COOP Annual Meeting 3/4/2025

001good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to the 2025 annual meeting of the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District my name is Drew Mason and I am the district moderator I call this meeting to order I'd like to start with the Pledge of Allegiance please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all please stay standing uh we're having the star of Spangled Banner sung by volunteer members of our hbhs honors choir directed by HBS hbhs unified arts department chair Matt Barbosa can you see by the DA's early light what so proud We at the Twilight last ging brought and bright stars to the per of [Music] the and The Rock Red the singing

002the night that our flag was still there s do that starled [Applause] [Music] for the land of the the and the home the the of the [Applause] thank you that was lovely I invite all veterans and serving members of our Armed Forces to stand and be [Applause] recognized we thank you for your service do I have a clicker do I have a clicker over here I invite School Board chair Holly durlock deru Babcock to introduce members of the school board thank you drew thank you all for coming um your school board members are Kate stole your Vice chair Beth Williams is our secretary Rob man Tom Solon Christa whan and Cindy vanc Conan um tonight I wanted to take a moment to thank two people first this is Christa whan's last Co-op District meeting as

003a board member Christa has been a remarkable public during this time Christa has served as board chair and on multiple committees including but not limited to the policy committee various curriculum committees facility project committees and she's helped negotiate multiple contracts for the support staff on behalf of the district she's also served on the starttime committee and more than one search committee one of which led to Andy Corey her contribution to our community staff and students has been extraordinary Christa serves with honesty integrity and a sense of humor and most most importantly Christa keeps the needs of the taxpayers and our students in the Forefront as she considers decisions she is not returning to the board and will be missed would you please join me in thanking Christa with a round of applause thank you I

004would also like to mention that Andy Corey is also attending his final HB Co-op District meeting and in the next few months he'll be retiring from the district after 11 years of service there will be more time to express our thanks to him but I wanted to take a minute to recognize his leadership specifically at these meetings he has he has helped this community to stay focused on the needs of our students while always being mindful of our fiscal concerns he has led us through apportionment conversations multiple facility projects and of course covid where we proudly can say that our students were offered full-time in-person experience when much of the country schools were unable to do so Andy was able to do that and we were able to do that because he has the trust

005of the staff the community and his students who he always considers first in any decision he makes Andy will also be missed and again please join me in thanking Andy with a round of applause I would invite budget committee chair Darlene man to introduce members of the budget budget committee good evening uh budget committee Vice chair is RA Raul Blan from Brookline Dave blind from Hollis Tom Enright from Brookline Matt Maguire and Brian Raider from Hollis Tom whan and our school board representative is Tom Solon and I invite superintendent Andy Corey to introduce members of the SAU and um Co-op Administration super intended elect Gina Berg scog business administrator Kelly cely director of student services Lauren de Janeiro director of operations Linda Sherwood and director of T technology Carol Tyler at the high school principal

006Tim grone assistant principal Yolanda forino assistant principal Amanda Zella and coordinator of Student Services Tracy Lane and at the middle school principal Patrick West assistant principal Ali Bushman and assistant principal coordinator of student services Kathleen Ransom thank you for meeting officials we have District Council Jim o shanesy um district clerk Diane levit the supervisors of the checklist for both towns are seated at the tables in back um and they are helped out by ballot clerks we have uh assistant moderators and uh counters that are currently in the back corner this meeting is being streamed so you can watch it at home if you want to um and you start from the sa. 41. org and you can reach it from um the the top page there are other resources on SAU 41. org are copies

007of the fiscal 26 budget um under that tab there's a copy of the final meeting warrant which is also posted in the back of the building a back of the room and also the ms27 which is the state Dr form that contains the actual proposed budget in detailed line item form and also a copy of this presentation this is just the start of election and meeting week um next Tuesday is local election and official ballot voting day in Hollis it will run from 7 to 7 at the Lawrence Barn and at Brookline it will be from 7 to 7 7:30 p.m. at Captain uh Samuel Douglas aab Brook Line's annual meeting will be the following night on March 12th at 700 p.m. at cdsa and holla School District annual meeting will be at the same

008night at 700 p.m. in the uh Hollis Brookline Middle School multi-purpose room and to round out the the set of meetings Hollis Town annual meeting will be on Saturday March 15th at 9:00 a.m. in right here in this room there are four fire excerts in this room two are up here in the front and two are in the back the fire department would like to remind you to please keep the exits clear we are here tonight to discuss an act on the subjects brought forward on the warrant by your school board to do so effectively we need rules which provide order and structure to the business of the meeting rules must be set for each meeting so folks understand how to get things done I will propose a set of rules and then ask the

009voters to adopt them once adopted it takes a 2third vote to change them as a reminder Roberts rules is only a guide they do not control how this meeting is run you can find a copy of my rules in the the Hollis Town report on page 223 and in the Brookline Town report on page 221 in the yellow section in the next few slides I will touch on a few points if you wish to speak come up to the microphone and show your voting card please wait to be recognized by the moderator this gym is not designed as a meeting Hall so it is sometimes very difficult to hear announce your name and address clearly so the clerk can hear it you may speak only once until all other firsttime speakers have a chance you

010have your time is limited to two minutes and cannot be yielded or transferred to someone else sponsors of petition articles also have two minutes to present their arguments and sponsors of amendments may have five minutes when you get close to your time limit I I will give you a signal when you're out of time I will give you a second signal be Germain and if possible be brief avoid repeating points that have already been made above all be courteous it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable speakers are limited to registered voters from Brookline or Hollis members of the school administration for presentations or to answer questions District Council oesi and Mike Davey from energy efficient Investments who is a subject matter expert on articles one and two other May PE other people may speak

011if Allowed by a majority of the vote of the voters here disruptive behavior or personal attacks are out of line out of bounds and out of order to clarify speaking without being recognized or failing to stop when your time has run out is disruptive behavior the moderator is responsible for keeping the meeting on track and maintaining order if things get out of hand the moderator has various tools to work with the purpose of a point of order is to bring to the moderator's attention that the meeting rules are not being followed if you raise a point of order please be clear about which rule or rules are not being followed the motion can be used to appeal a ruling of the moderator it cannot be used to ra ask a question or make a motion

012those can only be done when the voter has the floor if you wish to make an amendment you may do so when it's your turn at the podium if the amendment is longer than 10 words write it down legibly and bring it to me after you propose it dollar amendments must be made in final amounts not percentages nor amounts to be added or subtracted amendments to the operating budget only affect the bot budget bottom line unless you are completely zeroing out a line item otherwise the school board has the authority to move funds around as they believe are in the best interest of the district if a line item is zeroed out then the school board may not spend any funds on that item over the past few meetings I have been trying different approaches

013to how we end debate listening to feedback from voters and your elected representatives this is my proposal for this meeting a motion to end debate may may be made only after waiting for your turn in line it may not be made after making a speech and I will not accept it if there has not been sufficient debate in my opinion for example the first Speaker after discussion is opened should not try to end debate the motion is not debatable and requires a two-thirds vote to pass if the motion passes debate ends immediately all voters still in line should return to their seats at that time the vote the item under discussion discussion is voted on this is a change from previous meetings the purpose of a motion to table is to pause consideration of an

014article it is not debatable and cannot be made until the article is brought to the floor for discussion the motion requires only a simple majority the article can be taken off the table again by a simple majority vote however it can be restricted from reconsideration which leaves the article on the table the purpose of a motion to pass over is to stop discussion and voting on an article entirely it can be made immediately before an article is brought to the floor or during debate the motion is debatable and requires a 2third vote to pass if the motion to pass over passes the article is removed from consideration for the remainder of the meeting and it can be restricted from Rec consideration the motion to Passover cannot be applied to the school's operating budget nor the

015SAU budget a motion to reconsider is useful and appropriate if new information comes to light or spending approaches the 10% rule it allows the voters to discuss a matter further and vote again the motion can only be made by a person who voted on the prevailing side it is debatable and requires a simple majority to pass a motion to restrict reconsideration does not block reconsideration of a previous motion or article if passed it requires that any subsequent reconsideration of the vote cannot occur for at least 7 Days the motion can be applied to any previously completed and declared vote the motion is not debatable and is in order at any time the voter has the Flor articles will be taken up in the order listed in the warrant all articles must be acted upon before

016the meeting can be dissolved acted upon does not mean that the article receives a final vote it simply means that the meeting takes some clear action on the article for example tabling an article is sufficient the order of Articles can be changed by a two-thirds vote of the members present my copy of Robert's Rules is more than an inch thick it's more like two inches it is simply not possible in a few slides to take into account all of the possible motions and situations that can occur the moderator has the responsibility for making rulings on such matters as they things come up however this is your meeting state law also gives the voters at the meeting the ability to appeal and overrule any interpretation of the rules that the moderator may make if you disagree

017with the ruling come to the microphone and raise a point of order being clear what you are appealing a second is required the meeting then has the opport opportunity to discuss and vote on the ruling an appeal is successful by a simple majority vote if the ruling is a direct application of one of the meeting rules you need to suspend or change the rules rather than make an appeal that action requires a 2third vote so shall the school district vote to adopt the rules for this meeting as proposed by the moderator is there a mo a motion moved by Holly derlo beop is there a second second Darlene man discussion Mr power yes Eric power Westview Road Brookline I'd like to make a make a motion to amend the proposed rules go ahead I propose

018that the motion to table require a 2/3 majority vote okay what about the motion to take off the table taking off the table 23ds as well okay the the the motion to amend is to change the rules for tabling to require a 2/3 vote to table and a 2/3 vote to remove it from the table is there any discussion on this motion do you want to speak to your motion yes in past years this is what we have done so that at least you get to hear about the Warren article before making a decision on it two-thirds uh majority shows that people would not want to hear about it or want to continue on it so it makes a lot of sense it's also similar to the um the same majority that's needed to end

019debate so I think it makes a lot of sense thank you is there any discussion on the motion seeing none the vote is to amend the rules to require a 2third vote to table something and a 2third vote to take it off the table if you are in favor of this amendment to the rules please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed raise your cards that's too close I need I want to count this one so we're going to Marshall the counters and just to be clear motions to amend the rules are only require a simple majority are the are the counters ready okay if you are in favor of this amendment to the rules please raise your cards are we set all right you can lower your cards if you are opposed

020to this change in the rules please raise your cards who's counting the people up front thank you web all right you can lower your cards I'd like to take a moment to mention that today is Fat Tuesday so everybody can have a good good celebration when we're done here tonight some people may have already started celebrating the V the the vote to uh amend the rules is 90 yeses and 106 NOS the motion fails thank you Mr power thank you Mr moderator Eric power Brookline make a motion to amend the rules my motion is to allow the proponent of a petition warn article five minutes instead of two minutes thank you um okay and you're moving it presumably is there a second you sir your name John Lisa do you wish to speak to your

021motion I'll speak to the motion briefly um petition warn articles have to be signed by at least 25 voters so there's some work that goes into it and we have five minutes being given to people that are doing amendments to articles not the ones that have generated the Articles so I think it's only fair that five minutes should be given to a petition warn article to be heard thank you I will say in defense of of my rules proposal that um all of these articles have received public hearings and the intent of the public Hearing in my view is that is to give the public opportunity to discuss and learn about these things at length Is there further discussion of this amendment all right if you are in favor of amending the rules to allow

022propos proposal proposers of petition War articles 5 minutes rather than two please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed raise your cards and the no have it thank you Mr moderator i' like to make one more Amendment proposal all right I propose that the Brookline Hollis Brookline uh School District conduct all day voting on a date and time to be determined after the end of debate on all warn articles 1 2 9 10 and 11 only the amendment is to change the rules to have all day voting on articles one two 9 10 and 11 only do you wish to speak to this oh yes is there a second in the back what's what's your name Peter Walker Brookline all right thank you Mr moderator um Eric power Brook line the purpose of

023this is that we have five warn articles tonight that require one hour ballot votes and many of them are um if we look at that that's five hours of voting and we're almost at 7 o' here makes a lot of sense there's a lot of people watching at home and there's not that many people here we have for my count just under 200 voters from the first uh count and it makes a lot of sense to allow the all day ballot vote on these large warrant articles uh for bonds as well as the warrant articles for the tax cap budget cap and Adoption of SP2 so I would hope people would would go and uh approve that we do all day voting thank you Miss St John Michelle St John Hollis do you have a

024bring card thank you yep um we it's not necessary to have all day voting one hour votes are not um sequential it happen the meeting continues throughout the evening and so you can go and speak to the next article while voting is taking place so I think that's irrelevant and we should take care of business this evening thank you yes sir ra rushon Brookline uh the purpose of the town meeting format as we are here gathered uh is to hear the arguments both pro and con for any particular proposal if we move voting to an all day vote for any reason other than the ones that are required at that point we lose the ability to hear the discussion and have potentially our minds changed on any particular article so I I do not uh

025agree with this motion thank you thank you Thank You Is there further discussion on this amendment to the rules seeing none if you are in favor of amending the rules to have all day voting on articles 1 2 9 10 and 11 please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed raise your cards and the motion fails is there more discussion on the rules seeing none if you are in favor of adopting the rules as proposed please raise your card thank you if you are opposed please raise your cards and the and the eyes have it I'd like to take a moment to thank Liz Brown for standing in for me at the special uh Co-op meeting last month I had a prior commitment that I was unable to U Move and so I

