001So, all right. Good evening, everybody. Um thank you WHCI for being so helpful and recording this so people at home can can watch and listen. Um I'm Mayor Shari Cantor, uh Mayor West Hartford, and I appreciate you all for being here. Uh this is a very important process that we go through, our budget process, and how we spend our taxpayer resources. Um and just to give you a little overview, West Hartford is almost 65,000 people. Uh we are um primarily funded by property taxes. About 10% of our revenue comes from other sources, the state uh through our education cost-sharing grant, and some road uh some road uh and we get a little bit of permitting revenue as well. Um but the rest of it is property taxes. 90% of our revenue comes from property taxes,
002actually a little below just below that. And of that property taxes, 90% are residential property taxes. We are a highly residential community. We don't have a lot of corporate headquarters and industrial parks and etc. like some other towns. So, we're primarily residential. So, that's how we're funded. And so, comparing us to say a Farmington or some other towns that are have a lot of corporate um presence, like a lot of corporate um uh buildings, whatever, or manufacturing like East Hartford or whatever, it they're different. And so, each town has its own makeup. The state requires us one resource of revenue uh to fund education. a a challenging process. Um we um Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, this is an association of 169 towns, and we talk about in Connecticut the over-reliance on property taxes. They continue
003to grow at a rate excess in excess of inflation every year. Um there's a very big priority on affordability and housing and that uh property taxes is an important part of that. Um, it's important part of economic development. It's important part. But, the structure in in um the state is really really um challenging. So, uh we go through we have this process. We actually are mandated by our our town charter to have two public hearings. Um, we actually will have three this year. So, we we did an additional one. Um, these community comment um kind of sessions are something we tried last year. Um, because we saw the challenging budgets and difficult decisions that we all have to make um and we've been seeing it for a long time. We wanted to engage and rather
004than just receiving comments from the public, we wanted to engage in conversations because again, the decisions we make are hard whether we um you know, and it's a combination of raising taxes and cutting um town services. I mean, that's the that's the position we're in um because we are as you will hear a people business. Uh we are all about serving the town. And how we serve the town uh is the you know, through negotiated contracts and our employees and uh and we've got to make again, difficult decisions. So, um we go through this process this time of year. The Board of Education presents a budget to town uh to the town manager, the superintendent to the town manager. The town manager will then put that into uh a budget uh that he presents to
005the town council. And then the Board of Ed works on the board budget and the town council works on the town budget. We by state statute have a bottom line one one amount for the Board of Education. We cannot um legislate or um or tell the board how to cut in what ways uh to reduce their budget um or increase their budget. But, reduce is what we're talking about today. Um, and so we um they have that uh governance responsibility. The town does not. We just have an overall bottom line. We will do our best to make a informed decision on what the best number we can do without um well, doing our best balancing everything we can. Um, I do want to introduce so uh Jason Gagnon is here from the Board of Education
006and Deputy Mayor Deb Polun is here. And then you will be hearing from our town manager Rick Ledwith and our Superintendent of Schools Paul Vicinus. I do want to just say that we are all volunteers. We are all taxpayers. We understand the difficulty that um then of the decisions we make. And there's no decision that we make that's more important um than what we do. Uh and I will just also say West Hartford, I don't want to you know, we need to recognize West Hartford is ranked number has been ranked number 19 um it by US News and World Report within the last year. Um, and we have been ranked number one in Connecticut as best places to live. Um, and those are based on decisions we've made year after year after year after year.
007Um, and some of the decision decisions are very very hard and we have changed some structural uh decisions that were made long time ago on pensions that were not funded for a long period of time that we are paying for now. Um, I wish I could say we did not have to pay that, but we do uh and it it is a significant responsibility of the town and has been a driver in our budget. Not necessarily we've slowed the increases, which is really really good uh through a financing and town manager will talk about it. Um, so we work on doing things like that that was the biggest thing that we had. Um, similar to uh in a financing uh rearrangement, but but again, the decisions are are hard and um and we will will
008you know, we just we try our hardest. And what we want to do is you you know, hear the information first. They both have pretty brief presentations and then we want to hear from you and hopefully answer your questions candidly and honestly and I appreciate your being here. Okay, I'll give it a give it to Oh, wait, I'm going to give it to Jason just to introduce himself from the board. Uh thank you, Mayor. Uh Jason Gagnon, I'm a member of the West Hartford Board of Education. Uh briefly, I I just want to say I come here really from a place of gratitude whenever I come to these events and I see how many people turn out and it's just it reminds you of what a special place West Hartford is is because people care.
009Um, they come out, they give up their evenings. Um, and I'm very grateful also to my my town councilor partners. Uh this is a collaborative process. You don't see this as much in other towns. Um, but I think these forums are are very important. They're unique to us. Um, but they're just part of the process. Um, you know, it's a very deliberative process. It's an extremely trans uh you know, translucive um transparent process that we go through. Um, I did not know there were awards for such things, but apparently the district has won awards for the transparency of its budget. Um, so that that's something we can all be proud of. Um, but again, I I think tonight is really another chance in addition to our public hearing that the board has on the 25th.
