001Great. With the quorum present, I'd like to call this regular meeting of the co-op budget committee to order at 6:35 p.m. This is a regular meeting and our first meeting since the uh district meeting in March. So, it's a regular meeting for the month of April. Uh the agenda was posted in advance as necessary. I'd like to introduce myself, Darlene Man. on um the members of the committee who are present this evening which who include uh R Blanche, Brian Rder, Tom Enright. Welcome Melanie Leake. Welcome back Tony Stenzy. Um Tom Solon is expected. Dave Blind has an excused absence for this evening. And I'd like to welcome our district BA Kelly Seely. If you could all join me for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and
002to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all our agenda for this evening. Um, I'll ask at this point if there are any agenda adjustments if we don't have any point. Could could I at some point take uh two or three minutes to uh um open a discussion about uh labor contracts? Yes. So, and two or three minutes and then we're done. And I think we can get to that um in our district meeting review and budget planning discussion. Okay. So, I think we'll get to that and if not we We'll make sure we do um I'll point Raul as the meeting observer for this evening. And as this is our first meeting since the March meeting and the elections have occurred, it's our reorg meeting. So
003um what we typically do is vote on uh officers for the the upcoming year and that includes the chair and vice chair positions. In the past we have done secretary but we kind of tended to let that go and any type of um secretary responsibilities like during non-public sessions which we very infrequently have um but any type of those responsibilities we would take up on a volunteer basis if someone can you know jump in and take those notes or the chair or vice chair would do it. So, um we'll leave that one if everyone is in agreement. We'll we'll leave um that as um you know, not appointing any not um voting on anyone for that position. And at this time, I'll look for nominations for the chair. Darlene, may I second? Okay. Okay. Um
004I'll take the the motion from Tom Enright and seconded from Raul. Um, I'll entertain any others at this point. Seeing none, um, looking forward to the vote unless anyone would like to provide any comments. And that's okay if you don't. I enjoy very much that you're That wasn't, you know, begging for more commentary. You do a great job consistently over many years. You know your your stuff. You know that you're very knowledgeable with this process, the details, the topics. I couldn't think of anybody better to lead us. Word's very kind. Um, okay. At this point, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor, Darling, as myself for the chair, one, two, three, four, five. I'll abstain. So, it's 501. Thank you. I appreciate uh the nomination, the repeat nomination, and move to uh the
005nomination for vice chair. Nominate Rahul. I'll second. Seconded by Brian. Great. Same thing. Any comments, additional nominations? No, I'm sorry. Stoked here. So, I'd like to thank Ro for the years he's been vice chair. I don't really know how long it's been, but you do outstanding jobs. Maybe one of these days I'll come late to a meeting and we got things underway. We certainly need to practice the process of uh running through a meeting so that uh I can survive. Okay, Tony's just getting all set with his online access. Hopefully. Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mark. Um so at this point, I'll call the vote. All those in favor, Raul as vice chair for the budget committee. I 5 0 one R abstains. Great. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll move on to the
006approval of minutes. We did have several sets um that were outstanding just kind of given the nature of how we meet in that January, February, March time frame. We have the minutes from January 23rd outstanding. Uh there were some very minor adjustments uh you know inserting commas uh uh you know apostrophes and things like that. Nothing was um really a material change to the minutes as they were um distributed. So at this point I'll take a motion to approve the minutes as of um January 23rd. Y I have a question. Mhm. Um on the minutes it shows that uh members absent blind league and easy. Did I say that right? Yes. Yes. And that was January 23rd. I'm wondering can we say something like abstain or Yes. to indicate that we weren't there at that
007time? Yes. Yes. So can you change that from absent to Yes. to to not Yes. not present at that meeting because you weren't in the seat. That'd be great. Thank you. Okay, great. Can I can I make a point? I usually when Don sends out the draft minutes, I try to read them as soon as possible and go through carefully beginning to end and it does two things for me. Number one, it refreshes my memory as to what we discuss. But number two is we give her some lead time because you know some of these meetings take a long time to prepare. So I encourage you all to uh quickly say within a few days at the latest try to provide all the comments to her. That way uh when she actually if they were
008to be make any adjustments or you know she sends it back to us it's easy for us to then having reviewed it that it's easy to approve them. But it's it's a good practice at least for me. That makes sense. It's my first meeting so yeah forgive me. So, let's take a motion to approve uh the minutes of January 23rd as amended or as amended. Yes, I from Raul seconded by I'll second Brian. Um all those in favor as as Melanie um was we were just discussing Dave Blind was officially absent from that meeting. Um Tony and Melanie were not um members of the um committee at that time. So, all those in favor of the January 23rd minutes as amended. Okay, great. 700 Z. Thank you. Um for the public hearing minutes of um
009January of February 3rd, I'll take a motion to approve. Now, we have we have different sets for that evening because there were several things going on. So, the first set of minutes will be the public hearing minutes for the FY26 budget um from February 3rd. Okay. Uh motion by Raul, seconded by Tom Enright. Um questions, comments? Was I there for that one? You were um participating electronically. Yes. And can I? Sure. Yes, you absolutely can. Um because it was it wasn't a member. Well, the way technically the way minute approval works is that if you've read and reviewed the minutes and you know or can support the content, you can still vote on them even if you were not present at the meeting. Um but it's really kind of individual okay preference of whether you
010you know would abstain if you weren't present or what not. But if you feel that you've read them, reviewed them, and you have a But if the elections took place in March, he wasn't really a member, right? No, but approving them today. Yeah, but you're approving them today when they are members and they can review them for content. So, so I'll remove my saying I reviewed it and read it. Okay. Okay. Great. So, um, all those in favor of the public hearing minutes from the third. Great. Unanimous vote. Um moving on to the joint meeting minutes from February 3rd. There was some discussion about um you know this is the one where we took all the votes and and took um our positions as a board and again um Brian was electronic and same stanza
011Tony and um Melanie were not um members at the time. So there was again a minor I guess we would say a motion to approve the minutes as amended because there was a replacement of an with uh so it's technically an amendment. Um so I'll take a motion to bring those to the floor from roll seconded by second Brian comments questions seeing none. All those in favor zero. And then the second uh I'm sorry, third set of minutes was for the second public hearing which was on the petition articles. So uh we had we held a second hearing to distinguish them from the original content of the warrant itself. And um the petition articles had uh I think they had I think there needed to be another Did we need a second public hearing on