026was not able to attend that night but I think Liz did a fabulous job looking at the warrant for tonight's meeting um we have seven articles proposed by the school board article one is a bond issue on Energy Efficiency article two is a bond issue on energy conservation related to uh solar both of those as as Bond issues over $100,000 require um a secret ballot vote and the polls will be open for at least an hour they require uh in order to pass a three-fifths vote and we will run these concurrently what I mean by that is once we open the polls for article one I will give everyone in the room the time to go through and uh vote um and after you have voted you may visit the ballot clerks and get a

027ballot for the next vote um once people have in the room have voted we will sit down and continue on with article two so we don't need to hold up everything for an hour uh while we're waiting for the results on article one and then we will use the same procedure voting for article two and be able to move on to article three article three is an is the operating budget because um the final number on article three is contingent on the results of bond issue of article one U we may need to um table that one we'll just have to see where we are when we get there article four is a is a labor agreement with the Hollis educational support staff um organization Article Five is the SAU budget that's another ballot vote

028but does not require the ballots the polls to be open for an hour article six is the facilities maintenance trust article s is a contingency fund and as written it's uh 32 milon 33 m7781 um then there are the petition Warr articles article 8 has to do with putting uh the tax impact on the warrant article 9 is to adopt s SP2 article 10 is to adopt the budget cap and article 11 is to adopt a tax cap are you are we okay at this point Ms man great thank you so before we get into the heart of the Articles this evening I just wanted to reiterate uh what the moderator pointed out about uh the total as written versus the anticipated adjustment so as written the um all of the appropriating Articles total just

029over $33 million contingent on the passage of article one there will be a $915,000 adjustment down to the operating budget article which would bring the total on this evening to 32,1 62,3 by Statute uh there is an upper limit um it's called the 10% limitation that it's the upper limit that can be passed uh by the um legislative body this evening and for this year um based Bas on budget committee recommended articles which include the full value of the two Bond articles uh the total amount uh the highest ma maximum that can be um passed this evening is 43,81941 [Music] moving forward through fy2 the red line that kind of divides the chart is the infl in the line of the inflation adjusted budgets the um main reason for uh the fy2 uh adjusted budget

030being slightly higher than inflation is due to significant increases over this period of time in the areas of health insurance which is essentially doubled in the budget student services and and our contribution to the New Hampshire retirement system which is tripled student enrollment in the district is anticipated to be uh just over 1,00 students so it's anticipated at 1111 versus 11:14 which is where we are this year so it's essentially flat you know just a decrease of three students the last five columns of the chart in red are those um estimates from NASDAQ and what that shows is a some very slight increases over the next 5 years the increas inrees that the lower um grades the K to6 districts will'll see have not will not have gotten up here to the co-op um over

031the next 5 years and it's after that time that we would anticipate seeing increases in our student enrollment from an enrollment composition perspective um it's important obviously because we're two towns that come together and the average daily membership which is derived from enrollment um is a driving factor of apportionment so what you see in the um columns that are outlined in black is the anticipated enrollment for FY 26 which is about 53% Hollis and 47% Brookline back in the fy1 1718 time period we were a little bit closer to 5050 but we and we've moved to the you know 5446 and now moving down toward 434 5347 going into FY 26 on a cost per pupil basis The Columns in blue represent the state um average cost per pupil columns in red represent the district

032and as you'll see over time again back to um fy10 the district has consistently um had a calculate had a cost per student that runs below the state average this is a consistent calculation derived by the Department of Education it is the only calculation that every District in the state has its consistent it is not simply taking the budget and dividing by the number of students the uh state uses a um subset of our total expenses again consistently across the state and it's that cost per pupil that um is is what we report for the district on a comparative basis these towns um that are included in this chart are ones we've used for several years um they are a combination of districts that are near to us in some cases they're districts where we

033send students to the um CTE programs others are Cooperative districts others have similar test scores others may have similar sizes in um the the total number of students so there are various reasons why these particular communities are identified here in red is the state average in yellow is the co-op subsequent to that we have um Bedford exiter Milford NASA the Oyster River Co-op uh so heagan and Windam so where we're always more most closely aligned is very consistently year after year to Milford um but again these are just for various reasons they're important for us to see where we compare to to other districts so this chart is the trend of cost per pupil across the state so for 162 New Hampshire districts in other years that number is a little bit higher um at

034the doe a couple of uh districts were late in submitting their information um but the state wanted to get cost per pupil published and we're going with 162 districts for I should mention um the cost per pupil was is based on um our expenses at the end of the last school year so it's for FY 24 we're in fy2 and we're budgeting for FY 26 and what you'll see from this chart is the darker column um to the left is the co-op the green column um the next darker one is the state average so here again the co-op Falls below the state average and we're in the lower third of the 162 districts that are rep um represented here tax effort um are is is what your tax rates are actually based on so this

035evening while we're reviewing the budget and components and different articles of what's going to contribute to that total budget your taxes are based on a number that is lower than the budget it's lower because of Revenue and state aid that the district receives so on a on a consistent basis um we underrun um we have we have uh slight underruns from the prior year which contribute to um lowering what the tax effort will be in the upcoming year and right now that tax effort is right around 75% of the total budget so as I mentioned revenue and state aid are the two things that reduce the budget and result in tax effort um the red lines represent um state aid and the blue lines represent Revenue so you'll see in the red lines for the

036last several years the lines to to um furthest to the right are been pretty consistent with the level of Aid that we receive now this is the aid that's calculated by um adequacy Aid which is on a a per pupil basis and it's the return of the Statewide education property tax through the retained education grant the blue lines represent really IND District Revenue that's driven by several things includ and other sources of revenue um like grants uh special education Aid building Aid and the unreserved fund balance or the amount of money that's left at the end of the prior year that's going to contribute to offsetting your taxes in the the year going forward and what you see happening as you look at the last two columns to the right is a decrease in the

037blue line so our Revenue in the district is going down one of the main reasons for that is that uh we have about $250,000 in building Aid that is going away because we're retiring uh the middle school bond so our Revenue will go down by 250,000 and we have a conservative estimate in for the amount of money that will be left um at the end of this current school year and um pretty consistently based on uh the most recent results that we've seen we're sticking around the $250,000 mark and um aren't anticipating a higher unreserved fund balance going forward so we currently have an aor an apportionment formula that will be in place for the next five years as was mentioned earlier there was a district meeting in January that re uh that affirmed the

038formula for the next five years and the result of the formula is um use of average dailying membership distribution and equalized value distribution to come up with the distribution of um expenses between Hollis and Brookline and so where we start with our ADM estimate which is around um 5545 because also when you're doing this calculation it's based on the prior year um estimate at end of year ADM um and an estimate an estimate for the equalized value distribution come up with a net apportionment distribution and then each Community receives its own amount of Aid and that after that the um local tax effort percentage the last column to the right of 56.4% hollus 43.6% Brook line is our estimate of um how the apportionment will work for FY 26 and what that means on the

039whole budget looking that we'll be examining tonight um Hollis would be be responsible for $14.2 million Brookline for 10.9 for those of you who like numbers more than pie charts um this is a um breakdown by uh community of how the numbers actually fall out so starting with that um adjust that lower adjusted um operating budget of 32.2 million we've reduced Co-op Revenue by 1.6 6 million reduced Aid by a total of 5.4 million across the Two Towns 2.8 million for Hollis 2.6 million for Brooklyn resulting in the $14.2 million for Hollis and 10.9 million for Brookline yielding an estimated tax impact for the co-op of $68 per th000 and $936 per thou for Hollis and $936 per thousand for Brookline I would like to clarify that the $68 and the $936 essentially replaces a

040similar amount in your current bill that whole $6 and that whole estimated $9 does not get added onto the taxes that you um and the tax bill that you received at the end of the year so we're not taking um let's see Hollis the co-op portion last year was $568 we're not adding another $6 we're replacing $568 with $600 it with $68 so for Hollis that would represent a 7% increase on the tax bill for the co-op and because the co-op represents 32% of the total tax bill that's an estimated 2.3% increase for in your bill for the co-op for Brook line where the co-op is approximately 38% of your total bill uh the $936 is an 88.2% increase which results in a 3.1% increase to the bottom line on your tax [Music] bill this

041next summary is a summary of every of of the components of your tax bill and the things that you're going to be um addressing in other either liberative session uh in at the ballot um for the town of Brookline and the Brookline School District um and at annual district meetings for the Hollis school district and the town of Hollis in yellow is the co-op what we're talking about tonight um so that is the $68 that I mentioned um for Hollis and $936 for Brooklyn uh the the um K to6 uh Hollow School District increase is to $644 which is about an 11.5% increase for Brook line about a 14.8% increase for the um K to6 district for the town of Hollis about a 7.2% increase the town of Brookline about a 1.2% increase and in

042total um again these are all estimates there are many things that can change um the total estimated impact would be a 7 of the entire slate of things you'll be voting on over the next couple of weeks um the increas would be about a 7.4% increase for Hollis and 8 uh 8% for Brookline I want to reiterate that there are many factors that can impact the tax rate after tonight's vote and most of those factors are beyond our control because of legislative inititive because of things that are be being considered UNC conquered there are many many bills that address increases to special education Aid increases to adequacy moving um costs from the New Hampshire retirement system back to the state um uh other bills that address increasing levels of building Aid there are many bills

043to be considered they'll there they could all pass that well I guess they can't all pass because some are competing with one another but there's a lot to work out and conquered that can have a positive effect for the district if we receive additional state aid then your tax impact um of of tonight's budget will go down so I would urge you to just um there is a way you can review the bills online you can provide your input online you don't have to drive up to conquer to attend public hearings you can always contact a representative but there are just many many things to consider and it's a way that you can um impact the effect of what we vote on tonight thank [Applause] you thank you Darlene article one to see if the

044district will vote to raise and appro apprpriate the sum of 5,291 gross budget for the design acquisition and installation of energy conservation equipment hbms boilers controls LED lighting and other end of life roof rooftop units and related building improvements at the Hollis Brookline Middle School the project to authorize 5,291 1200 of such sum to be raised through the issuance of bonds or notes in accordance with the municipal Finance act RSA chapter 33 to authorize the school board to issue and negotiate such bonds or notes and to determine the date maturities interest rate and other details of such bonds or notes and to authorize the school board to apply for accept and expend any federal state or private funds that may become available in respect of the project to reduce the amount that must be bonded

045or to pay debt service on such bonds or notes and to raise and appropriate the sum of 132,00 for the first year dollars for the first Year's principal and interest payment on the bonds or notes issued a 3-f ballot vote is required the estimated net tax impact is 5 cents a th000 for Brookline and 3 cents a th000 for H follow the school board recommends this appropriation by a vote of 600 the budget committee recommends this but appropriation by a vote of 800 the voting will be by secret ballot and the polls will open be remain open for at least an hour moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by Christa whan Mr Man Mr moderator we do have a short video prepared for the audience uh there's a lot of technical aspects to this this

046sums it up rather nicely so we thought this would help the way our boilers work here at the middle school is not exactly the most efficient design we have one boiler that serves half of the school and another boiler that serves the other half of the school they don't work together and they don't support each other and support the load if one boiler goes down right now then we have no heat in half of the school building and we really can't open the school for the day if we're talking about a cold winter day also the department of energy has recently increased the standards for boiler efficiency so manufacturers are making less and less cast iron boilers like the Middle School currently has what we're finding is parts are getting much more difficult to get

047for these older boilers like the worst case scenario in my mind is the boiler goes down for a prolonged period of time longer than a day these boilers are old I'm not positive that replacement parts are in the cards and finding that temporary heating source is going to cost you money every solution that we bring up every purse that we bring in whatever it may be parts that's all money that goes out the window and those are older boilers and it could get very expensive very quickly last year one of our customers had a boiler failure in in the middle of the winter they had cast iron sectional boilers like the middle school has and last winter it was a 52e lead time to get replacement parts so we had to do an emergency repair

048which increased the cost by about 20% compared to the planned replacement that we were hoping to do the following summer we are looking to create a centralized boiler plant with two boilers set up in a redundant fashion that support each other support the load that can provide us with a longer lifespan for those boilers and also Al allows us to operate the schools if one boiler were to go down for a day we are also looking to remove our oil tanks that are stored underground at this time and switch over to propane boilers the proposed new boilers are 98% thermally efficient compared to the 80% efficient boilers we have now at the high school last year we were able to convert the boiler system to propane and come in under budget and significantly reduce fuel

049expenditures for the district we're trying to get away from oil because of the state regulations and it's not as efficient as propane this project if approved would put the middle school on the same heating source that the high school and Hollis elementary schools are currently on which will increase your purchasing power and then bring down fuel budgets across both the schools and town I'm also excited about the possibility of having a much more comfortable learning environment and teaching environment when we looked at our gym we only have mechanical ventilation which means we have a Louver that opens up to the outside cold air comes in and the hot air from the gym leaves so you have one side of the gym that's freezing cold and the other side of the gym that's pretty warm so

