Stratham School District Annual Meeting 3/4/25

001good evening like to call the stratum School District meeting new order at 618 and I understand we still have a line that goes out to the parking lot however uh in the order of conducting our business to this evening uh we are going to start moving along uh I'd like to ask you if you are able to please rise and remove your caps for the presentation of the Colors by troop 185 scouting America and please join me as a Scouts to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you just to keep our business moving along I wanted to introduce myself my name is Dave

002Emanuel I am your town and School District moderator and I was going to ask each of the members of the board to introduce themselves as well Jennifer hi there good evening I'm Jennifer scrafford board chair Eric erring Sophie saltan stall Paul tassini Tanya scales beautiful thank you and just to review our rules for the annual town and school district meeting and I know that not everybody's in the room but if you can help me inform our people who are coming in as they come in I wanted to remind everybody that our fire exits are on both sides of the room behind me as well on the back Corners uh restrooms are to my left in the hallway or out in the main school building rule number one for the State of New Hampshire the rsa's

003state and task the moderator with establishing the rules of conduct for tonight's meeting if there are any questions that is rule number one that will take unless you the rule number one is the moderator makes the rules number two only stratum registered voters are partic are permitted to participate in this evening's proceedings I invite non-registered voters to join me and principal Lucas in the front row uh or to principal Lucas in the front row because I'm not in the front row uh voters should have already checked in with the supervisors the checklist and received a voter a colored voter card upon entering the meeting room if you have not done so uh please do so this evening's meeting will be conducted in an orderly fashion using simple parliamentary procedure to govern the questions discussion and

004voting each article of business will have a motion it will be supported by a second we'll have questions discussion and a vote any and all speakers must be recognized by the moderator speaking and voting in this meeting is only afforded to registered voters unless the opportunity to speak by a non-registered voter is requested and permitted by the moderator voters wishing to ask a question or make a statement I'm going to ask you to line up for the center microphone and state your full name and address for the record sorry uh Miss peek I forgot to introduce you our school district clerk is here as well Kathleen peek Kathleen is responsible for taking our minutes tonight which is why it's imperative that you state your name and address for the record speakers you're going to line

005up at the mic and you're going to help me keep the meeting moving so we don't have to wait for people to walk up to the microphone if you'd like to speak I'd like you to approach the microphone I'd like you to ask uh pose all questions and direct comments to me the moderator I will seek an answer and a response for you I will not permit a running debate between speakers on the floor and all Communications are to go through me the chair of the meeting please limit your question to one at a time if you'd like to ask a follow-up question uh you can check in if we have a long line I'm going to ask you someone to say no we're going to listen to what everyone has to say uh debate

006and comments should be gerain to the subject article to the point and under two minutes so I'm going to ask for a helper to help us time that to make sure that we are 2 minutes a piece uh when the alarm goes off I'm going to politely ask you to stop and then I will G you until you stop because I want to hear what everybody has to say and that's that's the we're going to go with the two-minute rule for tonight uh number six uh amendments to an article cannot change the subject matter or purpose of the article it should be made in legible writing that I can read and it should be seconded by a registered voter if a voter has a question or would like assistance with the wording of the amendment

007please see me or an assistant moderator before submitting language to me uh our assistant moderator is over uh I think yep she's in the ho she's in the ho line right now and uh Beth can help you and legal council is in the front row um she is also happy to work with you uh amendments will only be accepted one at a time to avoid confusion and we will resolve each Amendment with a vote before another amendment will be introduced once all of the proposed amendments have been voted upon the meeting will vote on the article or the motion that is before us I will take we will take our time and I will not leave anyone behind I want to make sure that everyone in the house understands exactly what we're doing all of

008the time so everybody's on board if you have any confusion about anything it's a big room so you can either give me a a subtle cue and try to get my attention or just give me a a point of inquiry or a point of question and uh and we'll resolve whatever the question or issue is everyone with me for that okay um if a voter chooses to move the question to end debate uh I my rule is if you're in line to speak I want to hear what you have to say before we close the debate so again I encourage you just to to form a Queue at the microphone in the event that somebody calls the question personally I you were all here tonight for a reason I want to hear what you have

009to say I'm not interested in ending debate after the first or second speaker just to be perfectly clear because that's not that's not the fair way to run a meeting secret ballot if anyone would like to request a secret ballot for any article at any time during the discussion of that piece of business I ask that you have a written request with a signature of at least five present registered voters so if you want a secret ballot I have the ballot boxes and uh I just ask that you call for it and we will we will make it work a motion to restrict reconsideration limits opportunities to reintroduce business that's been voted upon during tonight's meeting in the event that a motion to reconsider is made tonight after re reconsideration has been restricted the article

010may not be reconsidered at tonight's meeting and a future meeting will be rescheduled to a time and date certain and will be posted at least 7 days from tonight and Rule Number 10 uh the moderator may be overruled by a simple majority vote of the house so if you don't like the way I'm doing business help straighten me out none of us are perfect I I welcome the conversation uh and in full disclosure I grew up here in stratum attend in town meetings I've been doing it since I was in the elementary school at 10 Bunker Hill Avenue uh and I was a Cub Scout like the two cats that just brought our flags in uh I believe that we are participating in the purest form of democracy in our country and I ask that

011everyone in the house respect the opinions of our friends and neighbors as we would like to be treated in return and we all live in the same community and we should conduct our business as such as stratum voters have for over the past 300 years I invite you to continue to be involved in the process and I am grateful that you are all here with us this evening can I answer any questions on the rules before we start our proceedings I neglected to introduce our staff in the front Kate would you like to introduce anyone or call anyone out no okay I this is my friend principal Lucas we're on the same page thank you I I fair enough seeing no questions we will move to article one the warrant article indicating uh yes article

012one uh Heidi you approach the microphone yes Mr moderator I'm Heidi Hansen Strawberry Lane I would like to make a motion that we take up article two first tonight okay we have a motion to take up article two as our first order of business just a point of clarification from legal council for the SA would you would sorry would you can I just ask can I grab the mic or Chris can you help me with the mic Heidi I have a point of information or clarification and just for the house uh Heidi Hansen has asked to move article two to the first order of business in front of article one the the state statute specifically RSA 33 colon 8 hyphen a Roman numeral 2 requires the bond article to be acted on first at the

013meeting okay thank you for the clarification so a second is not required a vote is not required what we just got we got a CL clarifications from the Hampshire statutes annotated uh that we have to take up the bond first so uh is there anything else before article one article one before us the school building renovation shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the sum of 11,9 61,7 45 for the purposes of financing the costs of building Renovations $1,961 745 of such to be raised through the issuance of bonds or notes under the compliance under and in compliance of the municipal Finance act RSA 33 1 uh as amended to authorize the school board to apply for accept and expend federal state or other Aid if any which may be available for

014said project and to comply with all laws applicable to said project to authorize the school board to issue negotiate sell and deliver bonds and notes and to determine the rate of interest thereon and the maturity and other terms thereof too and to authorize the school board to take any other action to pass any other vote relative theto and further to raise and appropriate an additional $299,400 to meet the necessary Financial Obligations associated with the Project's Debt Service for the 2025 to 26 fiscal year a 3- fths ballot vote is required and this appropriation is recommended by the stratum school board with a vote of 5 to zero at this appropriation is recommended by the financially excuse me the financial advisory committee of a vote 5 to Zer is there a motion to move article one

015Mr moderator I make a motion to uh approve and accept article one thank you we have a motion from Paul danani is there a second yes I would like to emphatically second thank you uh we have a second by Sophie saltonstall and of uh just of note this because this is a bond article The Ballot Box will be open for one hour from when we open the box so um would one of you like to speak on article one I would thank you Paul what does Kate do her presentation just watch the steps watch the STS should Kate do her presentation okay hi everyone thank you I know a lot of you make presentations you've given presentations I you're going to give a presentation you think about what you're going to say you plan it

016all out you you got the words and then you get up in front of everybody and it goes right out the window right that's what happens to me anyways I'm the lucky one I'm the lucky one tonight because I get to stand up here and tell you what the building subcommittee and the SAU has managed to achieve in the last year here and this really was a team effort a team effort like one I've never seen before so we'll start a little bit with the timeline you know the renovation expansion you can call it one both if you want either one I'll call it a renovation started back in uh 2019 somebody turned the turned it up started back in 2019 okay and it's and then all the way through 2023 the last uh contractor

017that we were working with proposed the $45 million price tag it's a great company Banwell is a great company uh but um that was a little heavy and they said pass a bond for 50 million we'll give you back to change I think everybody looked at that kind of swallowed hard and said we have to do things a little differently so shortly thereafter it was uh superintendent andris who suggested we uh form a building subcommittee and expand it once we formed it and go out to experts here in our own commit our own Community experts in commercial construction to volunteer to be on the subcommittee and they responded and we had a fantastic subcommittee you're going to see that in a minute and then in 24 we reviewed the letters accepted them we the subcommittee

018was formed and you can see there in uh July through August we conducted our meetings to determine the scope of what we needed can I have the next slide in September of last year we put out an RFP for a preconstruction manager so this was decided to be done in two in two um sections one was a pre-construction manager to come in and assess the school and give us an idea of the cost and then the second phase would be the construction phase okay so we we get put out rfps we had four companies respond the building subcommittee the experts and instruction interviewed those four respondents and it was great because independently we all chose Kino construction it wasn't a debate well I want this one someone else wants that one we all felt the

019karino was correct they were right-sized they have a lot of experience working on schools and importantly one of the individuals that's going to be working on our project at that time is a stratum resident and his children went through SMS that meant a lot to all of us okay so you I want to point out the last line and all that was done actually from it uh it uh in uh starting in from I got all tied up in my knickers here okay so in in last from starting from last September through December all the work was done to do the scope of the work and come up with a with a price tag and then early this year we had uh six um presentations done by Sophie Outreach presentations for the town okay now

