26 as long as we agreed to store everything until July 1st. So, we were able to make some really great purchases and save some money by coming in before all the price increases with tariffs and other things that and just, you know, general price increases because people are afraid already. those purchases have done. Those are in the schools being stored and uh but the accounting process for that is that you still have to set
052aside the funds that cover those what we call prepaid expenses. So, um that's where you get the we may not have enough to cover it because it was can't I didn't put the number in here. I don't know what I was thinking, but it's I think it's 346,000 or something like that that we purchased um interactive flat panels in our computer devices. So, so it could go below 200,000, right? Well, that that number is C. If the 600 not,000 were to be the ending balance today, then uh when we take out the prepaid amount that we have to still cover, then we have the 257. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Great. Okay, so the other I noticed there was some really good information in the um uh schoolboard link. Uh there was some discussion
053about CLA anticipated class sizes. There was um an overview of stipen structure and this memo in addition to the minutes from the co-op facilities committee. So I sent out the meeting minutes to everybody for the from the co-op facilities committee. And kind of as I walked in, I said, "Oh, we normally do the facilities overview in June. Is it better to hold the discussion until then? Um, but I did print out the minutes and I I realized that we have members um of the budget committee in addition to Kelly who attend um the facilities committee meetings. So, I thought, you know, I had never actually just kind of we've had the update and we've talked about it, but I never actually read the like minutes of their meetings. So, I figured let me just print
054them out and um see if we can just do a highlevel overview. We'll get kind of more information next month from Kelly and Lance when they're here. So, if people feel like they can wait, we can certainly do that. If we just want to do a quick little update based on um the meeting that took place out at the beginning of May just to get a sense of yes, as a reminder, we're moving forward with two bond projects and kind of actually Kelly, as you said, if we're able to get this additional um roof section finished. Does it move up the process or change the phasing in any way? Um so maybe if between Kelly and Brian if want to just because it looks like Raul, you missed that meeting. submitting. Yeah. Um and Tom
055Enright um didn't were you still on that committee, Tom? Oh, yeah. Okay, great. Um so just maybe a quick little summary of kind of what took place and if we have indepth questions, they can wait maybe until June when um we get a little bit more of a facilities overview. But yeah, no, I think the the best piece of the minutes there is the three phases of the project. This is what our um energy uh consultant vendor has identified as the the phases and it's and it's a lot of it's contingent upon the how the um solar project plays out because we have submitted the application but it takes a lot of time. In fact, we're we need to go to our rep at Eversource and do some pushing because it's kind of stuck in
056in neutral for right now. So, we need to push on that. But, as it says here, the boilers will be phase one and that involves removing the tank, the central plant design, the propane farm, all of that will be this summer. And then the following summer they're hoping to uh do the uni unventilators in the science wing which is the the farthest end from here. Uh because those univventilators are really uh causing instruction problems because they're are so loud and they they're so loud that they get turned off and then the ventilation is not good for the students because everything's off. and the rooftop units that go along with those. And then they will do the LED lighting at that time. And they want to do the lighting then because they'll have the ceilings uh
057open so that they can do the lighting at that point. And then in the summer of uh 2027 would be phase three and that would be uh this part of the building here um and replacing many of the rooftop units that are uh scheduled to be replaced in the bond. So that's kind of the big news of the meeting I thought anyway, but Brian, you might have a different No, I think those were the highlights to me. Yeah. And I I know there were questions about the solar panels and you know what if we get tariffs and stuff like that, but I believe the the bill that the House passed in the federal government and is now going to the Senate or is in the Senate Senate. If that bill were to pass, it will
058preserve the the ter I mean the the rebates is what I'm trying to say. The rebates that we were counting on. So depending on the outcome of that, we will hopefully be in the same place that we are now as far as the rebates go. And so I missed the meeting, but one question that I'm going to have next time I attend the meeting is who's going to keep track of what we're doing versus what we promised the taxpayers we would do to obtain their support for the project. In other words, if there going to be deviations from what we originally planned, we need to be totally clear on what we're doing and why. Well, that's why we hired EI because it's their responsibility to make this project happen and also show us the the