050truly we need to have an appropriate ventilation system in our gym in the north wing of the middle school we have some unit ventilators that are from 1994 they are very loud so the students can't hear the teacher speak so they essentially are not even turned on during the day when the unit ventilators are turned off there is no air exchange which means there's no fresh air coming in from the outside all the stale air stays inside it becomes stuffy and it becomes a poor learning environment for the students so we're looking to replace the uh unit ventilators from 1994 with brand new energy recovery ventilators that include dehumidification so they're not as clunky they don't make as much noise you can teach over them it's almost as if they're not on at all yet

051they are continuously exchanging the air and removing the humidity from the air the dehumidification project was completed at the high school a few years back prior to adding dehumidification to the high school we would often hear that in September and then in the early months of June it is absolutely sweltering often times that's when high school students are taking finals it's brutally hot in those rooms I don't think I ever told Mike this but I was skeptical you know believe cuz I'm like all right dude we're we're spending $2 million here and I really hope you're telling me the truth and this is really going to keep the building cool cuz you know it's not air conditioning and everybody just keeps saying air conditioning so if it's not air conditioning like we're debt and the

052feedback we've received is you know through the roof because those people on the third floor they're no longer sitting there in May and June in 88° temperatures they're sitting there in 69 70° temperatures complaining it's too cold it's the first time in the HVAC industry where I've actually received thank yous for how much we've changed the environment from the sweltering multi-story building that the high school used to be to probably the premier climate for a New England school we think that we can make that same Improvement at the middle school as District leadership we're always trying to balance the needs of our students the needs of our teachers the needs of the community and taxpayers so we look to fund projects at times when it seems most appropriate and most manageable so this coming year

053a $600,000 bond payment is coming off of the books and the facilities committee felt that that was a appropriate time to move forward with a new project that wasn't to exceed that Bond payment this project would allow us to add another 30 plus useful years to the middle school would allow us to complete the many necessary projects for HVAC and the boiler and we would be able to complete this project without experiencing a huge spike in our taxes because of it okay well thank you uh for all be of you uh being here tonight it's uh very much appreciated and your participation is actually essential so thank you very much I want to get through um some detail around this project so a little background around the facilities committee it was put together around two

054years ago comprised of school board budget committee Administration and community members from both Hollis and Brookline our Charter was uh a to be a standing committee um in order to be able to gain deep understanding of all aspect pects associated with the maintenance management efficien operation and general condition of the high school and the middle school buildings also to engage subject matter experts on various technical heavy aspects of our school buildings and to advise the school board on best solutions to resolve issues relating to uh each back systems of the buildings our driving principles as a committee and the deliverables were to deliver a solution resolving the H the Middle School boiler compliance issue provide recommendations for necessary HVAC upgrades provide an additional option that augments and enhances the HVAC upgrades that reduces the district's

055dependency on fossil fuels while increasing efficiency and lowering operational risk provide a complete costed out recommendation package with funding options to the co-op School Board no later than December 2024 that is cost neutral to taxpayers and what I mean by that is that in FY 26 we have roughly $600,000 of Debt Service coming off our books so we targeted a project that would come in at or around $600,000 so the situation we were up against is that the state of New Hampshire deemed our old oil tank and piping infrastructure supplying our aging oil burners out of compliance unable to pass new Dees standards and testing remediation is required by the state our opt options were to replace the oil delivery infrastructure at Great expense and committing the district to oil for the next several decades

056or convert and or upgrade our boilers to propane joining the Hollis district and town purchas purchasing pool as they are on propane our current state is that the Hollis uh the high school um boilers have been converted in 2024 oil tanks and piping removed the project was completed within budget and on time the Middle School oil burners are 25 plus years old and at end of life the boilers do not load share there is no redundancy between the two of them that is boiler number one Services half of the Middle School tool boiler number two Services the other half you lose one half of the building is freezing the boilers are too old to invest in conversion so a complete replacement is required the current value to do just the boilers is roughly $915,000 uh

057we are it is currently in the budget tonight as we speak it is not recommended by the um by the committee nor the school board for the main reason that it's too impactful the one-time purchase or or layout of money is too impactful for a one one budget cycle to taxpayers if the bond passes the school board will motion to adjust article 3 accordingly and take that out of the budget on the floor tonight um what we do recommend is including the butt boiler cost in a 20-year HVAC efficiency bond that is recommended by not only the committee but the school board um it provides the load sharing and redundancy that I spoke about it works in concert with other HVAC upgrades as a system and it works together to greatly improve the classroom experience

058um recognize deficiencies and reduce operational risks and it spreads the costs over a longer period of time of 20 years so some of the highlights and details around each aspect of the proposal there's a lighting uh upgrade for the entire middle school that's budgeted for $333,000 the Middle School lighting is currently all fluorescent uh except for a recent upgrade in the multi-purpose room LED lights reduce energy consumption while providing a Better Learning environment for students LED lighting is becoming the norm for schools and private non-governmental building applications and the committee is recommending recommending this project be completed while LED lighting is still eligible for rebates at at the state level HVAC controls that's budgeted for $665,000 new improvements and additions to new energy recovery ventilation ventilators uh will require HVAC control upgrades and the maximum

059efficiency required Implement implementation of a very of a variable frequency drives and other components so a lot of technical stuff there um another aspect to this proposal is adding mechanical V ventilation to the gymnasium as we heard uh the current ventilation system does not have an air handler at all ventilation is supplied by a crude Louver system uh open directly to the outside this is neither efficient or effective and leaves the gym environment not up to the district standards a new ventilation system would consist of a what we call an Erv similar to those um projects that were used um I'm sorry um similar to other projects and would include uh dehumidification as well upgrades to the 1994 unit ventilating ventilator area to energy recovery ventilator or Erv that's budgeted at 2,112 individual unit ventilators

060are not efficient and can have uh problems as they break down over time the new Erv units operate by exchanging indoor air with outdoor air while recovering energy from the indoor air and and acclimate it if you will will uh to the and then and then expel it so so it there's a there's an energy recovery process as you were pulling in outdoor air and getting rid of the indoor air installing these ervs with a system of duct ducting improves efficiency and more serviceable maintenance and these Erv units would also include dehumidification improving interior temperatures for student learning these ervs would be uh the same model as what the district has installed at the um highight School two years ago uh this is just showing the areas in of the middle school that would be

061supplied by this particular change with those erbs I discussed upgrading the hru one and two units uh that's budgeted for $727,000 heat recovery units one and two service both seventh and eighth grade classroom uh wings um that's the majority of the instructional space and is located in the two Wings upgrading those uh units uh with dehumid dehumidification greatly improves interior environment and student learning and those ervs would be the same model that the district installed at the high school again two years ago this shows uh everything in a in a table with all the um not only the budgeted amounts but the available grants to do the work and also the projected Energy savings once these units are in place I will pass it over to the budget committee to present some of the financial

062metrics around this earlier in the wow that was loud earlier in the budget process um at the public hearing we were the school board was originally considering a lease um as a financing mechanism for um both projects that we're going to be discussing this evening and the decision was made to move um toward Bond financing because of the reduced interest rate for the over the same period of time so this chart is just highlighting that by going with the um New Hampshire Bond Bank and a bond instead of a municipal lease the district will incur $1.4 million less in interest expense this chart represents our long term debt schedule it dates back to uh FY 98 and all of the blue leading up to um the lowest column kind of toward the middle is all

063the high school and middle school expenses in blue so you'll notice that um like I said toward the middle of this chart um the bottom section of blue it goes away in FY 26 because for n fy2 we're making our last Bond payment on the Middle School in red is overlaid the um financing for the turf field which will continue until fy3 um the high school HVAC project uh which will be financed through 37 and then in yellow you see uh the current project that was just described to you continuing out to to 2046 and overlaid on top of that is the solar project which is um article two uh which would goes out for 15 years rather than 20 so in summary we would be um incurring or bonding $5.29 one million um I

064do have a slight correction to the tax rate that was included it is in the first year a 4 Cent impact per Town um and um the average impact because that firste payment is only an interest payment um the following year of the bond is the higher kind of full full cost and full payment and that's when you would see the 4 cents going up to 11 cents per thousand in Hollis 10 cents per thousand in Brookline now again these are estimates based on um the current apportionment formula the tax base assumptions that we're using and things like that tax bases are going to continue to change over time but using today's um assumptions the increase um would go from 4 to 11 in Hollis and 4 to 10 cents per thousand in Brookline on

065average annually with the highest payment um in FY 27 going to uh would be 464,000 so that falls below the $600,000 that's coming off um at the end with the termination of this year thank you Darlene and Rob um I know that for those people sitting in the seats over here this may be something of an ey chart I would remind you that the entire presentation is available on the sau41 website and so um you can download it if you have a taet here you can download it that way or if you're at home you can download it and watch along and so you won't be having to see an ey chart article one is there a discussion on article one yes sir Rob rushon uh Brook line uh one of the key elements of

066uh HVAC system and buildings of these sizes are the control mechanisms that ensure that the Heat and ventilation is distributed properly across the entire building uh can somebody describe if there are any improvements to that or uh is what we have adequate uh what is being planned in that area thank you Mike Davey you may have seen me in my uh video appearance a few minutes ago um I was part of the engineering team that worked on this um uh study and right now the science wing of the middle school has unit ventilators that are hung from the ceiling and no duct distribution so the biggest environmental and controls um Improvement will be adding duck work throughout those classrooms which means taking the ceilings down putting uh roof mounted uh ventilation units with coils in

067them and then each classroom will have a reheat coil so you'll have heat on the baseboard and then on the Airstream so you can control the heat coming into the space uh that is what you have in this building so we have duck work here we have coils um and that's what the classrooms have as well here another component is the controls will be an open source nonproprietary system a lot of districts complain that they have technology that becomes proprietary uh the proposed system here would be open source that any company can work on Mr power Eric power Brook line um I'm concerned about the size of this Bond I don't really like seeing a 20-year expense going out uh when I saw that chart on how long it will go um I don't agree

068with the committee recommendation of that it would be too much of a tax impact to just do the boiler this year um I saw there was it $915 $915,000 and a $30,000 rebate so it would be $885,000 to do the boiler which seems to be the most urgent need the rest of it could we don't have to do right now and I think that this makes sense to vote no on this because I think it it is a lot of money there's 4 .4 million Beyond this boiler that that's being spent and I don't do not think it makes sense uh propane I understand there's a bulk U rate that you can get by buying it in in in a lot of uh larger quantity but BTU by BTU uh oil has is is more

069cost effective if you don't have that buying power so for those reasons I would recommend that people vote no on this and we keep the 915,000 and maybe we can credit the 30,000 in the um you know off of the operating budget and um that way I think we'll be more responsible we're not going to spend $4.4 million that we don't need to and I would also add a question that um on the tax impact here it's my understanding that the we're doing a 100% equalized valuation on this so Hollis is paying a higher percentage of this I don't know if anybody can explain to me but I see a 3 Cent per thousand in Hollis and a 5cent per thousand in Brookline and I would think it would be the same number and but

070the average household in Hollis will pay more is that right I thought I said that the rate would be revised to 4 cents each in the first year for each Community I know that says three and five that's that was presented at the public hearing using the aggregate distribution of the budget going back and having time to recalculate over 20e period included in the summary chart if you move forward a couple of slides Drew keep going next one right there the FY 26 tax rate is 4 cents each was an oversight on my part when putting the presentation together and didn't um update the the worded slide so the in the in the out years it looks like it's going to jump up to 11 cents would it be 11 cents in both towns or

07110 cents in both towns or is that a rounding error or what it's just based on the dist again using the 6832 um equalized value distribution um running I believe I uh using the current valuation it's just the way the numbers work so it it's it's rounded um up it's it's like 10.9 for Hollis rounds to 11 oh it's 10.67 you see the next part that says the the dollar amount per 100,000 says $10 67 cents so it's 10.67 which rounds to 11 cents and then the 9.92 which rounds to 10 cents average so this is essentially treating holl in Brooklyn as one big tax base for the purposes of a capital expense because it's 100% equalized value is 100% equalized value yes okay thank you yes sir Alan Rosenberg Brook line uh question uh

072in their submission to the Capital Improvements plan uh the SAU is anticipating a 12,000 sq foot expansion to the Middle School in 2029 um would this system uh be able to handle that expansion or would we kind of be back in the same boat where that'd be a separate system for the expansion good question aware of any expansion plans right now um there may be in other districts I'll let superintendent speak to that Rob don't start speaking until you're all the way up at the microphone don't start speaking when you're till you're all ready up with the microphone what it's being referred to is the placeholder at the brook line correct CIP um so that is something where we were asked to put in a placeholder and looking at with the current elementary enrollments that

073could play out to be 2029 that could be 2032 uh it's a placeholder I think Mike can answer more about the technical question on the heating of it and the answer is yes the boiler system the boiler plant will have capacity um for a future expansion of that size the ventilation and controls for that are not part of this those would be part of an addition but the boiler plant the engine of the heating system would have um uh the one nice thing about propane heating systems is they have very good turn down so this they can operate um at a 20 uh a 20th of their total output and still be very efficient so we would have um a bigger boiler with a high turn down to allow for future expansion okay just quick