020you can go on next slide this is the building subcommittee included uh Chris and Kate Tim Harrington in facilities at the time myself as the chair Sophi also on it Dan Crow who is the president of the local volunteer fire department Association Ryan hton who is an expert in heating and air conditioning and runs um a local company and that that does that we had two individuals from the PTA Bethany and Andrea uh Chris Merrick uh who I believe is in construction Luke picket who is in real estate development Paul Pino who is an expert in MEP Mike Welty who is uh also in construction next Slide the idea was to focus on the things that the building needed address education ADA requirements safety infrastructure and some expansion areas particularly in the cafeteria next [Music]

021slide so there's this is three slides that give you an an idea of the costs not going to read them all the big ones it says a wing that's four new classrooms and a lot of people ask questions during the six Outreach sessions that we had and I can answer those those questions for you now some people said well why are you building new classrooms when enrollment is static can we go back to the very first slide that has the um the outline the Corino outline the one that uh that uh that Todd Harrington puts up the very first slide in this in the section there we go right there thank you okay so I don't know uh um if you can see it from where you are some of this is in blue and

022some of this is in like pink I'm going to get feedback if I step in front of the microphone on the left side and on the right side you'll see two additional classrooms on either side four additional classrooms and people say well why are you building four additional classrooms we're not really okay the two classrooms on the left replace the two temporary buildings that were're only supposed to be there for a few years and are now in year 18 they're supposed to be 10year buildings or less and then and they're in year 18 so those go away and this brings the the students into the main building in in um permanent classrooms down in the front on the left hand side you will see two blue boxes those were classrooms and they are being re

023outfitted for administrative needs and the two classrooms on the right hand side replace those so there really isn't there's new classrooms it's true but it's not an expansion in the true sense of the word uh down front you can see the administration the administrative offices those are going to be reconfigured to make it more useful for Kate and her team and it improves Safety and Security because people are not allowed to walk straight into the building they have to go through that area first and sign in before they're allowed into the building so there's that Improvement in the back the cafeteria is expanded by about 20% now you know when we were expanding the cafeteria we knew we had to do it and we'll talk a little bit about that later as well but one

024of the things that governed that was the expansion was there's a road behind it okay and some people said well why don't you expand it a lot more well that means moving the road well moving a road isn't too bad but then you got to move the basketball court after that so it starts to snowball and we're trying to you know keep this as cost effective as possible okay you can go back to where we were you can go go to the first one there so the big ones is um it says new special services wings that's the four classrooms cafeteria expansions about 730,000 okay the office reconfigurations about 1.4 there's some uh fire code upgrades and you know there's a few lines for fire code here to me I I'm all about safety and

025I I was really surprised to learn that this school was not fully sprinklered so that's one thing that was my hot button and so we are now fully sprink sprinkling the school well to do that we learned we had to go all the way back to the pumps on the other side of the street because the pipes aren't large enough so all of that had to be upgraded so on one hand you know you start to think about it and you say well it's only a few hundred, no to do it and make it work it's a lot more so there's a few line items you're going to see here for that ADA requirements they've changed over the years so we want to bring the school into compliance uh so there's uh about $700 for

026uh excuse me uh 575 for that the boilers I got a great story where is Paul you I'm going to ask you not to tell any stories just just finish up the presentation so we can answer questions thank you all right that's that's okay you guys Paul's doing a nice job with the presentation thank you Paul it's a great story anyways the boilers $235,000 for boilers okay let's go to the next one all right air handle is about a million dollars there are upgraded controls that go with that uh that are not inexpensive 335 for that um in um the second floor classrooms get hot on the shoulder months so they are going to be air conditioned okay LED lighting uh improves the lighting and is more efficient some electrical work envelope upgrade on the

027outside of the building get into the sofits and improve uh the uh insulation there because we're losing heat through over the walls to the outside and also uh to fix some uh ventilation problems next one Kate heat rises right so uh the roof is past its life um we're going to replace the roof we got a great price on that and we're going to add two inches of insulation which will help energy efficient that way there's some more on the fire alarm system uh that uh 120,000 in there for the leeching field is a you could call call it a contingency we don't know that we're going to need to spend that money it's there in case we do and we start to dig there is a 15% contingency on the whole project now Kino

028suggested 10% but we put in 15% because we want to make sure we've got everything covered and then there's $250,000 in there for an owner's rep so an owner's rep is an individual that is paid for by the school reports directly to the board and that person is an interface between the school or the board and the construction company so if anything comes up during construction there has to be change orders things get really technical the owner's rep is experienced in these things and they do all the negotiations they're there on a day-to-day basis you know working on the job site and then they report back to the board so there's money in that for an owner's rep [Music] I'm want to try to make this fast so what we're trying to do is get

029this all done in less than two years minimize the impact to the children do most of it during the summertime I talked about the changes to some of the rooms for special service improving the administration area in the uh upfront cafeteria expansion allows for two lunches instead of three lunches okay removing the temporary classrooms and we met a budget Target of million beautiful that's it Sophie thank you for making the presentations on the road Paul thank you for making the presentation tonight uh house if uh if if you have questions or comments I invite you to come up to the front mic please Paul why don't you come back up your seat and make your statement on way I do want to say one more thing a question came up about Windows the school does

030not need Windows today but it is going to need Windows in the not too distant future we believe that there is enough money in the bond and when you include the $240,000 or so that's in the current maintenance um trust fund to cover windows windows are about $400 to $500,000 you don't have to do them all at once either so we believe we have that covered and if it turns out to to be that way we're probably going to put the windows in too Paul thank you for the clarification on the Windows uh Nancy huner um okay if your number for the students are down to 470 is which I've been told when my kids were here there were 620 kids under this roof we managed with lunch we managed with everything else I understand

031adaas changed their RS I understand that but are you using all the classrooms the same now as when we had our kids here because it seems like I mean nurse Judy had no problem in her little cubby hole of a nurses station all those years why do we have to have two big classrooms for a nurses station would someone like from the board like to respond and if anyone else in the house has a question or comment I'm inviting you to come to the microphone because this is part of the moderator's interest in keeping the meeting moving if you'd like to speak I'd like to see you at the microphone thank you yeah I can address that um so I am also thank you Sophie alumni of SMS so um I was here when the

032class were that size too um since I was a student so much has changed um technology has had a huge impact on the way students act behave and learn in the classroom we've told we've heard from a number of teachers and admin that students aren't the same Learners as they were then when I was a student we really didn't hear about anxiety depression mental health issues at all and now those are daily conversations that our teachers are have to respond to um so education has shifted a lot in that time and it requires more individualized care and attention and more individualized spaces um than it did back then so that's why we need more thank you Sophie I have one more question Nancy what's your second question how did you come up with a 300,000

033possibly per household for our taxes to go up because I did some math and if you're collecting that it looks like you're going to collect aund $1 million per year and this is for 25 years and it's a $12 million Bond so that's not adding up uh it it it does add up okay if you if you divide it well the the formulas for determining the taxes okay we worked with the town to get those formulas and for this for $12 million Bond over 25 years at 4% for a home that is assessed at $834,000 the TA additional tax on that home is $312 a year 156 a half thank you the way it works out thank you for the clarification hi um Jess Ryan I'm on hren road um so I kind of have

034like two things one just comment wise um education has changed and Sophie thank you so much for your comments because anybody that's saying when my children and that is over 5 years ago that they were in a school it's no longer applicable um yeah [Applause] hey yeah I'm just going to ask the house to uh sit on their hands or whatever I need to tell you to do just please continue thank you um but my question is about the windows so my husband and I and the reason why I'm asking this is cuz we went through a house fire um and thank you to everybody in stratom who helped us um but we found that when we were having to renovate it was just easier to do it all at once and so you're kind

035of saying we probably will have the money for the windows but I mean is there a way for us to just put the contingency in for the windows I'm new I don't really know how this works um but yeah so it's usually easier just to do it all at once as opposed to oh well we'll handle that down the line uh yeah thank you Jess would someone from the school board like to respond yeah I'll um I'll handle that one thank so um as I said there's a 15% contingency in there that's $1.5 million okay we don't believe we're going to find that many that much in surprises in the work but it's in there anyway anyways there's $24,000 in the maintenance fund right now we add to the maintenance fund every year so we're

036trying to we're trying to keep the Bond as low as possible while still addressing those things the windows are still good okay they don't have to be replaced right now they might not need to be replaced for 5 years so it's like I just we just decided you this makes no sense to take out perfectly good windows at the moment but we believe them we have there is a high likelihood the money is there for it thank you Paul hi uh Chris Merrick S buram Wood road I was part of the building committee obviously support the project and just wanted to share a few thoughts uh first of all uh resident since 2000 two daughters went through the school yada yada yada um I'm a builder by trade construction manager so I was happy to

037volunteer uh for this project I think you know observations on the building I think we're very fortunate to have such a well-built building it's 37 years old and really hasn't had much love through its life so the majority of the systems are well past their service life the we really worked hard to ratchet down the scope of the most necessary items yes we'd like to you know give it a Fresh coat of paint everywhere all new floors new windows yada you know but I think the the 12 million is is a responsible uh budget for what the building needs to bring it for another 20 25 years not to say you know that there's not other items that would come up along the way I think the well I know the town's done a really

038good job maintaining the building for these years and there's no reason to believe that that's not going to continue so uh I encourage everybody to vote for it and uh thank you very much thank you Chris thank you my name is Paul parino I live on ten hawick Drive stratum uh I also a member of the uh building committee I've been a registered professional mechanical engineer for many years and um we're only in schematics schematic design and a 15% contingency for schematic design is typical we' you know we don't know what we're going to hit once we get into construction once we get into design because design specs have changed standards have changed energy standards are much stricter and so are the ventilation standards so that the kids don't get sick in the building so