059savings that we hope to achieve. Um, so with the phasing of the project going out as far as it is like this summer, next summer, and the following, is does that allow us to I don't think it does actually, but to phase the financing or is it really just a, you know, looking toward this summer for the bond financing and yeah, we'll get that those dollars in one lump sum y that will go into an account and we'll just draw on those funs. as the as the project and I don't progresses. I don't know where um state building aid stays stands at this time. I know there are kind of leftover projects from previous rounds of building aid and there's always legislation about changing amounts of available building aid, but does could any of this
060be submitted with a building aid application that gets like rankordered with other projects? So, in the event building aid does become available, we're on a list or That's a really good question. I don't know that we've explored that because there have been a lot of changes to building aid. So, yeah, I don't know. You know, honestly, I think with the number of the I think the last round of last one or two rounds of aid um so so because the projects were highly valued, there was fewer of them were approved and that made the list of ones that were unapproved still worthy and would qualify if there was a bigger pool of building aid still in the list. And like I said, sometimes they go back and say, "Well, if you're still in the list,
061we'll we'll look at, you know, I the the the next ones that are coming." So, if there's a possibility that we could be put on the list, it might be worth considering, but again, I'm not sure where any of that stands. Um, and for projects of this this magnitude as opposed to districts who are putting up, you know, full-scale school renovations and things like that, it just it r gets lower and lower on the list based on the requirements of, you know, what you have to fill out in the application and everything. So, and just based on the last time we filled out building a applications, I think in the same year we did one in Brooklyn and one here in the co-op. Um I don't remember how many total projects but let's just say
062there were 20. We were ranked like 17 and 18. Yeah. So you know that's part the components of the components of that application usually don't land in our favor because free and reduced is one of them. Yeah. And things like that. So we'll probably never be number one. Right. Okay. Great. Well thank you for reviewing that. And like I said, Lance usually um comes in June with a a full scale overview. So, I just asked um for the since it's a three-year project, but uh we got all the money in the bond, what kind of interest can we earn to offset what we're paying. I assume we can earn interest. Well, we we haven't opened that bank account yet because we haven't got the funds yet. So, that's hard to say. But, um but typically
063we do that. And we do and we do get interest. Absolutely. 3% would be a guess. Yeah, that's probably a good one. You can get a lot more possibly if you got a million dollars sitting in an account. Uh I know some institutions that I know you can get four four and a half 5%. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. We haven't gone down that road yet. And the bond rate is roughly what? Uh, I don't remember the percentage unfortunately. Um, okay. No, that's but I think it it was under I think it was under I feel like three and a half is sticking in. I was thinking for something, but I don't know. Okay, Kelly, one thing going back on the the three steps here, the middle school roof section too, will that make this
064roof 100% for the solar panels? Um, I mean, just so there's the entire roof, you mean? Well, where are the solar panels going? I just want to make sure the roof's repaired and replaced before the solar panels go on so they don't That will absolutely happen. And the first um phase one is is like over that end of the building, the the wood shop and the art room. That's going to be the first section. And the second section is the library actually. And that's uh I believe that's what we just um they approved for the 173,000. And then the main office and the guidance office and the science lab. So sort of this part of the building would be the third phase. I assume they just want to make sure they weren't putting solar panels
065on roof might be pulled up in five seven years. So right. No, we they've well they've had a structural engineer look at the building in general and the roof. I mean, not the roof, you know, covering, but the structure of the roof. And that's all been given an okay. So, it's just a matter of replacing the roof in the ones that are the worst case going forward. You know, that's how the decision was made. Are we going to pass judgment on the school board's recommendation to spend these three items or or We can certainly do that. I mean, I think they've I think they this was I was originally intending it to be moreformational um at this point because I think they've have they they voted on it. They did. They have approved it. Yeah.
