001want to introduce myself daring man and the budget committee members who are present this evening who include Tom Solon Dave Blen Tom en right r v Matt Maguire and Brian Raider Tom way has an excused absence for this evening I'd like to also welcome Kelly sely our business administrator and Tim Green the um auditor for the district if you could all please join me in the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all well thanks so much for your attendance this evening it's been um a while since we've met um we had a I think for the first time ever uh lacked a quorum for the June meeting I I really don't recall the last time that that happened and
002I know the you know the summer gets busy for folks and we typically take um the month of July off and um since our meetings fall on the 4th or this case fifth week of the month we get kind of all of August before we're um back in session and getting things underway um at this point I'll ask if there are any agenda adjustments this evening I'll appoint Dave as our process Observer I'm going to skip over the approval minutes um momentarily um we'll bypass public input because our first order General bus um is the audit View for the co-op district and since Tim Green um of Robertson green has taken the time to be here this evening we'll take care of our administrative items a little bit later so that we can just kind
003of Dive Right In and we don't make your evening last too long this evening Tim thank you very much you've joined us I think annually for as long as I can remember um and you're uh and I've shared with everyone in June I shared the audit with everyone in advance in anticipation of Tim presence um here um this month um so I've shared that with everyone and at this time Tim I'll just ask you to kind of um walk us through some highlights and your process um as a reminder this is the audit for FY 23 the school just finished fiscal year 24 and the audit took place this summer so um the Auditors do side work um and have yet to produce an audit report so this is for the prior um school year
004the just correct yes um so right I'm here to present the audit for the year ended June 30th 2023 um we did come we did um re recently perform the fieldwork of the audit for fiscal year 2024 that was the first week of August everything went great as far as you know the process itself uh Kelly and her staff certainly had everything in in great shape for us to come in and audit and we're actually a week earlier than the previous week so it was really I'm sure it's never fun when we show up but we try to smile so so let me ask you um while you walk us through some things would you like questions to be held until the end or questions no you can interrupt me I think that's that's fine
005and I will point out that when you do come to do the audit it is for all districts correct and even the in the sa itself as well and she'll Kelly would probably admit that uh as far as audit prep goes I think she hands that off to her staff a lot her assistants are very very well vered in the audit process yes so the first thing in this report every year I point out is is the first three page or two pages excuse me that year um it is our opinion that's what you're hiring our firm for is to provide an opinion on whether or not your financial statements are fairly presented um we provide that opinion on each opinion unit that you have you have governmental activities opinion and then you have uh
006governmental funds so each fund that qualifies for uh a major classification and the general fund is always major um but other funds can can rotate between major and non- major depending on their size but each of those major funds gets a separate opinion as well and then an aggregate fund if you will um represents the remaining smaller balances as well so across the board of course those you had a clean opinion um no issues there that of course would cause us any concern for sure um so language within this letter of course is very uh typical and and templ if you will um the couple items you add as well you can see there the last two paragraphs is uh requires supplementary information these are four schedules that represent um basically uh ultimately 10year comparisons
007for your pension liability as well as your uh other post employment benefit liability uh I would call that opep going forward um you haven't reached 10 years for the opep so your schedules you would see uh roughly I I believe six years right now once you hit 10 years it's just a 10e window every time um and then you also have supplementary information those are the exhibits that are in the back of the report they're not required but district has always put them in we've always uh prepared them for you as part of our other services um and I I always feel and all of our clients always feel it's very useful information it's it's more detailed general fund schedules it's more it's detailed of those non- major funds as I discussed um so you
008really have an open book as far as every single aspect of your financial statements uh the next section the management discussion analysis again I this is prepared by Kelly uh and the district so I don't um I don't audit it I audit I review it for consistency uh obviously if there's figures that don't correspond to your financial statements I'm going to point those out and we they'll be corrected um but as far as you know reasons for Budget variances for example I don't audit that those reasons and say yes or no that's true or false um but again I definitely going through it for consist with a financial statement so it is a very uh accurate document so that brings you to your exhibits this is the basic financial statements uh exhibits one and two
009I always point out this is full acral statements so these is where your Capital assets are show your long-term liabilities are shown um bottom line of this exhibit one for total net position is just under three million uh comparing to the prior year uh the total net position was about 3.2 million so you can see it was a slight decrease about 200,000 um that was and it was actually corrected there was a restatement this in fiscal year 23 um so the fiscal year 22 figure was actually revised up to 3.2 million um so it was actually $400,000 decrease I correct myself there and that shows up on exhibit to on the on the bottom section there uh other aspects you can see on again on back to exhibit one the total net position you have
010two uh significant figures that are broken down within that you have your net investment Capital assets which is 17 million that of course is your Capital assets less the long-term liability related to those assets and then you have an unrestricted deficit of almost 15 million um this is an increase in the deficit amount from the prior year uh basically if you go back up to that liability section you can see that between your net pension liability and your op liability it's about $22 million those two liabilities really don't have any assets that kind of correspond um where you look at your Capital leas payable for example the $2.5 million liability you also have corresponding uh Capital assets that go along with that so that's kind of is a balance there but uh those net pension
011liabilities and opep liabilities really don't have an asset so those always throw districts into the deficit on this statement um and again this is not a budgetary basis this isn't your operating fund this is your full acrel statement uh jumping to exhibit three this is your governmental fund balance sheet so you can see all your major funds um District had a new major fund the HVAC installation fund this was the program this was obviously that program funded by the cap by a new lease um it had started uh in fiscal year 22 after it was authorized at the school district meeting um but the primary activity took place in 2023 as you can see on exhibit um about 2.6 million of the 2.8 was expended that year uh with the additional amount expended in 2022
012you were left about $6,500 and that was uh certainly finished up in 2024 so going back to exhibit three for the general fund you can see total assets about 2.5 million uh total liabilities about 250,000 and then total fund balance of 2.25 fund balance made up of nonspendable amounts which represent prepaid items those are cashes out the door for those items but they're not expenses until the next year so as soon as July 1 hits your fund balance would be decreased by that amount so that therefore you're actually classifying it as nonspendable because you don't want to say you have still have that money um committed fund balance is two it's broken down into two amounts you have your Expendable trust funds are reported within the general fund um on this statement as well as
013any vote at that March of 23 meeting which is for fiscal 24 but any amounts voted out of fund balance that's available as of July 1st is committed as of June 30th 2023 so that it's not used to also reduce your tax rate your assigned fund balance that 3 360,000 amount those are incumbrances um and then your unassigned you can see is 800,000 comparing your unassigned between the last two years uh it's about half of what it was in fiscal year 22 uh and another in and in 21 it was about 2 million back in 2020 you're about 1.4 million uh and then in 19 in fiscal year 19 fiscal year 18 you were back down to about 600,000 both of those years um I ran some extra numbers because I usually get asked so
014whether or not this is useful to you I I looked at what your unsigned fund balance was as a percentage of your total Appropriations for the general fund um so for the last six years so fiscal year 23 that $800,000 represents just over 3% of your total appropriation uh 22 21 and 20 you were up about um almost 7% 8 and half% and 6% those last three years but fiscal year 19 and 18 you're back you're about 3% so I just looking at six years I could have gone back further probably the 3% is the range that you're generally at um with those covid years I'm sure that you know there are a lot of s specifically I'm sure there's a lot of projects that you could shift to those Grant funds allow you know
