001all right good evening everybody thank you all for for coming out to this public hearing on warrant article number five uh commonly referred to as the the tax cap um there isn't a set agenda that we have this meeting is really more about providing any feedback or answering any questions as it relates to Article 5 specifically so with that being said I will um leave the the floor open to anybody that has any questions to ask or or wants any feedback or input from the board and there's copies up here people want copies there's also some copies up here if anybody would like to see it you know what let me let me read it let me read it so Article Five citizen petition warrant article shall we adopt a provisions of RSA 32 5e
002and Implement a budget cap where by the school board or budget committee shall not submit a recommended budget that is higher than $28,500 per pupil cost times the average daily membership in Residence of the school district as of October 1st of the year immediately preceding the proposed budget year plus an annual increase for inflation using CPI for the Boston Cambridge Newton Mass New Hampshire area published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics as of January 1st this requires a 3-- fths majority of the school district and it was submitted by petition soane and I'm also running is it on oh you know what let the mic might not be on him you get it there a yeah try again let's try again hello oh there we go all right so anyhow um again it Wendy
003LaRon to Juniper Lane um and I'm o running for the Kensington School Board but I just wanted to say we all agree that nobody likes higher taxes there's no question about that that's an agreement but um with the state contributing so little um to education um you know we as taxpayers P end up uh picking up the bill so I do feel that it is more important that we're talking to our state reps about increasing uh money to education um and reducing our taxes uh rather than you know making KES uh students and teachers suffer um and when that suffering happens and my understanding is if this was to pass it would be about a half a million dollar cut to the budget and that would mean letting teachers go and we should remember there
004are some members of our Kensington Community who are teachers here so that would mean taking jobs away from our neighbors so that's one thing uh the cap is d um you know only one to my understanding only one other community in the entire state has it it's a rather radical thing to do with budgeting for schools um and special education is a wild card um you know if we have a situation where we have more special needs come into the school and there's a cap uh per student that could that could make things even harder uh in a budgeting sense for uh the school and the kids um you know people come to Kensington for this school for our schools it's part of our community and I really would feel that if this cap came
005through it would make us the Mississippi of the Sea Coast as far as you know quality of education so I absolutely do not endorse this warrant number five thank you thanks Wendy question name how you doing I'm Roger blell for Rose pedal my daughter went to The KES school next year she graduated from high school this year um BR part of that but um what makes a person a special ed education what what's the qualifications of that because it seems like that's what seems to be driving up a lot of budgets is my it seems like it's increasing students special ed requirements is has has increased I'm just going by speaking to some people from over at like over in Hampton Falls is got 170 kids 55 of them are now special ed I'm not
006too sure how can that a third of the population could be on special ed you want that Rene or can I it's up to you I think that special ed has expanded since 1978 when it became a thing y um and the the word special ed is kind of a misnomer it's getting kids the things that they need to be Learners it's getting them the things that they need to survive in the classroom and to do well in the classroom so it's not special ed in the sense that some people think that oh this is a student who is doing this or doing that or the parents are just getting them an identification it's so that every kid has an equal place at the table and I will say um special education is um police
007through federal and state regulations there are 14 disability category in the state of New Hampshire and a student has to meet criteria for one or more of those disability categories and require specially designed instruction and before you can even get to a table where you're having those discussions you have to have a lot of student data and teacher interventions then you have to have um a plethora of evaluations done by highly qualified professionals as mandated by the law and these evaluations are normed and sometimes you have doctor's notes and medical notes until you identify an organic disability that the student has that is impacting their ability to access their General Ed curriculum their teachers instruction so they're not getting a benefit from their instruction from their teachers instruction without interventions um in supports now we
008have since the react of idea in 1978 and then 2002 um we have seen an increase in in the inclusion and identifying of students with special education but since postco there has been a national increase in students with behavioral and mental health needs that qualify them for special education New Hampshire is no difference the CDC has warned about it and the Mental Health crisis is hitting our early intervention students as well now is this what you're talking about this warrant I you're looking at we're not adding money they're just trying to prevent them from getting cut is that correct um if this I haven't read it so I I haven't seen it I was looking for and I couldn't find it but if this warrant article was to pass the Kensington School Board would have