066I don't know what whether we want to do that or um I I don't know. I I thought we would, but uh I don't I'm not burnt either way. On principle, my position is I would like to give the taxpayers back as much as possible, especially when we uh underrun the budget. And so making decisions that impact significantly whatever is left without any consultation, without any just the the regular school board meetings, uh I believe that's insufficient. I think we should have at least some say in what's being proposed before the vote takes place. So maybe they could have maybe they should have said why don't you attend our meeting we're going to discuss something that that from which you won we want your opinion talking could have been different. That's right. Yeah. I hear
067you because I think a lot of taxpayers, you know, every year we put a chart that says this is how much we given back to the district over the last 10 years and many taxpayers expect now to see something back. I personally believe 200 compared to what we've given back on average over the last 10 years is very low. Just saying. So just to say we promised the taxpayers we will give them back 200 or more and then in this case we have an example of we have roughly 600 left and we found a way to spend practically everything down to the 200 that doesn't look exactly right. Well I will say that I I'm pretty sure we'll have more than the 600 available. So I suspect Yeah. I mean I'm I'm just saying so
068maybe having a different process by which anytime the school board is going to make a decision that impacts the budget maybe they can consult with us or maybe they can give us a heads up to come and be part of the meeting. I don't know something that at least puts us on record as to whether we agree or disagree with this. We could go to a schoolboard meeting but we wouldn't be on record then. No. I I'm I'm hearing you. Um I'm not disagreeing with you. So I think we have for future reference we you know at least maybe for next year we had to think about maybe if we can do this a little differently. Well would anybody not recommend doing the roof before I mean on this but I know exactly what you're
069saying. I think it should come here and say you know we we support the school board in this decision because this has to be done. You know what I mean? Because right now you're absolutely right like okay we'll give you back 200 but somewhere we spent 400 through the school board and I you know again I trust the school board completely but I think you're absolutely right for transparency maybe it should come through a recommendation like we recommend at least give us a little presentation on what's on the table that being proposed at least let us think about or at least hear the conversation and ask questions. Well that that happened that just happened. Yeah, but we did but this already been approved passed by the school board. Okay, so this after the fact, right?
070Should I get my mouth shut? Is this always the timing, Kelly? I feel like this that conversation I wasn't going to say anything, but that kind of was my reaction when I read the memo. I'm not I'm going to say I wasn't necessarily expecting them to approve it in May, but they did. So yeah, because usually the decision is in June because by the time they get to the June meeting, you're a little further along in knowing levels of available in an emergency that eight steps. Exactly. But I suspect the reason they they did approve those three things is because um the first one has to be done. So we're going to have to find those funds somehow. Um the second one that was actually planned how we budgeted. We budgeted some in FI26 and
071we budgeted some to be spent with the end ofear funds in FI25. And then the last one is a product of wanting to speed up the the process for the solar installation. So I think it's kind of unique to these three items as to why they approve as item one and two. I don't buy it for three three. It could have. Yeah. And maybe something to look at as we're looking at planning is to make a determination of whether we think 200,000 is the right placeholder into the budget. And maybe it needs to, if we feel so strongly about maximizing what gets returned to the taxpayer, it's a fine line between um doing an estimate so far in advance of what we anticipate, but to your point, R, our history shows we we return a
072lot more than 200,000 to the taxpayers. So maybe the conversation needs to be as we're looking at revenue estimates, maybe 200,000 isn't the right number and it's a little too conservative. Maybe something more in the neighborhood of 400,000 represents a little bit more of kind of the reality of what would be available and isn't you know a million dollars something that we can't we there you know might not be able to deliver on. So that might be a good planning um discussion and then that would get to the point too of if we promise to tax $400,000 it changes the scope of of available funds and what gets used. So I think that's maybe something we can kind of incorporate into the budget planning process too. Well, relatively just just kind of going back and
073explaining this, having the budget committee kind of review it and say, "Yeah, that makes sense." Because every year if the towns get back 700,000, all of a sudden there's 600, but now there's only 200 because, you know what I mean? I just I think it's transparency. Nobody Nobody Nobody goes through every line and sees everything. They just what am I saving? What are we getting back? And for years, they've gotten back this. Now we're going to be saying this. And now it's going to raise eyebrows saying like with the rest well for we we have used 200,000 as that placeholder and in the past as we've gone through the budget process we've gone back to Kelly and said Kelly can you can we look at that number especially in years where lots of things are