012this? I think for one of them they it had to be it had had to be in Brooklyn, but we were able to help hold the one in Hollis um that evening. So um we'll bring a mo uh I'll accept a motion to bring the p this public hearing on the petition warrant articles minutes to the floor from February 3rd from Raul seconded by Brian. Great. Any comments, questions? Seeing none, all those in favor? 70. Great. I'd also like to note just for the minutes that the votes have gone to seven because Tom Solon arrived at 6:41. Welcome, Tom. Um, seeing no public input this evening, we'll um move on to the uh general content of our meeting tonight. So, we're starting the meeting. Oh. Um, I'm going to make my own agenda adjustment and
013just um, welcome Melanie and Tony to the meeting and just run through some of the logistics we have for the committee, which is that we do meet on the fourth Thursday of the month here at the library. We do try to keep the meetings to a 6:30 to 8:30 window and that occasionally changes during budget season if you know we need a lengthier discussion on collective bargaining agreements or topics that um include the budget um running through our kind of plan for the year. We do meet monthly um but we do take off for the month of July. So there will not be a meeting in July and then our first meeting after June will be it's it's almost like having the whole summer off, but we do have a meeting the fourth week of
014August. So we do kind of get up and running right around the time the school year starts. Um the time we deviate from that fourth Thursday of the month is for Thanksgiving and Christmas because those holidays have been kind of typically fall right around that fourth Thursday window. Um and we'll right now we tentatively um think we would go to the third Thursday but we do just talk amongst oursel as a committee ourselves as a committee to see if that really is a a good timeline for everybody. We we've done the third Thursday. We've done the Monday before the Thursday and that's something we can decide as a committee as the year um goes on. We don't meet at the end of February because we've met um earlier in the month to do the public
015hearing. We don't meet in March because um we've had the district meeting and a whole slew of meetings across the two towns, give each other a break a little bit and um get rolling again in April. Um our fixed agenda topics include a food service overview in May and a facilities overview in June. Uh we can flip-flop those, Kelly, as staff is available in that order, but we'll go in that order with food service and then facilities. And then as we um proceed at the end of the summer, we typically uh speak with the auditors and review the prior budget. Um the district does well the whole SAU does its um audit on the four entities over the summer. Um but the audit we're reviewing is the prior one because they're still doing audit work
016and side calculations and and exhibits and things like that that aren't immediately available in August. they will the auditor um does come to our meeting and reviews the audit with us and then we roll into September with you know kind of pre all results every month but a preliminary discussion of budget items or you um assumptions we know are changing with an upcoming budget preliminary guidance in October reviews in November and December so that we're really working toward finalizing a budget um in the January time frame obviously before the the public hearing. So, that's kind of how our year shapes up. And I do like to take this meeting to talk about kind of reset ourselves, remember what actually did get voted in at the at the district meeting and talk about what we think
017went particularly well or poorly, things we can improve on, and then to Tom's point and as we move toward thinking about FY26 budget, if there's a topic or topics that um we would like to tackle as a budget committee. Um, as we go through the budget process, we've we've had special education overviews and things like that. Uh, Tom had spoken to me earlier about some spending some focus time with collective bargaining. So, we'll talk about that in a little while. But, I would just like to um I'll give every we'll have an overview of um where we ended up with the budget through this year's meeting. um this one. And if you recall, I don't know that this has ever happened in history, we did have two um bond articles that were approved at the
018LA at the district meeting. So, the one was for the U middle school energy efficiency improve approve improvements and the second one was for uh installation of solar. So, those projects will um get underway. Uh we've approved the operating budget. Uh it had a reduction. So let me go down and see our operating budget. Um article three. Article three. There we are. Our operating budget um was $30,245,427. And because the bond passed, right? And because Right. We had we had um we had some additional money in the operating budget. In the event the energy efficiency bond did not pass, since it did, we amended the uh budget down and pass a slightly lower budget than was um originally stated on the warrant. We passed the HESA contract, the SAU budget, um that did not have
019any, you know, headcount changes. It's um you know continuing with staff the $300,000 for the maintenance trust and the $125,000 in contingency for the petition warrant articles in whatever combination they were passed over not voted on. We did um we will they did not pass or were were passed over and no votes took place. So um we're not uh obligated to include tax impact on the warrant. Um I believe were they all passed over? They were all passed over. Okay, so that was those were to adopt SB2, adopt a budget cap, and adopt a cap a tax cap. I wish I could talk a little bit better this evening. Seems to be stumbling over my words. You're doing good. Um I would like to just add we we do focus well try to track legislation
020as the year unfolds. The reason why I'm bringing up legislation right now is because of the last uh two of the warrant articles were um addressing budget or tax caps. And there was specific legislation uh that would have required school districts to operate under a tax cap. Uh that legislation was removed prior to crossover, prior to the House bill crossing over to the Senate. It was attached the the language that would have required school districts to implement a tax cap was amended onto House Bill 675 which was addressing um increases to the increasing the pool for the statewide education property tax and so on and so forth. It was a late amendment. It bypassed many of the you know processes and typical way LSRs are brought forward and and made into bills but at crossover
021uh it was removed. It was it was then attached a 675 was attached to the um house bill two which was the overall funding um the bill that funds the entire um budget the state the state budget and it was amended out and did not cross over to the Senate. So that was a I think a relief to very to many many districts because it would have obligated every district in the state to operate under a tax cap. So hopefully it doesn't come back with the Senate, but um that's where we stand right now. The one that uh recommended that there would be a tax cap of $27,000 per student. No, no, it wasn't it wasn't that specific. The way the language on House Bill 675 was amended, it tied the inc uh potential cap
022to CPI because it was for everybody. But it it didn't when it was presented in Hollis it was the 27,000 but a version of that was part what you're talking about at the house level. Yes. So right so the one at the at the state level did not specify a dollar amount as a cost per student. It was CPI based. the one in Paul at the meeting was $27,000 and the tax cap was to be around $27,000 which means that it would have been a $7,000 more roughly than what the what the cost per student currently is around 20,000. Right? But the cost per the cost per student at the we could have a whole conversation about how the cost per student is calculated at the state level and how it does not align to