010Please come out to that, but a chance to hear from you your comments, your concerns, also solutions. We're we're always open and and willing to listen to that. Um, so now we'll get to the numbers. Good evening, everyone. Um very pleased to be here. I'll echo Paul Vicinus, Superintendent of Schools for West Hartford. Um, and as stated, I'm going to I'll give a quick uh kind of high-level overview of the Board of Ed budget. Then I will turn it over to my colleague uh Rick Ledwith, our town manager. Uh he will provide the same at the town level. And just to sort of situate you, the Board of Education budget represents about 58% of the town budget. That is not a unique uh figure for West Hartford. That is pretty much how it lays out
011across the overwhelming majority of towns in the state of Connecticut that boards of Ed represent about 60% of the operating budget of a town. Um, what I want to talk about are what are those drivers that are within my budget? And the number one overriding driver is salaries and benefits. Uh as Mayor Cantor said, we're a people business. Uh people constitute uh more than 80%. I think it's 82% of the operating budget of the Board of Education. They pay for the teachers, the paraeducators, the cafeteria workers, the security, administration, everybody. Um within that, you know, you see the return on investment up there in terms of the quality of people that we attract. Um, that is without question. We have no fewer than seven educators of the year across in the last 2 years across
012multiple disciplines. That includes the world language teacher of the year, the art educator of the year, the outstanding music educator of the year and and four more that I can I can rattle off for you. But, what I want to talk about what makes this driver most significant. This is this is pretty much where kind of all the money goes um in the West Hartford budget um is uh for this for this current year, we are a number of positions over what was passed last year um specifically at the elementary level. We had a high number of move-ins in the summer um after our budget was passed to include late move-ins all the way up until August. Um and you know, it was a big it was a big driver last year. Uh we had
013a lot of public turnout last year because um we ran as lean as we could during that time. That was it was a bigger increase um and we and we pretty much budgeted at our class size guidelines, which we are still doing for this year. Um, but uh we do see stable enrollment for the coming year. So, we have to make up that difference and we also have to make up for um you know, contracted pay raises across I think it's 17 different operating unions. So, overall, our um our salary line is increasing by 5.6%. Um, and the big driver within this that you'll hear from both me and Rick is the insurance. Um, insurance costs have really kind of skyrocketed uh this this year uh and more so than last. Last year's salary uh
014the insurance costs were dramatic. This year, there was a the our budget was built on a 12.5% increase uh to our um to the state partnership plan. Uh we did get an updated estimate. The board is going to be able to adjust that downward to an 11.5% increase, uh but that is what the state partnership plan requires. Uh so that you have an understanding, the state partnership plan is a you know, one of someone wrote in to the to the budget and said, "Can't you guys find like better insurance? Maybe a pooled plan." That's exactly what the state partnership plan is. It is pooled across uh the overwhelming majority of towns and districts. Is it 2/3? Uh over half, yeah. Over half? Over half of towns and districts in the state of Connecticut participate in
015that. We've had a history with it. Um, and that history has uh demonstrated I won't take all of Rick's steal all his thunder. He has a lot of numbers on that. Uh but but it's been a great savings. But, we have looked at our plan to say, you know, if this is going to continue, can we shop? Can we find something better? Uh I'm going to tell you for this year coming forward, I've I've told the board um this is our best option. I have colleagues in other districts that are self-insured. West Hartford used to be self-insured maybe more than 10 years ago. Uh some of those districts have 24% increases in their insurance costs for this coming year. So, it's a big big driver. Um, what I will tell you uh is given given
016that, I am not proposing anything dramatically new, dramatically big, and there are several things that I've heard from our public on that they're looking for. You know, we are looking in education for I have a very vocal group that's looking to reduce class sizes beyond what the current guidelines are. And I have a very, you know, vocal group, I think, across the state that's looking for the expansion of pre-K opportunities. And these are things that we have been looking at and been studying, but I've said in this particular budget climate, I don't feel that that's a decision that we can make given the costs that were that were facing. So, I'm asking for a maintenance budget. I'm asking to I'm asking the board and the town to try to preserve those educational programs that we
017have that really kind of speak to the quality of quality of schools and education. That amounts that amounts to a net decrease of 2.6 positions overall across the whole district when you look at everything. That's coming on the heels of a reduction of over 20 positions in the last 2 years. So, in the last two budgets I've I've decreased the total number of positions in the district by over 20, and that doesn't even count COVID when we hired a lot of people and then when that money was was over, you know, expired under under ESSER, we we did a treat those folks. Um So, you know, we've just seen that downsizing through some of our enrollment trends and some of the efficiencies that we're trying to create within the budget overall. The next big driver
018that I'll talk about is the combination of out of district tuition and transportation. These are linked because you do have to when you have students that are placed in facilities outside of West Hartford public schools, you do have to transport them there as well. Now, last year out of district tuition was the was the big story. There was a significant shortfall not only for us. I think it was a shortfall of around 1.5 million dollars, but across the state overall we do get reimbursed for some of our special education costs above a certain threshold, and the and the state had previously flat funded that, and we were going to see a significant reduction in what we would typically have expected. We've been reimbursed by the state. You know, the statute says 100% of those costs
019historically they had given us about 80%, and then over the last couple of years based on flat funding that's eroded down to 70. We're templated for about 67% reimbursement. Um we were saved in the 11th hour by our legislative body, and our delegation here in West Hartford was very very active in that. The state last year provided an additional 40 million in funding that kind of you know, helped helped us out dramatically. We we had anticipated some of that, so the town council and the board, you know, made some cuts last year, and we've continued to do good work in this area. We while we have the requirement for some students, if we can't meet their needs in district, and just to give you a picture, generally we're talking about students who may be medically
020fragile, students who may need a therapeutic placement, so they're they're perhaps placed in a school that might have round-the-clock care. You know, it's a very significant needs, things that we can't provide for. We have we have robust specialized special education programming here in the district that I'll talk a little bit about, but that that's kind of kind of what we're at. What we do is we pay and and over the last several years we've really paid as much attention to those out of district placements as we can, going out to visit those sites, talk with those parents on a regular basis, and we've been able to start with me. It's quite all right. I was enjoying the best day ever right here. Um So, we we had upwards last year of about 130 students placed