015resulting in um additional unspent Appropriations probably those years rolling into fund balance because I did look at the budget surpluses in a and in fiscal year 23 even though your your unassigned fund balance was down to 3% compared to the year before you did add 1.2 million back to the budget for your budget surplus whereas in those 22 21 20 years you were at 1.7 2 million 1.6 added back and then back to 19 and8 you at $750,000 budget surplus so really rate in the middle between those outside factors in 20 to 22 range um 23 probably back to normal you you would know more uh than I would on that sense but so back to these statements exhibits four and six those are those are essentially what's considered like a crosswalk between modified acral
016basis and full acral basis so you can see on exhibit 4 for example um when when you have a fund balance in your governmental funds you add $20 million worth of net capital assets you add $26 million in liabilities um and plus 3.8 million in deferred inflows and outflows that are corresponded to pensions and OPB so that's where you get from your governmental fund balance to your net position on exhibits one and two exhibit five your statement of revenues expenditures and changes in fund balance again total revenues for the general fund 24.5 million total expenditures 25.3 um deficiency of revenues under expenditures is about 7 about almost $800,000 uh a minor transfer in $6,200 so you can see the net change in fund balance 770,000 um again total fund balance started the year at 3
017million and end of the year 2.25 the other major funds at Food Service uh they had an increase in fund balance of 137,000 so they uh continued to grow fund balance and this is um problems not the right word but this is uh what you see in a lot of districts around the state um you know again during that Co era they opened up food to everyone and and pumped a lot more Federal money into those programs uh resulting in a large fund balance and of course you're not allowed to have a large fund balance in a food service fund because it's supposed to be a a break even fund so uh I know the district implemented a spend down plan that took started to take place in 2024 um and can say already having
018done the 2024 audit field work that despite a $300,000 loss the fund balance is still too high so I'm not sure what the what the further plans will be for that but uh the kids are getting stake approximately how high um do you recall I don't recall that number did is it less than what it was yeah your fund balance decreased by about 300,000 so the so you're about you're supposed to have less than three months of your average expenditures and I think you might be at five months if you were look at that the reason I'm concerned about is what happened last month's board meeting so we can talk about that after yeah we're we're okay we're in a good place because we expect to be fully staffed in FY 24 which is part
019of the problem so that'll draw it down it should as long as we are fully staffed and we have a couple of pieces of equipment that have decided they don't want to work anymore so we'll be able to handle that I believe um jumping to exhibit seven on page 20 this is your budgetary basis schedule this is a budget to actual for your revenues expenditures and changes in fund balance uh the the far right column is your variance column for positive or negative variances you see total revenues um you had a positive variance about 20 just over 20,000 your total expenditures you had a positive variance of 1.2 million uh so you can see that you despite having um more expenditures than revenues in both the budget column and the actual column you had did
020still had a positive variance of 1.2 million do essentially budget surplus um because again in your budget if you look at that bottom line net change in fund balance you expect to lose 1.7 million if you will U because that's what you use from existing fund balance to balance that budget um your actual net change in fund balance was $500,000 decrease uh as as well as a couple increases in nonspendable fund balance and committed fund balance so that is how you get from the unassigned fund balance to start at 1.7 and to end at about 800,000 exhibits eight and nine are the same uh budgetary uh exhibits but for your food service fund and for your grants fund um these are of course are when they're estimated they are balanced budgets they you're estimating of
021revenues as well as expenditures that equal they're not coming from any sort of tax money um so I think I'm not sure what this what the Management's approach to those figures are um in some places they they just you roll that same figure year to year without really thinking about it much because it's there's no effect on mostly on your decision-making because when it especially for both for any grants if it's considered unanticipated you know you're not expected to get awarded a higher amount than you put so on you really do have the authority to to expend it so it's not too much of a concern compared to when you're talking to your general fund so hence why you can see some larger positive and negative variances on those schedules uh the notes I don't
022I don't tend to talk too much about information within the notes other than answer questions um it's designed of course to the first section explains your accounting policies the second and third sections detail further the material items within those financial statements um so if it was ever unclear while looking through it and you felt there need you know management or the district felt there needed to be more included this you certainly are have that ability to as well so uh I'll jump ahead quickly to page 42 again this is the required supplementary information these are the four schedules that uh detail your pension and oped balances for last 10 years you can see for yourself that uh the pension the school district's share of the net pension liability is just under 20 million uh which
023was an increase from 15 million the year before but a decrease from 22 million the year before that so uh it does fluctuate depending on your it's it's basically uh calculated based on your contributions during the year so that amount that you you actually budget for based on those contribution rates that the state sets every two years that's how they actually allocate between your each district within the entire entity so um you know you have employment changes can fluctuate that figure on a year-to-year basis because of what your contributions were that year before it's and it's always one year behind on contributions so OPB is made up of two figures um there's an amount that comes from the retirement system the medical insurance subsidy uh program and then you have your implicit rate that the
024district is responsible for determining themselves uh so the district hires an actuary the actuary uh determines the uh they ask a bunch of questions they they get the health insurance census they get employee census they get um retiree census um and again I explain it every year and but I'm happy to explain it again the implicit rate represents the benefit that an current employee will earn of the the implicit benefit of the allowance of being on the district's health insurance if they were to leave the district through Cobra district is not saying they're paying any of that cost but that employee potential employee who has left the district can get that Blended rate from all the being in that large pool of employees which is a benefit because if they were to try to buy
025them the same plan themselves they'd be paying more so that benefit just like when you're AC crewing sick time and leave in vacation time gby the government accounting standard board said that's a value that needs to be on your financial statements as well for how long can they have that benefit well definitely or I mean the actuary T probably takes into the they use you know um they do the factor for how long people expect to live they you know they essentially say how long will this benefit be in use be available to that specific employee and they calculate that for everyone cuz in my company if you were to use a corporate plan it only lasts for X number of year like two or three years and that's it yeah and that would so
026it depends on the uh the human resource policy essentially for that as well which would be given to the aary who would factor that into to so even though it's a benefit that's only available to an employee when they're no longer employed it still is viewed as a liability to the district yes because it's so you're saying the district funded in any way if they collect no no because the district doesn't actually pay on pay you know on your actual annual budgeting you're not pay there was percentage or something that we do to that we pay in to fund potential Cobra I didn't think there was right no that's weird uh the yeah it is um just looking at your other benefits you do have termination benefits payable $450,000 and then um a minor compensated
027absence payable which are more tangible sification and then termination benefit being your retirement incentive essentially does the op liabilities show up anywhere in the bu in budgeting okay no exhibit 14 on page 47 this is a supplementary exhibit again these are these are your non- major funds you have a Student Activity fund an athletic revolving fund and a miscellaneous fund these are various um donations and in nonfederal Grants items and so on that um the district is tracking uh we do discuss every year that we're there you know there's a lot of these accounts and making sure that the district is not spending time tracking an account that they're not using or could use and and get it off the books as a one-time type of item so I always encourage time spent on that
028but again that's times taken from other things so it's you know uh 15 is your revenues expenditures related to those non- major funds uh and then the final three EX 16 177 and 18 are your detailed schedules of the general fund on the budgetary basis um that exhibit seven we went through this basically is the same figures but showing your detailed functions uh and revenue sources on exhibit 18 I'll just point out again the district started the year with an unassigned fund balance of 1.7 million um appropriated 225,000 and use 1.5 to reduce uh math doesn't quite add up because I believe there was a correction in the prior year or maybe the trend the timing of knowing the final audit figure versus knowing setting your budget was uh there may have been a gap