023um a a budget amount per student which is a real conversation for a whole other day. But um it passing we don't have to deal with it yet right this year. This year this year this year we won't have to. So, I did want to share that information. Um, we can talk about legislation another time, but I wanted to share that because that for me personally was just a huge relief that we we didn't after after buy after managing it at our own district level that we didn't have it implemented at a state level. Not to digress, but sometimes I bring a point because I think the the conversation we end up having one or two minutes in length is instructive for people who may be listening or watching on TV. Mhm. It's educational. If
024it's educational, no one will watch it. So I think um personally I know after um reviewing the minutes of the school board meeting I know that Drew Mason attended uh the school board's meeting and I would just uh to address you know some of the changes and ask for input on how the process went. I didn't invite Drew this evening, but I will just say that I feel like the process improvements that we discussed jointly, um, I really do think I I think, you know, every meeting has its, you know, positives and negatives and things like that, but I I believe we accomplished a lot. We we, as I said, got those two bonds passed and I really do think we had one of the shorter meetings on record. Um, even though it felt kind
025of lengthy by the time we got to things and there were lots of ballot votes and things like that, it really was one of the meetings that we finished in a more timely fashion and I think we accomplished a lot of good things. So hopefully we move forward in kind of the same vein. That would be my hope going forward. I don't know if anyone else has any thoughts or comments. I agree 100%. Just a side note, I know that uh civics's classes were given a task to observe, be at the meeting and write about it. And it was interesting because uh they saw what we saw and they saw things that why is this happening? Why is time being wasted in certain areas? So out of the months of babes, there was some very
026I will say my son is a junior. He has civics this second half of the year. There were he spent a lot of time reading the town report. There were several assignments, several quizzes, and they really did, you know, take the students through not only like if you attended and and address some things, but just actual, you know, the information contained in the actual town report, which I thought was kind of great to have the kids. Would it be appropriate to invite the civics teacher to maybe come in and give us a a sense of the results of what uh the outcomes of what it was found? What was the Yeah, I don't know at this late time of the year with this studying and taking exams and things like that. But what I would
027be interesting on the same note is at the town meeting have some seniors come in and talk about what they've been doing because I think lots of times they get a bad rep because people look at some of the statistics out there which is not they use that to really I think insult students because there's so many good students that are working so hard that are doing so well that uh I would say they're amongst the bright best and brightest in in any school anytime any place and to it's it's diminishing to the student have to listen to that. So having students come in and explain to the people that this is the class, this is what we're doing and I think they would be very impressed with what they see. I didn't understand that.
028You you think seniors don't understand? No, I think the town doesn't understand because they get painted with the very broad brush that says um 30% citizens and you meant high school seniors. High school seniors. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm one of those seniors, too. Since I'm a senior citizen immediately. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about the the students to get up and talk about what they're doing, what they're about. Uh because when you look at statistics like 34% of the students below are below in math. Well, that's okay. If you're measuring, you know, from five years ago without taking into consideration what's changed, you should be looking at how do we stand as a as a school in the country in the state and then you get a different perspective because what I would
029say is about 65% of them are performing well against math. And if you look at it um Hollis High School, Hollis Brookline Cooperative in the country out of 25,000 schools, high schools in the country, we're ranked 1625 or 1650. That puts us at around the top six 7% in the country. And people are not seeing that. They just see these numbers because they want to look at something negative, to say something negative, to complain about Yeah. the costs. It always gets down to the cost. So, longwinded, but I think people would be very impressed with students getting up and talking. I'm a senior and I'm doing this and you know, whatever they want to say. The students have to be voting age, don't they? to be able to speak to speak if it if let's
030say as a budcom committee we ask them to present to the town what they're about and I don't know if that means that they have to be voting age because they're I would say they're um they're guest speakers um you know as we would have any guest come in that's uh you know an advis advisor or someone professional or whatever talking about what it is that they do that's I don't whatever piece is this the agenda discussion about the annual meeting I think we are now yes go ahead Tom so so I would say that the um uh the Drew the school board in particular and you did an excellent job with this meeting it was the one of the best I've seen in a long time I think the the meeting took itself the
031schoolboard um portion of the meeting was three hours. There were the meeting took four hours because there was one individual uh who uh basically threw out different things that took an hour but the school board accomplished its business very efficiently, very effectively. I couldn't have been happier. I really think having the facilities committee do all the work that it had done over time um I think really did help. There was, you know, so much time and effort put into, you know, evaluating the proposals that were put forward and I think that really helped the community feel comfortable with them and things like that. So, I thought um that worked and then that professional video. Wow. Oh, I thought that was fantastic. I thought adding that was a really was a great idea. I think our
032new superintendent had a lot to do. I mean, there were a lot of people who had their fingers in there. Yeah, I thought that was a great idea as well. That that was actually um something that EI has found to be very effective and they they suggested it, they produced it for us, they brought the people in to film it and the whole thing. So, yeah. Yeah, I thought that was a great idea. Mhm. And you can't they you couldn't uh question them because it was a film. You couldn't argue with them. Um there was some discussion. I didn't know I know this is kind of whether you want to have it now or part of the report. We can do it now since we're just talking about the meeting. Okay. One of the one
033of the comments that was made at the at the review was the amount of time from the start of the meeting to the first article coming to the floor. Um, and I don't know, I'm not sure how it's done in Hollis, but in in Brooklyn, the uh review the uh rules are dealt with very minimally. Just just a couple of procedural rules are brought up and the rest people are referred to in their annual reports to read them. um this year was viewed to be a little bit of an anomaly because of the specific changes we had made to three of the rules, but that is a a long process. The other thing that was brought up was uh questioning whether having the complete summary review of all articles at the beginning is the most