074followup question so just to be clear the boilers would be redundant the HVAC system would not be that's correct so so with an addition assuming there would be a future addition that's not fully designed yet that would need its own new Duck work and air handler okay so similar to like half the building now on one would be on one system even with the Improvement yeah and like I lands can but for example I believe there's about at least nine Air Handlers at the high school is that right or so there's several Air Handlers so in general because you have to move so much air through a classroom if you were to do one air handler for an entire School the duck work would be enormous and you'd have to have huge Rim above your

075ceiling so we we would have um there'd be multiple Air Handlers I think think at the end of this project the middle school would have seven and I know the high school has at least nine um is that right yeah okay thank you m opela Chris opela call us um some of my questions might have to do with that ey chart issue um I heard that uh $600,000 Bond's going to be retiring um and the leases I just was wondering what the um total lease was going to be um also um is this going to be a cast iron um boiler or is it going to be something else I recently changed a residential uh property to propane I didn't want to have to change buy another thing in my lifetime so I couldn't go

076with oil I went with propane they told me it was 15 to 20 year uh 10 to 15 years lifetime what is the lifetime of this um thing and if it's going to be anywhere as near 25 years you better start saving now for the next St replacement and um rather than uh pay for the bond I would rather um pay the 915,000 and I can't support that 5 million point 5.2 million um for 20 years especially not knowing what the lifetime of this is going to be and uh uh I would prefer a phased approach and put it in your op operating budget there were several questions in there yeah I I can answer the boiler questions and I think there was another question about that I think darling so for the boiler so

077there the the boiler that we would put in um here would be a made in America high mass boiler condensing gas that has more than a 20-year life um there are propane boilers on the market that are low mass that are made for residential like commercial that they are 15 year product so so what you're um and what a high mass boiler is this is this is um the size of a small car it deals with lot it can handle lots of water compared to what is in your um your house uh it's a more expensive product much more robust the the residential boilers that are low mass um put a lot of strain on their heat exchangers and that's why they have a shorter life this would not be a um 15 year product

078this would last the life of the finance period how long will it last so 20 to 25 years is what they recommend 20 to 25 years yes I really don't want to go with a bond for that darling so is your outstanding question how much are the other amounts the leases the leases because is it the bonds being retired and there's no other Bond so it's just leases so we have a payment that um over the next 1 two 3 four five five years averages $222,000 annually for the field and the high school um HVAC you know similar project to this is $235,000 um for 10 more years okay um and again if you do go with phased approaches please put on the information what phase number you're in of 20 phases or whatever again

079I don't support a 20-year uh bond for something that's going to be need to be replaced yes sir Brian Leland tddy Brook Road and we have been very lucky that we haven't had the issues that they referred to in the video where something is num waiting to the last end of its life cycle and you have to pay through the nose to get it fixed that $900,000 that's been mentioned is for a stop Gap and would not be the last expense that we had where we would have significant expenses to maintain it for not and have an inferior product over this time period and right now we should take advantage of the situation we're in and upgrade the whole system because it's similar to a lot of things where fixing an individual piece the over

080the next the five years is going to be significantly more expensive than just getting a new one where there's new materials new support and we won't have that issue of where they were saying I think it was a 20% sear charge to get something fixed imagine if the boiler blew in um the middle of winter and we didn't have school for three weeks um the life expectancy of the boilers is 20 to 25 plus years which is matches the bond which is um ideally the bond would get paid off and then we would have free time to have before we had to get it replaced but matching assets and liabilities is a very prudent n method and um thank you yes sir good evening Mr moderator Brendan Den 31 Mason Road in Brooklyn um I

081was fortunate enough to be one of the members of the public that served on the uh Co-op uh facilities committee for the last two years and I really appreciate the presentation that the school board and the budget committee has done they did a really good job of covering the material the issues here um it was a learning experience for me I graduated 1979 from what is now the middle school and the louers in the gym that was old technology when I graduated almost 50 years ago um there was other technology that we were talking about and it was like oh it was done in 1994 and it's like oh that's really recent and it's like no that's 30 years ago um one of the points that we should point out is that several of the

082other systems that we're talking about here are end of life or past end of life so this idea of just doing the furnace the boilers this year and putting the other ones off they're not going to go away they're going to need to be done and if we don't do them now we're going to we'll have to do them in future Years and we're going to have to Patchwork all this stuff the idea that this committee came up with which I totally support is let's get a bond let's get all this stuff working and have it working together thank you yes sir do you have a voting card thank you Peter Stell Hollis I'd like to move the question motion to end debate is there a second Mr Banger sir what was your name som

083St o m l ah stoble motion to end debate is not debatable and it requires a two-thirds vote if you've heard enough then you want to vote Yes on this if you still want to keep talking about it you would vote no all in favor of ending debate please raise your cards thank you all opposed and debate is finished this is a ballot vote you should all have received a green yes no ballot when you checked in the ballot boxes there's one over there and there's one over there it is now 8:00 on the nose we I will close the voting on this at about 9:00 the ballot polls are now open so so good did and to thee no I know now e for [Applause] for for take your seats folks time to speak

084in again what do you yes sir yes uh my name is Charles Windgate Powers Road Hollis New Hampshire you have a voting card and I would like to make a motion that we bring up article nine out of order we've been here almost uh approaching 2 hours and I would appreciate that uh attention your what was your last name sir Wate Windgate motion to bring up article nine out of order seconded by I heard a voice over here sir your name I can't hear you sorry Acoustics in here really are terrible Ryan owski oen K wski Brookline thank you Charles Wingate is there discussion on bringing article nine uh uh forward to now yes sir um Jonathan Fontaine Hollis um just a clarification as the rules were adopted I believe we were supposed to take

085the articles in order so would this count as an amendment to the rules to thereby break the ordering at which they were introduced this is a motion if you want to get really technical it's a motion to suspend the rules to allow an article to be taken out of order but as I proposed 2third vote allows this to happen Okay my other comment against this would be as was raised earlier by one of the gentleman or commenters um we have a number of Articles coming up that require one hour Ballot Box opens um moving this article up may impact or lengthen this meeting which I happen to not be in favor of I'd rather tackle the primary articles before partition articles so that we can get through all the men at atory time Windows all

086right this motion to move article 9 ahead requires a 2third vote if you are in favor of moving article 9ine to now please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed please raise your cards I don't see how that could be a two-thirds vote so we're we're staying where we are article two to see if the district will vote to raise and appropriate the summum of 2, 216,50 gross budget for the design acquisition and installation of energy conservation equipment solar panels and related B building improvements at Hollis Brookline middle school and Hollis Brookline High School the project to authorize 2,21 2016, 155 of such sum to be raised through the issuance of bonds or notes in accordance with the municipal Finance act RSA chapter 33 to authorize the school board to issue and negotiate

087such bonds or notes and to determine the date maturities interest rate and other details of such bonds or notes and to authorize the school board to apply for accept and expend any federal state or private funds that may become available in respect of the project to reduce the amount that must be bonded or to pay debt service on such bonds or notes and to raise and appropriate the sum of $55,000 44 for the first Year's principal and interest payment on the bonds or notes issued a three- fths ballot vote required the estimated T net tax impact is 1 cent a th000 for Hollis and a 2cent th000 for Brookline the school board recommends this appropriation by a vote of 600 the budget committee recommends this appropriation 8 z z z voting will be by secret

088ballot polls will remain open for at least an hour requires a three-fifth mo majority to pass moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by Christa whan Mr Man you thank you Mr moderator um move this along here thanks thank you so going to be try to be as brief as possible here so the what around the solar project is to install a 385 kilowatt uh M roof mounted solar array on the middle school and to also install a 575 kwatt roof mounted solar array on the high school these solar arrays would be very similar to what is currently being used on the Hollis primary school and at the Upper Elementary School the Y is um deploying a high the high efficiency HVAC equipment from article one with a solar array to power them acts like what

089I what I look at it as as like a magnifying Factor producing power and operating the new HVAC systems at the same time there's demand for it the the proposed solar um arrays are capable of offsetting 90% of the combined electrical cost for both schools solar arrays have roughly a 30 to 35e functional lifespan providing longterm term cost savings well beyond the bond term solar array project this Solar Ray uh project is eligible for $565,000 worth of in Grants or roughly about a quarter of the overall costs conservative estimates show roughly a 9-year uh payback on the arrays and the electrical Savings of over $4 million over its lifetime and how we do fund that is through a uh the fund the whole $2.2 million uh through a 15-year Bond so this is uh the

090project broken down in a table format and it uh shows the grants available and also the estimated and annual Savings of $142,200 with that I'll pass it over to the budget committee to walk through some Financial metrics as I mentioned earlier this was one of the the second project that um in moving from the public hearing to the meeting tonight the school board um shifted the funding mechanism the appropriate Bond hearings and we shifted from a municipal lease to bond funding um and as a result we' be saving the district uh about $447,000 in interest payments over 15 years here's this chart again solar is in green and um shows the incremental payments that average um beginning in fy2 FY 26 is another kind of small payment interest only um year FY 27 we move

091to the full payment it's that's the year that it's at its highest which would be a payment of $228,000 the average for the remain for across the um years after the first interest bearing year are um $187,000 annually with the lowest payment in the last year um being reduced to $148,000 um here's the chart that breaks out the um costs by town where in in the first year interest payment is 2 cents per thousand for each community and the average annual um for the outer years is um 5 cents annual for um each Community thank you article two their discussion sir uh Jonathan fonte and Hall New Hampshire um when the cost expenditure for putting on solar which I'm a fan of solar um was discussed I have solar at my house and one of

092the things I've noticed is its major production time is during the summer when school is not in session and without a battery pack of some kind to carry the energy it's not really consumed in the same way it would be when school's occupied um so when we talk about spending this amount of money and seeing a return on investment through cost savings energy production um was it taken into account that three or four of those months out of the Year may very well be what we had now which is very low solar production due to snow covering of solar units or just a lack of sun in general while student Peak usage of lights and heating and other components are during the same months right so the darker it is the more energy you're using

093but the less the solar producing I ran through that myself so um the the quick answer is yes that was taken into account New Hampshire has net metering which allows allows you to use that send that production when you're not using it back to the grid get credited for that and then use that to offset your future electric bill so they can share among any electric bills in the call okay that makes sense thank you yes sir yes uh Dave Perry uh uh three West Road H uh just a question about the the 10% in energy that you're going to continue to pay and the cost of the bond how does that compare to your current electric use is it more is it less uh is it the same uh can somebody answer that question

094for me so you're paying 10% of your electricity still and you're paying the bond how does that compare to the current electric bill so I I wish there was a nice um a nice clean answer to that question because the way that New Hampshire municiple Bond Bank works is you end up paying much higher rates during the first first couple of years and then that goes down every year as you pay off um principal the interest is only calculated on the remaining principle um so from an aggregate standpoint over the life of this system you're going to generate 4 million in savings um the first um the first two years you're going to be in deficit and I I have do you have that number yep yes right here yeah so the first the first

095two years you're going to be in deficit if you look at the annual net of 135 then 75 then in year three you're going to be in a Major Surplus because that's when the Federal grant comes in about $500,000 you return to a deficit of 57 then 50 then 42 the reason that's going down is because every year your bond payment goes down because you're only paying on the remaining principal interest and then when you get down to year um 15 you make your last Bond payment um at that point you're generating about 21,000 in positive income then years 16 through 25 you're generating 179,000 in positive Revenue after that so it it's it's not an easy 20 grand it's kind of it changes every single year the kind of a a second question question

096thank you for that uh Second question is net metering it's this is all dependent on net metering and the formula for net metering uh can that change yes yes the the the net metering is set by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission the Public Utilities Commission takes their direction from the legislature so that could be amended at some point so there is a risk at some point in the future that the net metering will not as beneficial as it is currently yeah or or conversely the the in main the net metering is much more positive than it is in New Hampshire okay thank you hi p a maple n Drive I had a couple of questions you have a voting card the what voting card oh God it's on my chair is that all right

097can I well show it to me when you get back to your chair I can do that please thank you um so a couple of questions for the impacts of the roofs um will this can you tell us if this poses any additional risks to the roofs does it um shorten the roof life cycle of our roofs um will it like um let's see the cost to dispose of these I know you had said how many years these solar panels should last um just a little bit more information about what these impacts are so before we proposed a solar system on the roofs we inspected each roof structurally to make sure that that these roofs could handle it and we we inspected the roofs um the high school roofs have um sufficient life remaining on

098them that over that 25e period you won't have to replace the roofs that will place it on at the middle school we will wait until until the roofs are replaced and work within uh the CIP fund to replace um replace aging roofs so that we're only putting them on newer roofs at the middle school um and so we validated that these roofs could handle um the solar system from a structural um they'll they will not impact the warranty and they um they will not uh provide any exx damage there's very few penetrations with this system it's a ballasted system that will be on top of the roof so it's not like we're penetrating the roof at each penetration um was oh disposal the disposal will be 30 years from now and it would be it