029there uh you can see again the revenue Surplus about 30,000 unexpended balance of Appropriations another 1.2 million so you had a budget surplus of 1.23 roughly um decreases related to increases in other uh fund balance classifications uh resulting in your 800,000 un assigned fund balance the last two exhibits are the middle and high school student activity funds a just a further detail by activity account itself uh which corresponds to those uh non- major Student Activity fund as a as a as a whole and the last page is our letter to management regarding any sort of deficiencies that we notice or any recommendations for areas of improvement um we had no we did not identify any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies for that matter of course non-compliance with laws and regulations related to the Food Service
030fund resources um being too high um I believe we actually had this in 2022 as well it's a pretty consistent yeah a lot of school districts it is yep and then and during the audit for FIS 23 I did notice um and pointed out to the district and I've had this occur before where actually the RSA is is unique in the sense that if you at your district meeting you vote money out of surplus to go to a trust fund versus just raise an appropriate money to go to a trust fund there's two different deadlines for when you actually transfer that money so if you're voting it out of the well if the residents are voting it out of surplus available on July 1 the law requires you to pay that over as soon as
031you reasonably know what your Surplus number is and I would say that's at the latest would be when you do do doe2 which is due September 1st so that would probably be your realistically your latest date to send that money over um in practicality you you know you have the money essentially so there would be no delay in you know to send that money over U versus if you if you're raising an appropriate to send to the trust funds you have until essentially 15 days before the end of that fiscal year that you've appropriated it so there's a big difference in that time frame so a lot of uh communities kind of get into the of just doing that once because it's easier to not have to continue to cut checks for to the trust
032funds and it tends to be beyond that first deadline if you will so I pointed that out because I we noticed it that that year so when would you when would you have looked for the TR the transfer to take place for it not to have been pointed out when you have to can you ask that another way by the time the you would anti well no but the thing is said he's saying that we we knew earlier than that that we could afford it so how early would you have um thought that the transfer could have taken place without it being risky and with without it being looking like it's was delayed you know what's The Sweet Spot I think for a school district um unless you know unless you're in the year just
033a tougher year where you're right up to the line with your budget and your re revenues are low you know there's no reason July couldn't it couldn't occur in July I've had some in the past I've seen some who assumes it's passed in March or may wherever they whatever they may be send it right out now you have to do extra accounting for that because you don't want it to come out it's not an expense for the current year that you're in and so on so I I would wait till July 1 before you do it but beyond that you know andless when do we typically do it well other than this year FY 24 I did bump it up definitely um I'd say I was doing it probably in May yeah and that one
034year specifically it was May May of the Year following the appropriation right right so and that's really just because it's really low on my priority so it was all the other things I have to do so this year I I definitely did bump it up but I don't feel comfortable you know I'd like to wait until we make sure our fund balance is good so um we always get an extension of turning in the doe so uh DOA 25 so I think the earliest I would feel comfortable doing it would be probably mid October so I'm shooting for that now instead of May but again it's still low on my priority list no I was just trying to understand where where that comes in thank you so any other questions yes I know we're doing
035pretty good but if you had to uh provide any suggestions for how we can do better what are those things that stand out the big uh one and I already kind of talked about it too that actually that miscellaneous fund that you have $230,000 and I imagine that there is money within those funds that would be available at any time to use for probably existing programs too not not a matter of coming up with a new way to spend this money I'm sure there's some that would support activities that you have going on already so there may be ve a value of going through again going through those as I've internally recommended to them as we're there um beyond that the um the like I said the audit process goes very well and it's early
036August which is really early for a lot of for a big District so that's a that's a positive um what the items that we wait for are the same every year Capital asset listing which again not a not a item that you use for your day-to-day operations or your management decisions throughout the year so I get I get the the back burner type of thing for that um I've always encouraged internally to perhaps move that down the the line for employees and say if there's a way to tag you know if your AP person can is educated on what a capital asset Edition is in this context and they can flag it as they're doing it then maybe you have a little stack and then you're just think okay now I got to just evaluate
037this to say whether or not these are assets and you've kind of Taken streamline that process but yeah beyond that your your operating activities are are pretty tight in that sense I'd say what what goes into the general fund that he or the the the fund that you were talking about it's been 23 mostly what what what where does the money come from that goes into that oh many many different sources um donations um we have like drivers add money that okay we you know we don't really know what to do with we have that's that's not the old uh vending machine find is it yeah there's money there from that but we've we've reduced that dramatically um there's probably three or four of those accounts that what do you end up doing what do
038you typically end up doing with it just at some point transferring into the general fund no we find a project to that matches those dollars for instance we have there's a trust fund the Ruth wheeler trust fund that some woman left a ton of money to the school district a long time ago and so the interest has just been accumulating but it's restricted to be used in relationship to the what they used to call home economics so the fax program so um this year we did dip into that and uh put LED lights and new ceiling tiles in the fax room so in in the past years we've us we've purchased equipment with it I'm just want the reason I'm wondering is we we get requests to allocate money from several of the specific funds
039but I've never seen a request or a proposal to utilize that miscellaneous funds um I'm wondering how that money might get viewed or used if we ciously attempted to uh to use it well and you can use it a lot of time most of the counts in there are not significant um and the ones that are have restrictions a lot of times so what what happens if we just have some old we've looked at it in the past and it's it's been a little while since we've looked at the balances but what happens if we have a restricted account and there we can't like overcome it like what if we had eliminated the fax program for example now that money sitting there saying okay it's only for fax and we don't have a program like
040that anymore um is there any way to reroute the funds to something else or something similar legal way to to it would yeah it would all depend on the source so if it was a donation from just a local resident you could reach out the resident says sure use it for something else then that's fine and if it's good luck find right what if they're not Al right what if what if they're not alive you have to ask their family there is some yeah it's Attorney General's office charitable trust office looking looking at it differently if we're consciously aware of that it might change the appetite to support programs that otherwise might not be supported because of budget impact so that's what I'm thinking having a better awareness of those that don't don't show up
041on the radar might either offset money that's being pulled another place or um incite the implementation of of opportunities or programs that we have not been doing simply because we don't want the budgetary impact of it are you suggesting that maybe there should be more uh reporting on the status of that fund as part of uh the normal process that we use perhaps if it's got over $200,000 in it because the at the board level we're having significant discussions over amounts of 20 30 $40,000 um that might get pulled out of uh either the unassigned fund balance or a trust fund and if there's on the one hand money that's accumulating without a clear end point and on the other hand money that we were hoping to hold on to but we're we're ending up
042utilizing that that to me seems like an opportunity well is that miscellaneous account if if there's an emergency if something dies you know like a rooftop unit or something can that be used for that or is that something separate totally I know some of the allocations like roof thing is only for that but yeah there's something in that fund that would really be used towards a rooftop unit let's say right um yeah like there are sub counts within the fund that specify beert right there was like I recall from years ago like a dairy Association donation or something like that they were very specific and you may well be already doing it and we're just not aware of that Kelly right and yeah I can give you another example there the we collect uh parking