021out of district. We've been able to pull back. We're we're forecasting 117, and that, you know, that's a small difference in in numbers, but that's a significant difference financially in terms of what these things cost. So, um between that and what we've done with some other pieces, we feel that our out of district costs for this coming year are going to be flat, which is to say the amount of money we expect to save by pulling students back should offset the higher costs that we're anticipating cuz those costs continue to climb. One of the things that the legislature is looking at today is the potential of regulating those costs because they're not regulated. So, these private uh these private places really it's their market. They can charge they can charge whatever they need whatever they're
022interested in the costs keep going up and up and up, and there's also, you know, a need you know, they're also like facing some staffing shortages, so that drives kind of they're creating incentives for folks to come work for them. Um transportation is on a 5-year contract. I think we're kind of in the middle of that contract, and in the middle of that contract there are segment well, they're annual pay increases that they get year-over-year. Transportation's going to contribute an additional 1 million dollars to the budget for this coming year as part of that market settled contract. And I can tell you if you remember from last year, the year before, all these different districts that were in the news with not being able to run their buses, they didn't have enough bus drivers. We
023use First Student and as well as Specialty. They've been they've been pretty reliable for us, knock on wood. We've had very good luck. We have a competitive contract with them, but um it's it's an expensive venture. What I will tell you um are is we have a number of specialized programs that I've listed up there. They are exceptional. They do realize a savings in smaller districts where they can't provide for those kinds of things. They do have to out-place their students. So, I say that, you know, there's a realized savings of what we are able to do of of roughly 35 million. And I'll share that just because we are looking at one of our programs is our intensive behavioral program. We do see some reduced numbers in that for this coming year, and our
024thought process is it's not enough necessarily of a reduction that we can create a teacher savings and cut teachers. So, rather than have those empty seats, we are seeking to off open up seats in in in enrollment basis for other districts because we can charge a tuition, and we'll it's going to be less than what they would be paying for out of district, and it's going to be revenue for us. So, that's that's a piece that's going to that's going to help us offset. In addition to that, we continue just so that you're aware, we do have regional transportation routes, especially when we need to go out of district for tuition, you know, for transportation. If we're driving out to a particular site in another town, and there's a neighboring community that needs to also
025get there, we partner up on those so that we can share transportation costs, and we continue to look at that as much as possible in order to affect some savings. Lastly on programming needs, you know, from year to year we look at, "Okay, well, how is our enrollment changing? Are number of special education students going up and down? What is the whole kind of puzzle look like? Is there anything we can do without? Is there anything we might need more of?" What I'll tell you from programming as I've said we're we're looking you know, we do have some internal pushing around. We have a reduction in the number of students that need special education services at the elementary because they're graduating up into the middle, and some of our middle are graduating up into the
026high school. So, we are going to be pushing some staff, you know, so when when the board looks at the budget and they and we break it out for them across those levels, they see some reductions in that staffing and some corresponding increases. Overall, we have flat enrollment at the elementary at large, so we're not looking at reducing any number of sections, we're not looking at adding any number of sections. Likewise, our middle schools are fairly status quo, although I am looking to add a half counselor position at Bristow Middle School. They've been kind of short-staffed in that area, and and mental health and and behavioral health are are issues that we're always paying close attention to, and they've you know, when we look at the at the kind of the the embodiment of who's
027who's enrolling at Bristow, we see for that need. At the high school, we do see a decrease in enrollment overall, so we are able to save some FTEs in that area. And I recently just had my high school um call it an FTE meeting, full-time equivalency, which is to say we look at the number of course requests that students have made and the number of teachers that we'll need. High school is unique from elementary and middle because the the number of teachers that I need in any given department in any given year is 100% driven by what kids sign up for. So, if kids in 1 year sign up for more art classes and and fewer music classes, I might need a little extra art and a little less music. So, we we staff it
028based on the number of requests that we have, and um and so we'll we'll we'll realize some savings there. But as I as I indicated, it's a net decrease overall of approximately 2.6 positions. With that, I talk about the return on investment, and I point at the high schools because they're measured more than anyone, and they rest on the foundation of our excellent elementary and middle schools. Um our high schools have continuously ranked in the top two to three percent of high schools nationwide and they have won the College Board gold award two years in a row and that award is exactly two years in existence. So they've won it every year that it's that it's been out there and I would expect that they will continue to The summary last this this year's adjusted
029adopted budget was 200 just over 214 million. Um when you look at rolling forward which is to say when you look at what it costs in tomorrow's dollars to do what we're doing today building in that transportation contract increase the the contract increases across our teacher our custodians all the different negotiating bodies as well as the increased insurance costs it's a 14 million dollar increase. Um the recommended changes that I'm making amount to only 62,000 dollars 63,000 dollars putting us at a 6.6% increase overall for the Board of Education budget. So that's a summary of where we are what I'm going to do now is I'm going to turn it over to Rick he'll give a short presentation and then we'll be able to answer questions. Thank you Paul and good evening and welcome everyone
030appreciate everyone joining us tonight. I'm Rick Ledbetter I'm our town manager in my fourth year as town manager my fifth budget that I've presented to to our community and I've been working for the town for the past 25 years and work very closely with Paul by senators today and have worked very closely with Paul over the last 20 years as well. Um you know Jason talked a little bit earlier about collaboration and I think what you see here in West Hartford is very unique the fact that our town and Board of Education works so closely together is a little different than what than what you might see in other communities around the town. So one of the many things that we're proud of here in West Hartford and continue to work very hard for our