039these are all standards that weren't around that didn't exist to this extent 37 years ago you have to put the contingency in there so don't go ahead and and commit half a million dollars to to uh things we don't know are going to be spoken for just to get the building built it's too early but let me just say something I wanted to say something because uh over the past several months Paul just do me a favor come a little closer to the mic because they can't hear you in the back yes as a as a as a member of the building subcommittee over the past several months I I really found it to be a pleasure to work with the board the administration and the subcommittee I think we had a really great group

040of people that that had uh goals or goals oriented and they wanted to get this job done uh because the building is tired it's a tired building it's it's a great built building but it's it needs renovation um working with the newly elected school board and with Corino Construction we reduce the scope and the cost of the original design scope by 75% bring it down to appro approximately 12 million without sacrificing essential improvements and meeting the requirements of the administration and Paul that's your two minutes just if you wrap it up for me please one thingk taxpayer savings instead of a dollar per thousand tax rate with a $48 million project the revised plan is 25 cents per thousand saving the average Homeowner of with an assessed value of $834,900 per year for 25 years

041the current board realized that our community has been hit by too many taxes and it has proven that we can improve education without spending more that's all I have Paul thank you for your comments sure and then and I'm seeing no one else in the house wants to speak if you did you're going to March up here to the microphone Sean Dempsey 20 Patriots roads here in stratum thank you Sean first of all Paul I want to thank you for the presentation I really enjoyed it um I do want to hear some of those anecdotes later though so it's too bad they uh didn't want to talk to you through those um I wanted to know if I could raise a motion or is it be out of order to do so it depends on

042what that motion is well all right I'll let you know I'll so I I moved to revise article one which we're voting on tonight uh to revise the financing cost for build building Renovations um uh the sum of 11.9 million should be reduced by all line items unrelated to building safety and ADA compliance this would include removing all line items related to building out four new classrooms and office Renovations I would also recommend dropping the contingency to 10% as that was recommended by by the construction company that's my formal motion now my reason for motioning that is yeah just a moment please that's a really long motion I'd be happy to email that to the yeah I need that in writing and is there a second for the motion no well you can't say no

043Jess no no the appropriate sorry this is the the levity part of tonight's meeting we have a motion to reduce the amount I need that in writing so I can read it back to you so we're all on the same page and and before this can go any further I need a second to the motion to reduce the amount second we got okay thank you Kendall and I will uh email that to you I just wanted to speak to the reason the rationale for for why I'm suggesting this uh with declining student enrollment and an already owner's tax B burden on stratum citizens it's not fiscally responsible to seek a bond offering over and above what is actually required for student safy safety especially when new classrooms are not actually required now again I'd certainly

044entertain debate and um like to talk through that but I well it's not your position to do that but I understand you're I understand what you're saying yes can can I just ask to can I put you on mic again please you guys can take the mic out of the stand the motion you can reduce a budget amount in a bond or or the number in the bond but you have to have a number your motion does not have a number in it yeah I I did write this up without an Excel spreadsheet in front of me but I'd be happy to do the actual math which is simply removing several of the light items from tonight's presentation um so what we're at Sean what this does right now we have a we have an

045amendment on the floor to reduce the amount can you can maybe just how about this if I was to State the number of I think based on Broad Strokes 10 million looks about appropriate given the uh the line items that I saw but I happy to do the exact math based on the line items well all I need is a number that I can share with the house so right now the number is $1,961 745 and you're asking to amend this to $10 million correct I I don't mean to oversimplify your Amendment but if that's if that's your intention the I'm going to simplify that to help both of us out please so the amendment that we're going to talk about and ask questions is to reduce the bond amount for article one to $10

046million and uh Kendall are you okay with that second okay okay at this point we are now talking about a proposal to make the bond $10 million so any questions related to reducing the bond amount to $10 million uh this is an appropriate time to approach the microphone and with questions or discussion and I'm going to ask you to they they will all go through me could I just clarify CL I did also mention a reducing the contingency to 10% which was the amount actually recommended by the construction company I don't see a reason to go over and above what their recommendation was I understand I just I need one number that we can talk about and sign into law for tonight um Kate could you put the slide back up with the numbers on

047it the uh first slide with the bond details yes the new special service wing of 2.1 83 seems [Music] unnecessary okay so I'm just I'm going to take the Liberty until we get that number Sean you're going to get back to me with a number and uh Paul please this is related to the amendment I I am very much against this amendment come closer to the mic please PA I am very much against this amendment because in my experience as an engineer on construction projects at this level you are looking at danger we are not going to have enough money to finish this job potentially okay you don't make judgments like that it's too early we have to get more engineering done we haven't even gotten past we we just got past schematics okay we

048got to get through we got to get through Dei design development and then and then you know 75% or 80% design before you can get some decent estimates it's too early it's definitely too early to to be putting that kind of judgment on a project that's worth $12 million thank very risky as a professional engineer I I tell tell you right now I do not support that a million dollar taken off this project because I know there were parts of this project that are not in it that need to be looked at okay thank you Paul and thanks for your service on the committee no no no hang on hang on just keep the keep the meeting Roland come on up please good evening everybody David Zippen Wingate Court stratum New Hampshire I'd like to

049first thank everybody on the board and thank everybody that served on the committee to get this project done I could say firsthand having witnessed uh my wife Andrea work very hard on it that they've put a lot of time and thought into this project my first question for the broad group would be could you kindly raise your hand if you have any experience at all in the field of engineering building construction and in this room I see a handful of folks could you kindly raise your hand if you care about our community and you're here because you want to do what's best for our students I think we all agree that that is why we're here I know firsthand when I go to visit a doctor and a doctor tells me I'm not feel I

050tell the doctor I'm not feeling well and I ask them for help on how to feel better I'm not there questioning what the doctor is telling me and telling them how to do my job how to do their job when I go to my accountant to file my taxes I'm not going to the accountant and telling them what line item needs to be have every number beside it my point is we've worked really hard as a community to get this number from 50 million down to 11 they've cut out a lot let's let the experts do what they do best and improve the building we're all we've all benefited from an increase in the price of our properties over the last several years a large part of the appeal of living in stratum is having

051an excellent school system I know that's why my family chose to live here let's make sure that we keep that going forward and do what's best for our students and give them a building that's safe and something that they can come to with pride and excitement every day thank you thank you David oh hey [Music] hey I don't mean to be mean with a gavel I just I'm trying to be respectful everybody's time sir hi Mark Santos 111 Willow Brook AV can I ask uh one question before I propose my motion my question is after a motion is proposed can you please explain what the next steps would be and what the implications of that would be to the crowd here absolutely the motion as revised is to change the number for 11 from $1,961

052745,000 to revise that number to 7,666 $167,000 and that is the motion before us and that that's the art that's the amendment this is right well he revised the number oh you're saying he can't do that I understand what you're saying um what uh Sean where'd you go I see fingers okay okay Sean your motion was for $10 million we're going to vote on that first if you'd like to revise the number to this we'll go through the iteration one more time does that answer your question it does I'd like to propose a motion I I will not accept any more motions until we vote on the one before us right now because it's an amendment we're going to vote on amendments one at a time until we hit the right spot and then we'll

053vote the motion before us is for article one I want to propose a motion for article one an amendment to article one I understand we're going to vote on the amendment that's before us right now I can't I will lose the house if we do second order amendments should I should I wait and then we have a okay yeah thank you nothing personal Mark Greg Richardson 6 poter rocks Terrace um I know nothing about building I can't hang a picture straight on a wall but I know a little bit about finance and um this would be insane I mean like the reason we're in this position in the first place is because for some reason this town is pound uh Pennywise and pound foolish and literally trips over dollars to pick up pennies it's insane

054do it right do it for the kids or else we're going to have this Perpetual problem every couple years we need more money we need more money and go through this big rockets for no reason do not vote for that Amendment it's not even logical frankly and beyond that it's it's punitive I don't even understand so pretty uh pretty against that one thank you Greg sir I'm Dennis mofet live in Charles Drive I'm a construction executive so back to the guy who just raised his hand had everybody talk about it for those who haven't built anything before and looked at this stuff it's not just like looking at a value and thinking you should take it off the gentleman in the plaid shirt here that's describing the time and the effort that goes through this

055I look at this every day I build $100 million plants I've built half the shipyard at KY I build stuff all around New Hampshire Mass Maine Boston Mass ches everywhere in the New England you can't just look at something like this and decide that it needs to be cheaper you have to go into the details and the fact that this gentleman here is probably right it's probably underpriced you probably have less things you're going to find contingencies I would always recommend more contingency than not when you go in construction projects the fact that the Builder said 10 is conservative the fact that you're saying 15 is great what you don't want to do in a building thing when you're going against time is have this person run into a change order that account can't afford

056when you want to get this done as quick as possible it has to have the money you have to have the funding to do it and you need someone like a resident engineer here to help build things and move it forward you can't be sitting here hoping that you had more money later so the fact that you have 10 or 15 is really nominal whether you use it or you don't you want to have it if you get in a situation where the Builder can't go forward just like all the rest of you you're not going to go to work for free they're going to stop and wait for you to get the funding so the whole point is you need the right money to do the job from the beginning and if you go

057forward and do it the right way this is probably fine you've had people who put this together for months on end sitting up here and looking at these values and saying it should be cheaper without knowing what any of these Scopes mean doesn't make any sense to me and I do this for a living every day I've built over probably a billion dollars right now in the last 20 years of construction you can't look at these values and decide that needs to be cheaper you'd have to go through the what these building process is what these people sat through the announcements evaluations to figure out what is needed and what isn't and then maybe you could find some efficiencies but again to this point that this guy's made three times you don't even know what

058you're building yet you have a scope of an idea of what you need so until you finalize it and go through that's when maybe you can streamline some of the things but right now you have a bulk value I fully support this happening for the school for our kids one of the elements that said earlier the Health Quality that you get from ventilation systems are much different now less sickness people going through all these enhancements for Ada it's not just about access it's about compliance efficiency equality for everybody that's in it you need to build to a certain standard which is significantly different than it used to be and again I'm going to say this because I rehab facilities all the time things that used to work in past were fine but you know if