034effective way because especially for people who are new, they don't know how that connects to the articles later on when the articles come back. So the question was would it be better to um maybe have one or two overview sizes just you know like the prepping the jury but have the actual um discussions take place uh at the preamble for each article. And that's just something to think about. It would accomplish potentially two things. One is it would get us to the first article sooner. And the other is that it might have things fresher in their mind when the discussions and they would see that connection is it was just a a thought to consider. And then going the other way timewise a couple of the board members felt bad and this this sort of
035goes the same thing that Tony was talking about that we don't get to do an introduction of the schools of what's going on in the schools. That's in the past been viewed as our opportunity to brag and we haven't done that in the last several years because the the agendas have been so packed there's been a fear that we're going to we're going to lose people. So we've got competing priorities but those were factors that came out in the discussion. Um overall the impression was that it went well. there was unanimous agreement that the u changes that were made were net positive. Um and that uh the the film or the the video was instrumental in helping people understand the context in a way that is very hard to do in a back and forth
036manner. So we maybe we should learn from that. Great. I'd love to get a a few minutes of the overview, but um if if we could uh put that in place and take away a little bit of the the rule um explanation and come out even, uh I'd be real excited about that. Drew was Drew was amendable to it. He he really is trying to be responsive to the requests and he has competing demands on him but um I think that he saw the benefit of the compression and he's receptive to it as well. Big thing that came up is he he did say he's not going to run again for it. So if anyone has thoughts on someone who would be willing and interested to uh be a moderator, he suggests they be encouraged
037greatly. Um in Brooklyn, we have someone who's been shadowing Peter and um I s I'm sure I'm not sure, but I suspect Drew would be amenable to that if there was someone who was interested but concerned about it. Great. Thanks. I appreciate the uh the overview. Um I think it was a good cycle. I think we worked through questions, issues, comments, and understanding of things um assumptions throughout. And we really do have it down to a a nice flow of how things get accomplished. So, I'm grateful for that. moving looking forward to um I don't even want to say it FY27 planning. Um I'm just thinking so we will not have we'll get to collective bargaining in a minute. Tom, we will not have a teachers contract. We'll only have Hessa next year, correct? Because
038that's a No, we did Hessa. Did we say we'll have it as a warrant? Yeah, we'll have it as a warrant decide. It isn't a negoti. not going to be um negotiated, but it will be a separate article. So, we will not have um the professional staff contract and we will just kind of see what other things develop as we get um closer to planning uh from an assumption standpoint. We'll have we'll know the NHRS rates since they're locked in in two-year cycles. and we'll wait on the outcome of legislation to see what changes there might be to adequacy and funding models for special education aid and things like that. Um potentially even some I think there's still one or two uh legislative pieces out bills out there that would um adjust some of the
039New Hampshire retirement system elements. But you know, who knows how all those things will work themselves out. So Tom, I'll turn it over to you since you had indicated um you want to talk a little bit about collective bargaining. And so it gets into kind of the dubtales onto the next item, which is if there's any specific topic or topics you think as a budget committee we should just be considering or addressing as we, you know, lead into this next cycle. So Tom, so uh going back to a long time when I was on the school board, I I always thought the um negotiation process was uh was deficient that there must be a better way, but I didn't know what the better way was. Um and I'm really disappointed that the school that the
040budget committee, which I now sit on, uh doesn't have uh doesn't isn't able to really get uh involved. Um and through those two contracts, the professional contract and the support staff contract uh passes probably 80% of the school dollars or more uh that we spend and we don't spend any time on it. Um and have very little say on it. Um not because anything the school board's done, but it's just the way the uh the process works. It's also the way the law is. So well um so I complained. I'm going to offer a solution. Um there's there's two contracts um that uh usually have a three-year duration. So that means this uh year that we are now in there's no ne negotiation. So what I would excuse me is that I thought isn't didn't
041we add a year onto the professional I mean onto the onto the No, I think it's three. Is this the is this the first year of a new contract for the Yes. Yeah. Okay. I thought next year was going to be next year. Sorry, Tom. So, um, what what I'm thinking, um, so that the budget committee could, uh, get involved a little bit is, um, in all those dollars, there's there's only two paragraphs in the whole contract where most of the money is spent, the salary paragraph and the, um, health insurance, dental insurance paragraph. That's it in 36 pages of contract. if if we talked about just those two paragraphs um and I'm I'm talking about um the the what where salary should go and shouldn't go. I'm I'm talking about strategically. Um this would
042be the year for us to do it. uh if we were to do it um maybe with the school board or without the the school board that at the however it happened, I think it'd be better with the school board maybe in a committee. I'm not sure how to do it, but I really think it would be beneficial for um this board. I know I'd like to do it uh to talk about um what some what goals could look like next year when you negotiate the teacher contract. um in the area of salary and benefits and it'd only be offering an opinion because then you go and negotiate the contract but it would uh be a way for our voice to uh get into the process and that that actually has been done in in
043in previous years. Right. Go ahead. No, I was going to say one of my greatest experiences as a member of the co- budget committee one year Darlene and I reviewed the contract that was exist the existing contract and based on that we came up with a sense of the committee uh and we provided as an input in terms of the things that we thought were suggestions on the contract we couldn't get involved but we've done that before but I I will say we we've and and we did attempt that um more recently but they couldn't really get to consensus on you know uh suggested metrics and things like that but I think it is a great idea to pull out the step tables have everybody look at them understand how they work there are um
044there's good information on the PLRB website on the DOE website about u comparable districts where we stand you know step number of steps number columns, things like that, so people can become familiar with um, you know, where we stand within our own SAU with comparable districts. It also gets to the a discussion I've been interested in having as I I put up a chart every year of comparable districts, but we haven't really talked about whether those are truly comparable districts or not. Um, there are different reasons why those districts are identified. maybe we need to go back and you know re-evaluate if those are really comparable and you know area parts of the state we should should be comparing ourselves to. Um but I think it's a good time to do um you know take
045Tom's recommendation and and really start looking at things and deciding you know kind of what are the important things we think you know are are good for you know determining metrics and and percentages and looking at I think where we where we did previous work was saying you know where does the budget align to um you know uh I'm sorry the the contract as a percent of the budget And but we really never you know delved into you know what are the real things we should comparing be comparing you know looking at at at the overall value and level of the company and as I recall it isn't just about the the quantities the numbers it's about potential tradeoffs in terms of benefits because sometimes you're providing additional benefits that are not necessarily related to