099would be inappropriate for me to guess at the disposal cost in 30 years but it would most likely be part of a roof project in 30 years okay so the bottom line is it will significantly add to the replacement costs for any of the roofs that have solar on them yeah there there will be a disposal cost for sure in 30 years when their roofs are disposed is there any estimate as to additional costs because you know these roofs are they're millions of dollars and if we're going to be adding having to take solar off what are we looking at the problem with estimating 30 years out is that the the inflationary pressures it would just be it would be a a a wild guess so say today if you had to replace a roof

100and you had to take the solar off what additional cost would we be looking at because that could happen we could have a roof failure there could be a weather event something along those lines yeah so so I had one experience where we had to take a solar system off um at Virg's High School in Vermont um when they had hurricane force uh winds and they we had about a $20,000 impact at that high school um at that time this that was a smaller system so if you're putting me on the spot I'd say 50 to 60,000 of additional disposal cost and then there's an inflationary pressure 30 years from now okay all right I know not a not a huge fan of solar at this point it's not recyclable it's done with not responsible

101ways as far as manufacturing it's all done with coal powered plants we don't do it here the technolog is coming I hope we vote no there's going to be better much better on the road that I would have I'd very much encourage us to you know invest in but not at this point in time thank you show me your voting card [Applause] please thank you yes sir Rob Rush Rob rushon Brook line um in the spirit of the the last of the questions there uh we know that technology does improve uh somewhat over over time uh the types of panels that are anticipated here uh what are projections for increases in efficiency or anything like that is it actually worth any delay or should we grab when we get it so I've been doing um

102I've been doing primarily energy Improvement projects in New Hampshire for um for 15 years now primarily in schools in the in in that 15 years the the Improvement on solar production is very is very minimal so if you Wait Unlike lighting so any of us who who's been in the lighting world we saw in our lifetime moving from incandescent 60 watts to 18 watts in fluorescent to S Watts for LED solar has not seen that Monumental growth because you're you're relying on the technology just hasn't changed drastically there's minimal improvements the reason that I if you wanted to do it I would do it now and not wait is the inflation reduction act paying 25 and a half% that's what might not be there in the future so so the re the reason that we

103had been recommending solar now is because of this very significant direct payment from from the federal government to do it now thanks you anticipated my uh my next point which would be that we cannot guarantee that Grant monies will be available in even the near term and uh that's an important consideration thank you Mr garuba Joe garuba 28 Winchester Drive so it's my understanding that uh the funding for this is 100% EV is that correct yes so when we look at the slide the slide says two cents per thousand for Hollis and Brookline and the previous slide that we saw for the out years showed 4 cents per thousand for Hollis and Brookline so that would lead you to believe looking at the slides that this is equally split between Hollis and Brookline but my

104understanding of the EV formula is that there is a different fraction that's applied so maybe we could let's say assuming the equalized valuation that we have now continues out through the bond what would the difference in cost be between the two towns because I think this kind of represents that it's 5050 but I don't think it really works out that way when you're calculating tax rates using 100% equalized value um the proportionality between between the two towns ensures the consistency between the rates so as I mentioned before just because you know there it isn't it isn't an exact I put in 6832 if it was 68 1765 32 and I carried out all those decimal points the the rates might be exactly equal i i hardcoded a 68 and 32 and that's why the rates

105are coming out at that you know uh 1.61 cents which rounds to two cents per thousand and 1.50 cents which rounds to two cents per thousand so the the rates themselves are the same like you know essentially it's it's the same impact so would it would it be accurate if I was going to make the assumption that the valuations were going to stay the same to Simply multiply the amount of the bond here times 6868 and assume that that would pay that throughout the life of the program well I have on the bottom the cumulative effect over the 15-year period for solar which is 83 cents per thousand for Hollis and 78 cents per thousand for Brookline again assuming a stagnant equalized value distribution that will not be stagnant for 15 years predict that but

106tax bases will change be revalued all of those things so you know using today to project out the net effect of the um cumulative tax rate impact for solar would be 83 cents per thousand over the 15-year period and for Brook line 78 cents per thousand thank you very much darene yes sir Steve Edon 52 Crestwood Drive Hollis yeah uh I'm also the chair of the house energy committee and I'd like to point out that there's very rare rare instances when the public gets to invest in something that has a positive return financially and improves our lifestyle and we have a case in point here in town we put in the the solar at the elementary school about seven and a half years ago the the complete payback on that system is about a year

107from now uh so it's proven to be uh pay for itself faster than anticipated I'd also point out I think Mike's estimates are Ultra Ultra conservative he hasn't factored in energy cost have gone up 1 a half% per year for electricity forever so it's more like about $200,000 a year in savings uh I don't know how we can't can't do this I mean it's positive cash flow after the third year and prints money so anyways that's my two [Applause] cents yes sir um Adam Jacobs uh Hollis I'm also on the energy committee and just to put a personal touch on this I put a solar system on my house seven years ago and I pay zero for electricity I've saved thousands of dollars a year and the district will do the same for the foreseeable

108future and that just insulates you from the cost of energy going up in an unforeseen way because you really don't know what it's going to do um so I think if we don't do this we're shooting ourselves in the foot it's a great opportunity and I vote everybody to say yes to this Mr boo Brandon buto 11 Buttonwood Drive Holland I would like to move the question okay this is a motion to end debate is there a second Mr Hyde is not debatable requires a two-thirds vote and if it passes then debate is done if you are in favor of ending debate on Article 2 please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed please raise your cards and the eyes have it we are now moving to vote on article two don't get

109no you don't you you if you have not received uh a tan card you can get one by going to the ballot clerks we are still accepting votes for for article one so make sure you put your card in the right box requires a three FR boat it is now 8:38 so I will end voting on this one at 9:38 the polls are now open e e e let us move on please take your seats article three the school operating budget to see if the school district will vote to raise and appropriate a sum of 31,1 16,42 for the support of schools for payment of salaries for the school district officials and agents for the payment of statutory obligations of the district this appropriation does not include Appropriations voted in other warrant articles majority vote

110required estimated net tax impact $931 a th000 for Brookline $6 and2 cents a th000 for Hollis the school board recommends this article 600 the budget committee recommends this article 800 moved by Darlene Man seconded by Harley Holly deru Babcock at this time I am going to request a motion from the school board to table this until we have the results from article one because it makes a $900,000 difference in uh in what the amount we're raising for the operating budget so a motion to table only requires a simple majority moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by darling man if you are willing to table this article for the time being please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed raise your cards and the motion is tabled we will move right on to article

111four article four is a collective bargaining agreement with the Hollis education support staff Association to see if the school district will vote to approve the cost items for the first year of a three-year collective bargaining agreement reached between the Hollis Brookline Cooperative school board and the Hollis education support staff Association for the 2025 26 2016 27 and 2728 school years which calls for the following increases in support staff salaries and benefits at the current Staffing levels for fiscal year 2025 26 $133,400 419 for the first fiscal year 2025 26 school year such sum representing the additional costs attributable to the increase in support staff salaries and benefits required by the new agreement over those that would be paid at current Staffing levels majority vote required estimated NE tax impact three cents a th000 for Hollis

112and 5 cents a th000 for Brookline the school board recommends this article 600 the budget committee recommends its AR article 70 with one exstension moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by Christa whan M wh hey guess what we got a card vote this is an easy one um I just want to explain the Hessa membership so everyone understands who is in the support staff or who's included it's our administ ative assistance our custodians our food service and our pair of professionals very essential members of our school Community oops the contract highlights uh we have in the first year actually all three years but the first year the salary increase of 2.75% plus a step for all the people that are on step and a salary increase of 3.4% off step the insurance cap increase keep

113in mind this is a cap so we are keeping that at a cap not a percentage is $93 uh a month for single 164 for two person and 291 for family it is a non-standardized contract which means that every year it will come in front of the voters in front of the taxpayers to vote on um also just so you know the tables start at about $15 an hour and then at the highest step and level we're at about $26 an hour currently oops sorry so these are the three years so for the total cost for the year that we're voting on this year is $84,200 $1 33,41 19 total that's what we're voting on for this year there's also 56 people in our Hessa contracts in our Hessa support staff so thank you I

114hope we can count on your support article four is there discussion on article four this is the moderator step program Mr power yes Eric power Westview Road Brookline um I appreciate that this contract is not sniz and I always prefer that I think that's better because it's better for both the employees and the school district in case economic conditions change but one of the concerns I have is that you know we have a Brookline support staff and they always say well we have to catch up to the co-op and when we get to the co-op we get this argument that we have to catch up to Brookline and Hollis and so it's this ever ending comparison to keep the supports contract the best among the three districts and it just re results in escalating costs

115and you know for those Reasons I'm I'm going to be voting no on this and I hope that you do too because we can't keep having these costs escalating by competing against other districts thank you I see a voting card voting card thank you I was wondering if you could just tell us what the percentage is for in between the steps and also explain what the health cap is I'm sorry I heard the first question about the difference between the steps it's about a four to 5% increase with the 2.75 plus their step so it's about a four to 5% increase so what my question was what what is the percentage between the steps not with the additional Cola oh it's about a 1 to 2% 1 to 2% okay and I wonder if you

116can explain the health cap the health cap means that we pay the district pays a certain amount um I think we're at $960 approximately for single so we pay $960 and the employee pays the rest of whatever the insurance is currently we are at about we pay about 90 7% of single it's about 90% or 8 85% I'm sorry I have it already 85% for two person and I think 80% for family we don't pay percentages but that's what the Caps come out to all right so that's what it's working out to so the district is covering what you just said at the least amount for a family plan would be 80% of the total insurance costs we pay for 80% approximately they pay for yes all right no that is significant I just wanted

117to clarify that thank you thanks Miss chandley Mar and Chanley button would drive Hollis uh support staff consists of custodians uh Food Service par professionals who am I missing anybody uh secretarial Food Service Food Service secretarial um and it starts at 15 an hour it's about, 1550 1550 I personally feel that's too low uh for a SE uh a floor because these are the people in the schools with our kids I I would like to have people who are applying for these jobs feel a little more competition so we can get really great kid oriented people in those jobs I would definitely vote for a a raise for these people thank Is there further discussion on this article seeing none I would like to count this vote because it is a a collective bargaining agreement

118so um Melinda can you have the counters ready thank you if you are in favor of approving this colle Ive bargaining agreement please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed to this collective bargaining agreement please raise your cards thank you you may put them down long all that do that and the vote is 193 yes and 52 no the contract is [Applause] approved it is now after N9 o'clock we can close voting on article one so we are still voting on article two at this time I I don't think it will take the counters all that long to come up with a result on article one so I would like to request a motion to take article three off the table moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by Darlene man so we will

119start talking about this and we will have the results from the vote before we are done uh discussing the budget and we'll know whether we need whether we need to amend it all in favor of taking this article off the table please raise your cards thank you all opposed raise your cards and the eyes have it I've already read it his man so as we've as we've said several times this evening based on the um outcome of the first vote um we'll we're would make an adjustment to reduce the budget by $915,000 if um the vote fails we would be looking at an operating budget of 31,1 60,4 27 which is a 6.3% increase if we do make the adjustment down um by 900 115,000 we would be at 3.2% a year-over-year increase uh those

120increases are broken out into several categories oh I I would like to say um I should have said this earlier just to give you an understanding of um a little bit about our budget process I I would I would have liked to start with that the budget committee um starts reviewing budgets with the administration um in September so we have a minimum four and POS sometimes five different reviews we do put uh together in October a preliminary guidance view so that is a target that we put forward to the budget committee um we have a a actually a two two-stage process that we go through that looks at um the current the the last past budget and um adjustments that were approved for the current budget that we're in and uh CPI adjustments and and

121known increase is that um we are we are anticipating for FY 26 and we also look at um working with the current budget that we're in and making adjustments for CPI and things like that in contracts and we run these concurrent processes to come up with um a guidance view we've been doing the concurrent processes probably for three to four years and what we find in doing that is that we come relatively close um whether we're calculating from fy2 24 actuals with changes for fy2 and anticipated changes for 26 and from fy2 and anticipated changes from 26 we we become close enough so that we we um use the process that looks at the current budget that we're in and makes adjustments we apply CPI to a number that is less than half of the

122budget that we're looking at for various reasons um the budget gets reduced including um known CBA known adjustments from previously passed collective bargaining agreements um we remove uh nhr and New Hampshire retirement system costs from a CPI adjustment because um of rate changes and things like that New Hampshire retirement system might have its own set of factors that affect the level that it'll be in a in a year going forward um and in in doing so we come up with a factor that we apply to this smaller budget base and we can come up with a guidance number and this year as well the um when the uh the school board came back with their um first view they were over that guidance figure and as we worked through the process they came in under

123Guidance with the budget that's being the operating budget that's being presented to you this evening so I would just like to um put that out there so as I said if we make the adjustment to um the operating budget we would be looking at a 3.2% increase um from the current budget that we're um working with right now um some of the expense categories um that are included include staff academics technology and maintenance and safety for staff um for student services we're removing an outsourced program that we pay contracted fees for and bringing that program inhouse so there is um some savings but it's it because we're sharing a resource between um the high school and the middle school there was savings at the high school level but on a net basis between the two