009to find almost $500,000 to cut from their budget the only way you could really do that the room that they have in a small budget they can't touch special education that is federally mandated those student constitutional rights so that's why the board would have to look at regular Ed teachers they would have to look at increasing class sizes multi-age they could cut Transportation down to one bus and have a long bus ride for the students we could cut extracurricular activities but the really to get to $100,000 $500,000 the board would really have to consider cutting regular Ed teachers well a couple years ago I believe guys got a $800,000 bump I remember because everybody was screaming about it taxes went way up and and no one was happy about it and I went to the
010town meeting and it was five dep departments there and with that did not include the school they all gave back money within 45 seconds to go okay let's put some money in there and the school wasn't willing to do it so they got a that's what drove up to taxes so why do you need I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do it make everyone happen happy does it have to be $500,000 yeah so that with regard to this warrant it I'm right there with you in terms of thinking about Solutions and how we can lower taxes in the long run and we talked a lot about this in the deliberative session but one of the items that's put forth here and the whole reason why we're meeting is around this this
011warrant article and this Warren article basically caps our Budget moving forward and the way that it is stated in the Warren article it would automatically mean around A5 $100,000 hit to the budget which would lead to 5500 500,000 and the budget in total is around a little over uh 400,000 I'm sorry four 4 million on per kid we didn't base it on anything no no they look at how much yes they wrote this per kid they assume that every child cost this amount to educate and how much it cost to educate and every student costs different to educate because their needs are this school it's it's a tough stat to come up with because so how many kids we have in the school 143 1423 and and time 285 gets you the 4 million the
012budget itself is 4.5 million a year that's not that's actually not a genuine figure there's so much more that goes into it that's that's not what it cost us that's not what it cost us to run this school that doesn't take into account a lot of things no no no I mean just per student if you had multiply 28,000 by it's not going to come out to what we need to run the school okay that's why I'm saying it's an ingenuous well I mean like like if you go to like people who ask me want just send your kids to Charter Schools because they're they're only charging $9,300 why is why is it such that's a really good point because but students in charter schools the charter school does not pay for special education the
013local school does well but the time but it's the charter schools I know that the the state gives them an extra $3,000 so they end up paying around 12,000 from the state for the special ed students so but let me let me jump in they do have special ed just I I was on the board and am now the chair of the board of the first charter school that was opened in New Hampshire all we get is $99,000 a year and then the local districts pay for the special ed we get no property tax money so it's unfair to say that that we're able to run we're not able to run on that we have to sell cookies so that's all we get is adequacy money none of the taxpayers here pay anything for the
014kids who come to the schools now we got how many kids you said 150 141 41 now the school can take what about 300 if I recall when I was here they said oh this school could hold 300 kids is that correct I I also want to address the capacity issue that comes up up because there's a misnomer that schools are just classrooms with a teacher and a row of chairs that is not what schools are we have we are now mandated by law to provide therapy spaces a physical therapy space an occupational therapy space a speech and language therapy space a tiered intervention space a special education space um there are students sounds like five grades right there I mean yeah exactly we it schools are the socially constructed institution that wraps around these
015students completely we including the feeding in the medical attention that some students with special education receive we have rooms with changing tables for children that require that level of care so in 1978 when they built schools they were classrooms they were not mandated to have the practitioners of The Healing Arts they were not mandated to have psychologists on hand special Educators bcbas practitioners of The Healing Arts like OT PT so when we talk about capacity we need to think about schools do it all they are mandated by law to do it all and these places need their own space they need privacy and these students need privacy when they're getting these these interventions so they take up what used to be classroom spaces for therapy spaces that are legally mandated by law this is kind
016of getting off the track about this warrant but we what about increasing the school from like K to grade eight and I'm just trying well that's the thing like we're talking about the Warren article and whether or not we support that or not and and I it sounds like we're going more towards a solution mode and thinking about what the solutions are I think that's great I think that we should talk about that I think that the Warren article jumps to a solution that we haven't done enough homework on to figure out what those other options are a big part of that is talking about this from a state perspective we're last in the country in terms of State adequacy funding so everything points back to the taxpayers so I just want to make sure
017that we're focused on the Warren article itself and not necessarily a solution okay all right and just to clarify too we're not recommending this Warren article we don't want this we recommended what we thought was a fair budget after a year of discussion over the budget a year of discussion and taking out money you know we think that we did our homework okay thanks to come to the mic and say your name Pat Bon FR Pan frenches Lane how many special ed children do we have you give me just a minute I will get you that exact number I personally love them all so next question what was that I no that's the only question I had okay I will get back to you I will get an exact number for you because that does