074happening said you know can can you really you know can you dive into this year a little bit more and see if we really feel like there could be you know a little bit more available um as we're approaching like February public hearing because in December the view of the budget very different and the results is going to be different than what it is in February. So we try to like refine it a little bit and and honestly to just make those kind of small improvements along the way and so um you know this year we're at 200,000 and maybe like I said we can do a little bit of both incorporating it into budget planning and talking with Tom and the school board and saying let's understand your timeline a little bit because we
075would like to have some input and some acknowledgement of what those items are. I think we can probably do a little bit of both. If the decision typically waits till J till June, it gives us April and May to kind of have those conversations with the board. So, um what is the uh average amount that we're able to give back to taxpayers as a lump sum and then how much is it broken down by individual taxpayers? I would I have a um that's probably that's something I can provide to everybody after the meeting. And I do have a historical um fund balance view that breaks out for the co-op as well as um Hollis and Brookline uh for probably the past 10 or 15 years and comes up with what the tax impact is of
076all of that. Um I honestly just don't remember the last amount so much tax. Okay. But I can I can send that to everybody. We can review that at the June meeting. Right. And during co it was much higher. Oh yeah. And then I'm saying in the last two years what we can spend more like 400 500 right something like that about double what something like that um and you know it's not you know we're not giving it back as a lump sum it affects the tax rate so yeah I mean I can see really I don't and and honestly you know the reason we have usually have funds to give back is because of special ed so it's been um and underrun for many years because of changes in special ed, but I don't
077know that we can always count on that and that seems to be the source of what we give back to the taxpayers. So, I just caution. Well, with that, right, with that being said, I think with like maybe changing to 400, yeah, we're going to be causing more, right? Then people are going to be disappointed that I didn't get 400 and then you really Yeah. So I I think the two is a good number, but I think also when there's, you know, money being spent like this that just goes to a school board because they know it needs to be done. I just think it for transparency. So if somebody sees him on the street and asks him or her, you know, say, "Oh, well, we we approve that. We went through that, we looked
078at it, we knew that was coming and it only makes sense because of this." You know, it's like I said, you know, you get to these meetings where she spends hours putting their slides together and all they want to see is that what what's my tax law? What's my tax law? They don't care why. They just my tax dollar. I'm not so I did manage to find the file. Personally, I'm not concerned about the actual amounts. I'm concerned about a totally open process and make sure the public is educated on how it works so that people can make decisions correctly rather than uh on um what they hear from people who are not necessarily informed. So, so, so that part I would totally agree with. Um I I didn't I I think the budget committee
079should have been able to weigh in on this and it's and its weighing in would have been a deep piece. So that's where I come down close to you. I I mean I ultimately I would have voted in favor of all three but um a little pissed that I didn't get to offer my opinion. Not really but your opinion matters. Um I did manage to find the historical unreserved fund balance summary. Um our last uh during the last uh tax rate for the this past year we returned a little over 650,000. The prior year was four a little over 400,000 and then the um year two years before that were 1.5 and 1.9 million and those were really COVID you know impacted. What was it before CO? Do you have anything? uh before COVID was
080in the $500,000 range on average. Yeah. Four to 7 thou 100,000 on average is more or less you know before COVID I would say the average was 300 under 350,000 and you're giving numbers that were actually returned actually returned. Yes. Okay. Mhm. And then we had a few years of we were over the million, you know, in the over a million dollar um area and now we're returning back. We're settling back to the four to $600 range. Okay. I think there should be flexibility in at least evaluating what could be done if there is an emergency or some special need, right? But just to sit what I want to do is make from my perspective I want to make sure we don't fall into a process where we automatically look to spend a big portion