059you look at a higher scale we used to allow more deaths per work than we do now we need to change things 2 minutes thank you for coming sir appreciate it yeah sir my name is Jeff Chason from 46 Bunker Hill Avenue uh I know nothing about construction but I know a lot about hard work and there's a bunch of people that put a lot of hard work into this proposal uh starting with the school committee and the people that put their time and effort into it and I learned all about it their presentations they did a great job they worked together very well to come up with the proposal and they know they worked all together they know what they're doing and they got that figure down to a very reasonable figure to get

060this fixed and some guy wants to be a contrarian and you know wants to uh extend this uh thing till midnight or something like that this thing has to go through the way it's proposed originally thank you thank you [Applause] Jeff the floor is yours thank you hi Caitlyn brensinger Country Farm Road um to the gentleman's point about Pennywise pound foolish I found Paul's um details about the per household cost to be sure I'll step a bit closer can you hear me now great I found Paul's details about the per household cost of this plan um to be quite compelling and I'm wondering if we could quickly work out what the cost savings would be per household based on this amendment yeah if I had my uh if I had my Exel spreadsheet let's see

061it' be 20% less so um well it's 119 he wants to take it down to 10 yeah right so you take take uh okay perfect take $60 yeah right right take 20% off of that so it' be $60 a year less so 3 312 right goes down to about 250 I'm sorry uh guys uh back back to order sorry Paul could you just restate your so if he takes 20% out then the 312 goes down by 20% do that your question it does thank you I think it puts it in context thank you hey Matt Forest High Street Matt um I just had a question about the four extra classroom so if enrollment is down over many years since the original outdoor classrooms were put in why do we need four new classrooms to to

062yeah sorry Matt I just um unless it's about the $10 million can we stay on the $10 million about that oh okay okay so the The Proposal was to drop the price to by removing those classrooms or removing that extra addition to the building right and why would we just do that get rid of the other buildings and house the fewer students that we already have in the classrooms we already have that's what the proposal is it's not not just to shed the budget it's to excuse me no the amendment before us is to change the number to $10 million period I don't know Sean wasn't that to also reduce the classrooms well I'm sorry Sean you the meeting rules are that you give me everything in writing you gave me $10 million the amendment

063is to change the number to $10 million it's not your purview to say how you're going to spend the money it's it's an it's it's a dollar amount so I don't mean to argue with you Matt we're talking about $10 million please proceed no I if it's off the table it's off the table I don't you make the rules so okay well uh is there anyone else who would like to speak on the amendment to the motion to reduce the number from 11, 96174 5,000 to $10 million can we move the question please I sorry Heidi I don't need to move the question there's no one at the microphone we're going to vote on the amendment right now does anyone have any questions about what we're about to vote on we are about to vote

064on the amendment to reduce the 11,965 745,000 to 10 million all those in favor of the amendment before us please say I those oppose nay uh the Nays have it the amendment fails [Applause] yeah so we're back to discussion on article one as proposed so if if there's another number you'd like to put out well you guys it's not fair to say no if somebody wants to do it this is the right time to do it is there any other are there any other questions or debate on article one if there is none we will move I will close debate on article one and we will go to vote so article one everybody I need your ears one two three eyes on me this is how this is going to go down everyone has been

065issued everyone has been issued an orange card when you checked in just hold on to your card don't do anything we're going to form three lines and we're I Mel can you guys bring a box of cards down to this side and we'll have a box of cards on that side you are going to approach a supervisor of the checklist you're going to take your orange card and the supervisors are going to give you a ballot it's not the orange card so I'm going to encourage you not to spoil your orange card if you understand what I'm saying right now Mel is going to give you a different color piece of paper you are going to get them on ends of the stage it's it's a bond vote one hour in the bar you just

066okay perfect one over there and one over here perfect okay just clarifying you're going to bring your piece of paper the right hand side of the house is going to go to the right hand side the left hand side of the house is going to go to the left- hand side you're going to show the clerk your orange piece of paper they are going to mark it with their secret code you are going to bring your ballot that's not the orange one up here to The Ballot Box and this Ballot Box is going to remain open for one hour per the rsas am I on track perfect are there any questions with what we're about to do yeah I have a question okay uh I have 716 and The Ballot Box is open I'm going

067to ask you to put the piece of paper in my hand or Beth's hand you I can't let you put anything in the Box yourself so I have the keys M and there's no rush but when the majority of you have are back we will start the next order of business yeah that gu made no sense he wants to give it everything unrelated to Aba when the when the minority of while we're on break ion yeah I thought he was saying I'm think there go the boys there goes the roof but said he wants 10 million I mean I don't want to do that you you could take 10 million out of that you could take 2 million out of that okay yeah he wants to take I can't answer that I think understand question

068he wants to take 119 down to 10 right yeah yeah yeah what was is there there that is not sure boilers really Ro okay come on you you don't have to reinsulate the outside yeah yep turn these off are you thank you and just uh can I make one point of clarification for the house on your yellow piece of paper you were writing yes or no yes or no uh this no for what yes or no for article one this is the bond article as proposed article one as proposed not mumbo jumbo there is no mumbo jumbo the 11.9 you should say the am oh stinkers yeah know I should have done that sorry I can't let you put it in yeah the operating budget yes uh they're with the Ballance want me put the

069mic back up for you no um no let me tell you what let me uh give me one second I know just hang your hang your bows for a second sorry you guys uh I neglected to read the motion that you're voting on article 11 just can I get everybody's attention just for a moment please can I get everybody back in the house just for a moment [Music] please I neglected to read to you article one again just to make perfect clarification where we are at you are voting on article one nope The Ballot Box is closed until I finish speaking I'll be right with you guys School building renovation shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the sum of 11,967 45 for the purpose of financing the costs of building Renovations

070$1,961 745 of such to be raised through the issuance of bonds or notes under and in compliance with the municipal Finance act RSA 33 col 1 as amended to authorize this School Board to apply for accept and expend federal or state aid if any which may be available for said project and to comply with all laws applicable to said project to authorize the school board to issue negotiate sell deliver said bonds and notes and determine the rates of Interest thereupon so the maturity and other terms thereof and to authorize the school board to take any other action to pass any other vote relative theret and to further raise an appropriate an additional 299,00 44 to meet the necessary Financial Obligations associated with the Project's Debt Service for the 2025 26 fiscal year a three-fifths ballot

071vote is required this appropriation is recommended by the stratum School Board 5 to Zer and the Appropriations recommended by the financial advisory committee 5 to Z we're voting on the initial article article one thank you no I I appreciate it good I don't know I put flag any time see okay yellow coming that way one second one second right I have a [Music] little thank you I have back here week one person great thank you I'm good how are you did you um just job I saw that on LinkedIn LinkedIn yeah that's good congratulations yeah [Music] I heard everyone start to do the math in their yeah perfect question a how are you I'm definely especially for [Music] Dy yeah oh I for sure oh yeah well we'll see early okay thank you all great

072okay okay yeah sitting up your M you need a pen need a pen it's open for an hour no I think we'll find out later yeah I it probably depends how long the next part takes how are you hello okay thanks for coming oh thank you oh nice very nice I can't believe she's not here um like something good just happened to Alina but like my mom would have loved to heard about so like that's really like yeah yeah kind [Music] of okay okay thank you know where you are right now went to Arizona to Sedona yeah great canyon yeah I'd like to go I mean I don't want to show you some really strong yeah okay yeah okay yeah I'll just I mean I think everybody will appreciate C so yeah okay yeah gave

073me your notes okay gosh okay mean I think that does the only thing I was yeah I was think I would I mean we do want to go through the slides fast but I know she will I know okay okay [Music] I yeah yeah okay I don't think I need to no no you can no I'm sure we can people are like I to get almost the end right thank you thanks for coming tonight are you you're back hi thanks for coming now well that's what I'm saying we got you back you're here tonight it'll goast every I think it'll go go how are you sir hi there good mat how are you good to see you sir than yeah well we a done we We a't Done Yet that was number one that was

074article one at least it's not a H PP good this is are thanks for coming tonight you don't even have SMS so that's pretty [Applause] aw yeah yeah you were that's how I first met you you were like a tur I remember I saw you restaurant was like she's so cool yeah how you doing on time no see how are you what that I don't know you heard no did not hear [Applause] wow wow that's C actually when did did you do that congratulations still um we just got back from vacation where everybody came from uh so you can't yes as a tax so um D will recom it's up to him if you speak here or there but you definely you know this exact thing happen yes a while ago talking a little bit

075I want to keep things moving oh yeah yeah yeah say yeah 1 hour and uh we were at a conference sure what time time you know I said what time it was quarter past yeah yeah Okay ladies and gentlemen thank you thank you for coming I'd like to uh proceed with our business I know and as a part of our inlude um and I I think I could probably pull the tiger off but it's not mine so whoever left their muff or the scarf while they were checking in um I have it up Beth will have it at the box if you'd like your scarf back thank you Beth okay uh per RSA The Ballot Box will remain open until uh 8:20 is Mike Mike oh Dave I'm Dave thank you uh Ballot Box will

076remain open until uh I I want to say we're going to say 8:20 and at that point if anybody in the house hasn't voted yet you still have time you need your orange piece of paper oh yeah that's fine Beth is going to take the box she's not opening it the Box the keys of the box is still in my pocket if you haven't voted or somebody comes in have't grab a ballot over here the box is going to be over in the corner the box and if somebody in the house could help me call me or don't hesitate to say at 8:20 how did the vote go and we'll go count the ballot okay okay coming back on track everybody understands Article 1 is going to remain open till 8:20 that time we'll stop