043money from the students and that goes into one of those accounts in that fund and um we are going to we are looking right now at those outo digital signs that you see around other schools that might list the events or whatever that's happening so we're looking at at getting one of those for the high school and using those monies but for instance could that money be used towards Paving it could and has I believe we've used it for p but it there's not a lot of money in there it's going to take a while to accumulate that kind of money and then Tim will be saying have too much so there's no real concern of that amount in that in those accounts I'm not concerned about it you're not you're not no it's just
044a lot it's a lot of it's a lot of work really on is my My ultimate concern is that just how much time is spent having to track it and it's not because they want to you know what I mean it's like it's just it's a I mean I've I've we've over the years and I think this past year we've developed a few more re you know they asked you know why can't I just do this and I'd say you can all all I'm going to be looking for is the an easy way for you to tell me what happened within that sub account during the year so whether that's printing off your report from your accounting software itself and sticking in a folder that has the your inv you know your invoice to behind
045it instead of keeping a spreadsheet but perhaps the spreadsheet helps you with a lot more internal decision- making than I know and and therefore you have two different tasks you're trying to achieve so you know now I don't know that there's a lot of them either but I always recommend too if if they're more scholarship type of a fund or shift that to the actual trust funds so that where you just request it as you need it and you're not tracking it you're not doing anything with it but I don't know that you have a lot of those type of funds either so there's like there are scholarship funds there but they're used a lot of times for field trips right you know kids that can't afford to go the DC trip you know stuff
046like that there's a a special ed uh related one in there that has a significant amount of money and they just need to tell us how they want to use it because it's it's one of those restrictive things especially is a 3% unassigned fund balance a fair place to be on average yeah I think it is I think it's like I said it's historically where you've been and you've and you've always been in Beyond yeah are district Beyond us with your vision is is 3% a fair place to be it is yeah thank you yeah that was a that was a different what you asked is a different question though what he was saying just comparing previous years it gives you one number but for flexibility and operationally yeah I me you efficiency you don't
047want to be too high you don't want to be too low it seems like 3% is reasonable but you have much better eyes into this than I do well I mean obviously as you know I don't have to tell you as a school district it all essentially it all goes back every year so your is really more of a decision-making as far as um I think there's a lot more political side of it on the school side than maybe a town who's really truly looking at we're the last we're the last gasp for emergencies you know the town's always going to pay you first so in that sense the school district is has a little bit less of a challenge in emergencies in that sense in that one aspect of items so because you're giving
048you're giving back all your money so the the towns are responsible for paying you the next year your your net assessment from them so in that sense so so so for example it's a different answer I guess is my is my answer for for a town versus a school as far as what that number need I don't know I don't have a in my head I don't have a school district appropriate just in general terms uh our operate our total budget is what about $30 million so 3% would be 900,000 so as long as it is around that number is that what that's what we're that's what I'm getting out of this yeah that's right what I was attempting to ask yes and and probably it it changes probably community community because too much you
049know 10% you will get asked why are we contining to return 10% so so I don't know what your number is that you can handle basically well we were just told by you that 3% is reasonable so that's it's in line with what you've always done no and it is nice to see like it it getting back to that 3% after those years because we have said that um some of the savings that were realized and money that was returned to the taxpayer was a direct result of Co or things that ended up being funded through grants although the district received minimal levels of grant funding than other districts but so it is nice to see it to start to return to where it was I think it gives us a little more um one
050other item I just think of coming down the line and it's only going to affect those first two exhibits so um again for your board decision making is probably not as a factor too much but they're changing the standards as far as the liability related to compensated absences so whereas and again it you have a very small compensated absence balance anyway so this you may actually see Zero Effect but the standard changing where um if you had a policy that said you can for like sick time where you can keep a week for the next year or whatever um but it was only let me back up all right so the new standard would say if an employee has X in sick time and even though they can only carry one week after a year
051say but you can carry but you can go into that next year with that whatever you had at end of the previous year so you have an anniversary date that you get reset at versus the year end date now the standard says if it's more than likely which means 51% chance that someone is going to use that sick time and the district now has to estimate what the likelihood of each employee using their balances that becomes the full liability versus just the liability that is your benefit when you leave so now it's so they've added some they've added some work on that end but I think once um the district develops a process for that it'll be very routine year to year so but that's just coming down the I have a question I don't
052know if it applies to to our situation or not but um typically for maternity how many weeks of maternity leave is there six six weeks is there paternity to leave as well there yeah it's not exactly in that realm you don't just get six weeks for it but you can request cuz in my company over the last couple of years now they've changed the policy to reflect 12 weeks of M maternity leave or paternity leave so if you're a young couple and you're a male and your wife just had a baby you can take off up to 12 weeks of PID leave that's a lot of weeks I would want to do that so my my question is is that is that a potential burden that we need to think about no no okay I'm
053I'm just saying no I the reason I say no is because of the at least not for the next three years because of the contract contract language all right um they are entitled to um family leave but but it's not paid leave the the leave maternity and and paternity leave is clearly defined in the contract the contract all right thank you great well thank you so much Tim we do appreciate it it's reminder annually of um all the work that goes into keeping the district on on right path so thank you very much my pleasure of course we'll see you next year thank you thank you you so just one quick question the results of the 2024 uh evaluation will be done next summer well I mean no we there's a lot of things left
054to do FY 24 on our staff and on their staff so they by the time everything is done they usually give that to me April May at the best sometimes it's you know later in May it just depends on when the combined forces can get all of the remaining things finished since when the um lengthy document overview part of the I did share with everybody um a summary of a legislative update provided by um an area law firm and it is basically a summary of RSA laws and RSA and laws that were passed rsas that were updated as a result of um the most recent legislative cycle so there's a lot in there there's a lot um that affects in kind of operational aspects of just running running the the school district itself um and
055you know impacts the students and documentation and things like that but I did want to when you have an opportunity wanted to draw your attention to um a couple of different things that were included in the summary um one of them is located on page 23 it's regarding SAU abortion methods so right now we up until this point we've been operating under um an a portion formula assigned by the state that has gone you know it wasn't able to be challenged or changed and it's something that we use to allocate on the SAU budget that gets voted on at each district at their annual meetings so now um as a result of legislation um the method of apportionment um can be changed and voted on same way we have like Antion form we can have
056a change to the abortion formula for the sa where is this this page 23 um page 23 of the document or page 20 page 23 of the document so there's that um and we'd argue that out if we were to argue it out at the district meeting yes okay well but the thing is since it's SAU how do how does that get voted on voted on the same way we would vote on an SAU formula it has to be um it has to be voted on at each district and it's by count majority affirmative vote in each School District within the school administrative unit to pass a change to the formula is it add all the votes up and then take majority does it re affirmative vote in each School District within the SAU now
057this is a summary document it is not I didn't go in and pull the actual legal yes I understand exactly where you're going because the way we look at the sa vote now is is a a majority of vote of the cumulative vote across three districts this says majority of room vote in each School District I have to check the wording of the RSA itself I have a little emergency on I have to leave okay thanks sorry my son scar just blew up an engine huh locally yeah so I need to go and help him out sorry good luck good luck luck thanks um bring your credit card my son's card just so there's um that's one uh a little bit further there's a financial sections you know calculating average daily membership um the availability