081of that because the threshold says we can we have extra extra resources potentially available. Um what this doesn't this summary doesn't address is the retained fund balance. I think we need to have a whole fund balance discussion. This is a great idea for June. um to talk about the retained fund balance as well because when we were um in those years I would say prior to FY18 I have to think back to when we actually the retained fund balance went into place that was the you know the only that was the you know full return of funds and that's when it was kind of limited to that average $300,000 $330,000 range. Um, we put in the retained fund balance as another means of setting funds aside. It's never been funded to the maximum at the
082co-op. Um, and that's another subset of funds that's available and the uses have change or the the reasons why you can access or how you can access those funds has changed over the years. Um, but it is that is another source of funding that is included and considered before Kelly got to the 600,000 that we're talking about today. So that does not get returned to the taxpayer. It gets set aside as you know available funds for emergency use or you know whatever the use needs to be. Um but again that's never really fully funded to the um maximum that's allowable and even the percentage we have in there for the co-op isn't the maximum percentage that would even be legislatively allowable. But that's a good conversation for June and a good summary. And that actually
083leads into a discussion about um the need for, you know, with a reser unreserved fund balance and a retained fund balance and a contingency, you know, how how do we manage those rates, those percentages, how do they compare to the other two districts within the SAU, and how do we feel like the co-op is positioned? So we I can kind of put all that information together for everybody. So great, that was the start of good discussion. communicate this conversation or so I what I will I will um since Tom isn't here I'll send a note um and I'll I'll CC everyone to Tom and Holly just talking about that we had this conversation and in future it's it's something we would like to be you know more more a part of I'm not trying to
084tie their hold their hands or tie their hand I just point is 100% valid you know it's it is 400 500 600 200 it's justifiable no matter when I say my name on Instagram What? Well, I Well, I think but I think you know based on the um past way the um school board has has managed this the recommendation comes forward. It's it's almost like looking at a policy. It gets like first reading would have been this and then it comes back and then when you're you're closer to kind of having that refined number they make a decision. So that would have enabled us to review this, have some input and give that to the next whether it's 50 going back or 700,000 going back. It's going to justifiable uses and things that are needed.
085It's not Y frivolous, but I just think that it coming through here. Yep. Is is just for the public, you know what I mean? Okay. Internally. Yeah. Okay. I'll share that feedback. Um so Tom isn't here tonight. I think we've covered to talk about schoolboard items. I think we've covered some of the things that were in their agenda and I think we've done a pretty good job of it. Um, so that covers our general business. Um, there were a couple things as I mentioned kind of in that announcements section. You usually use that to talk about about our calendar and things like that, but I'm going to use it to just give a quick overview. This is a list um of some legislative items that were kind of still being discussed earlier this month. I
086don't know, you know, from two weeks ago what may have changed. Um, I will send everybody a link. I just registered for like a um an overview of the state budget. It's a webinar that anyone can um can join. So, I'll send everyone the link to that um so you can get kind of an overview. So, it isn't going to just be specifically for education. and it's going to talk about the the state budget um in total. But some of the items that were still uh open legislation that can be passed included identifying the tax impact of your warrant for a five-year period. Um some provisions for overriding tax cap using a three-fifths majority. uh a bill that talks about the first signer of a petition article being considered the sponsor and allowing them to
087have the same amount of time to speak to the petition as the school board or budget committee. Wonder where that came from. Um some that some things that that address the tax cap formula um the the calculation of the default budget. There's um a requirement for information to be included uh with the warrant to include the average cost per pupil and the district's proficiency in language arts, math, and science standards. Uh there was still something out there for putting out town budget caps. um some school meal assistance legislation uh EFAS uh educational funding accounts where they're dropping the um in the income threshold was still active. Uh required firearms training in public schools for with K to2 firearm safety training was a non-gerermanine amendment added to a bill. Um, so that would make, if passed,
088um, would require Kate adult firearm safety training for the kids or the teachers? Just kidding. For the kids. For [Music] the Stop it. You're kidding, right? No, I'm not. And And so those were some of the Are you familiar with our legislation? Those those were some of the things that were kind of still still active late in the process. So again, not sure where everything stands. I could send everyone the list and you can go to New Hampshire legisl legis and put in either the bill number or the topic and that would give you the latest kind of information on where that stands. But those were the ones that stuck out on an author. I mean it list who the author is of. Okay, good. Because they need to have their head checked that that