031community to deliver our exceptional school district our excellent services that we provide to our community every year. Um of which I think we're all proud of and and I think I can speak on behalf of our residents who are here this evening as well. So Um so as the mayor said we Paul presented his budget to the Board of Education three weeks ago. I took that budget wrapped it into my budget and presented it to the town council a little less than two weeks ago and some of the drivers in our budget are similar to the drivers that Paul just talked about and our salary increases this year on the town side our overall budget on the town side went up 4.8%. We had a 2.8% increase in our salary account. We do have 22
032bargaining units so we have 22 different unions that we work with across both the school and the town and those are salaries that we negotiate with those particular bargaining units so it is something that we're locked into for this upcoming year and not you know unless a contract happens to be up and there are several contracts that are up a lot of those numbers we would not be able to change as part of this budget um process that we're going through right now. Paul talked about the state partnership plan that we participate in we joined that plan back in 2019 and at the time that we joined that plan we as Paul had said we are about half the cities and towns participate in that plan and when we joined we did so with the
033idea of having that economies of scale within that plan having essentially 50 60 70,000 people in that pool and seeing our health care costs reduced because of that economy of scale. When we joined we did save 3 million dollars by joining the state partnership plan at that time and during the first few years that we were in the partnership plan we continued to see a financial benefit to doing so. However last year we saw a 9.4% increase in our rates this year as Paul said we saw 11 and a half percent increase in our rates. And if anyone who's in a corporate sponsored plan of their own through their employer you're probably seeing a similar maybe not quite as high as that but a similar increase in your health care costs the health the health
034care trend right now in the country is about 9% so on average the average plan is seen about a 9% increase in health care costs. So we're seeing a little bit more than that through our state partnership plan something we are concerned about we were concerned last year and continue to be concerned and it's something that we will continue to work on as we move forward. The benefits in addition to salaries I talked about that collective bargaining process the benefits are also collectively bargained as well. So any change that we make with our health care would involve negotiations with each of our unions. Um and you talk about a return the mayor mentioned the US News World Report being number 19 in the in the country number one in number one in Connecticut Niche recognizing
035us as the best place to live in Connecticut for eight straight years most recently AARP um being the most livable community in Connecticut. These are all accolades that we're very proud of. Um and I think they're directly attributable to the services that we provide both among the school district and the town and libraries senior centers our police department fire department public works um all of those services in partnership with our residents and working together with our community make us that special place. Uh so there has certainly been a return on that investment that our residents um can see as a result of living here in West Hartford and paying taxes here in West Hartford. We're not saying that we need to raise taxes 6 and a half percent again this year to make sure we
036stay on that list not saying that at all. Um this is something we're proud of the services we deliver and we want to continue to work with our community to do so in a balanced way financially so and that's what tonight is about as as you've heard from from pretty much everyone. Um you'll we want to hear from you we want to talk to you hear your concerns hear your questions and hear your ideas as well. Um couple of other issues that we are dealing with so on the operating expense side our operating expenses went up 4.8% this year so that was a 1.4 million dollar increase on our operating expenses. Folks may remember we were with pains they they did our trash pick up forever. Um and right around this time last year pains
037sold their trash business to All American Waste. So we are now with All American Waste moving forward. All American Waste honored the contract that we had with pains which was an excellent contract but that contract expires on October 1st of this year of this upcoming fiscal year. So after speaking with All American Waste we can expect a about a 30% increase in our cost to dispose of our solid waste. So we are going out to to bid so that's a million dollar increase just in waste alone but we are going out to bid and we expect to see competitive bids from All American Waste competitors if we did not see a contract that would see us reduce our costs we would certainly work try to work with All American Waste as well to work on
038something to reduce that million dollar increase overall. So that process is happening. We will continue that over the next few weeks and by the time we adopt our budget on April 20th we hope to see a number that will be lower than that million dollar increase that we're seeing from All American Waste. So on the other side we have our capital financing increase so that our capital financing costs have gone up around 2.3 million dollars and that's a result of every single year we issue 15 million dollars in general obligation bonds to fund our infrastructure. So we have a an investment of 570 million dollar investment in our capital improvement program here in town. So that's our 217 miles of streets 300 miles of sidewalks 170 acres of park parks and playgrounds and 2 and
039a half million square feet of building space. So we've committed that money to maintaining that infrastructure as we move forward and this year the increase in our capital financing was was about 2.3 million dollars but we are working on ways to address that with this budget as well. So we do I don't want to get too much into the weeds of our parking lot fund but we should see a surplus in our parking lot fund for this upcoming year we would look at the possibility of working with our council to use that surplus in our parking lot fund to reduce that $2.3 million. So, we are looking at ways to lower that number as well as we move through the next few weeks. So, um So, and and our strong fiscal management, so we've been
040a AAA rated community for well over 50 years now. And that brings benefits to us as as town management leadership brings benefits to our community as well. I talked about those general obligation bonds that we issue. We're able to issue those bonds at a lower rate than most communities in the state of Connecticut because of that AAA rated status. So, that's very important to us that we maintain that that rating. Grand list growth, this year was a very good year in grand list growth by 81 and 1/2 million dollars. It was up from 60 million dollars last year. And we expect that number to increase even more significantly going into next year. So, that 81 and 1/2 million we are seeing a lot of development happening around town. And most of that development is in
041some form of of construction. So, it's you know, once that once those developments are up and running and built and being leased out, that's when we will see the most impact from that development. So, this 81 and 1/2 is just a result of what we're seeing in construction right now. Once those developments are up and running and folks are living there, that's when we will see that grand list growth increase even more dramatically. And that includes right across right in back of the building back here on Trout Brook. We have One West Hartford, which is a new development at the Kingswood Oxford former Children's Science Museum. We have the Yukon development where we have four new buildings on the parking lot side of Yukon. And then on the main campus side, there's a about 150