058of building Aid which is would now be available for preschools again doesn't affect our specific District but as a prek to2 um SAU U building Aid could be applicable to preschools um but the more interesting part of page 25 is the financial reports and mandatory reports of school expenses yeah um that one talks about new reports that need to be um included um with um the presentation of the budget so in addition to budgets being posted um in I think it's three places which we already do um we would need to calculate and show um in a mandatory report to voters on school expenses line graphs and a table um again posted on two pages 18 inches wide by 24 in tall one's talking about the average cost per pupil and giving different ways it
059can be calculated um a different line graph titled average teacher salary um that shall display the district's yearly average teacher salary over the previous 10 years a third line graph that's titled administrative salaries that to display the annual totals of all salaries paid to administrators employer Contracting so to the district um for SAU over the previous 10 years where administrator includes superintendents assistant superintendent directors or coordinators of diversity equity and inclusion or functional equ officials whether or are listed by the doe and business managers or um administrators uh so there's just you know more oh it talks about the upper lower boundaries of the Y AIS and how it needs to be identified there show also be a table of top administrator salaries of the four highest paid administrators in the district um you have
060to have the name of logo of the district no additional commentary or text let's uh additional information may be posted on separate pages um together with or alongside but can't be on the page of the graphs themselves so there's a lot of you know very specific um information uh about that type so these aren't School administrators as in principls these are SAU administrators it's stipulated as administrators again the the um this is a summary document the law itself might stipulate principles as as administrators um I would have to go back in and read like for the top administrator salaries it says the four highest paid administrators employed by the district so I would think that would in principal as an administrator of the building when did this come through um this just last legislative cycle
061fortunately it's not it's effective next it's not with yeah so we have a little bit of time she putting in her notice so so we can all quit before that the back upate to to the portion thing that's not up on their website yet yeah me go back toes so this district meeting we don't have to do that all that which is we never have to change it if we don't want to no no no no the one the one that really Burks me is to putting the salary stuff up right don't have to for 10 years is a lot of work for my staff yeah the first one will be any where did this all come from our legislature it was signed in the last day I think um well you can look at
062Ouray and you can go to um legis legis scan.com and you can put in um like the topic and the um bills would be listed and you can click brought put them forward so which one which one was this one you were just talking about I don't have 's this is is that the financial report so I would put in something like I would probably in the in the um search window I would put mandatory reports of school expenses and if you put that in that'll it'll key that text and get you to the bill numbers it it lists RSA rsas that it's related to this one specifically doesn't mention the bill that was passed so you'd have to do a search on the topic um to see who the sponsors were I can go
063back and take a look and see if I can find that um last big one from a budget committee perspective that I thought would be of interest so uh this would these would be reports Darlene that you would when you're presenting the budget you would something would FL up on the screen about these are salaries then no uh they would be posted with the budget itself so the same way we have to post like the warrant and the ms27 we would have to post the the reports would have to be posted along with that so you don't have to deal with it at the district meeting no but if someone deal have to be no I no I know right it would have to be publicly it would be publicly available information that anyone could
064come to the microphone and question yeah yeah yeah awesome and and to be fair it is public information now AB it's just it isn't put in your face out of context currently and so that's why you know as as we get to that point and and you know obviously it's a business office decision about what needs to be made for example on the one cost per pupil I wouldn't deviate from I wouldn't it wouldn't be my personal recommendation we can certainly make an form an opinion as a budget committee to recommend to the business office there are three options given we would probably say stick with the option that aligns to the way the state calculates costal you know things like that but other districts could make other decisions to take expenses divided by students
065and then now you're you're you can't really compare to what gets posted with a budget as opposed to pulling the cost per pupil report down from the doe website that lists every single district and is a consistent approach to how it's calculated least just while it's attempting to clarify it could lead to ultimately some confusion but again that's a personal opinion so um page 35 is interesting of that document because it starts to talk about tax caps and um within the explanation there's an expansion to um calculating a tax cap that now needs to include not just the operating budget but all supplemental articles so that yes it did did and there's also a portion of this that talks about budget caps as um away so if you don't want to pass a tax cap
066you could actually put for a budget cap so uh that is two pages worth of explanation that if you're going to spend time I would suggest reading Pages 36 and 37 because um it talks about you know adopting alternate procedures how you would how you would um look at you know how you do it under an sb2 versus a town meeting style and again I think the like by taking a tax cap article and expanding it to budget caps they're really two completely different things so um so what this so this works the same way adopting a tax cap would work if someone were to I believe Brookline has um a tax cap for the Brookline School District it's something that was put forward I think by petition several years ago passed the the legislative
067body and this is you know it just it just opens up what can be presented um for um an article put before the legislative body to include not only the tax cap but the budget cap so if it were implemented and you're oper but if you do have a tax cap it now changes how it's calculated so ta cap used to be applied to only the operating budget in Brookline School District the tax cap would now apply to the the composite and article itself but the the base changes as well correct so now it's it it uses the base of all as well do you know what I'm saying well in in calculating the cap in past years since it didn't include all warrants it only looked at the the budget and items that were
068separate warrants Did not factor into that calculation so going forward the base will be the the um budget plus all the warrants from the previous year even if they wouldn't have been used under the old rules so for instance I'm just guing if you had a special warrant to do a capital investment or something that would now get added into the base where it wouldn't have before I don't think true but if you have one year that you have a significant warant article and you don't the next year then yeah I'm just wondering how it how it addresses the fact that um if something's bonded the first year you don't pay much the next next you do yeah I think if I recall reading something about just the first year of the bond would be
069included but the first year is the low year right which I guess is a good thing so so future years the payments get bigger put into the budget though right yes so they'll they'll be there anyway yeah for in terms of the base and I I will to be fair have to go back and read the actual rsas themselves focus more on the language of the summary but you know this summary in defining you know some of the categor if if it's language taken from the RSA the problem is the kind of intermingling of terms so for example um so in talking about RSA 325d will Define the tax cap words words words words the first year after the budget cap is adopted a tax cap and a budget cap are two completely different things
070they are not interchangeable so if that's language in the legislation it's a huge problem because they're completely different things so um it is worth taking the time to then go in and kind of just actually VI the RSA itself that this was a good starting point for um um you know where where the the changes have been made and even um this one introduces you know the potential to use um an inflation factor and things like that so so what this means is that we can likely expect a whole new slew of uh petition War articles just what I was thinking it would be great if one of them was to get rid of the tax count yeah brookling people there's also um a part of this section talks about moving um the SAU budget
071procedure you know to the top of the Warren um because again that does have a one hour vote so by it automat it would move it to the top but again it's you know telling the district how it should be districts how it should be kind of running their meeting um oh so then so then when you're looking at the total amounts of the budgets then because the SAU budget is part and parcel of the warrant itself it now affects how you calculate tax cap you have to assume it passes because now that's part of the C you know like all these things that you have to really um think about and consider so um those were the highlights um I don't I I don't know that that's a a fair characterization things to be