018change and in when when we talk about special ed we're talking about three years old on so sometimes people don't realize when they turn three they become part of our responsibility so those those figures are included in our in our special ed numbers and our cost any other questions from the audience on Warren Article 5 Yeah question yeah when we're hearing about all of these different services that the schools are required to provide it it can sound a little odious a little overwhelming but our kids are our investment in the future to I I have um done internships in middle school where there are IEPs Etc this this special attention that these kids need and truly benefit from is well worth the expense and it is expensive it is extra but I I really push
019back against the idea that we should be nickel and diming our children can you just state your name for the record yeah Susan VN um drink water Road just add another comment in here too so when we think about this tax cap if we were to have this be voted in in my opinion any other families that are looking to move into the area are going to see that we are maybe the the second town in the entire state that has a tax cap and they would likely think about think twice about moving here knowing that there are plenty of other school districts to choose from in the area now with that being said every other town in this state is going through a similar process right now and having very similar conversations that we
020are having because if you move to to Portsmouth if you move to some other you know town outside of this District the taxpayer dollar is going a very long way to funding School budgets given the lack of adequacy funding that we're getting at the state level and I just don't think it sends a message about money it sends a message about how the community feels about education and I know when I moved here I said this last time we moved here for our kids to go to a good school and at Macaroni cheese and green beans to pay the taxes and never resented them once I now have no kids here at all and I don't resent a dime that goes to either here and remember the Cooperative we pay for Kensington kids and both
021we have no say over the Cooperative budget but that's part of our line item that keeps getting thrown in I don't resent it at all we need I agree with you Susan this is an investment and it does send a message to the rest of the state the answer to your question the exact number of students currently today um that have IEPs are 22 students and we have two students in process and that's the um extensive testing that Dr Bennett was referring to so we do have two students in process and 22 identified currently today go ahead it's Justin mlan for Hickory Lane with regards to the number of IEP students um does the budget fluctuate based on a projection of the number of IEP students yes so what this board did was what what
022they budget for was actuals and known in terms of what is in this budget is what we know we have for IAP Services next year and what we anticipate or what we know about our early intervention kiddos transitioning and this budget has the actuals of IEP services for next year okay I guess that was my my question is when you cap a budget looking at just a straight line number there's a lot of fluctuations and a lot of things that maybe could be accommodated if if directions go in a in a decreasing number of needs but if you go in an increasing number of needs you have to be able to move which is why a cap makes absolutely no sense and exactly just wanted to be sure that that was a number you looked
023at y it's it's also providing what would be a potential solution to address tax increases now there has been some work from an ad ad hoc budget committee standpoint that we've done to look at What expenses that we can control and where we can make improvements or make adjustments um the petitioner was actually part of of that group so so we spent a lot of time last year over the summer um or actually it led into the summer but call it the spring into the into the Summer where we had these discussions and we we found through that analysis that there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room there wasn't a whole lot of uh you know ability to kind of cut line items here and there so when we're proposing or when the petitioner
024is proposing this Warren article it it almost comes across as a solution to address an issue and I don't feel like that's sufficient there are plenty of other angles that can be pushed on I mentioned it before I'll mention it again at the state level elsewhere that could put us in a better spot instead of having some sort of cap that can do likely a lot of harm to this to this school and the future taxpayers of this town and the reality is if you look at the budget we H we will have to cut Personnel cuz that's where the money comes from you can't say oh we won't buy pencils and let's leave a copy machine out if we're cutting it we're cutting people that's what has to be cut because that's where the
025money comes from you know people say well the health insurance that's in a contract if you want to contribute when we negotiate the contract do that but right now that's a legal obligation okay so there's a lot of things we have we can't cut so we're going to have to cut things that impact kids and teachers anything else so we don't have a set time for this meeting we just want to make sure that everybody has a chance to say something that um if they have something to say so um I mean any other questions from the group that we have here or that anybody has to share okay all right I'll make a uh a motion to adjourn the meeting second okay all those in favor I okay all right thanks for coming out
026everybody appreciate it