046the specific salary could be related to other benefits to other incentives So exactly you know this is the package of money how are we spending it you know is benefits this much and salary this much and we can't attract new people to the profession because uh we we don't open so all those factors are relevant there there's a conversation there that that doesn't occur um when you're in the middle of negotiating I guarantee it at least it never occurred when I was involved in this for many many years um and We have the year now where we could, it's not as though we uh we'd have to spend 150 hours on this. I think we could spend a modum a modicum of of time and uh and maybe get maybe there'd be a consensus, maybe
047there there wouldn't, but at least as a budget committee, again, 80% of the money and we don't have a conver we don't have much of a conversation. We're handed a we're handed a contract at the end and we all freak out and um and it doesn't well it doesn't work well and you know that because two years ago you were caught in the middle of of exactly what I think I'm talking about. Right. Yeah. I just want to say I I don't think that it should involve the school board. I don't think it can involve the school board because I think if the school board were involved, there would be risk of it being looked at as outside of the appropriate negotiating process on one hand and and on the other hand, it would also
048potentially put the school board at a disadvantage by not having maintained um normal confidentiality of both strategy and um position. So I I think it's a worth worthwhile conversation to take place in this forum, but I don't think it you want to try to do it jointly with the school board. I I don't think when we when we got involved in that particular example that I recall, we did not do it jointly with the school board. We basically did it ahead of time. No, Tom just asked a question of whether we should do it with the school board. So, when we did it last time, refresh my memory. Um, did we do that as a public document or as a non-public document? It was a public document. There wasn't like a lot of significant analysis
049to it. you know, it was um overall trends of how previous contracts went and more of a philosophy of um I could share I could dig it out and and share it with everybody, but it was more of the philosophy of you know uh considering that you know increasing costs of health care. So, you know, to put some attention toward how the district would, you know, adjust and, you know, look at percentages. Didn't put percentages forward or things like that, but just kind of put those, you know, par those, you know, overarching things in place like we should be considering things like this and, you know, there were just maybe two or three points and it had to do with giving extra types above and beyond your Oh, that that one. Well, that was you
050remember that time was um that was a long time ago that one uh addressed putting um attaching a merit pool to the contract that was implemented and then negotiated out. That's how long ago that one was. um because after it was put in place I think the management of it and I I'm not sure I don't want to desire it did not have the desired results and the school board proactively um proposed its removal with support from the from the staff. Right. Right. So that was, you know, but but it's, you know, I I think it's a good time to have the conversation again and just start, you know, pulling things together. It does, I don't know that it necessarily is a a one meeting discussion, but it could be a part of, you know,
051a few meetings where we maybe, you know, address certain things. Um, healthare, you got two months in the summer if you want to have a workshop or something too. Yep. That's another idea we could consider that. Okay. Okay, it seems like there's enough interest so we can kind of put some parameters in place and well went a little more than the two two minutes I said it would but that's okay. Anyway, I appreciate the conversation. Just thinking on that same note at the the annual meeting some people as I recall got up and pushed on this idea of merit. how we you know industry the only way you can get a raise is by merit and so on but I was thinking about the steps that are in place and what you have to do
052to achieve the next step is in fact kind of merit-based you don't just get there automatically you have to acquire something more knowledge certifications and things like that not for steps that's for lane changes okay for all right then I'm using the wrong terminology steps are just purely based on longevity. Longevity. But then the lane change then that's based on on credentials which is in fact merit. You have to achieve that credential study do something. you merit usually is directed towards um assessed performance in the job whereas the credentials come externally by completing education. I was trying to see how that fits in it. It's a it's a bigger conversation. It was a a very um informative process for me to be involved in both the implementation and the retraction and I'm more than happy
053to share. I just don't want to bog this out. Sounds like going to the dentist. truthfold. I like going to the dentist. There will probably be some additional um attention on health insurance pending legislation at the state level. um that address risk pools and um the potential dissolution the potential dissolution of one of the leading carriers for many districts in the state pending the result of said legislation both of them interlocal trust has already yes yes you're right two of them so uh the current legislation that's being proposed would change the level of uh risk pools that need that the insurers need to carry and put some onus on the districts for um contributions that they potentially would need to make. And uh without delving into many details, the uh calculation and um that's being
054put forward in the legislation is not the one the calculation used by health trust which is one of the leading insurers across the state. Um so it puts their continued place in the market at risk and they've noted u provided um information that they would be um out of the market by uh next July if the legislation passes as written. School cares is another um carrier and uh the model uh that's being recommended is more favorable to one that they use to determine their um thresholds and it doesn't affect them to the degree that it does health trust. I could share some information that's available because I can tell them look on Tom and Wright's face how puzzled he is by my comments. Well, I used to be heavily involved in that. I do know
055that. So, I will pull together some of the letters and uh information that's available and uh we'll see how all of that works. Um the uh there have been there are many conversations uh ongoing and I really I don't know that what what is there a deadline for when that bill has to be voted on? I think it's I don't know. I don't know. I could try to find out but I don't know. I just curious. So, that one um expanding the funding of um trust funds, uh the the EFAS and school choice are still three those three those are three big um bills that are still out there to be voted on. So, I would like help with tracking legislation. I've I I feel like I've have valiant effort every year and I start
056off like we can do this, but when there are a thousand bills out there, it's really hard to kind of keep track and and it does boil down to maybe, you know, three, four or five main ones that I'm looking at, you know, from a financial perspective. There are others that affect curriculum and how things get done in the schools themselves in addition to all of the other um pieces that are out there. uh just with you know the running the rest of the of the state can we use AI to maybe filter uh the the the database and track three or four key items we get links and and um but it's it's like a title wave of just information and public hearings and things like that. So maybe we'll just work on Does