089was in there and I carry I wanted to just share that information. Um Melanie, you received some interesting mail. Yes. My first day on the job there, my first evening, I received a package and um Is it ticking? [Laughter] But um I did open the package and and it's a informative book called The Cuden Budget Battle Battle. So, if anybody's heard Cudden, New Hampshire, uh, three years ago or so, the um the school budget was cut in half and they had to figure out how they were going to educate their children. So, um, this actually made the news in Australia all over all over the world. Um, and there was a second meeting. The first meeting was not very well attended. snowstorm, you know, people apathy, whatever. Um, but they did decide to have a
090second meeting and their budget was restored. But I think at that meeting there was a a significant requirement of who the reg of registered voters that needed to be in attendance at the second meeting. at the second meeting like significant I think and I would have to check double check this but it was well I I will double check and I will share that the percentage because the percentage was was extraordinarily high and they had to be in in attendance to to vote but I'll let you read this after I research all the things that I do doged um but um this was given to me again it was written written by um Ian Underwood. His wife is the chair of the school board. She proposed the cut and he seconded it. And um I
091think this is really timely and I'm kind of glad they gave it to me because uh public schools are and our school here are very important to me. If it weren't for the schools, then I would not, you know, I would not be where I am today. small business owner, former senator, you know, I have that opportunity. So, I just want to give the message that it's very important for our parents, especially if you value the school to really understand what's going on, who we're voting for, what the issues are, and I appreciate it that you're speaking to these issues um during our meetings and happy to share this with anybody who would like. Great. Thanks. Might be on everybody's hood when we go out. Cudon up near the Dotment. Pardon? I'm trying to think
092of where Cudon is. I think it's near the Dotment, isn't it? Cudon. It's up north around there. Yeah, it might be a little more like east northeast. But yeah. Um the other thing I wanted to mention was that um Tony, you had shared some information with me about a meeting that you recently attended which I if you don't mind I can share the analysis the kind of the comparison that you did. Sure. Um I don't know if they have some and so so as a result of a um a meeting that Tony and Ro attended um Tony put together a comparison between some of the districts that were discussed um that clearly shows Hollis Brookline ranking and performing better than other districts that were were being discussed and um so I'll share that with everybody
093and also I'll share with everybody the links on the DOE website that you can go to and look at some of the information that Tony shared and you can do a districtto district comparison. So you can pick two districts and it'll roll through financial and proficient like scores and things like that. It's it's kind of good information just to have so if you're you know having conversations or hear things you can kind of go back and say oh I don't you know are are we you know performing as well as NSHA or better or you know pick a district it doesn't really I I actually have this send that along um so is a good source of information and just kind of helps ground you know how Hollis Brookline um really rate ranks among other
094districts in the state. Um, I don't know if you want to share any of the other content and I'm I kind of put you on the spot and certainly don't need to just pull up or I could pull up information or I could I could forward the information that you shared but um I would have brought we have a few minutes more. Um, we were at a meeting recently where um, and this is what I dislike about generalization that everyone in the town can't afford to pay the taxes. Everyone in the c town thinks that the buttcom is out of control. But I'm using uh, the words out of control is exactly the way it was put. But the idea was we're spending too much money for education and in town in general and they
095we have to be reeled in. That was the premise. They brought in uh a three speakers and the three speakers uh uh okay there was a uh best Rachi uh who lives in Louden but was an activist and I believe that she was on tried to get elected to the executive committee that didn't work out but an activist and her claim to fame is that she worked with other towns to reduce their budget. And then you find out that the towns that she worked on was Louden and the other one was in the west out in the coast and that's uh Winn uh Winnac uh which is SAU 21 and um the Louden is Marramac Valley. So here we have different communities. Lowden being the largest and having more of a diverse population u social
096income level, massive diversities from you know very very poor people to somewhat wealthier people and uh win a conet is probably a little bit more on the affluent side. But when you present the information then you look at say okay what are you giving up if you're giving up money and has to do with education and you look at the quality of education only from a numerical standpoint how are they how are they performing there is absolutely no comparison and if we had to 10,000 yeah you know if you had to look at where we rank nationally statewise in the there's a whole bunch of categories here which I think would would be an entire matrix and one of the things that was used is that um about 35% of our students are not performing