077voting at this point we're going to move to article two the operating budget shall the stratum School District vote to raise in appropriate the amount of 15 m526 $375,000 for the support of schools for the payment of salaries and for the school district officials and agents and for the payment of statutory obligations of the district this article does not include Appropriations contained in or individual articles addressed separately this appropriation is recommended by the stratum School Board of a vote 3 to2 and the appropriation is not recommended by the financial advisory committee 4 to one uh a majority vote is required for Article 2 the operating budget to pass is there a motion to support the operating budget i' like to make a motion to adopt thank you Paul is there a second sorry Paul you

078can't fool me Eric second okay we got a second for Paul thank you Paul Eric would you like to speak on the operating budget or would a member of the board like to speak on the operating budget I'll be on the operating budget do we recognize people at the mic I'm just waiting okay no that's totally cool we're good presentation on the operating budget yes um uh Kate's goingon to go first principal Lucas anyone have an objection to principal Lucas all right I think please proceed Kate take it away are we working okay um so I typically don't prepare a lot of thoughts and then as we were sitting there and I realized that I wanted to be really respectful of everybody's time tonight um and be conscious of that I did actually prepare a

079few words so I could be concise and specific um every year during um this evening we take a minute to talk about our story and who we are at stratum and so I prepared some ideas or some thoughts about this particular year so our story at SMS is one of complex and deep learning that honors each of our Learners our story is one of a community who cares deeply for one another we celebrate each other's successes and we support each other through our challenges our story is one of funny and feisty curious compassionate engaged and Brilliant children our story is one of expert dedicated talented Educators and our story is one of deep gratitude for our community and our family Partnerships and I'm not going to go through all of these slides but each of

080these slides represents the way that this community rallies around the children of stratum um this slide is our career day and these are families that come um and community members um to inspire our children to be lofty in their dreams as they age and they grow um we partnered with the Department of Public Works and did touch a truck and we were able to name the plow trucks um we think we did a blood drive um to honor one of our students that was battling cancer um and this community came out and droves um the American Red Cross was blown away by the support that this community provided for that family um our Wellness walk with all of our families that come and we walk through gford Farm um and again this will be available

081to all of you to see um on our web page so you'll be able to see all the ways that we are able to um come together in support of stratum and the final piece that I would just add because I think it's really important is that as I reflected on the last year in preparing for tonight um the number of moments in which we and I include myself as a member of the stratum Community came together to provide enriching empowering and joyful experiences that I am certain our students will carry with them as a matter of fact I'm so certain that when they are adult they're going to want the same exact experiences for their children and so when tonight we're thinking about the budget I think it's really important to think about the

082story of the experiences that the children and the families and the community has by being residents of stratum and so I thought that that was a really important part for us to focus on this evening and then Jennifer has the pleasure of speaking to the numbers part yeah thank you so much Kate sure can is that better it is on all right is this better all right thanks guys um so tonight I just wanted to talk a little bit about the formation of the budget where it comes from um again I'm going to talk briefly because uh you know I I know there's people in this room that want to um speak as well so first I just wanted to recognize the um fact so um if you're here if you would just stand up

083quick so we have um Mike hoton uh Cameron or Heidi Hansen Pat abramy and Kathleen peek that is the financial advisory committee so thank you to all of you so much um so this committee really goes through the budget line by line saying like you know do you do you need that much snow plowing and do you need this curriculum and this license and so we thank them so much for their service and for everything you guys did thank you so much so uh in August of 2024 the SMS Administration creates a budget uh September October they begin meeting with the senior leadership team to revise the budget in November they come to their first Schoolboard meeting and we get to take a look at the budget um both the school board and the fa

084meet in December to review the budget again going line by line really thinking about what are the priorities of the school um also a fiscal responsibility to um taxpayers as we move forward um we meet for a secondary interview in December there's a public Hearing in January um on the building Bond the budget and the warrant articles um and then we meet a second time to uh finalize and then in March um the board voted on the um I'm sorry in January we voted and then in March the town obviously comes and votes um so I want to just take a look um um so as I think a lot of you might know um there were a couple versions proposed of this budget the first was a 4.93% over um last year's fiscal year

085we offered some um early retirement incentives and um lowered it down to 2.73 um removing some furniture and red doing those um early retirement incentives then in January a third version was proposed um the budget was just 1.99% increase over last year and that involved reducing one staff member there was a discussion on class sizes um and so um the final budget that was approved took $111,000 out of the budget um removing um not not hiring a new staff teacher for those uh early retirements so looking at um slide 34 here the current budget 15,22 one, um the proposed budget for next year 15,5 126,000 again like we're were saying a 1.99% increase over fiscal um over last year's budget in slide 35 here this is the proposed operating budget so as you can see

086most of our budget is salaries there is very little wiggle room as we consider the SMS budget it is incredible lean um it is really salaries which are all contracted and negotiated so um when when we talk about the administration and the board looking at the budget um there's not a lot to um cut from other than salaries um looking at slide 3 um six here you can see just an exemplification of what I just said so 95% of the budget is all things that we have to do um health benefits Transportation Insurance um food service and then um only 5% is where the wiggle room is um the driving factors of this year's budget are really um salaries benefits FICA all of the things you know that um we're we're talking about in our

087work lives as well I wanted to put this slide in here this is um um slide 38 talking about State funding um you know this is something that the school board talks about Administration talks about school boards talk about um New Hampshire is actually 50 out of 50th in support from the state for public education and what that means is the less money coming from the state the more money is coming from our local taxpayers and so I just wanted to point that out is you know we um we're we're dealing with things like infl special ed costs Transportation costs all of these increased costs and yet not getting um the funding from the state so then it comes all from the local taxpayers and that's what we're doing here today is is talking about

088um funding public education but really coming from local taxpayers this slide here talks about um state adequacy so you know in New Hampshire um the New Hampshire constit ution gives all citizens the right to an adequate education adequate education um and really you know there's been court cases talking about how you know education is really the Cornerstone of democracy it's essential to the preservation of a free government you know I think we can all agree education is essential um and so you can see here the state adequacy aid um is very low and um so the the local taxpayers have to make up that difference this is just looking at the different costs of Education per student in the various districts within sa6 um and then that's it and then we're going to talk about

089the warrant articles next thank you Jennifer so at this point we will open the floor for questions or comments and debate on article two the operating budget you're on thank you I'm Gail vakas from dumart and Oaks I move to amend the operating budget article as follows shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the amount of 15 m636 375 for the support of schools with no further Amendment to the article is written the purpose of this amendment is to increase the budget by $110,000 and bring the budget back to the amount approved by the financial advisory committee before three members of the school board voted to reduce the budget Gail may I please have a copy of the amendment so just to summarize I have an amendment to article two shall the

090stratum School District vote to raise an appropriate the amount of 5,636 $375 so we're we're amending the uh 15, 526 to make 15, 636 375 is there a second for the amendment Heather McNeil from Pinewood Drive and I second thank you heather if I if I want to speak should I get in line um I'll just I can pop you in in between so you don't have to I don't like this never mind I'm not going you want to put me on stack thank you um I'll put the like number four so um Gail would you like to speak any more on your Amendment um that I fully support it and I hope that others do too okay thank you so just to clarify uh right now we have an amended amount of $110,000 to

091article two of the operating budget the amendment has been seconded and we are on questions and discussion and debate on the amendment to increase article to by $110,000 but not general question comments about the budget correct we're on the amendment right now yes so uh don't lose your question we'll bring you back in a few minutes pat p BR 89 toall Pines Drive um can I speak to one of the slides that was shown was that I have to stick I come back well it's in regards to the amendment for $110,000 well I I'll I'll I'll take a Buy on that I'm if if we're going to go with this amendment given the amount of people here I hate to do this but I'm going to ask for a a ballot vote on this uh

092I I I know it's going to be a no but I I mean why are we trying to add $110,000 back into this well then you're going to have to you're going to have to we're going to do a raise our hands on this and count we want an actual count I can have you sit and stand I mean I'm sure we can find the house yeah what do you got uh request for a ballot vote on Warren Article 2 with five more than five registered voters thank you Pat Uh we're still speaking on article the amendment to article two for $110,000 increase cam uh hi I'm Cameron or uh six Shannon Drive and I was a member of the financial committee that voted in favor of the second version of the budget thanks to

093Jennifer for presenting the three different versions um I just want to speak in favor of the amendment to add the $110,000 back to the budget this was the budget that the financial committee voted 4 to1 to recommend it the 2.7% budget was under the inflation rate of 2.9% for 2024 and it originally started at nearly 5% so the 2.7% budget was already the compromise and that was the responsible budget that we evaluated from December through February and the third version of the budget there was no additional analysis done before that was you know brought before the board and voted on so my concern is that there's been no analysis but I will give you one quote that I got from uh Dr andris hope it's okay that I put this in here but it was

094from the uh notes from that 115 board meeting specifically before that vote it was said uh Dr andris shared that any further reductions made would result in programming teacher instruction or staff reduction and that was the final note from the the superintendent's office prior to the vote to remove the $111,000 so I I think it's in everyone's best interest to vote in the amendment that is going to restore the budget that was analyzed for three months and not the one that was cut in a matter of minutes without any additional analysis thank you thank you camon hello I'm here to speak against the amendment just you and address for the clerk please Mary 816 kirkwall Drive uh first and foremost I'd like to thank the excellent teachers who day in and day out provide caring

095and learning environment to our students in their classrooms um I'd also like to commend the board I know several members on the board and how hard they've been working this last year so thank you for for your efforts on that uh my main concerns about raising the budget above the school board's recommendation of 1.99% over last year's budget are as follows one it's enrollment we've talked about this before I think enrollment has been in Decline since 2012 in fact over the last couple of years from 2023 to 2025 enrollment fell from 525 to 498 students which is a decrease of 5.7% um number two based on that 5% enrollment decline one might expect to see at least some corresponding decrease in the operating budget yet as the slides presented tonight confirm the original budget request