057the schoolboard association filter it? Yep. They send they send it out but but I mean do they do they help by saying this is really important that one not so important? Yes, but even in the the documentation that says this is important, that's not important. Even if as you're reading, I'm like, "No, that one's actually pretty important and we should be paying attention to that." So, um I think we will I will get better at forwarding on information and um it just it's, you know, something to just kind of think about how we kind of changes the dayto day is the part of the problem, right? We get updates sometimes multiple times a day about it. Yeah. And then, you know, the schoolboard association comes out with the list like these are being heard on
058this day. I'm like, "Okay, we can provide online input." Great. And you go in to do online input. I'm like, "But it's not listed for that day." Okay. So, because it's changed and it's evolved. I'm like, "All right, well, how do we find when it is listed?" You know, things like that. So, it it it is just there's a and and just the sheer volume of um bills that get put forward. So, at least we know that our representation is very active and conquered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, that's that's the problem. But um the part of the problem though is you know having spent a lot of time watching legislation in past years is a bill you know you'll be watching a bill it'll get defeated and you think oh it's gone but then
059it just gets amended usually to the budget which is this enormous right which is and at the last minute they can throw it back into the budget and all of a sudden it's now law when you thought it was defeated which is What happened with that tax cap one? It got that's what I mean. It bypassed all of the processes that we're watching like, oh, there'll be a public hearing. Oh, great. We can put our blah blah blah. And then, no, all of a sudden it's the emergency. This got added on and there's no way you can provide any input to it. It's just got added on. So, you know, there are those things, too. and Mhm. But, you know, I guess we'll just kind of continue to do the try, you know, try to
060do the best we can and um and and the number of bills will get lower as we move. Can I ask how often do you update people on the bills and the changes? I you know, when I when I get an update, I try to forward it on I think I forward it on three or four. on this this second part of the year. I think in the for the um fall session, I'm so focused on the budget that I don't, you know, we just don't not able to really even be able to forward those types of things. So, I I'll do have more be more diligent about as soon as it hits my inbox just forwarding it on for people to to review. And um there are websites where you can go in and
061just you can search on you know keywords and things like that and information will come up but it is just there's a there's a lot of information there. Yeah. Go online and subscribe. You got to find the right subcommittee that Yeah. So maybe we can and then you can follow that subcommittee and they'll flag you every day what's going on. Aren't you? Maybe Eagle Scout project. I get I get a while these guys. I'm not volunteering for anything yet. Or senior civic project. Okay. Anything else? Anyone has any I have a question. Is Kelly going to give you give us an update on actuals versus uh budget items to see if there's any That's the next thing on the That's the next thing on the agenda as soon as we finish this topic. Okay. Well,
062if anything comes up, tonight's not the only night we can talk about things. So, um, but if anything, you know, sparks an interest or, you know, feels feel like needs to devote some extra attention to, we can certainly add that to the list. So, Kelly, okay, it's your turn. So, which should which one should I open though? Report or this? is the revenue expense report dated 4125. And I will direct you to the second page at the bottom if you're following along. And that shows our projected fund balance as of this report on uh April 1st to be uh 443,000. That's the number that we would be giving back to the taxpayers if the year ended right now. Um the m the majority of dollars responsible for that would be in special ed. There's uh
063savings in out of district uh costs this time around and um hiring savings primarily. And that number is 386,000. We also can happily say that uh the work that was done at the high school with the boilers changing the the the burners from oil to propane is this whole number isn't that savings but there is primarily this number represents the savings of that which is 151,000. So we are benefiting from that uh project. In what way? because we spent less or because it's costing us less for fuel or why well why did you save 150 probably well I haven't done a deep dive into it but I would say it's kind of a combination of the two that the cost of propane propane I believe was a little lower than the cost of oil this
064year for us and uh you know the pro I don't I don't know if we're using less or not because it's propane versus oil I'm not sure about that but the act of putting the propane boilers is resulting in a savings for the district. But do you know if was the cost of the conversion substantially below the budgeted cost of of actually the the hardware and the put changing the tanks or is this mostly operational money? No, it's operational. I think we were right pretty much right on budget. Your question. Thank you. It it does in I see where you're going. Yeah. Sorry, I I didn't articulate. I had the same question. Well, is that you would uh that that's really good news. Yeah, it is good news. So, who's the contractor that supplies the
065propane? I'm sorry. Say that one more time. Who's the contractor that supplies the propane? The propane propane is from Rimes. Rymes. Okay. I think there was another aspect that the old oil boilers were so inefficient they were hard to keep running. Yes. and so on. So just by going to gas and getting a better boil get gas furnace, you get the efficiency there. I mean the these oil burners were in bad shape. So may have been 70% efficient. Now we're up to probably 98% with the gas. Yeah, probably. Tom, I'm sorry I didn't hear your question. I thought rhymes got bought out by somebody. I didn't think there was no rhymes. I'm not aware of that, but No, a merry guess maybe I don't know more than more than a couple of years ago maybe
066that might come from somebody else. Well that's the name on the the bills that we get. So okay and uh so those are the the big reasons why obviously um this number will most likely go up as the we close encumbrances and actuals become non-incumbrances. So um obviously I'll keep you guys posted as we go on. And so, and the retained fund balance we're anticipating, oh, it looks like anticipating it to be a little bit lower. Yeah, I've got it set here at 340,000, but you know, we'll see how that progresses through the next couple of months. I will have further input when I uh give you board update. Okay. Well, you can proceed. Yeah. No, it's fine. And I think if no one has any other questions for Kelly or H are we there
067yet? Yeah, we are. We are. Oh, okay. Well, then I'll just to segue over because there is the money left over as more than was anticipated and the passage of the two um bonds. There is likely going to be a request slash recommendation from the administration to do additional roof work on the middle school to allow greater um installation of solar faster since the solar um is viewed to be a net positive budget contributor. uh if we have the money now and we can get more of the roof done then the first phase of solar installation could potentially be greater and not just solar but also the um HVAC work is just comp compressing the project because that's viewed to to have an overall positive impact on both conditions in the school and uh finances.