072aware of things to be aware of those are the ones that stood out to me yeah there are others obviously of some special education aspects but I I those were the ones that I that just kind of um you know as I said stood out and require some just additional um attention yeah um getting back to the SAU a por formula I found the text of the the bill that was passed um for it and it specifically says that each individual District within the SIU has to pass it individually individ so it has to be two separate votes one Hollis one in Brook line and both of those have to pass individually and the co-op individually to change it because that's a separate that's a district is it a district okay all right then there'
073be three then and it would have to pass in all three of them have to pass so it is it's not combined it has to be has individually in all three in order for a change to occur yes so that makes it very difficult probably yeah yes yeah I mean yeah so it couldn't it couldn't be it couldn't be presented in one district and it pass in one District it has to be presented across but but but what I'm also thinking because my concern or concern isn't the point was what happens in Brooklyn because it has to voting is that the number of votes cast in Brookline can sometimes outweigh the total votes of the co-op and and the U Hollis District but according to that language that doesn't matter this says that that wouldn't
074that wouldn't be applicable and and we're sort of equal districts as opposed to um an SAU with a great big uh parent and a bunch of little little fish and that's probably what it was designed for yeah so um to take a look take again I will I will delve into some of the rsas and thank you Brian for finding that language how' you find it though um I did a search through the um the house bills um based on the title it's if you're curious It's 1195 House Bill 1195 but it's not the rsas yet because it hasn't taken effect thank you and the chance of all three districts passing that not going to happen right zero right okay good you can stay on 115 you don't have to run 1195 house HB 1195
075I'll try to find the same thing for the other ones I mentioned 1265 is the one for one wow look at you guys going that's the one for the the for the what final the financial reports thank you Brian who are the who are the sponsors of uh 1195 um I'm not sure how to pronounce this name there's one rep it's Meuse me e does it say from where Rockingham okay this one this one was one s fellows you can one sponsor as a one spor for that one that's surprising that the single sponsor been late a lot of it is that they don't get the attention so uh the sponsor of it presents it in a context that makes it sound very attractive well looking at the history of this particular one it looks
076like it was changed a lot in both the house and the Senate went back and forth a lot and that's just the brief it's like oh there's a lot of entries here on the these changes and those changes to it so of course it might also ended up looking nothing like it did originally I didn't look at the original bill so sen bill3 yeah so this one is um sen Bill 383 and Senator avard is listed on that one among other people this this one with the tax caps had one two three four five six seven eight different sponsors um Murphy in Osborne Maguire Maguire Edwards and to great thank you um so I think we're finished with that for now I'd like to turn to Tom enri for the facilities committee update so I
077just uh want to uh bring you a breast of where the facilities uh committee is we we've been meeting monthly um there are three representatives of the budget committee on that committee so uh and two from the school board so and also a planning board member so the three are Raul me and Tom and Tom and Rob man from the school board so it's it's a good group every everybody is involved uh and we seem to be uh settling on on a Direction so the direction is that uh and and Tom can fill me in on the latest Schoolboard conversations which I'm not privy to but um that uh a warrant article is going to be recommended um for a facili Improvement it will have two components um the first component will be um involving
078the middle school last year we did the high school uh changing the oil to um to uh propane we're going to attempt that in the middle school but it's going to be a much more expensive price process because the Middle School uh has 80y old pieces 50y old pieces and um and other pieces uh so it's got a complete mess uh for um all of the uh the the ventilation and and air handling um but that will be the first piece um and the second piece uh will be a uh solar com uh component um at the high school um right now it's anticip ated that the solar field will involve about um four acres so it's a big one um 1.2 megaw um and uh we're meeting next week uh where I think we're
079going to see some preliminary Financial um information on it um but all of this is in the early stages what's been settled on is the direction and now we're trying to detail it um the uh Bond the the number I I've heard for the bond uh ranges in the area of $8 million um but that's um that's just a guesstimate I can't back that up with uh um with any uh um itemization um and I believe that the school board is uh is on board with where we are but Tom if you'd like to add or subtract to anything I've said well the the information that's been presented to the schol board so far has just been uh keeping them apprised of of what's being discussed there has hasn't really been any attempt to solicit
080input or approval of it however the one thing um and this is sort of overlapping into what I what I would have given in a a board update so forgive me the the two components one is the conversion to propane but a big driver for that is a a very real concern that the existing oil boilers are at risk of um of failure and because it's not set up the way the high school is where they are potentially redundant they are for different parts of it if if one were to fail it would be it would been closing school and trying to Band-Aid re-plumbing the system to allow the remaining one to work for the entire building so so the net effect is the the boiler program is viewed as a musthave and as a
081result my understanding is we're not there the the expectation is that it will be budgeted in the budget um I think the amount is somewhere around $800,000 that that will be put into the budget and then assuming we have a warrant article for a more expansive program that would allow the cost to be spread over 10 to 15 years that such a warrant article would likely be voted on first um for a bond because it would be for a bond in which case its passing would allow a reduction in the budget of that chunk and because the budget excuse me because the the bond was paid off the hope is that we can come forward with a plan that is level or potentially even reduced um compared to past in terms of bonded funding if
082you follow me yeah so for FY 26 the middle school bond comes off the payment schedule so you see it drop and that's like that's a big number it is 600 I think yeah so it's so the the idea is we're gonna you're going to see it in the budget because the the feeling is we have to have the money available if the if it doesn't pass if a bond doesn't pass and the the conversion needs to be done so we want to get it over to propane and it doesn't make sense to do it like we did in the high school it means bringing in Hardware um the good point is apparently uh we were told Brookline is um also doing propane conversion entering into the buying program not Brookline School Brookline town oh
083um they they made some changes so so the the pool and is is getting larger as far as uh generating buying power so you're you're in the loop and three of your members go to all of the meetings so we'll continue on a monthly basis to try to give you more information and involve you in the conversation as U extensively as you wish to be just as a side note Don asked me is there an official budget committee represent representative appointed to the facilities committee last year Raul is it was Raul we didn't I mean we can do that we can make a motion to um okay she she was just trying to have it for the record because she knew that that the charter for the committee had a budget Committee of Point e
084and she didn't know who it was and I I didn't either who it was this year I knew last year it was R but with all of us going I didn't know how that mapped out right right right right for him to be the official yeah I wasn't on the budget committee and I yeah you were the community you were you're the Community member you're the school board member and Raul is technically the budget Committee Member was he voted by the does he need to be no an appointment is just made it just needs to be identified for her record we're all good cover Tom Tom and the other thing is we have three Toms on this on this committee like okay and then I I work with Tom on the on the mun side
085I'm like wow too many Tom I don't think there's too many Toms Tom okay just you know on the record there's never too many Toms never too many well great thank you very much um look forward to some additional information it looks like it's been a worthwhile you know effort over the the last year to really kind of um you know study the proposals and come up with the seems like the right solution solar plan large enough to H the school we don't need Bo this the scary part of it was in the discussion we learned that places like the the gym it has nothing I mean there's there's a event you can open but it's got nothing in terms of managing air flow in that in that part kids running around and then many
086of the other rooms have old style uh ventilation that is so noisy that the teachers turn it off so those rooms aren't aren't getting uh appropriate ventilation either sure there would have been Co funds for all of this a couple of years AG C too late yeah as I'm looking the I realized I left off I'm going to make an immediate agenda adjustment after the school update to include Kelly's Financial update I included all reports how well they're all kind of old so well they are old but there were some updates so um we'll get that the like Almost Got Away With It Kelly um Tom if you want to since you started talking about some of the school board items if you want to just Mo into that uh another thing that uh came