097at grade level in math because 68% or whatever the number is close to that is performing levels, but our our English literature type of matrix is we're performing at 94 967% and only a few percentages, but it doesn't tell the story. So, they create a nar narrative around one specific number that's the statewide testing, which is optional. And you'll find out that the people that are opting out are the students that are the best and brightest that are studying for AP uh exams, taking SATs, visiting colleges, and they look at it, it has absolutely no effect on their life. And that's actually something Tom mentioned at April in our April meeting because I think there was an overview of of the um performance and test by and by students opting out, their result gets factored
098in as a zero as opposed to, you know, not being included in the population, which obviouslyates. If you look at any of the nationwide types of uh groups that NECH is one of them, many USA, the World Report is another. They don't ask about how does the school rank. They ask about how it's the individual performance. How many kids taking AP courses? How many kids are taking are passing AP uh uh classes? How many kids get into the schools of their choice? What schools are they they they getting into? And then if you look at it and say, okay, these other schools that have cut money and you look at their performance, I would tell you that this town would find it unacceptable. I know this town. I've lived here for almost 50 years. And
099my oldest son, who is in his late 40s, it was as good then as it is now with my youngest son graduating not too long ago and just, you know, doing well. I mean, doing exceptionally well because the school prepares kids to do whatever they want to do, go wherever they want to go if they apply themselves and so on. And We've talked to this woman who's the activist Raul and I kind of a sidebar. You start getting a different picture in Lden. The amount of money they saved per taxpayer was a whopping $140 per household cable. But I actually said to her in this town that's a night out to dinner. It's of no consequences. And I said, "Look around because it was at the Lawrence Park. Look at the equestrian facility here. Look
100at the the forest, the town. How we invest our money is more important to us than $140." And I feel very strongly about that. Look what we do in terms of how much we invest in uh land because it's the environment. people come to this town because they love the the rural atmosphere in the schools. That's what you hear continuously in our um housing values went up I think it was 65 68% over the past six years. So I think what this is a a good example of I mean one of the things that we um the charts we show at annual meeting um includes like a comparison of cost per pupil because cost per pupil you know is a there's a way to consistently uh there's a consistent state calculation of it and we
101can you know measure ourselves against other communities and when I put up that chart every year I say well we we look at this set of communities that we've used this for a very long time um and it's there for different reasons, proximity, other cooperative districts and and things like that. And maybe it's an opportunity to kind of look through the DOE information, determine if cost per pupil or or different metrics might be better to to use for comparison metrics that reflect quality and and whether those communities are still the ones we should be should be comparing ourselves to. So, I think kind of seeing that I mean we can we can talk as a as a um budget committee and with the school board um and make a determination and kind of maybe come
102to some consensus on what communities we really you know are we are those the districts we're still competing with, you know, um our staff. Are we still losing staff to those communities? Is it a different set of population or are those still the the ones that are are relevant? I think it's a good conversation. I it is because the reason I picked these two is because this woman I read up on her in advance and I knew that that's where she was from and I knew where she was going with this. And then when you find out you get into the detail about $4 million cut from the budget. If we cut $4 million from the school budget, I don't know what we do. But they they mixed into that saving money on a fire
103truck. That doesn't that's not even part of the school budget. But I think they were smart enough to know that they were mixing and matching to get the you know figures don't lie but liars can figure and people hear these things at the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. We can save 4 million. No, we can't. Because I asked a very pointed question. Did you postpone buying or did you eliminate buying? And then you start digging into it by putting things off and not buying them now is going to cost you more later. And we've seen it happen here in this town with the uh uh the the converting the oil burners over to gas. That was pushed out two years and it went from 300,000 to 600,000 because time is money and fees and fines and things