068So that if that number holds where it is and or grows, uh there will likely be a recommendation to the board to retain money to to do more of the more of the roof than has been put in the budget to date. Is there an estimated initial uh estimate of what it would cost to do that? What's would be recommended? No, it's more a question of how much money we have, we'll buy how much more roof. Uh because in my mind there's always a challenge. Uh I think we ought to always consider giving some money back to the district. Oh, we're they're not talking about spending the whole thing. I mean, we usually we target to when we have numbers like this, like for instance, last year the the the board put a stake in
069the ground. They wanted to give back a minimum of 200,000 and we gave back more than that, I believe. Um and It's not going to wipe it out. But to the degree that it's windfall money, the idea of investing it in accelerating the uh savings program, the uh efficiency programs uh will be proposed. I don't know what the outcome will be, but by So, who's doing the calculations to demonstrate what the trade-off is like in terms of investing $100,000 to where this project would benefit by saving so much? My guess is it will come before before Tom and you and I with the facilities committee meeting in May. I suspect that's that will likely be an early point because one of the things we need to confirm is that there's actually the ability to compress
070the schedule of the other things. If if it's put the roof on but you can't do anything with it, then it's a different question. If you put the roof on, we can get the stuff, we can get rebates, blah blah blah. That all that has to be addressed because there's a lot of moving pieces. So Tom, you mentioned the May meeting. So the facilities committee is ongoing. You're going to continue meeting and yes, the facilities committee has been um it was when it was established, it was established as a ongoing and this was the first project of it. Um I don't know if the membership is likely to change or expand. Um, that's something that we're going to have to find out from from Lance, but uh I did get from Lance that he's planning
071on having meaning that the the default schedule is the first Wednesday of every month from 4 to 5 here. H, what time? 4 here. 4 to 5 o'clock. Yes. Okay. Um another thing that uh wanted to you already talked about the um uncertainty about healthcare that's that was discussed. Uh we do have a significant amount of staff uh changes going on at at the co-op. um teacher resignations, retirements, new hires. I don't know. Um I haven't heard uh I don't know if Kelly knows what the net in changes, if any, will be to payroll yet. So that'll we have to figure out. In addition, we've got um administrative administrator turnover going on. follow up. So, there's a there's a lot of uh staffing dynamics going on that may have an impact, but we don't know
072what that is yet. So, there there will be a new principal at the high school in case everybody had What is the status of of the principal and the um assistant superintendent? The principal the principal and the principal has been hired. Oh, the new principal has been hired. See if I've got his name written down. Jake Hess Jacob Hess. He's I think he comes from Campbell. Yeah. So, and um do you know if the other situation is public yet? The other administrative position at the high school? Well, the assistant superintendent was was No, not that. I I don't know if it's public. Okay. Um but the the assistant superintendent Oh, so so the the principal is from Campbell High School. Yeah. In Lichfield. And the assistant superintendent is from That's dot Beverly Mass. Uh I
073don't know her name though. Uh Dorothy Flity. What was it? Dorothy Flity. And um Excellent. Yeah. I mean I assume I mean that we have people. It's great. It's great that we have people and u someday we'll have robots. Maybe the uh we we did have some um we're in good shape primarily with in staffing at the co-op at this point. We don't know if things are going to change during the summer, but at this point, uh things are pretty well established that hiring goes well and I think that's pretty much uh reviewed the data. Oh, there were the comments made at the at the meeting uh the annual meeting about the statistics and things and there was a fairly lengthy discussion about that. It's not really financial one but I know there are interested
074parties here and one of the thrusts of it was the fact that because the test that is used to gen the testing that is used to generate a lot of the data that's reported at the state level is opt out testing and it occurs during the same time as uh high stakes testing for students such as PSATs, SATs, and uh AP tests that a significant portion of our students who would likely perform very well choose not to take the test because there's it has no impact on them, no positive impact. and they do take it, they don't necessarily work at preparing for it because they're they're deeply engaged in other activities. We feel that that's a a pretty significant disadvantage to our performance on those tests in particular, the fact that it's opt out. Um
075the participation rate, I don't have the data in front of me, but it was it was much lower than I expected it was going to be. there were parents in on the board and and around who said they their kids don't take it because of the the timing of it. Um and it's just it's just not something that they they value. Um, which brought up the question of what should be the items that we as a school district use to judge our performance to benchmark things. And that's a moving target. And I I did not hear an answer that was understandable, concise. Um, there's a feeling that the s are uh a good a good benchmark of that. The reason being that we have all juniors take it. Um and it's viewed as one of
076the the high stakes test. So there's a feeling, but that doesn't capture a lot of the subject matter that gets brought into the state testing. So it's not an applesto apples thing. Um, they try to look at actual results such as are students able to do what they want to do upon graduation, whether that be going to a school of their choice, getting involved in an occupation of their choice, things of those natures. But a lot of these are not easy to quantify. So, it's a it's an ongoing battle. I agree with you 100% having grandkids in high school and uh opting out of testing. But how does that affect the percentage of kids that are performing at grade level or below grade level in math, English, so on? The way that the way that
077it does is is that the opting out is disproportionately students who are in our highest level activities. Okay. Such as AP tests, uh, such as who are cramming for SATs and things of that nature. And and the other part of it is that the students who do take it know it doesn't matter. Um the the tests from what I understand uh you can you you can uh get you may get penalized based on wrong answers or not answering. Uh she um here's the real big deal though. I'm remembering it now. You have to have a certain amount of participation. it's required by the state. So I don't remember what the number is, but let's say that's that participation is 95%. And if you don't get 95% the the number of that you're short by are