096was for point 4.93 over and then they got it down to 2.73 so I'm still in favor of the 1.99% increase um just even for comparison this town of stratom I know they work hard to keep uh their spending down and usually their request for an increase is two or maybe as low as 1.5% uh we don't we won't know that until the New Hampshire Department of Revenue uh sets the actual number in November but bear in mind that they too have employees and uh collective bargaining agreements as we do here at SMS so they face similar contractual salary obligations yet strive to keep their operational budget to a modest increase fourth uh most most importantly the at SMS there were 30 classroom I don't know if you call them home room teachers or what

097out of a total of 49 teachers that are employed here we have a total of 12865 full-time employees at the school which means that the actual classroom teachers only represent 23.3% of the total budget for the staff this means that 98.65% made to add more classroom teachers for the benefit of our students and help improve student outcomes so I'm hoping that that that that's someplace we could look to perhaps uh provide more teachers in the class Mary that's that's your two minutes okay or just make your finish your closing statement to summarize holding the operational budget to no more than the proposed 1.99% seems most prudent if we want more teachers in the classrooms we should find ways in the budget to adjust accordingly as was done last year after the town school meeting thank

098you Mary Lester yeah Lester C 50 stram Heights Road I uh was on the financial advisory uh uh committee for five years five years ago and uh I I was kind of considered the eyeball the Oddball uh in that what I looked at was a very fixed overhead budget and my basically thought at that point was that there's not much you can do with the budg as far as stting it this and that and I focused looking at metrics and one of the decisions I think that the board made on why they would uh reduce the budget down was based on not filling in a teacher who's retiring and that to me is just what I call a uh bench mark that is just a ratio it's like saying how many senior citizens are there

099in New Hampshire versus how how many senior citizens are in Massachusetts that tells you just a very very high top Benchmark that really needs detailed what I'm calling operational metrics that supports it I was pushing metrics with my buddy over here I know she love me with me pushing metrics to say you need to put metrics behind your numbers and get rid of the damn sheet of budget the budget and uh I what I've seen when when we first started uh my first meeting there she had a presentation by the students and they brought in a new software I already and I immediately saw the savings from the operational reduction of what the sophomore would be doing to the students I then also saw what she brought his experience from other her other school Etc

100and I support the school I support her 100% And what I'm basically saying is that the reason we used and reduced it down was based on a financial number that has nothing in it to support it without metrics and I'd say give them the chance this next year okay to come up with metrics to support okay everything you're saying cuz you were doing the right thing but you need to be putting some metrics behind it thank you Thank You Les evening Glenn was six G Farm Road Glenn come right up to the mic please there we go may just raise it a little bit higher how's that um I'm here to in support of the lower inome residents of our town who are getting uh forced out because of the increased tax rate here we

101are rapidly becoming a town that doesn't welcome income diversity and unfortunately the single largest impact on our taxes are Town had to crunch some quick math here but the school board the new proposed amendment of 15, 636 375,000 or a 2.7% increase does not reflect the true impact to the taxpayer the true impact to taxpayer has not been discussed at any school board meeting and everyone here tonight needs to know that impact this impact has been known by the school administration and the superintendent's office approving this amended amount of 1,9 is actually an increase taxation to the tax pair of 1,964 453 or 15.68% and that comes from the estimated taxes to be raised last year's 2024 ms26 proposed budget as amended by the revised Appropriations the amount to be raised from the taxpayer was

10212, 524,000 of 14, 489,000 that is a 1,964 453 increase 15.68% why you ask mostly because the State education tax Grant falling from 2024 level of $2,345 211 to 1, 12496 this year a 56.3 3% reduction we have to make up that shortfall so using the information provided by the town what is the impact to your tax rate of passing all these things passing this amended number will increase your tax rate from $132 to $14.16 per thousand next year when the bond hits your tax rate will go to a146 from where it currently is and we haven't even reached the collector bargaining agreement with the teachers these increases are unsustainable in my opinion it'll Force residents from our Community who call our town home and Glenn you're at your two minutes thank you we cannot

103accept this proposed amendment thank you Glenn Peter lles 30l hang on I'm sorry yeah one more time Peter lesel 30l um what I haven't heard is a rationale for this like what we get from the additional money so it it's common when there's a reduction people say okay why I haven't heard a why here other than we should spend more money um and so I don't see why to why we should overrule this nobody's giv me a good reason why we need to overrule the the current article thank you Peter is there someone from the board who would like to respond Peter is asking why there I'm to speak yeah you got to speak to me though okay I'm Kathleen peek from 13 Bittersweet Lane I was on the fact I'm also the school district

104clerk um the reason that we are asking to increase the budget by this amount was because the budget was decreased by this amount because it is the average salary of one school teacher Plus benefits and if we do this then the classroom sizes in the fourth and fifth grade will be increased we already have the largest in the largest classroom sizes out of the surrounding area and if we do this we'll have even larger sizes if you look at the surrounding area they have classroom sizes of 12 to 15 we are 16 18 19 20 students in a classroom already so that results in less one-on-one instruction from a teacher it results in more disruptions because students don't stay on track and it results in less eyes on students to make sure that everybody is

105staying with the curriculum and that's why it's being we have are asking to increase it by one salary amount thank you Kathleen [Applause] uh Tom curtain haywick Drive um why I think we need to uh keep the 2% increase and not approve this amendment uh we all want a safe well-maintained school high quality education for our kids and the resources necessary for success but you also have a responsibility to spend wisely especially when enrollment is declining declining and cost and taxes continue to rise and tax taxes are rising significantly um consider this we just voted and likely will pass to spend $12 million to renovate the school which we need to do and now we also know that we have a drop in enrollment for example in 2014 2015 SMS had 600 students and the

106budget was $10 million I'll repeat that 600 students $10 million right now we have $499 students that's a drop of 101 students and this budget is being called to be $15 million so 100 less students $5 million more dollars that's a lot of money moreover the school spending has soared by over 16% in just the last four years with over 2 million more than in 2022 and 2023 despite the drop in enrollment tonight with both the bond and the proposed budget of 2% passing we are we are committing all taxpayers to a cumulative $27 million to support our schools its students and its teachers the bottom line is that despite the significant drop in enrollment we are not underfunding our school we spend more than ever before we are for an increase in a 2%

107increase is reasonable compromise that keeps our school strong without an unnecessary Financial strain especially on our neighbors on fixed incomes I have a neighbor who is a former teacher who says if they keep going up this rate I can't live here thank you Tom pat pat BR me again 912 Pines uh Mr Mr moderator can I um can I have first address one of the slides and then have my two minutes there's nobody behind well there is somebody behind me now okay on slide 33 if somebody can put it up they they it said that we were reducing two certified teachers in the second version that's not true we were reducing I think one teacher and one speech therapist um and so I just want to point that out now the 59 1971 the first

108version uh was reduced by 55,000 for the furniture 193 250 for teacher salaries but only part of that was for the one teacher the others was to reduce because we're going to replace the other three but at lesser salaries so they took another let's call it $93,000 out uh we talked about the speech therapist coming out and then all those numbers don't include benefits which they took out 10 15,795 out and then during the process our facilities director left and I had suggested that we BR him in at a lower salary and that was about $4,600 less so they took that out so that was about 15 they reduced everything to15 million 509 but what's not on any of the slides is that we added 127,500 5,000 was to pay for the buyouts no one

109mentioned the fact that to early retirement incentives was 15,000 each which we have to pay in the upcoming budget so so that's how we get from from the original budget to the vergin two budget the reason I think we we should just hold where we are is number one enrollments are down it's been said uh actually over the last 10 years the enrollments have been down 106 for K through five the bond vote we just have is significant it's going to a lot add a lot of burden to our taxpayers we just went through a reassessment and Pat that was your two-minute that was your two-minute buzet if you wrap it up I'm going to come back up I only have three more points okay you can come back up okay thank you Pat Greg

110Richardson Point of Rocks Terrace um so I'm going to take a little different tact here a lot of number salad and uh no one's talking about what actually matters and that's the kids um so I'll tell you a little Story I mean I could tell you data you know the average increased 4.4% we're at you know 2.7 or whatever the number was and I fully support that but I'll tell you a story about my son who's a second grader here uh I've told the story before you've probably heard it but um he's thriving and uh he a lot of people here know him and they would never know that he actually has special needs and uh it's shocking to me because you would never know if you saw them and I think uh what people

111don't understand who don't spend time in the school and I didn't understand until I came in was how much this team teaching environment actually matters so with all their respect Pat the conflation between speech therapist this that the other thing it doesn't matter they're just teachers the kids have no idea oh I'm going to the OT now I'm going to the speech therapist like let's think with our brains I think with our hearts more than our brains like at the end of the day the biggest Legacy that a town leaves is its students and this is insulting it's insulting to the kids it's insulting to the finance committees it's been months doing this and I'm obviously passionate about this and I feel really bad for my son he does that most people again wouldn't even

112know if you met him and part of the reason why you wouldn't know is because in kindergarten Kristen Sullivan who's unbelievable told us and sent us an email and said something's going on we're going to intervene in two weeks the kid had OT he had Behavior specialist school psychologist reading and math specialist immediately second grade now he's above level in most everything and I'll bring back to one point that no one's bringing up here it's the test scores I think he may never score well on a test he would never score well on a test accommodation but I guarantee you he will do really well in life partly because he's learning things that matter in school I went to school in Manchester New Hampshire in the '90s it's different it's different please like I understand

113I understand the tax burden I live here too my taxes went up a bunch but at the end of the day remember like when you leave the Earth only thing left behind are those kids you live in this town you have a duty to the kids to do what's best Vote for This budget and do it [Applause] now thank you Greg [Applause] I I'm just trying to be respectful everybody's time to keep them keep things moving forward I just wanted to make a last call there 8 minutes left on The Backs before the ball before The Ballot Box will close and we'll count ballots for article one Sophie do you have a oh well I wanted to speak oh yeah please should I speak from here yes thank you um so I have three main