124the two head count we would um be hiring and the program we would no longer be paying for the costs come pretty close to um canceling each other out uh from academics we'll be looking at replacing classroom equipment and more textbooks we have a phased Chromebook laptop and flat panel replacement system so that we can kind of manage those costs and Replacements over time we'll be updating firewall security and doing the normal maintenance and safety items um for both the high school and the middle school that include again in many of these cases phased work for improving flooring duct work replacing Windows painting classrooms replacing ceiling tiles working on speed bumps through the parking lots um and making those types of adjustments so when we're looking at Major increases and decreases we are looking at

125a um increase in gmr of over 8% and we'll be seeing a $317,000 increase in our benefits costs um there is also an increase in our dental insurance of 5% student service program changes in transportation we'll see increases of just about $661,000 see some field maintenance and uniform purchases of 7 that are $77,000 higher than the current year again restating 300 just over 300 ,000 on middle school and high school just maintenance of um internal items and um externally like speed bumps in the parking lots new items include some um curriculum changes and the uh the materials that are needed um for that um revising the stien structure for some of our staff software purchases and again classroom furniture and Equipment we'll be replacing computers um but the amount that will um is in the

126budget going forward is less than um the amount from the current year so that um replacement computer item is down just about $334,000 we''ve completed some significant projects at the high school so um since we're not carrying that cost forward our buildings and grounds is down by 588,000 and we have fewer planned retirements as we go into um FY 26 thank you is there a discussion on the budget Mr power thank you Mr moderator Eric power West few Road Brookline um I've been looking at this this budget and the School attendance over time and if we go back um to fy20 six years ago against the nzda projection of next year having 1,111 students from fy20 we've lost 128 students in the co-op that's over 10.3% if we go back to fy10 we we had

1271376 students so we've lost 20 65 students about almost 20% 19.3% reduction so we clearly have a declining enrollment Trend both long-term and medium-term but you look at our budget has gone up from fy10 it's gone up 75% and in the past 5 years it's gone up 36% despite the the reduction of 10% in students and 20% in the long term so down 20% students students up 75% in the spending that's not the right direction now given there is some inflation there but the inflation isn't going to be 75% especially when you have less students this operating budget in my opinion is out of control it's it's it hasn't we've been adding more staff more classes more clubs we've increased stipend it's the wrong thing to do and we need to get back to a

128sustainable budget that's based on you know reducing the budget when you have less students and increasing you know and also increasing it at the rate of inflation and for that reason I wanted to make a motion to amend article three to a new figure of 27 million 533,000 468 okay um I'm going to negotiate with you because I have the results of the bond issue and it passed so I'm gonna let you make that Amendment based on the new number if that's all right let me can you tell us the results of the bond I guess yes I will the results of voting on article one were 230 yes and 91 no so the article bond issue [Applause] passed so getting ahead of myself a little bit I would like to invite a motion from

129the school board uh and the budget committee to reduce the the the total so if if you're willing to let me proceed this way as long as I still get to hear my motion you absolutely get to and you can apply it to the new Total rather than this one Drew we'd like to make an amendment to reduce the budget by $915,000 and the new number for the budget would be $3,245 427 tell me again tell me that number again 30 so we'll be dropping at 915,000 and the new number is 30, 245,000 okay is this the slide there okay this is a reduction of $915,000 on the budget the motion on the floor at the moment thank you Mr power is to is to reduce the budget to 30, 245,000 427 moved by Darlene

130Man seconded by Holly derlo Badcock is there discussion on the amendment seeing none all in favor of this amendment please raise your hearts thank you all opposed raise your cards okay this passes now Mr power do you have a new total for me Mr moderator I do not have a new Total my same my same number still applies it it's not affected by the change in the First Amendment to the operating budget okay so my motion is to move the operating budget to a new proposed total of 27,5 33,400 68 and I'd like to speak to the motion briefly if I get a second is there a second to Mr power's motion I heard yes sir Mr stoble is that right Mr power thank you Mr moderator my uh this figure comes from the over

131the past two years the 5.5% inflation rate that we've had by CPI and then also reduction from that of 1 and a half% to equate for the loss of students of about 1 and a half% that we've had and so that's how the figure comes out starting with the FY 24 operating budget which was a healthy budget at o oval 26.5 million not quite but close and that's where I come up with a roughly $27.5 million budget to keep us in line with changes in student attendance as well as the inflation rate so that we keep up with inflation thank you discussion on the motion seeing none we are voting on a motion to reduce the the school operating budget to 27 million 533,000 $468 all in favor of reducing the budget as as I

132just said please raise your cards all opposed and the NOS Haven it discussion on the budget as of the revised figure of 30 million and stuff Mr garuba okay so uh one of the items that is added into the budget uh is $166,000 for uh two new speed bumps so my question is is there a statutory requirement that we install these speed bumps or do we have to do this this year I heard here there we go M Mr Corey it is not statutory you don't have to do it this year but we are concerned about the high rate of speed of people going in and out of the parking lot from our students to the adults that pick them up okay so that hasn't changed though in the lifetime of the school right I

133mean there's no no specific change that would no there's nothing that requires it it's what we view it as a safety issue okay okay so I would like to make a motion to amend uh I would like to move that we amend the budget by reducing it uh $116,000 so the current number that we're at is 30,2 45,42038 229,230 uh School Board what they actually spend it on yes it it certainly is up to the school board I would hope they would consider postponing that uh there is quite a large budget increase for everybody here people aren't really getting 7% raises at their jobs so um if this amendment passes the school board is free to choose how to apportion that money but I would like to see them forgo the speed bumps for this

134year is there a second to this motion Mr power is there a discussion on the motion uh no I think I've made my points thank you all right all in favor of amendment to reduce the budget to 30 million the knows have it Miss Homa hi Sue Homa Hollis um I I just have a comment I I know a lot of people are very concerned about um property taxes we're really concerned about the escalating costs of things and I I was looking on New Hampshire's Department of Education website today and and here's the things that I learned I learned that as far as how we pay our staff as far as principles go we H Pay the top our rate is the top 7% of all of New Hampshire the average teacher salary is the

135top 177% of all of New Hampshire the starting teacher salary is the top 20th per of all of New Hampshire and the SAU senior um or the SAU staff is the top 24% of all of New Hampshire and one of the things that I'm concerned about I appreciate I appreciate um the teachers and the quality they have the one thing I do am very concerned about is that from 2010 to 2024 our our non-proficient math has doubled our non-proficient in Reading has doubled so in math and here in 2024 38% of our students on standardized tests are not proficient in math in reading 23% of our students are not proficient in math and in science 48% of our students are not proficient in math now some would say that maybe that's a covid problem but

136actually from 2010 to 2016 is where we really saw a doubling of impr proficiency uh the one thing is each of us as taxpayers are invested in our students performance and the one thing that we I just don't hear a lot of discussion on is that what you know we talk about raises we talk about green energy we talk about boilers but what are we doing to help our students to be more proficient and why aren't we having those conversations because as investors I feel like that we're not we're not getting that return on investment in our students education thank you hi Drew I just want to answer a question so you asked why we aren't talking about that we don't talk about those things in this meeting but we talk about those things every

137single month in our Schoolboard meetings we we talk about curriculum we talk about programming we talk about our students we talk about that it's this business meeting is about the operation of the school district so I guess my follow on to that is from 2010 to now we have doubled the cost per student of what it takes to educate a child but our impr proficiency rates are bottoming out and I will put that on the agenda for our monthly meeting next month and we'd happy to have you all watch and and listen to our conversation about that because that's a that's a pretty complicated conversation to have when you look at cohorts and you look at all the different pieces that go into testing and you look at different things so I know that we

138can make this Complicated by talking about cohorts but well what I'm saying though is that that I'm concerned let's move on I'm concerned that we're not we're not investing we don't have something in place that we're missing out on ourish thank you Mr boo Brandon buto Buttonwood Drive I would like to move to restrict reconsideration of Articles one and article four Move Motion to restrict reconsideration of Articles 1 and four I heard a Mr Man if you are in favor of restricting reconsideration on articles 1 and four please raise your cards if you are opposed raise your cards thank you and the Articles one and four are restricted Mr power thank you Mr moderator Eric power Westview Road I wanted to mention some things about proficiency as well I find it interesting in this handout

139that we get here that we see proficiency scores for the seventh and eighth grade but when we get to the 11th grade we do not have those we just show some PSAT scores um and the real numbers are available on the doe website and I know how to find them they're not easy to find but we are doing okay in reading and writing we are of our 11th graders 89% are proficient so we're leaving 11% behind but in math it's very concerning we only have 60% Proficiency in math and in in our 11th graders that are getting ready to graduate and when you look at our science that's not even mentioned here at all we only have 52% Proficiency in science so in science and math we have 40% of students in 11th grade that

140aren't proficient in math and we have 48% that aren't proficient in science yet we're spending all this money and how much more money do we have to spend to try to improve that it's not working when I was on the school board this was a concern of mine and it still is a concern of mine because we're spending a lot of money and we're not getting the results so that's why I think you need to look at the we're over $30 million now for an operating budget that's a crazy number and I'd recommend voting no and and and also having a lower number because I think we're we are not getting what we expected out of the out of the the investment that we're making with the school so thank [Applause] you Miss Chanley maryan

141Chanley button driving Hollis um I would like to somewhat Echo what Holly just said uh kids are complicated and school is not anymore just a matter of them sitting in a room and having the ability to read and the ability to do math rammed into them so that they can regurgitate it onto a test it's a lot more nuanced just with the kids themselves never mind the subject matter what people have to teach with what the different uh criteria for success or failure is the whole bureaucracy the whole paperwork problem I say problem just because I don't like paperwork um we need to focus on what the kids need not just saying okay they're going to school for six hours and we're spitting out this number of proficiency are they getting the support they need

142are they getting the kinds of teaching that help them learn uh I have no interest uh no problem with adding different classes adding more clubs giving stipend to uh professionals who were willing to staff those clubs and teach those classes if it's going to help these kids be successful as adults be well-rounded well adjusted helpful positive people who can help move this world forward yes sir Dave Perry 3 West Hollis Hollis Ro um Hollis yeah West Hollis Road Hollis thank you um we are spending a lot of money and I don't think our our results reflected but that's really not what I wanted to ask um typically across the country uh public or government pensions are not very well funded can somebody tell me about the how well funded the pensions that are employees uh

143participate in and uh you know does it meet some of the Arisa standards no 80% benefit or 80% of uh funding the liabilities can somebody talk to me about that how well funded are are the pensions and is there a risk which is what my point is is there a risk that that uh with a bad Market or some other things that the pension plan can't fulfill its liabilities who wants to all right Darlene the New Hampshire the New Hampshire retirement system sets rates um on a in a two-year cycle um a large percentage of those rates are paying back over the equivalent of a 30-year mortgage um money that was taken out of the fund the pension fund uh 12 to 15 years ago I think we're probably about halfway through um so over

144a 30-year period um districts and employers throughout the state um are paying rates to not only cover the pensions of our staff but to cover and pay back the amount that was removed so what we're just starting to see in the most recent um two cycles are some slight decreases in the rates so the rates are set they're in place for two years then they're set again and in place for two years every staff member is responsible for contributing 7% of their salary to the New Hampshire Retirement System in addition to what the district is putting forward okay that doesn't answer my question okay that's about as far as I can go yeah okay typically a pension fund you can say it's 80% funded 100% funded um so if it's New Hampshire system I I

145think it's probably around 60 which is a bad number um but okay it doesn't sound like anybody has the answer for me all right thank you Miss St John yep Michelle St John Orchard Drive hollus uh first I just want to say thank you to the board and to the budget committee and to the administration for the work that they spend all year in presenting the operating budget to us the second thing I'd like to say is as a parent of a 2023 graduate and as soon to be 22 2025 graduate I know that my son's classmates both of my sons classmates have are either attending excellent universities and institutions and it wasn't because they did poorly they reflected poorly people learn differently we all know that neurodiversity exists and how people process take in

146and share information learned so we have US military graduate um students we have US Navy students students this year we have students who excel in athletics and are playing at D2 D3 possibly D1 I cannot remember that far so before you all say that our students aren't meeting requirements think about all the people who are succeeding there are individuals in our district who are graduates who are in Apprentice programs who have chosen to go directly into the military and they're living their lives and they have gotten a great education thanks to the teachers thanks to the support from the community so I support the operating budget at its full amount thank you yes by in L land tody Brook Road and I just want to come out in support of this budget this um historically

147and with this budget the uh school board has put together a budget where our average cost per p people um is lower than the state average while we consistently outperform and have I think in the top five of the state for high schools this is um paying less than average for Superior results is what everyone hopes and um dreams about just because the the education that I got when I was um in Hollis splin High School uh back couple few decades ago was completely different so you can't compare what happened what we got when I graduated versus what the children get now the not they are getting the most dynamic education and I'm so jealous of all of the attributes just outside of not the basics that they've gotten where they have so many choices