104like that entered into the picture. But I think the point here is that we be prepared. It's almost a marketing exercise and we have to get the students senior students senior adults. I don't want to confuse that at the war article meeting. Maybe they could have booths and explain to people what the national honor society is, what how many kids are doing that. And uh I was fortunate again this year to be on a scholarship committee and it was blind. You don't know where they were from, what you know what town uh politics didn't get involved. Names were eliminated and the only time you could tell something is it might say something like I was in the girl scouts for so many years and I think you can assume that was a girl but uh
105You can't know about something like that. But there was one student who was so impressive about astrophysics and just just found out from my my granddaughter who's a junior this year that one of her friends just got accepted into MIT and he's studying astrophysics. That's what we turn out. And it's not like everyone can go to MIT, but if you have the ability, you can. And the education system here prepares you very well for that. So I I would I would say that we got to be prepared. We got to market what it is we do because I did this and spent a little time on it, but how many people know this? You know, we rank nationally out of 25,000 high schools, public high schools, we rank um let's see, there it is. 1,680
106nationally out of 25,000. And then you look at these other Marramac is about 11,796. And uh when a when a Marramac saves $3,300, what's that? But Marramck saves $3,300. Yeah. To drop 10,000 places. Yeah. That's a Marramck Valley uh co-op, you know. And you look at that, I don't think the taxpayers in town would accept us dropping from where we are because we saved a few million dollars over some period of time and performance drops. That's not what they want to see. They want to see us continuing to be one of the It cost to be at the top. Okay. Well, and that's Well, that's the thing. You said the housing market went up over 65% in the last few years and it's it's a beautiful community. Like you said, it's got the escort. It's
107got the But that's not why people are paying the money for these houses in these towns because of the Appalaches and all the trails and all that. It's for the schools period. And when you're done with your kids in school, if you choose to move somewhere else and downsize, so be it. Another family gets advantage of it. Right. You'll you'll have a lot of people that kids have done school and this won't matter to them. They'll say, "What's my property tax? What am I how can I save money at the 100%." There are people that are retired that look at that and say, you know, uh my taxes keep on going up, but so isn't your property value. You know, I I could get a bunch of people together and I'll tell you what, we'll
108freeze your property tax now. Freeze and I'll I'll I'll fund the difference. And you know this when you sell a house I'll take the profit. Yeah. The property the appreciation in your property. No one would accept that. They say no no I want it all. I want the appreciation. I just don't want to pay for it. Right. But if you ask Google to tell you about uh what do they what are they saying about Hollis New Hampshire? You will see what the answer is. Oh really? the meeting. So I think so thank you for sharing that um and I um Tony and I think we've done a little bit of agenda building this evening and so have some good topics to um move forward with. So um thank you for that. Uh does anyone have
109any that would kind of conclude our evening? I make a motion. Well, not quite I'm not quite ready for that motion because I'm ready for the process observer readout of our Sorry. Make it quick. Sorry, I've got like eight of those. Um, so this was a very good presentation that we received from Kelly. It was very informative and good explanations. Um, there were a lot of good questions asked by the uh the board regarding um the costs and the structure of costs. Um, also good conversation about the cost impact and making sure we show that to the um as well as proving out the processes of how we came to the um decisions of what to cut and and being included as a part of that uh decision. So in in that regard um we
110were improve working on improving the process. Um, also I thought it was great to have the updates on the legislature and would love to get the links that you're referring to because there is so much. So it's um and it's good to keep our population updated on those issues. Um discussion on school investment and the extreme budget cuts I think was important as well as the overview of the state budget that we will take a look at. So, this was a very informative meeting. Learned a lot. Well done. Well done. Okay. Go ahead, Dave. No. I want to stay all night. Motion to get I move that we adjourn. Thanks. Thanks, Brian. I appreciate that 804 that we have a motion to adjourn. That looks like it was seconded by Dave. All those in favor?
111Great. Thank you, everyone. Do we know the date of June's? June will be the 26th. Okay. That's the fourth Thursday. And then we're off for July. And then I may not be able to make it on the 26th just Okay. And then um in the June stuff August would be the 28th right before Labor Day. So there's no meeting in July conference. So R's out Wednesday and Thursday. And Dave, you're probably out. Okay. We'll still have a quorum. Okay. So we'll still shoot for the 26th. I'll try to make it better. Well, yeah. Do your best. So it's going to be formative, I think. Great. Thank you everyone. And sad. You're welcome. Are we off? You're sad. Now we can speak. This be your last one, right? Oh, yeah. It is.