114reasons why I want to support this amendment um number one all of the work that the the financial advisory committee spent countless hours went into that line by line to look at what's best for our school what's best for our students and I support that fully and want to really support the work that they did um number two I'm in it I'm in this for the Long Haul um my mom went to SMS when it was at Town Hall I went to SMS in this building I have three kids who are going to come to SMS here so I'm invested in the longterm sustainability of this school and to me if we're passing a budget that's less than inflation if we do that year after year what is that going to do we're going to

115erode the quality of our education and students and teachers and I'm not here for that I don't want that um and number three as we just mentioned if we care about supporting teachers if we care about disregulation of students in the classroom if we care about State Testing a lot of folks in this room care about State Testing in our community in our town we want to see those numbers come up if we want that to happen we need to say to teachers how can we support you not here's 25% more workload so for that reason I want to support the amendment thank you time um some of what I was goingon to say Echoes um Sophie's I'm Gail vakis from dumart and Oaks thank you Gail okay thank you um what I wanted to

116say is I've been to board meetings I've watched the videos I've listened to community members I've listened to some the board members I've listened listen to the administration I listen to the teachers all talk publicly and present data and what they're working on and all the stuff what I I don't understand is how the board it's clear that for some people that it's important test scores and all this stuff and what I'm witnessing is a lot of blame on Administration and teachers and finger pointing and all the ways all this negative stuff but yet the board is now three of the five people are voting to take resources so that from from the very school that they're blaming isn't doing this or that and I just don't I don't support that I support providing the

117teachers Administration and the staff with the resources they need to help our our students increase the test scores if that's important to some people and I just don't I don't support taking resources away especially if that's the expectation thank you Gil hi Jess Ryan from hom ground road again um a couple things one I just oh sorry j mic okay um I just think it cannot be overstated enough that the financial committee voted against this initial thing 4 to one it's not reported and this amendment is was is Right Cameron yes yes is the number so I don't spend my spare time for months on end analyzing budget but other people have and to then walk in and say no I know better is so disrespectful in so many ways so I just want to

118say thank you to the financial committee for doing their job um and then I also just want to talk about this um we have a young daughter she's coming into school pretty soon and I have been in education for a long time and I cannot stress enough the importance of experience um and that goes for both Educators and children and to provide a safe and positive environment is so important and if you have these experience IED professionals saying hey this is what we need to support your children to take care of your children then we need to give that to them because they are the experts in their field and for us to sit here and say I don't want to pay well that's too bad because we have to because you have to invest

119in education if you want your kids to become real people that's it thank you that's it [Applause] [Music] like hi my name is Sally sty I live at 59 stram green um I am all for a wonderful education and paying what we need to pay for the best teachers I believe we have very well-paid teachers here uh compared to other surrounding areas uh but I not hearing about some of the other items some of the other line items in the budget that are certainly contributing to you know some people's idea about raising this above the 2% increase um there are apparently according to the line items five psychological staff at this school um and I understand from the numbers that that approaches about $900,000 with the with benefits and all the fringes um so all

120the money isn't getting spent on our great teachers uh because you know we all know that money doesn't raise test scores doesn't matter how much money you throw at it so I'm I'm wondering why we're spending almost $900,000 on board certified behavior analys analyst uh and other psychologists um you know what I'm not sure what they're doing but it's it's a very curious category of non-teaching staff that I would love to see uh that money moved over to teaching thank you Sally thank you sort of a question uh I anyone from the board want to respond just to clarify again this is stratum School District does not have a line item budget we're not voting people in or out of work this is this is we're literally talking about an amendment to increase the budget

121by $110,000 just to be perfectly clear thank you hi my name is Barbara Lo from 13 Coach Road I understand that we can't say that that $100,000 is going to go to another teacher or not last year we voted down something and the money went to we what we voted down anyway but but I think it's really important for people to think about the factor maybe the I was on the financial advisory committee here many many years ago and I think they do a really great job and I do think it's really important for people to remember that when you're looking at the money everybody thinks wow we're paying our teachers so much teachers are only what 23% of this budget 28% of this budget there's a lot of other money being spent on a

122lot of other places Administration and things like that let's not always blame it on the teachers let's not always say hey we got to reduce their salaries or they're making too much or we need less the kids need the teachers I was a teacher at the Cooperative Middle School things are tough teachers have to do everything and I think it's really important for people to understand that years ago we didn't have to but now we do so please think about that when you're talking about the money for your kids in this school district thank you thank you Barbara leter call St he Road I just want to mention a couple things that I observed over the the five years that I been here when I first came and I you were the guy asked me

123to you know be part of the advisory committee I asked you what what's my functions you I was expecting something in writing as to what my responsibilities were and it was just basically said advise and I was actively trying to learn what everyone else's function was I saw a board that over my five years there are five different heads people turning this and that uh which I kind of labeled as a temporary volunteer function i' sat with uh the sbu uh asked her how does she control temporary people uh I sat with uh uh the principal to see what her responsibility is I was trying to figure out who owns owns what who owns the budget and I couldn't come to that conclusion because of the Dynamics we had finally I came to the conclusion

124who really owns it is these people here the ones who vote okay and that's key and one of the metrics I put uh together last year they sent out was one of the things I saw when we came in in the 80s basically who showed up was Senior Citizens senior citizens were driving the force and the future we built three schools and Etc this and that what was missing was the younger faces and I remembered back then I had the young face I had the the little kids and I basically said I was going to pay it forward because they're paying for my kid and I asking the same thing please pass it forward for the kids of our education thank you L just can I just give a quick uh when I look at

125the last five voting the number people who showed up to vote for the school budget for 18 19 20 21 and averaged 23 to 24 people and the majority of those people were the workers who was administrating the voting so I really cannot overemphasize the importance of the Town stepping forward and supporting the school because we own it Thank You Les and uh I have we are just past 8:20 um I wanted to ask uh stratum cub master Chris heel Brian copelan Brian you still in the house would you guys come help us process ballots please and uh I uh am declaring the polls or the vote for article one closed Beth if you guys would go ahead and count the ballots for article one please thank you Mr moderator point of order sir is

126this an appropriate time to restrict reconsideration on uh on the first on the first one it's not when would be the appropriate time Sophie is ceed to do that when yeah after we announce the vote ah okay thank you hi uh Laura Bon 138 Bunker Hill Avenue um I am a special ed teacher and a board certified behavior analyst um I do Consulting for a private agency in a lot of area schools I do not work at SMS I have never worked at SMS but I can say two things one is a lot of the best teachers from around the schools that I've worked with in the past have come to SMS to work here because of the community here so that's the first thing um the other thing I'll say is that I've been

127a lot of different types of schools towns that support their schools and towns that don't um bigger class sizes smaller class sizes and I just think this amendment is I think people should vote for it because bigger class sizes means more disengagement means more kids who are disregulated means less academic progress which means lower test scores etc etc so some of these counterarguments don't make sense the math doesn't add up there so um I'm voting for the amendment thank you Lauren hi Jenny cavali 14 tanav um I used to work in naswa the resources were terrible the facilities were terrible the class sizes were terrible and now I work in software so you know if you want to attract Talent if you want to keep talent I have a first grader who thought school was

128going to be easy for him and it hasn't been easy for him and I have been blown away by the time and attention that his teacher has been able to get to him um that is helping him learn to love school and I just would hate to see that taken away from him because uh he's starting to thrive and I just can't think scanner enough and Mrs Sullivan and I just think everyone should consider this amendment and voting in the budget and thank you thank you [Applause] Jenny Mr Thompson Mr Emanuel Travis Thompson stram Heights Road first of all I'm fully supportive of providing our teachers the resources that they need to do what they need to do best but more importantly I would like to move the question so we can move on to

129the budget okay question then moved is there a second I got a second I know I see lots of seconds I ask everybody at the at the mic to be able to speak Pat you get two minutes okay got go okay so uh Pat's the last speaker just be clear we're good right so we I think the board tried to find a balance between the taxpayers many of which because of the reassessment got really hurt there are 178 homes that increased above the median in terms of the reassess values 650 of those homes were signif significantly above or 20 27% those are people usually in smaller homes that really got hurt the most that's why the board works so hard to try to keep the budget at a reasonable level understand that we already have

130the highest paid teachers in the state we already have that we didn't take that away we're not taking that away they are the highest paid teachers in the state there's 30 classroom teachers there's 10 specialty teachers ranging from the mtss person to the music teacher to the art teacher to you name it 10 specialty teachers and then there's nine special ed teachers that's 49 total teachers but there's 128 Plus total staff FTE so that means that 23.3% of the staff or the classroom teachers I support the classroom teachers we've got a free the classroom teachers to teach this is a whole another discussion for another day but the classroom teachers need to be able to teach and not be pulled out all the time to go to meetings because of it's mtss stuff so you

131don't you I'm just telling you I'm just telling you hey he Pat Pat has the floor Pat all right in the late breaking news the late breaking news was the fact that the bud but that the the state money has been reduced by about $1.3 million and that has to be raised by all of us and that's a significant additional cost that is going to be borne by everybody in this town including the lowest income people in this town that can least afford it and that's that's all I trying to say now the good news I'm going to what I'm going to say to you Mr that that was your two minutes just close it up no no no no I will do you want you're going to like what I'm about to say so

132the the I asked for I asked for a ballot vote but what I'll I'll compromise on Mr Mr chair Mr Mr moderator is that we take a Voice vote and if it's not close then I'll pull my request okay so you um tell you what would you compromise with me and I hand this back to you and if you want to you want to do a recount you give this back to me again thank you Pat thank you Pat so we have just ended debate on an amendment to article two the operating budget and the Amendment states and uh shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the amount of 15 million $375,000 for the support of the schools with no further amendments to this article as written so we're changing the amount