148of um Humanities the math science in extracurriculars and I support this budget thank you Mr Hyde Chris Hyde Arbor Lane I would like to move the question there a motion to end debate is there a second Mr bang this requires a two-thirds vote if you are in favor of ending debate please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed please raise your cards and the eyes have it at this time we are going to to uh count this ballot this is not a it's not a secret ballot Just a card ballot so I want to count uh the vote on the budget you ready if you're in favor of the operating budget at 3,245 427 please raise your cards for all righto you can let put them down if you are opposed to this

149budget please raise your cards all right thank you for the vote is 182 yes and 66 no the article passes [Applause] we've done article four so we're going on to article five which is the SAU budget now this is another ballot vote but this is not a one-hour vote this is just vote them and then we can move on shall the district vote to raise and appropriate the sum of 1,712 se8 as the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District's portion of the SAU budget of 2,438 355 for the forthcoming fif fiscal year this year's adjusted budget of 2,389 654 with 1,147 1855 assigned to the school budget of this school district will be adopted if the article does not receive a majority vote of all the school district voters voting in this school administrative unit estimated

150net tax impact is 44,000 44 cents a th000 for Brookline and 28 cents a th000 for hollus the school board recommends this article 600 the budget committee recommends this article 8 z z voting will be by secret ballot is simply a simple majority of all three districts combined there's no extended voting on here uh polls will open only until all the voters here have voted moved by Holly durlo Babcock seconded by Christa whing this is a chance that you you could get to vote twice if you vote here and also in your regular school district Mr Man can you see this can you see that I have okay thank you Mr moderator we're not voting yet you know you can get your card but we're not voting yet try aiming it here thank you Mr

151moderator I'm just going to run through some major points of the SAU budget we're still in session and I haven't opened the polls yet please let uh the speaker speak I serve as the SAU um Treasurer and as that in that capacity I also bring together the SAU budget committee and we are charged to bring a budget forward in December to the school board where we hold um a public hearing to review and uh approve the budget as part part of the co-op alloca um allocation for this budget of it is 1 million $171,200 per increase over the previous fiscal year the um adjusted budget is at 1,147 1885 the specific drivers around the budget and it's a 0.1 increase to the co-op is basically around salaries and benefits the aggregate of salaries is a

152increase of [Music] $1,326 and that's mainly due to um 4% increases and projected Savings of 31,000 due to turnover in the superintendent and insistent a superintendent position and in benefits we're seeing a reduction of $545 and that's due to the aggregate of the health insurance rates of a 8.9 increase dental insurance at a 5% increase and a decrease in nhrs that's what I have discussion on the article yes ma'am Susan hate South Main Street Brook line historically the SAU budget has been increasing without control there is as you said a public Hearing in December but nowhere in this book is there a detailed budget and nowhere in print is there a detailed budget and I couldn't find a detailed Budget on the website so what I would like to see happen is in the future

153a detailed budget be put in with the rest of the budgets for the school district I want to say that's difficult to do due to printing uh timelines and deadlines versus when we have a budget is that true it is so yeah I'm but how how is it that the Hollis budget the Brookline budget and the co-op budget get into the town reports I don't know and the seu budget isn't I don't so that's what I would like to see happen so we could see and be educated on what exactly makes up the sa budget SAU budget since we have no control over what happens with that budget we have no control over how many staff are employed through the SAU having been involved in this district for the last 50 years having been a

154student raised my kids here this budget is just always out of control and I don't know how the taxpayers can can get a handle on it other than through the people we elect so I would just like to see that okay well as I said we do have a public hearing that unfortunately no one attends and that we very much um promote and make sure that we we're posting that and I can tell you I've been doing this since 2007 and I count I can count maybe four people that have ever conone to the public Hearing in that time frame so no one comes to it well I wasn't aware that it was out there so I don't know how many other people post on our website all right so I will be attending thank

155you every meeting we have is posted Mr power yes I I'm one of the people people that has gone to this budget hearing in previous years this budget is going to be available earliest so I don't know why it's not in the town report but that's not really my point here we're spending $2.4 million on this SAU budget I hear we have 17 or 18 people working there we have back in 20 2007 we had nine people in the SAU so we've have about double that and we have 15% less students if you think about this budget of $2.4 million and you look at our entire Hollis Brookline and co-op with 2,300 the projected nesdc is 2322 students so just over 2,300 students if you divide that out this budget you have an overhead of

156$1,050 for every student K through 12 that's in SAU 41 that's a lot of money our current superintendent is paid number two in the state at $197,000 a year um we are paying a lot of money for this Administration I don't think we're seeing it in the test scores that's the primary way to look and see if we're being successful which I think is an important metric so there's a small difference between the the adjusted budget and the default budget and I would recommend everybody vote no so we can get the slightly smaller adjusted budget and and and start bringing the SAU budget a little bit more under control thank you yes sir Brian Loveland Toddy Brook Road and I urge people to vote Yes on this budget the um amount of regulatory and paperwork

157and um overhead that's required of the SAU is astronomical where each year there's more and more regulations that need to be reviewed and applied to make sure that all all the needs are being met it's not a simple five um X number of students equals y number of cost it's something that um is very hard and um to reference an earlier speaker's point is that there's the test scores are not the only they are one attribute of it the um school system gets continually ranked as top five in the state so people saying that it's a failing school or that every um they're not measuring up a sadly mistaken the seu has done an admirable job not weighing all of the attributes to make sure that they deliver a great product at a lower than

158average cost thank you seeing no more discussion it's time to vote on this this is a ballot vote if you don't have a ballot you can get one from the clerk the PO on this one are open and we will close them as soon as people are done voting it has but I only have so much e saw to my [Laughter] h e [Applause] e e [Applause] has everyone in the room voted on Article Five that wants to Article Five Article Five anyone still voting on Article Five thank you still voting all right we'll keep going for a little while a few more minutes e the e [Music] has everyone had a chance to vote on Article Five that wishes to seeing no one still voting I'm closing the polls on Article Five Mr bro

159uh move to restrict reconsideration of article three motion to restrict reconsideration of article three moved by Mr bhau seconded by Mr Hyde if you are in favor of re restricting reconsideration of article three please raise your cards thank you if you are opposed raise your cards article three is restricted article six School building and Facilities maintenance Expendable trust to see if the school district will vote to raise an appropriate up to the sum of $300,000 to be added to the previously established School building and Facilities maintenance Expendable trust fund the sum to come from the Hollis Brookline Cooperative School District June 30 2025 unassigned fund balance available on July 1 2025 majority vote required estimated net tax impact zero potential foregone tax reduction of 71 cents a th000 for Hollis and 11 cents a th000

160for Brookline the school board recommends this article 600 the budget committee recommends this article 800 moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by Chris whan Miss Babcock great thank you the purpose of our maintenance fund is it's a standalone account to segregate funds for major maintenance and allow carryover to spread costs over multiple budget Cycles alleviates major Financial spikes due to non-routine maintenance costs the funding for this maintenance fund would be out of the unassigned fund balance or you would call it the Surplus um there is oversight major expenditures are proposed by the administration the school board evaluates that after a public hearing and then the school board makes a final approvement approval on expenditures Drew can you just click thanks okay um in FY 26 we would have a beginning balance of $158,000 69 $158,600

161high school for $68,000 um the roof would be Phase 10 of 10 at the high school for $80,000 and we would be beginning the roof at the middle school um which would be phase one of5 for $150,000 so if we if we if you approve this $300,000 we would add that to the fund we would take those potentially take those um projects out and we would be ending with a balance pretty similar to what we have now at 160 and 69,000 just for your information there is an additional um about 302,000 in facilities maintenance items included in the operating budget already thank you is there any discussion on article six yes sir Rob rushon uh Flint metal Drive Brook line uh one of the things that seems to happen for these funds is that uh

162a certain amount again from the uh unexpire unexpended funds uh is slated to be expended during the next year and in some cases uh that might be a better use of our money to just bring it forward as a warrant article saying we want to do these things next year let's just allocate the resources to do that now if we are talking about uh things that will take a span of two to 5 years say then adding to a fund like this uh may be much more uh appropriate uh I'm not proposing any changes and i would support this uh article this year but I would suggest that in future years that if the funds which you anticipate having available at the end of the year uh do in fact uh expect to be expended

163in the following year that we simply uh appro rate them and uh and raise them according to taxation thank you Mr power thank you Mr moderator Eric Power westf Road Brookline speaking against this article um for those aren't aware we have three ways that the school board retains funds that uh we have currently we have two as worn articles this year then we also have a thing called a retain fund balance which I believe is set at about 2 and a half% so last calculation I saw that was somewhere in the half a million dollar maybe a little higher range of the net assessment so 2 and a half% of the net assessment you can keep back from the taxpayers this one is another $300,000 back from the taxpayers and then we have article 7

164a contingency fund for $15,000 just to put the pieces together you're talking about the school board instead of returning about a million to the taxpayers to for tax relief is keeping it for the next year to spend it on things even though we have money programmed in the operating budget and for those reasons I recommend voting no taxpayers are getting killed and we need the tax relief we need the money to be returned to help a lot of people that are struggling out there thank you m oal um I was just wondering how much is in the uh unassigned fund Mounds or anticipated to be in the unassigned fund balance they let me go on with a couple of my other questions then I guess um your work go on um I see the beginning

165balance what is what's the um I also see where it says major expenditures is what it's designated for personally I would have called the boilers a major expenditure and felt very strongly about it should have been in the operating budget but that's here and there what is the most that we can have in the capital Improvement plan fund because these things are going to keep coming up and we're not saving at all for any of this we're going to have B uh bonds after bonds after bonds I'm not quite sure what you mean by Capital Improvement fund do you mean this fund well under the uh article six of the handout from the um okay that was handed out at the beginning there's okay a capital Improvement plan utilization it's got the uh it's that's

166what it's um called in in this paper Okay so every year the budget committee um has a few we have a few standard and standing agenda items one of them is a full Food Service review one of them is a review of the most recent audit and the third one is a facilities overview and that usually takes um place in in the spring and it gives us a sense going forward of what to anticipate um for the FY 26 budget but it also gives us that forward-looking view for five years out so some of the things I talked about for the budget are were those I don't want to call them everyday items but the things like the window replacement ceiling tiles painting things like that we're looking to this um maintenance fund for those

167larger scale items like the 10 phases of the roof for the high school five phases of the roof for the middle school and to phase that out there are larger individual expense items so if I look at um some of the things that are put on a plan and these are moving they're rep prioritized constantly I would say what I tell you tonight might not be on the maintenance plan or might be in a different order in the maintenance plan that we here in the May June time frame but for right now um going forward for for this fund would be the additional phases of the Middle School roof which are estimated right now at um $100,000 a year so on top of that 150 the next four phases annually are $100,000 each um there's

168uh phased work on the auditorium here at the high school there'll be um water the Water System review that's been um something that's been on the CIP for a long time and keeps getting pushed out but it's a it would be an expensive um Endeavor to you know evaluate the water system and and how we make um upgrades and changes uh traffic study um reconfiguring the main office things like that if I may interrupt in a minute it's been over an hour so I'm now closing the voting on article too and I would I I did you ask about um how much was in retained fund how much how much can you have there from year to year oh you know it's just it's dependent on the projects that we put forward there's no statutory

169ma there's no statutory so so you could start saving for that replacement boiler that you're going to have in 20 years right yeah mhm which is going to be a lot more than it is now yeah yeah um and I I remember the the roofs were you know 10 phases now we're going to have another five so well 10 phases for the high school we're through it with an FY 26 that'll be our last one for you know probably 10 more years until we have to start again so there's there's no um cap on Capital Improvement no did you ask the level of the unreserved fund balance excuse yes what's what's anti 250,000 okay 271 so we're at about 272,000 going back to the taxpayer that would all there there are additional funds that would

170allow us to since this is coming from unassigned fund balance that 271 is net of the 300,000 for this and the next article the 125,000 for the contingency and then approximately at this point in time 272,000 would go back on your taxes to help offset your tax rate um one thing that I've tried to look at on the website is for a capital Improvement plan some of your things are not live on the um website um I would like you to cons maybe not you but somebody else who's responsible for the website to make sure that things are live and they're in there because they're not in there okay thank you thank you I'd also like to clarify that um the retained fund balance uh that was discussed earlier this evening is not it has

171not been funded to the maximum allowable percentage at the state level um and nor does the school board um fund that to the maximum level on an annual basis so I just did want to add that information thank you looks like there's no more discussion on article six it is time to vote on article 6 $300,000 for the school building and Facilities maintenance trust all in favor of voting $300,000 please raise your cards thank you all opposed raise your cards and the eyes have it article seven contingency fund to see if the school district will vote to establish a contingency fund for the current year for unanticipated expenses that may arise and further to raise an appropriate up to $125,000 to go into the fund this sum to come from the unassigned fund balance available

172on July 1 2025 and no amount to be raised from taxation any appropriation at the end of the year will lapse to the general fund majority vote required estimated net tax impact is zero potential foregone tax reduction of 5 cents a th000 for Brookline three cents a th000 for Hollis the school board recommends this article 600 the budget committee recommends this article 80 Z moved by Holly derlo Babcock seconded by Christa whan Miss Babcock just move the slide can you move the slide the the purpose of the contingency fund is to cover unanticipated major expenses that might arise during the school year the funding is from the unassigned fund balance or Surplus unused funds are intended to F fund the following Year's contingency fund that was short and sweet um is there discussion on article