042million dollar development that has been approved for that side of the campus. We have a condominium complex in the center and another apartment building in the center. Once those all go they're in as I said some level of construction right now. Once those hit, we will see that 81 and 1/2 million dollars increase pretty significantly next year and even in the year after as we move forward, which will give us flexibility. The mayor had mentioned our pension plan. Talked to, you know, again talked about the state partnership plan. We, cuz we are a people business, we always look for ways to be innovative and try to find ways like we did with the health care plan and save $3 million when we made that move. Pension plan is another example of that as well. Back
043in 2001, 21, sorry. Prior to issuing pension obligation bonds, the amount that we had to contribute to our budget for our pension plan alone was $26 million. Today, that number is 10 and 1/2 million dollars. And we were able to decrease that contribution into the pension plan by utilizing our AAA rated status, issuing issuing pension obligation bonds, and putting those fund proceeds into our pension plan, fully funding the pension plan, and lowering annual contribution into the into the pension plan by doing so. So, in fact, if you add the number the amount that we have paid into we have to fund that debt certainly. But funding the debt into the pension obligation bonds and the difference between that and lowering our annual contribution from 26 to 10 million dollars, we have saved in the last
0445 years we've saved our taxpayers $18 million dollars gross or net, I should say, by making this change. And certainly wanted to credit the mayor and our town council for for looking, as I said, at innovative solutions at lowering our um our our budget impacts on our community. So, um with all that said, we have, you know, we have seen a return on invest we've seen a significant increase in our home values around the town. And we we measure that value from every every time we go through a revaluation time period. Last time we did revaluation was 2022. We will go through revaluation last year next year, I should say. And since 2022, we've seen a 45% increase in our residential home values over that time period. Last year, that number was 35%. So, we've
045seen it jump again between last year and this year. And I think as folks see the market around our community, we are continuing to see those increased home values town wide. Um So, again, certainly return on that investment that our residents can see by the services that we do provide. But again, we want to we know that 6.6% 6.5% tax increase, as you can see right there. About halfway down increase to 2.91 mills. That's what's been proposed. We are, as I mentioned, working on a couple of things right now to lower that dollar amount. And we will continue to work closely with our town council and our board of education to explore even other ways to further reduce that impact that that would have on our community. So, up at the top 4.8% increase in
046town expenses, a little bit less than seven on the education side, 16.4% on the capital. Our motor vehicle mill rate is a result of a state statute, so that remains unchanged at 32.46. And that's where we stand right now. Two other quick things I want to mention. The mayor mentioned that 90% of our revenue is derived from residential taxpayers here in town. And that's the way pretty much universal across the state of Connecticut. Every city and town deals with that same issue. Unlike other states around the country who see other diverse revenue opportunities that they can take advantage of like a sales tax. Here in Connecticut, those types of taxes go to the state. There are two things we're working very closely right now with our delegation on. One is our education cost sharing grant
047that we receive to help offset our um education costs. And there's a foundation rate that's built into the formula. I don't want to get too much into the details of the formula. It is complicated, but that foundation rate is $11,500. It's remained unchanged since 2013. There is a bill right now that would increase that foundation rate from 11,500 to 12,500 and then increase every year thereafter based on inflation. So, that would increase revenue for us this year in the year that we're in right now for the upcoming fiscal year, I should say. That So, that would be something that would help us as we move through the next four or five weeks and and set our final budget number. The other revenue stream that could that could help us. Back in 2019, the state issued
048implemented a restaurant and hospitality tax for for all the restaurants and hotels in the state of Connecticut. That money goes to the state. That the plan at the time was to then send that money back to cities and towns. That did not happen. money goes to the state, goes into their coffers, and they've had hundreds of millions dollars of revenue over the course of the last five or six years that have gone to the state from that 1% tax alone. There is a bill that would take that 1% and distribute half a percent back to cities and towns and half a percent into the tourism budget with the state. So, that half percent comes back to our town, that would be another revenue stream that we could incorporate into our budget this year. So, our
049mayor's working very closely with our delegation to to see the potential of both of those bills passing. We're probably a little more confident about the education cost sharing grant than we are the other one, but I think it's important and we'll continue to have that conversation with our state representatives. But that's something our residents can do as well to help us uh see us have the ability to diversify our revenue stream. So, it's not solely on the the backs of our residents here in town at that 90% number. So, um So, that concludes a quick overview of both of our budgets. And what we'd like to do right now, the mayor I don't know if you had any closing comments. So, what we could do right now is turn it back to our folks here
050who have questions, concerns, or ideas. We're happy to uh to hear all of those and and talk through them. And the mic is for WCI, not necessarily amplify your voice. So, we will probably repeat the question, but Um I don't think we need to project. Just so we can hear the question. Is is this on right now? All right, any questions? one or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ladies first. My fault entirely. My fault. Thank you, uh Paul and Sherry. Um yeah, I did I like talked to you guys before. Um the meeting itself, my concern about the uh aftercare program over um in the West Hartford public school. So, I'm an incoming uh parents for kindergarten um this coming school year. And I'm really concerned about like the opportunity to have like aftercare program for
051my son that's coming um because like your school ended like 1:30 for on Wednesday and then most days like 3:30. Um so, it's not an uh it's it's not optional like care. I know like it's not under your um territory of like things because it's on a private partner, but I think it's it's an essential um for like double like dual working parents to have that um backup support to attend like a public school. Can I add on to that? Yeah, I just want to give some background for people who don't have uh preschool elementary school kids. So, we've been on the waitlist for aftercare for 3 years and we've been told that for parents whose kids are on this list 2021, they're still on the waitlist for this upcoming school year. And I think