078registered as zeros. Oh jeez. In the calculation they calculate a good system they calculate based on that's right if you had achieved it and and the gap is is uh scored at zero per student that's skewed. I think there needs to be better clarification on how that's done so that at least that information can be taken in context. It's definitely worth reading the minute the the minutes. Um, and I would actually like to go back and watch this the presentation on it because I read that the minutes and I'm like I'm I'm gonna read that again because I think I read that wrong. Um, but just for an example, let's say our 90 let's say our threshold was that we had to have 67 students take the test out of 70. If we have 68
079or 67 all the scores count and and we get a valid result. If we have 55 students take it then the gap between 55 and 67 those are all scored at zero and we have relatively small classes I mean by classes I mean the total number of students in the school. So five or six students opting out is impactful dramatically uh hurts us the way they score it. They don't prorrate it based on how many take it. They assume that 97 whatever percentages the minimum took it. What they should do is take the average of the others that took it and then of course they should. Yeah. Of course they should. But there's all kinds of easy ways to do it rather than it's it's completely absurd. And the other the other interesting one uh
080fact was on the science test that there are different general topics and you could your your best chemistry students could end up with the biology one or the earth science one. And so it isn't a test that has like that consistently addresses every topic. The tests there are at least Yeah. They're subject specific. So they so they have the three subject areas that are given, but but you don't get to pick and they're essentially random who gets which test. And if you've got a student that's a chemistry physics person that hasn't taken biology and they get a biology test, or conversely, you know, got someone wants to go premed, so they take chem chemistry and biology and they get a physics test and they've never taken a physics class. The other thing factor and because
081I listen to it like I say my grandkids right about now they're going around visiting colleges. So that means they have to take a day out from their classwork plus all the other things that you mentioned you know AP classes and you know taking the SATs and whatever testing and they opt out of the state tests there's only so much they can do. So I guess I guess The message is our our uh school leadership at all levels doesn't put a lot of value in those test results. Doesn't mean that they uh don't want to assess it, but that's not considered a valuable tool for us. When you have a a school with a maybe a thousand per class or I my graduating class in Nashville back then was was 800 students and you get
08215 people who opt out or you get 20 people who opt out doesn't it doesn't have the same impact as when you've got 80 80 in a class I I did some looking to try to justify what was going on because I really believe wholeheartedly that the the the students out of Hollers high school are exceptionally good. All of them, they all can do well. And it's attitude and aptitude. You have some that have high aptitudes and lousy attitudes and vice versa makes a difference. Um, if you looked across the country, New Hampshire of all the states is number six. Then you look at Hollis Brookline High School in the state and it's always in the top 10, six, five, whatever. And these in Hollis Brookline looking at all of the high schools in the
083country 25,000, they're around 1,600 and something. That's excellent. And the people in the town don't know it and they should appreciate it. They should thank the students, the parents, the teachers, family, whatever. Tony, you're 100% right. But you got to remember the goal of the people who are promoting this is to undermine confidence in public education. Yes, that's what I I think the conversation's been really interesting, but I'm not sure that it's necessarily related to budgets and financials. This seems more like a schoolboard discussion than a budget committee discussion. No, but I No, I I actually appreciate the information just because it did come up at annual meeting and it it was it's just good information to understand how the testing works and things like that. It's good to know. It just feels like it's
084outside of our our purview. What they bring up is we're spending too much money on our school budget and we're not getting the results. the kids are not doing well in, you know, math and sciences and all that because they're not looking at the data correctly and they're using that to complain about the cost. And it's not everyone. I'm telling you, most of the people in the town do not mind paying what they're paying because the quality of education is excellent. Okay, great. That actually concludes our agenda for this evening. In case anyone has um anything they would like to any other topics they'd like to bring up at this point. No. Um um I was just looking at the time. Y I there's a couple of things that are SAU related, not specifically cooperated,
085but I think this group might want to know. Okay. Um, one is that uh uh Lauren De Janeiro received her certific her certification received it. So there will be a um SAU governing board meeting coming up. It's my suspicion that we will again look at the um possibility of having the director of student services become an assistant superintendent. It has financial implications. Um the different the different roles um have different uh NHRs uh contribution rates. It also allows the person to participate in certain at certain levels of meetings that are not allowed if they don't are not superintendent level. But you'll hear push back that we're spending more on people by having extra superintendent, assistant superintendent. If anything, it is a financial savings. It is not a it is not a cost adder to change
086the title. Um the other thing that we h how do you make that last statement? Because I thought you just said there would were financial Yeah, it's savings. Oh, they you it's a lower contribution rate to NHRS. I thought it would be a higher one. No. Um, what is KAG? It is their certification level that allows you to be a superintendent. I don't know what it stands for. It's a certificate of advanced graduate studies. And is that going to be discussed and properly documented so that people can see what the trade-off is or the governing board meeting is? When is that meeting? 15th. Oh, May 15th. Great. Okay. Any other topics, questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none. Okay. I will look at our calendar. Our regularly scheduled meeting for May will be on Thursday the 22nd.
087We'll have the food service overview that evening in addition to the other, you know, financial updates and schoolboard updates. And uh at this point I'll look for input from our process of your work. I I enjoy the conversation. I thought it was uh we had we discussed some interesting topics. Um we are within the time you know schedule for the meeting. I welcome and I enjoy the uh presence of Melanie and Tony and uh every time I listen to Tom I always learn something. So I thank you very much. Well, thank you. Great. So at 7 We had a good meeting. Thank you. At 7:56 I'll take a motion to adjourn. Raul, seconded by Brian. All those in favor? I unanimous 70. Thank you. Thank you.