1737 ra rushian Brook line um you said that the uh intent of any leftover money from this contingency fund would go into funding the next year but I see in article 7 that appropriation left at the end of the year will lapse to the general fund can you reconcile that for me please it lapses to the general fund and then is included with any other um amount that is in Surplus and then that amount gets returned to the taxpayer okay so this is this is non-continuing if we don't use this money or any part of it it gets put into the unassigned fund balance the end year is a one shot yeah if we if we don't if we vote not to do this the 125,000 that would have funded it would go back to

174you as a taxpayer that's what it means by lapsing to the general fund it gets put into the Surplus and it gets returned to the taxpayer so if we find this useful in the next year we would vote on the similar type of thing in the following year yes we've been voting on this contingency fund for um at least eight years all right thank you seeing no further discussion we're going to vote on article 7 all in favor of $125,000 into a contingency fund please raise your cards thank you all opposed and the eyes have it article eight this is a article by citizen petition shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32 colon 5 U Roman VI 5-b requiring that the annual budget and all special warrant articles having a tax impact act as

175determined by the school board shall contain a notation stating the estimated tax impact of the article determination of the estimated tax impact shall be subject to approval by the governing body this is a non-appropriate article so the estimated net tax impact is zero by a vote of 6 to zero the school board does not recommend this article by a vote of 710 the budget committee does not recommend this article moved by Mr power is there a second yes sir in the back what's your name I I Clarence Skidmore Clarence Skidmore Mr power yes I to pass you're not in order right now it's it's Mr power's turn thank you Mr moderator Eric Power westf Road Brookline this article is basically a common sense article to have the warrant itself have the tax impact I know

176you might see them on the slides here today but a lot of people don't know how to find the presentations and the data is already available it makes a lot of sense so this RSA is enabling legislation that lets you require that the school board puts a tax impact and in the case of the co-op we have two towns Hollis and Brookline so there would be a tax impact per thousand that would be included in each of the uh warrant articles each year and people will uh find this useful because some people make a decision whether or not to come to the meeting based on what is in uh the warrant they might not see this presentation so it it's really uh transparency uh warn article and it makes a lot of sense to do

177it for uh everyone to understand and to have the information out there and just note that this estimated tax impact is actually set and approved by the Schoolboard as the governing body so they're the ones that get to put it in there it is an estimate it doesn't mean it's actually true but it's the best estimate that the school board has so I think it's a simple majority vote so I recommend everyone uh vote for this if you'd like transparency and like to know how much things cost thank you Miss Cook Judy cook 10 Main Street Brook line I move to pass over this article is there a second sorry I I haven't yet figured out your name so Rob rushon Brookline Rob Rush this this motion is debatable not to the merits of the

178motion but to the merits of passing over is there discussion on passing over it requires a two-thirds vote to pass like ask question seeing none no I don't all yes I I you're GNA have to come up to the microphone because I want to know what Passover means Passover means that if if if we pass over an article it's done we can't bring it back it's done for the for the for the meeting no it isn't all right oh yes Mr garuba you want to speak to the to the motion to pass over excuse me oh sorry yes I would like to speak to that motion so uh I think at least twice tonight I've seen folks waiting online to speak and the body has voted uh to move on without letting them talk so

179I would suggest that uh you vote against this motion and let these two folks behind me speak thank you seeing no further discussion on the article on the motion all in favor of passing over article8 please raise your cards thank you all opposed raise your cards that's a that's well over 2/3 so the motion to pass over passes article nine do you do you have yeah um I have the results here on bond article number two 208 votes yes 102 votes no the bond article passes do you want to speak you to article nine okay you want to speak to article 9 petition article one uh article 9 to adopt sb2 shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 40 colon 13 known as SP2 to allow official valot voting on all issues before the Hollis

180Brookline Cooperative School District on the second Tuesday of March 60% majority vote required this is a non-appropriate article estimated net tax impact is zero the school board does not V recommend this article by a vote of 600 the budget committee does not recommend this article by 800 who is moving this article Mr power who is seconding um Mr Bishop to I move to Passover article nine is there a second to pass over Mr Hyde is there a discussion on passing odor article 9 Miss Hom OR yeah I appreciate thanks sua Hollis I appreciate everyone's desire to want to go home um and I'll be honest with you um there's a lot of time that I spend talking with Jo garuba about the the benefits of having the meeting format like this versus an sb2 cuz

181you know Joe and I have some great discussions on it but you know one of the things that we hear all the time about why we shouldn't go to sb2 is so we can have discussions in person and then something hypocritical happens when petition warn articles come up then it just turns into this sort of this mob of people who just say no we don't want to have discussions I'll be honest with you we've spent our whole night staying here reasonably thinking of things and I I find it to be very rude to shut sat down when petition War articles happened discussion on the motion to pass over Mr Banger Jim Banger Hollis we've had this article before us over and over and over again we've always turned it down so I support passing over

182further discussion on pass pass in over Mr BH there's a reason for a vote like Passover and that is to determine if there is a significant super majority of the meeting that wants to spend its time doing something else I understand that the petition article mechanism is intended to give small groups of people a chance to put issues before the town meeting and that's great but if two-thirds of the people that are there are not interested in discussing the issue the chance of you're getting approval is very remote it's not it's not a good use of everybody's time to have a discussion that's not going to lead to the vote that you want so I recommend going for the Passover vote thank you seeing no further discussion of passing over if you are in favor

183of passing over article 9 which is SP2 please raise your cards thank you if you were opposed raise your cards and the eyes have it let me catch up motion to restrict reconsideration on articles 2 six and 7 that's that's all of the ones that that uh were brought by the school board is there a second to to restrict second by Mr Man all in favor of restricting reconsideration articles 26 and 7 please raise your cards thank you all opposed and the eyes have it article 10 petition warrant article for a budget count shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32 colon 5-d and Implement a budget cap whereby the school board or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that is higher than $27,000 per pupil cost times the average daily membership in

184residents of the school district as of October 1 of the Year immed mediately preceding the proposed year budget plus an annual increase of for inflation using the cpi-u for the Boston cabridge Newton Mass New Hampshire area published by the U us Bureau of lior Statistics as of January 1 requires a three-fifth majority vote of the school district and the polls will remain open for an hour this is a non-appropriated article estimated net tax impact is zero the school board does not recommend this article by a vote of 6 to z0 the budget committee does not recommend this article by a vote of8 to zero to zero moved by Mr Power seconded by Mr moderator I'm going to move it but I'm going to move it with slightly different language the RSA reference will be RSA

185325 Echo e all right we'll need an amendment to do that but first I need a second on the motion yes sir um so you're going to make an amendment to your motion to replace 32 colon 5-d with 32 colon 5-e is that correct that's correct that that's how you do it Mr moderator yes that that would refer it to the proper section in the rsas discussion on this amendment to the article seeing none all in favor of this amendment please raise your cards all opposed raise your cards that's close enough that I think we should count this one I didn't look behind me I didn't for you ready all in favor of the amendment raise your cards please all right you can put them down all oppos raise your cards okay you can put

186your cards down I asked our attorney what happens if it fails and he said that makes a good legal question which means I have no idea I will say I'm thankful at times like this I'm thankful for calculators because I couldn't add up a a column of figures and be confident in the answer so yes is uh 45 is that what you said is that a four or a nine 45 NOS 102 so the amendment fails thank you Mr moderator I will um just explain what a School District budget cap is a School District budget Cap's a new 2024 law that allows us to adopt a per student spending cap in the school district so when you adopt it in this case with a $27,000 per per pupil cost the next year you use that

187and you multiply by the number of students you that were reported to the Department of Education average daily membership and residence and it comes up with a budget cap that helps inform the budget committee and the school board on the maximum um budget that they should try to propose coming into the next year they need to keep their total proposed spending underneath that budget cap the budget cap can be overridden by the legislative body here by a three-fifth majority vote if you have truly urgent needs and um this is a one-hour ballot vote to adopt it's it's a very good tool because it helps Drive the whole budgeting process early on it helps set the budget guidance for the the the school district and it helps bring us to a more reasonable and and uh

188uh sustainable budget and after the first year the $27,000 figure is adjusted based on the most recent inflation by CPI so that it does it does maintain inflation um for the number of students if the number of students goes up then the budget cap goes up if the number of students goes down then the budget go cap goes down accordingly for these reasons I hope that you adopt this legislation for this school district and Adopt A School District budget cap thank you Miss Cook move to pass over motion to pass over by Miss Cook seconded by Mr hide is there discussion on the motion to pass over Miss homo Su hamah Hollis I just wanted to add that again I want to reiterate the fact that Hollis has about 8,000 People Brooklyn I could be

189wrong I think it's around 6,000 or so and change you know we have 200 people here tonight maybe at best 250 and it's getting you know it shrinks by the minute but to be honest with you this is our one opportunity to tell everyone in the front of the room to keep communicating that we are getting really you know taxed with highing um High property taxes the high rate of schools and things like that and what is very disrespectful I feel is that when it comes to certain petition warrant articles the only opportunity that citizens have to communicate that quite frankly the people who can drive at night who have the ability to be here there's so many people who can't be here I know so many people who are immune compromised they can't drive

190at night they have a disability they have small children we are getting such a fraction of the number of people in our town and the very few things that we have is this petition warrant article so at least people can at least hear the discussion again I just want to reiterate I find it ridiculous these meetings are actually most people that I talk to they don't come because they feel like they're a joke because their voice just doesn't get heard and it means nothing so thanks discussion of the motion to pass over Mr garuba John garuba 30 meow Drive um I don't think I could say it as well as Sue but a lot of people are here and I want to thank all the the people that came to educate us and and provide

191insightful information about how to govern and I find it really disconcerting that there's a concerted effort to shut them down and not listen I I very upset by that [Applause] Miss Maston maren Mason uh Milton Place Hollis um I would like to point out that this 2024 law that was signed in just a few months ago by our um by governor sonunu was um HB uh 1105 and uh Mr power's wife represent of Diane power was the primary sponsor on that I think everybody should know that and also that since this is a new bill and it has been getting a lot of publicity and many other towns are currently voting on it I think we should wait another year before we actually vote on it I think people should uh learn a little bit

192more from the news see how it plays out in the state before we make a decision so I would vote to pass on this Mr Solan let's let's try and keep a discussion on the actual question of passing over as opposed to the underlying matter Mr Solon Tom Solon Shady Rock Road Brook line um I support I don't generally support ending debates and things of that nature but in this situation and on several of petition Warren articles I am support of passing over primarily because of problems with the Articles themselves when articles are put forth by your elected officials they are generally vetted by the uh attorneys they are looked to be consistent with the law they look to be uh appropriately worded this article in particular has some ambiguity that was clearly brought to

193the Public's attention during the public hearing on it it it we can't do anything about it because as a board we don't have the ability to edit this so it's it's before you as shown but it's a very flaw article um and if it were to be voted on some of the complexities about it are unknown so the the reason for passing over is not just arbitrary to shut down discussion but to do two things one is to eliminate a problematic article and the other is to keep these meetings within a manageable length so that people are not afraid to attend them thank you further discussion on the motion to pass over y Brian L and Toddy Brook Road and just want to point out that the RS a that um the amendment was um

194voted no right correct so this whole the r say that this references is inaccurate so even if this were to be discussed debated and passed it's still ineffectual since it's not referencing the right RSA Mr power thank you Mr moderator Eric Power westf Road Brook line um yeah we did try to correct the RSA that's the only thing that's wrong with this article so I don't think we should pass over it just for that reason maybe people hear about it we might try the amendment again and I'd also like to mention this is this was in Senate Bill 383 Prime sponsor was Senator Keith Murphy um my wife's representative Diane power was not even a co-sponsor on this bill so the person that said that it's it's inaccurate this is under Senate Bill 383 a

195Senate Bill not a house Bill thank you very much all right seeing no further discussion all in favor of passing over article 10 please raise your cards thank you all oppose raise your cards and the eyes have it Mr Mr H motion to pass over article 11 motion to pass over article 11 moved by Mr Hyde seconded by Miss Cook is there a discussion on passing over article 11 Mr power thank you Mr moderator um again I'm very disappointed that we don't even want to talk about an article here that is another way to look at controlling our budgets it's a very important new law but for people that don't want to hear about it it's it's uh it's sad that's why I'm going to continue to advocate for SP SP2 because SP SP2 everything

196gets a vote and you don't have this shutting down of things without hearing about them so hopefully you'll vote for SP SP2 in the future thank you Mr garuba uh I don't know much about this article but I don't see how um shutting down the discussion about it serves anybody uh to learn at all and in my opinion it defeats the purpose of of the meeting seeing no further discussion all in favor of passing over article 11 please raise your cards thank you all opposed raise your cards and the eyes have it motion to dissolve the meeting move by I'm sorry what I I thought I read I announced it all right my bad uh sa vote Yes 166 no 67 who seconded the motion to dissolve I heard it over here somewhere I'll second

197what was the vote again 166 to 67 all in favor of dissolving the meeting please raise your cards thank you all opposed we are done