052it lays a lot of burden on our working parents cuz we have to find a way to support our kids to go to the public school and in the same time to make it a work to pick them up at 3:30. So, we understand that a lot of aftercare, especially in West Hartford, I think we only have three options. The We, the Kidlink, and the JCC, which is offsite. And I think majority of the parents that I talked to in different schools, they have the same problem and concerns. And I think this problem says that it has been 5 years that nothing has been solved. And I'm trying to figure out like if there's anything that Board of Educations are working on it or have some plan that can solve this problem or at least
053can ease the burden from the working parents. Thank you. important topic, one a problem set that we've talked about between the board and the town quite a bit. And interestingly, um it's not a program as you as you said, it's not a program for everyone else who may not know that exists in either the Board of Education budget or the town budget. Um we do partner with private care providers and you've named them so that we can have aftercare in all of our elementary schools. However, the demand for that aftercare far exceeds what those private care providers are able to uh are able to give in terms of their capacity, in terms of their numbers of staff. Um we've talked with those private care providers to try to look at expansion um not with very
054much luck. So, the one promising thing that I can talk about, which has been an ongoing collaboration with members of the town um within the leisure services department and on the board side um is we've asked, you know, we've brought them into the communication and conversation about the opportunity to potentially pilot and if not, you know, then hopefully build and sustain something with aftercare at one of our community centers um which would require some offsite transportation costs. So, I was listening into the conversation and I kind of butted in for a minute and and just shared that update that uh I've asked uh I had seen a recent email. So, and I had gotten an email from my board chair. So, I asked to get an update on where we are with that um because
055that that would at least ease some of the burden, but I'll be transparent with you. I I don't think based on what I'm hearing, the length of those waitlists, the amount of demand that still exists, I don't expect it to solve the problem. Uh but it is communication that's happening uh between the board and the town to try to uh try for us to kind of create some because we've we've not had, you know, we've kind of put it out there to say, "Hey, are there other private care providers uh that we can provide space to that can that can help fill this up?" There's business that the community wants and needs um and and yet there's there seems to be a scarcity of providers that that are able to do it. So, um I'm
056happy for you know, the relationships that we do have and we are seeking, "Hey, if there are if there are more relationships that we can grow, we would we would welcome it." So, I don't know if that helps. Yeah, I I wonder like if the we have consider any like alternative way. Let's say like um like district run like aftercare program or even sharing with like public schools nearby like finding some alternative ways cuz I mean like I think this um your explanation is valid, but it seems like time-consuming. But again, the need for parents like I don't want my kids graduate and then told, "Okay, you're on the waitlist." Because it seems like as soon as the kid is born, I have to make sure I made a decision which school he has to
057go to and be on the waitlist. Cannot make any changes, I would lose the priority. We've done some communication with uh some surrounding districts to understand how they uh tackle the problem. The majority of them do private, you know, have private care. I am in communication with one school district that does uh run their own and I did um I did ask about, "Hey, what's the feasibility of that?" We have a we have a visit scheduled over with them to to kind of see and understand what that looks like, but that would become um that would be a major undertaking uh for us. I'm not saying that we are looking at it, but I'm not saying that's something I'm promising at this point uh because that that puts, you know, that's something we'd have to
058kind of really figure out in terms of how do we staff it? Um Now, you know, we're owning that. Um what are the requirements? It's a service that has never been something that necessarily the schools or the town has owned, but um I do you know, we did find one one community that that's how they do it. So, we are trying to find out more information from them. So, we have a visit planned with them. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Um one suggestion. Was wondering if you guys consider like the YMCA that can help with that or that's not Yeah. >> So, as as my understanding is Y runs Kidslink. So, that They own that program. Thank you. Uh so, first to that that question, um my daughter's 15 and at Conard and she's volunteering at
059one of the community centers. And I think there's a host of kids, like it's community, right? There's a host of kids that would be happy to sort of do a thing like that after school if there was a structured way to do it. I know insurance is a problem, transportation is a problem, but there's probably some built-in help um in the community in the form of high school students who you could sort of vet and allow to you know, entertain preschool kids for an hour and a half cuz they already do that anyway. Um that's one thought um to lever what we already have, but I mean, I have a I took a bunch of notes and I have questions and or concerns, but I want to start with ideas cuz I feel like they're
060better or more interesting. I lived in Seattle for 2 years and they actually have a um a a revenue-generating model. They don't they don't have a a a state tax or or a city tax. I don't know how they made any money except they did have a revenue-generating model that was they charged for uh trash containers. If you wanted to uh throw out trash, it was, you know, $50 a month. If you wanted to do recycling, it was like $15 a month and compost was free and they had industrial compost. I actually wonder I mean, I drive around, I see people with two trash cans and two, you know, uh recycling containers. There might be a revenue. Blue Earth, we use Blue Earth compost and we're paying them already, but if the town did it
061and it was an option, I think people would take it and it might be a revenue-generating thing. Um and it's also more sustainable. You can actually sort of influence behavior. Um I bring that up as one idea and the other thought I had was about energy costs given how fickle energy costs can be geopolitically. Um There's not a solar panel on a school and I'm wondering if why or if that's something I know they're expensive. We have them on our house and they're not, you know, like cheap to put there, but they pay for themselves over time. I'm just wondering about sort of that that angle. And I'll stop there because I think there's a lot of other questions. So, we do have Do you know how many schools have solar panels on them right
062now? >> but I know we have Yeah, so we do like our town hall, if you went up on our roof, it's completely covered in solar panels. Yeah. Um I we've been we've actually flipped the switch a number of times. Yeah, yeah. more than I think in the school. At least five, I think. And but we also do virtual net metering where we purchase solar from other locations. Yep. With the trash bill. Yep. And the trash So we do like when you see a house with more than one receptacle, they've paid for that second one. So and so we do have a few homes around town that have that and and with the recycling as well. Um we did look at a pay-as-you-throw program. We did receive a grant from the state and we did