087up at our last meeting is that the board voted to increase the retained fund balance from one and a half to 2% um much of that has to do with the um superintendent's concern about the age of some some items and if it were if they were to fail during the school year uh there I we're things that we're hoping to address in the uh in at the next meeting the Tom and I just discussed but particularly around the boilers if they are to fail during the school year we don't have enough money in the maintenance fund to do it um in this this current year so the idea is that we will U hold it back this year as a as a reserve that combined maintenance trust would allow us to do it in
088on an emergency basis if we had to um so that changes it for one and a half was approximately 340,000 and it increases the what we're holding back to approximately 460,000 still returning over $200,000 expecting to be able to um return over $200,000 to the taxpayers if it were spent and returning it if it doesn't get if it doesn't get spent we've got the funding elsewhere so it's being done as a contingency the other thing that uh I can share is that negotiations have begun with u the support staff for Hess a contract uh it had the original contract was a three-year contract that got extended to a four year um but it is they have started negotiations they started them early because the contract uh the H contract has caps on the um District's
089contribution to the health insurance and there was a clause in that that uh they never thought would kick in which is if the gmr exceeded 10% that they would take a look at it and gmr came in 18% oh my gosh 18.6 which resulted in increased cost to our lowest paid staff that not only would um wipe out but go negative on any increases that they they saw in their salary so there so that so they looked back into that there has been um discussion of a memorandum of understanding to address it for the current school year and that is going to be um voted on by the Union uh in a short time and it's expected that if if ratified by the union will be presented to the board for uh for their their
090vote at the next school board meeting um and at that point once we have something we can give the details on it rest go ahead uh what what about um uh correcting the um the bylaws is the school board uh going to engage in that before the district meeting or how's that going to be handled which bylaws Arles the bylaws that uh don't allow leasing okay that was another thing I was going to bring up Oh I thought you were done sorry no I just want I was just letting that that ruminate for a moment some deep breaths the um there there are two two other items one is uh as Tom brought up there we are um looking at uh H potentially having a special meeting um this year for the articles of agreement
091to uh to specifically look at the um changing it to allow for leases because the the co-op currently is prohibited from doing that by some language in our articles of agreement and the other is um perhaps taking a proactive approach to the apportionment now that it you can approve it without change and then uh bra what was the last one question one of the pieces the legislation um that was actually vetoed was um to allow leases for projects um and like Energy Efficiency and things like that so that would have prevented leases from being able to be um used as a financial financing Arrangement across the board but that was VTO by the governor leasing for what's the direction of leasing well specifically um lease versus bond for uh large investment so for instance a
092solar and and and that sort of thing I don't know all of the the details of the pros and cons but apparently for certain types of Arrangements the the leases have have a uh uh preferable Advantage Kelly might be able to well the vote threshold is different it's um just majority vote as opposed to what a bond is okay and um but that doesn't matter much no um brought the new guy the rates can sometimes be better sometimes not uh the hollow school district I think has two if not three leases in the in presently F yeah Municipal least for some reason I guess um have have distinct advantages for certain types of activities right especially energy related activities leases seem to get you know that's a preference for using a lease and that's why
093the hollow school district did see one yeah one of the most strong incentives for approving the project and bonding it um a bigger project so we can get it done is there are um rebates and incentives that are sunsetting and we really would like them because they that that's a major contributor to covering the cost if we can get those activities in place while they're still active um the last thing I I want to say is I and you might have an update on this as well it's our understanding that uh the board chair and Darlene are uh trying to set up something with the moderator to look at the questions that we brought up about um perhaps changing some of the the rules that are proposed for uh meeting to make it more efficient
094for district meeting yeah we don't have a date yet definely but that that is in the works and I think it's just a question of getting everybody scheduled together um the very last thing I'm just putting this on on your radar there's no action or anything the SAU governing board on October 10th has a a meeting and uh the expectation the intent is to have Barrett Christina director of New Hampshire Schoolboard Association join us for a we're considering a training for school board members the one of the real Focus areas is going to be uh helping board members understand their rights limitations and managing the logistics of conversations with the public and it's going to it all all the meetings are public we rarely have an audience but I thought this particular um session might
095be of interest to people because I I think it's it's helpful for the community members and any um elected officials to understand you know how do you react what what do you do when you're approached with a question and an expectation that as an elected official you can unilaterally do something about something how do you help have a productive conversation with your neighbor at the same time how do you as a citizen exercise your rights as a citizen when you are also an elected official how do you how do you deal with that in a proper manner so if you have an issue with someone and you would deal with it one way as a parent but a different way as a board member how do you how do you handle that we've got probably
096more than a third of the board members in throughout the SAU are uh new within the last this year or the last two years so we've thought it would be timely and we want to let the the public know so that if they're interested or curious they can attend so so that's been set for October 10 because I'm very interested yeah it's going to be October 10th we have I um after Labor Day I'm going to coordinate with Barrett on the actual timing and format with Andy get on the schedule but we've locked in the October 10th meeting which is already on the schedule for him to come to the meeting so then your school Bo meeting yeah I think it will be I think that one's scheduled to be at rmms downstairs the library
097I think that's where it's planned right now and I'm done sorry know that was all great information yeah that was good information and it I I I especially think that um meeting Barrett is a great resource um and I think you know we sometimes have um committee members that are longterm and you kind of lose sight of when you bring on a lot of new people that um not everyone is aware of you know responsibilities of the board and you know what you can and can't do and things like that so that's sounds like a good time I hope I always say call Darlene so Tom you addressed the one and a half to 2% increase um for the retained fund balance and I think there was one document we had that just talked about
098because it was you know had was most impactful in June when the board was making the decision for the additional encumbrances and items that were going to be addressed so there is a summ of that shared in June as well um so there were some additional items that um took place at the end of the month and um in in June at the end of the school year Kelly I don't know if there's anything you'd like to share I mean you're probably in the middle of the doe 25 and finishing things up so September is probably the better month for really 100 the final view where we finished 24 yeah these Financial or this Revenue expense report which was done as June 12th is very outdated now I have no doubt that the number we
099had projected fund balance of 388,000 and I'm sure it will be higher than that so um I just don't know how much higher because we're not done yet right so probably better to wait on that until um the September meeting then have a good sense of could I ask um so those items were listed um uh did you actually do those or because of the 2% retainage did you have to draw back on some of those or uh no I don't believe so I think we'll be able to do both yes do both right so just to run through the list really quickly it included for hbms um cool down room construction duct work cleaning at both schools some uh purchase of some flat panels it office Renovations and for the high school um uh
100some attention to the convers oil tank removal and the um sidewalk Paving I think um the I was told that of all the things that were being funded all were completed except that there's some of the money is accumulating for roof work it was wasn't being expended in this time frame but um the tanks are all in you can see them poking their way out they finished the rooms they finished they did they got a lot lot done in there finishing up the um security measures on the gym side ENT the auditorium entrance at the high school if you haven't seen it you can go up but when you go in remember how you used to be able to sneak around and um go in the other aisle behind you'd go behind the projection area
101for the auditorium um that has now been closed off and that is the office for the who will be responsible for the security um double door Arrangement that's that's being built on the back side of the building right so you have to you know get in from the back parking lot right you didn't have to it was either locked or or it was open now it can be locked and opened right and and we did have issues with people letting other people in so that that should be gone now that's a concern back door of the movie theater yeah well the door that everybody comes in right we just did a bunch of schools Dr Chris Nash is up the security walls and pulling teeth over there but so looking at the last agenda item