133by $110,000 the amendment is to increase the proposed article two by $110,000 every we're about to vote on this amendment then we will go back to debate and deliberation on the article as proposed so this is a yes or no on the amendment a yes is to increase the proposed budget by $110,000 a no is to leave the budget as it was proposed per article two everybody understand what we're about to do we're going to do it VI a a Voice vote all those in favor of the amendment to increase by $110,000 please say I I those opposed the eyes have it [Music] [Applause] okay so we are back to questions and deliberations on article two as amended with the new number so if there are questions or debate I would invite you to join

134me at the microphone join the microphone can I make a motion to restrict reconsideration no no not an amendment because Amendment it wouldn't be gerain until we vote on the article thank you Sophie it's a good question uh seeing no please John Baker 25 kinlock Drive I just find that what Pat just said about the state funding is important right now so how can we vote to do a budget when it's going to change we're going to have to come up more more money how do we do this that's question I'm going to ask yeah the state does it every year you never know what the state it's it's it's uh State funding separate than the budget and if we don't get enough money from the state then we do this all over again no

135this is a once a year deal where's the money come from where's the money come from then could Molly I'm going to uh we have a point of information from one of our business managers all right I'm M o'keef I'm the Director of Finance here at sau6 so what happens is in the springtime we vote for a budget that is only the expense side of the house in order to spend money you have to appropriate the money so that's what we're doing tonight when you vote you're appropriating the money then what happens in the fall we set the revenues so we have revenues from things like food service sales adequacy from the state when we rent out the gym and people have dance recital here so what happens is your tax rate is the the

136difference between the two so you have to appropriate all funds you want to expend and then you have a revenue source to offset the amount needed to be raised in taxation that Delta is what your tax rate raises that's how it works so tonight you're voting on only the expense side of the house so in order to spend money you have to appropriate those funds and that's what you're doing right now does that make sense John or does that answer your question okay thank you in other words if we don't come up with the revenues we're going to be increasing our taxes again and we just did a re-evaluation our taxes increased tremendously for a lot of people they went way up and then we also have to look at this is only a portion

137of the town's tax liability we have the town budget and we also everybody everybody in this room wants a good quality education for the kids I raise kids I want quality education yeah Molly just hang on S but we have to think about the town as well I also want police department that's going to respawn they need the money buy Department that's want is going to respond that's critical too all those things have to be taken into consideration especially where we're under pressure now to provide paramedics I'm sure everybody's wants paramedics to show up when the kid get their child gets injured right let's let's stay on the focus of article two it's all part it's all together right but regarding the school's operating ta dos go to all these things and we'd love to

138give another 100,000 to the fire department so it's only 100,000 but in the big picture it's more than that thank you thank you John Molly do you have a point of clarification I just want to clarify for decreas decreasing adequacy in decreas ing special education Aid which we're all talking about right now this is not the venue to talk about that the venue is in conquer you need to go to conquer to address [Applause] that thank you Molly so Molly just explain one thing for the audience so it's actually the Department of Revenue Sor p bramy p bramy I'm sorry thanks Pat it's actually the Department of Revenue that sets the rates uh later on but but but in your ms26 form there's a dollar amount that's a lot less than than last year by

1391.3 million can you explain that is that just a basic estimate of where we are right now could that go up or down by the time they set the rates so the department of Ed comes out with estimated adequacy rates that is not final yet they give us estimated so that we can plan and taxes accordingly it's not the Department of Revenue that determines how much adequacy you get yes the Department of Revenue says the rate but they set the rate based off the adequacy that the Department of Education determines so if you're unhappy with the adequacy that we're receiving or the special Aid We're receiving conquered is the place you need to go to express your concern not here thank you Molly hi Eileen Harrington 19 Parkman Brook Lane um well you just said

140what I got up here to say we need to be paying attention to what the state is doing because without an income tax and now the state's getting rid of the interest and dividends tax they're going to send us less and less money so we need to make noise at the state level as you said Thank you thank you Eileen um there any other questions or debate seeing no other questions or debate we will move to vote on article two as amended and I will read it back to you the operating budget shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the amount of 15,638 375 for the support of the schools for the payment of salaries for the school district officials and agents and for the payment of statutory obligations of the district

141this article does not include Appropriations contained in other in special or individual articles passed separately the appropriation is recommended by the stratum School Board 3-2 the appropriation was not recommended by the financial advisory committee with 4 to one a majority vote is required to pass article two as amended does everyone understand what we're voting on no we are voting on article two the operating budget with the amended number that I just read of sorry I got two pieces of paper $ 15 m636 375 that's true it's been amended tonight in this meeting I'm reading you the warrant that's right off the warrant I guess you to uh we got a point of order for for um John um the votes are no longer appropriate as printed on the warrant because we have amended the numbers

142so thank you John yes I guess I could read it without that but I'm just reading you the warrant back yeah do that make sense yeah so we are voting on this budget as amended everybody a yes would be to approve yes vote a yes vote is approves the operating vote budget a no vote does not all those in favor of article two the operating budget as amended please say I I inside voices those opposed to the operating budget please say no no I believe the eyes have it or the eyes have [Applause] it article two passes yes can I make a motion to not revisit this I don't know the wording but to restrict the the consideration please we have a motion from Gail verikas to restrict reconsideration on Article 2 the operating budget

143what this will do is if we hey if I can just keep order in the house I know just voted but there's there's more business to tend to before you miss something what Gail's proposed is to restrict reconsideration so we don't vote on this article again tonight this is article two does is there a second Heidi Hansen Strawberry Lane second got a second from Heidi Hansen thank you Heidi um Everybody understand what we're about to do we're going to vote to restrict reconsideration so this doesn't get voted on again tonight this is article two the operating budget as amended which we just approved all those in favor of restricting reconsideration please say I I those opposed nay the eyes have it [Applause] um I wanted to um read the results from article one the school

144building renovation um the results of tonight's vote hey you don't have to stay here but just be quiet on your exit strategy please uh the results of John I'm going to read the results results for article one we had seven abstentions 28 no 411 yes so article one passed Sophie can I please make a motion to restrict reconsideration we have a motion by so salt install to restrict reconsideration on article one is there a second the second by Geral vus verikas thank you Gail um Everybody understand what we're about to do about to restrict reconsideration for article one the building renovation Bond all those in favor of restricting reconsideration for article one the school building renovation please say I I those opposed nay the eyes have it we have restricted reconsideration so that takes us

145to article three yeah hey uh just stay with me we we still have some more business to conduct article three the maintenance capital reserve fund shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the sum of 20,000 to be added to this maintenance capital reserve fund previously established in 2009 this sum to come from the June 30th fund balance available for transfer on July 1 no additional amount to be raised from taxation this appropriation is recommended by the stratum school board at a vote of 5 to Z this appropriation is recommended by the financial advisory committee 5 to Z and a majority vote is required is there a motion to support article three um I I'll move uh I move to um accept this warrant article thank you we got a minute motion from

146Jennifer scrafford for article three with a second I second by Paul dami thank you Paul U Jennifer would you like to speak on article three yeah sure so this is um money that we um did not spend during the school year so it's money um from the fund balance that then is used to support the physical structure of the school so for example if there were problems with Windows or doors or furnaces or safety um it would come from this fund so we try to keep it updated every year uh so that it's a real um safety net for us in case unexpected problems arise thank you Jennifer uh questions or debate on article three seeing no questions or debate we'll move to vote on article three the maintenance capital reserve fund shall the stratum

147School District vote to raise an appropriate the sum of $20,000 to be added to the maintenance capital reserve fund previously established in this sum to come from the June 30th fund balance available for transfer on July 1 no additional amount to be raised from taxation this appropriation is recommended by the stratum School Board 5 to Zer this appropriation is recommended by the financial advisory committee 5 to Zer a majority vote is required all those in favor of supporting article three please say I I I those opposed nay I carry article three passes article four I was can I make motion to restrict reconsideration got a motion from Eric to restrict reconsideration is there a second second second from Gail ver darkus uh all those in favor of restricting reconsideration on article three please say I

148those opposed n the eyes have it article four technology shall the stratum School District vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $10,000 to be added to the techn technology capital reserve fund previously established in 2024 the sum to come from the June 30th fund balance for transfer on July 1 no amount to be raised from taxation this appropriation is recommended by the stratum School Board 5 to Z the appropriation is recommended by the financial advisory committee advisory committee 5 to Z and a majority vote is required is there a motion to support Article 4 I'll move to adopt the article got a motion from Jennifer scrafford with a second I'll second beautiful thank you um would you like to speak on the article yeah I can speak to it very briefly on the uh

149this really covers things that we think about in terms of Technology infrastructure and the goal is to smooth out those bumps that happen every three five eight years on the replacement cycle for some things that are quite equip expensive equipment and so this would allow us to be able to smooth that out and hopefully not have any shocks that the taxpayer it does not um cover things like workstations the the uh the yeah the iPads the Chromebooks the things like that that's on a different schedule okay thank you Eric thank you Jennifer Anton any questions deliberation on Article 4 seeing none we'll move to vote on article four technology shall the stratum School District vote to raise an appropriate the sum of $10,000 to be added to the technology capital reserve fund previously established in

1502024 the this sum to come from June 30th fund balance available for transfer on July 1 no amount to be raised from taxation the appropriation is recommended by the stratum School Board 5 to0 and the financial advisory committee 5 to0 majority vote is required all those in favor of article four please say I I those oppose nay the eyes have it article four passes going to go for Article Five uh reports of agents to hear reports of Agents Auditors committees or officers chosen to pass any vote relating there to are there any reports for the stratum School District seeing no reports article 6 to transact business to transact any other business which may legally come before this meeting okay I'm not seeing any business going once going twice thank you all for your time tonight

151I appreciate everyone participating and I'm going to close the meeting at 8:4 7 8:47 the meeting is closed thank you sir