063it in the Morley district and and that was uh really recycle recycling at the highest level possible within your household and then diverting your food as well. So you do Blue Blue Earth now, so you see the benefit of that. We have set up um food drop-off bins in town. We have five locations right now. We're adding another seven as we speak. Um they should be up and running very shortly. So you can download the app on your phone and really encouraging folks to I use it all the time. You just when you're instead of throwing food in your trash, you you set it aside and for me it's convenient cuz I I come to the town hall every day. I can drop it off right at the at the location right here. But we're
064diverting a significant amount of food from our waste stream as well, which is great. Better for the environment certainly and helps us to to reduce our cost. But we're open to exploring other ideas for our waste management as well. It's as I said, it's you know, it's a big problem with our contract right now and we are open to exploring other options as well. We spend $5 on trash on solid waste. Uh and and it's going up and it's not trajectory is not going up but especially New England and has a a real issue with where we put trash. So we [clears throat] are we've we've done a number of initiatives but you know, the other we could say take 5 million off the budget and we'll everybody every resident can pay $300 or $400
065or whatever that is and um subscribe, right? Um we would probably do that in a way where we would have one hauler so there weren't haulers going which way. It's you know, we're taking it out of the budget but we're passing on the cost. So I mean that's one option. Obviously, we do charge and it's not insignificant for the second I think it's $100 second barrel The recycling is not a charge now although we have found that recycling actually is larger than our tip fee right now. Cuz we can't sell that our the That's the thing they found in Seattle. I mean the the incentives are real, right? Like the as soon as you started charging, it was expensive for trash and we found I lived in Boston for 10 years. I grew up in
066Rhode Island. So I'm a New Englander and didn't exist anywhere I grew up and we found that we had so much more food waste than we thought and it was free. That was the free thing and that we became ideological about our trash. Like don't throw that away if it doesn't get thrown away. Like if it's waste that we can compost, compost it and since we came here, we started composting ourselves and we get Blue Earth and we sort of do all the options but it was revenue generating for the city and incentive generating as well for people just to you know, if you want a giant trash can, fine. And that's one idea of many I think there's a lot of ways to sort of spur desired outcomes but that was one that worked
067for our family anecdotally and and equals one but I mean the city did it, right? And it worked there. So It's something we talk about a lot and we we've taken some steps and got a lot of pushback but we're we're going to continue to engage. Um Hi, my name is Jonathan Rayome and I've been living in town for about 14 years. I have a very high-level question which as at what point in the budget cycle are we? Is this budget locked down? Is there still opportunities and chances to influence it? Yes. Yes, that's what we're doing tonight. So we presented it presented the the final budget rolling in the superintendent's budget with the town budget. Uh proposed proposed on uh last Tuesday the 10th. So just a couple weeks ago and we'll adopt the
068budget. The council will adopt a budget on April 20th. So between now and then we can do what we're doing now. And in the meantime, the Board of Ed probably has to Yes, so we're having our sec we're having our um um this this Wednesday coming up this week, we're having the uh Help me. Public hearing. Public hearing, thank you. And that'll be our second board workshop and then we adopt the board will adopt its budget on the 31st, Tuesday the 31st. That number will go to the town. Um the town as the mayor said in her opening remarks does have the ability to cut that number. Um but it is the responsibility of the Board of Education has the license to decide if if there was a an increase or a decrease, what line
069items get adjusted based on the number that the town council provides. I have one Okay. A question for the superintendent. Yes. So did you say that the most recent negotiated contractual increase was about 5.6%? No, the actual Thank you for that clarification. The the increase to the salary line overall is coming out to be 5.6%. However, the the depending on which union you're speaking of, the contract negotiation and it's and it's complicated. I want one of my board members who wanted to know kind of the average. The teachers union did get a a market settled agreement that was in the I think for this coming year, I think the step was 13 over in the high fours if I have that correct in my head. The majority of our teachers are on the are on
070the bottom step so it's a little misleading cuz the majority of our teachers are on the bottom step. So the teachers get a typically they'll get a step increase so they they move over a lane in terms of their year experience and then they may get a salary increase as associated with whatever the settlement is. So those two things together kind of create that. But the majority of our teachers are on the bottom step and so they received a flat dollar amount which was in the which was in the high twos. Overall, the salary line did increase by that 5.6. Pieces of that included I think you know, the need to add in number of teachers above and beyond what was originally budgeted based on the move-ins that we saw at the elementary level increasing
071the number of sections that we needed to provide for. Likewise, some here or there a couple of increases I think within special education students based on needs that were unanticipated at the time. All right, so we're we're still looking at 14 million. It was majority pay increases and insurance. Yeah, 70 uh I think if I have it right, I think 70% of my increase 70% of my 14 million is pay increases and insurance. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. How you doing? Um so I'm Daniel Johnson. I'm uh parent of a Charter Oak two boys at Charter Oak Elementary School previously on the Pedestrian Bicycle Commission as the chairman of the board. But I'm here today um I think you want a specific I want to set you up for two questions and kind
072of give you the the background that I'm coming from for those questions. Um Charter Oak is a magnet school and the budget was talked about impact elementary schools staying flat and I want to get I want to drill in on that a bit more because my concern as a parent is class sizes in general um how teachers are allocated to students and how that impacts students all the way through the high school years which accolades are accolades but then they can also be a problem long-term. So I want to think about the long-term strategy for how this budget is going to number one apply to the magnet school of Charter Oak. The questions that I have for you are um I'm I'm definitely hearing like conflicting conversations about um classroom sizes. So I'm hoping you
073can comment on you know the plan to increase class sizes at all as part of the budget proposal here and also um are can you specify like the budget considerations for Charter Oak Magnet School if that's different than some of the other schools in town? >> [snorts] >> Sure. I'll I'll do my best for that both. And I assume you mean plans to decrease class size or you said increase class size. So increase class sizes is my concern, right? If um I can go either or, but I just want to make sure I I think more you know, realistic is are you going to increase the class sizes? So, one teacher port towards a higher number of students. So, New York implemented a cap which has to be in effect by 2028. New York City.