102on for FY 26 budget planning just kind of a little overview of our process um and kind of time frame for when information is available um following up we we typically have Lance do the facilities overview that would have been in June just based on the fact that we haven't met in a while I spoke with Kelly about pushing that to September so we'll have him come and talk about some of the smaller facilities projects we obviously have the ongoing um facilities committee on the larger items so we'll talk about that and that'll in a way be timely because we'll be get starting to see the things that will be included um for the FY 26 budget um so we'll spend September kind of looking at that we uh should have information on the new
103rates for New Hampshire retirement they've been set for the twoyear cycle for FY 26 and 27 there's a slight decrease but we can I can have that information to share we might have the adequacy is typically preliminary adequacy is typically October um some preliminary information has been shared with the districts but it's not available for to be distributed yet um we'll move into um a guidance view in October to put some preliminary guidance together and then be reviewing um enrollment enrollment October 1 enrollments will have been reported by the time we meet in October so we'll have an idea where enrollment is looking we'll have the nesda projections um will'll know how the tax rate panned out um in the November meeting uh oh and ongoing um throughout the process is the SAU budget subcommittee
104um I've been the representative to that committee for several years and I think it is at this time that I typically ask if anyone would like to take over that responsibility which is primarily done by Zoom these days so I'm happy to continue but if anyone is really interested happy to continue say no more um I'm happy to continue in that capacity Kelly's already shared the calendar and we're trying to come up with some dates so that um is is planned for first me is planned for that September um so we might have information to share um at the September meeting but definitely for October so those are some of the things I appreciate the overview from the facilities committee to kind of have that fundamental understanding of some of those projects are going and
105the thought behind how to best manage them through the process so I think we're at a a good point with those things so I don't know if anyone has any other items at this point um see none I'll just I did forget to include the May minutes with the documentation I don't know if people feel prepared enough to take a vote on them now they were distributed um after our May meeting was really long time ago so we can hold those until September if people feel more comfortable with that I know like comfortable I haven't reviewed them so I would like to just wait I wasn't here so let's wait till September um for the May minutes we'll make those we'll take those up right at the beginning of the meeting so um there any
106issues or questions say as far as the the stff we fly staff this year as far as like teachers and whatnot yeah looking School few positions that have not been filled yet we have some contracted positions The Coop looks better than the other two districts in terms of contracted Staffing but we're pretty good shape sounds there's a lot of school districts I know lond there is D but you know they adds out on Facebook like we'll train you show up yeah it's yeah I mean far teach in really good shape it's more that like the Allied health professionals like um I think there's a speech pathologist Services yeah yeah I think that we may have a couple openings there thank you just reminded me of two things one is Brookline uh we we were trying
107to figure out how to coordinate budgeting and a little bit a little bit better we're talking about the chairs meetings and Brook Line's trying to get more information to the brook line select board because they don't have a budget committee so there's no official mechanism in Hollis you have the advantage that uh the town and the school districts have budget committee can you envision a way to communicate or to uh collaborate with the Brookline select board in a way that would give them more visibility to uh the the school expenses are coming up because basically what happens is when when you get to the meeting it's just a couple of people like Brian and me who have in inside and Matt who have inside views and we we the questions come up at the at
108the select at the the town meeting and you get Selectmen the select board members who are blaming everything on the school districts and and when I and sometimes the blame is the blame is not so much intended to be blamed but just say this is what we're hit with we have no idea what's going on and I'm wondering if there's any way that we can get them more uh up to speed so that they do know what's going on and they know the context and it's not as reactionary I mean the the um I mean the school board seats so yeah the school board you know can always invite um a slateboard member to one of their meetings or they can go to one of the sliit boo meetings and you know and and offer
109presentation you know in the past I've kind of been an an an emissary between the two of them I haven't gone to a school board meeting in a little while yet if there's particular concern I I can certainly go I'm just wondering does uh how does how does the select board EXC of Hollis interact with budget committees to understand yeah so there's one Municipal budget committe that the town and the K to6 district school district and we have um a select word member who serves on the budget committee and we have a school board member who serves on the budget committee so they are directly involved in all the discussions that take place and they're the primary person that takes information back to their or brings information from their respective board so they're voting members
110do have a big impact on discussions yeah I I think um I I think the the select board members get a lot of information about the school districts Co-op doesn't come up very often um butc I I I serve in that role I I can address those issues um Tom Gan who's the chair you know encourages the the latitude to just explain where there are sometimes some differences but it does help to have a Selectmen there I mean Brian you're a great you know representative you've been on the finance committee so you kind of understand the perspective and a lot of the terminology you're just not the current person I'm not on the finance committee right now my concern is with the bond coming off whether the Brookline towns are going to say well we
111should expect to see a huge drop in the co-op budget because their bonds disappearing yeah so I mean I think that's that's up to the school board to explain the school School District well we kind of don't have a school district meeting now but deliberative session I mean I would I would probably say encouraging a finance committee member to attend a school board meeting on a regular basis um I don't even know if we have a fully staffed finance committee right now do we we do we do there's at least two people I'm aware of that are yeah I thought there was only two yeah is there three don't we live stream everything nobody watches well that's that's no we I mean if the finance committee has minutes of their meetings forwarding the minutes to
112select board members or you know maybe just even if it's not every month especially as we're going through budget periods you know making it that concer every other month they'll go and talk about issues so that the select board knows contracts are being negotiated you know like things like that um are there three or but you know that the three or five five and I think in brookly five Selectmen don't we five Selectmen yes three on the finance committee and I think in in Brook line a year or two ago I think the topic of forming a budget committee did come up for my budget committee is that there there've been petition Warren articles they've been right rejected yeah they've been rejected and see something like that in the formation of a budget committee would
113probably have a select if we did we would but we have enough of a challenge getting our select board and finance committee populated yeah so I would say if someone were to you know kind of jump in and make the effort to share the minutes at a minimum um including a link to what the live stream feed was um you know those things you know someone might just take the additional time or something or you know if it's important to the select board you know inviting the you know we could as book line members could go we can give some type of overview or you know something if they want to understand some issues at the co-op um from a Schoolboard perspective um you know maybe going to both select boards if a bond is
114going to be you know put forward I don't know there are all kinds of things that we could do to kind of share information and and get the word out so could also put seats out so people could come here to the meetings and learn themselves right they're com SE oh yeah that's right too well at 8:14 if there are no other issues I'll ask our process Observer for some input this evening lot of information this evening you know between the the reports and everything I think we did good you know you did Tom Tom Tom's did a great job no I think we got a lot done in the time we had with you know with the audit report everything we a lot of really good topics so at this time um I'll just
115say our next meeting would be for theth fourth Thursday of September which is the 26th and we'll be on um we have to consider some things as we get to the holidays but will at least be um for Thursday for September and October absolutely so at this time at 8:15 I'll take a motion to adjourn from so moved Brian seconded by Dave all those in favor unanimous than 6 left at 720 wasn't pay attention great thank you for See You in September thank you who's crackling more you and me yeah first step's always special been so long it's it's been I think April was