074Sorry to make sure to correct that. Um where they have a class size limit in elementary school. So, up to grade three, 20 students per teacher. And then there's a uh grades four through eight cap size limit that has to be in place by fall of 2028. >> [snorts] >> The reason being at the elementary school level the teacher per student has the most impact, right? Talk about ROI. Um from data analytics, KPIs, you said FTE, whatever, right? The numbers at the young age are really important. I want to hear how this budget is going to impact elementary schools as a whole, how it's [snorts] going to potentially change any class sizes, and make sure that's just top of mind. I know you sign up here. It's, you know, it's accepting to get hit by
075a baseball bat every single day when you come to a public forum, but I appreciate the time here. And I want to separate a process from the purpose of this process and the Q&A session. All right, so um I would love a cap of 20 students at our elementary. Our current cap uh and and we don't have we don't call it a maximum, we call it a class size guideline. It's set in board policy. Um it is 23 students uh for K to K to uh K to three. And it is 27 students in grades four and five. And then for Charter Oak and also Smith, our two magnet schools, uh we reduce those caps by two in each of those grade levels respectively. Um when we exceed those um you know, the goal in
076the budgeting process if we're going to exceed that is to be able to forecast that and be able to break it into a smaller section. Um and if if that exceeding of class size guidelines happens too far into the into the just prior to the school year, pretty much what we what we constitute is once I send home a class list and I say, "Hey Mr. and Mrs. Jones, your teacher is is Mr. or Mrs. Smith." That's my contract with you that I'm not going to change that all of a sudden and say, "Oh, just kidding, I broke that and your child has to go to some other teacher." Um so, that happened once this this current year at Bugbee. We had uh some very late enrollments, and we have uh 24 students in one
077of our first grade sections. And that's a big number of first graders to your point. That is not a place that we want to be. Uh we heard quite a bit from our community about decreasing our class size guidelines, perhaps to something more in line with what you're sharing about New York. And I am hearing currently relative to Charter Oak since you asked about that school specifically. Uh their class size guideline, as I said, is 21 for grades K through three and 25 in grades four and five. Charter Oak for this coming year, next year, is projected to have their fifth grade um have 24s or 25s, or at least that was the that was the point in time projection that we made when we put together the budget book. Um and I've had many
078parents uh from Charter Oak reach out and say, you know, "We think that's too many. We'd like to see you add another another section there." Um as of right now, you know, my my my process answer is you you do have unfortunately, you know, it's like you're in an unfortunate situation because I can be somewhere else where I have 60 students in fifth grade. That's too many to have in just two sections, so they break out and they have three sections of 20. And the three sections of 20 over there and the section with 25 or 24 at Charter Oak feels disproportionate, feels inequitable. Um but they're both in compliance with the class size guidelines, and it is honoring a reduced class size guideline for Charter Oak. So, what I've said to some of those
079folks is, you know, the the question isn't "Can I just provide an additional teacher?" The question is probably, "Do we need to look at the class size guidelines for Charter Oak and or for Smith, schools that have a higher percentage of need, and maybe the reduction of two is is no longer sufficient because if we look at the percentage of multilingual learners, we look at the percentage of students on free and reduced lunch, we look at some of these other indicators, there has been a growth in that high needs population, not only across the district, but some of that growth becomes disproportionate when you look specifically um say at Charter Oak. So, so that's a question um that I can pose you know, to my board, but at this moment in time um what the
080what the budget's been built off of is is uh those existing class size guidelines. There was there was conversation about as as I said, making them smaller, which would increase the number of teachers we would need at the elementary. But um you know, I have not moved forward that recommendation at the time. That being said, just to and I won't eat up too much more time. In terms of how Charter Oak gets funded, you asked about that. Charter Oak um you know, it's a title title one school, so uh it receives additional funding through title one allocation as well as its magnet status. So, there are additional positions that are funded through those sources um that are specific to Charter Oak relative to its magnet status, and then and then funding that that is specific
081to title one. So, so it gets it gets more based on, you know, based on its needs, based on those statuses. Um but does West Hartford's contribution to Charter Oak change within this budget? So, yes, West Hartford funds the magnet component of it. Uh a lot of the title one funding comes directly from uh the federal government, but West Hartford funds that title one. No, we're we're using um I'm right now, we're we're kind of holding my recommendation. We'll see what happens, but Yeah. You heard that correctly. What the way that, you know, the way that we'll look at some of those funding streams is is typically on a per pupil. Um and so, you know, any modest ups or downs would be uh would be based on the enrollment differences. Yes. Sorry. Um my
082name's Kevin. I'm a parent at Charter Oak. Uh I'm also a teacher in Bristol, uh fifth grade. Um very similar to West Hartford demographic, um title one. Um and I and I have a similar question um about class sizes where the budget's set, we know that, um and I may be opening a a can of worms. Is there a possibility of like redistricting or something where um you know, cuz a person who, you know, my wife went to school here, she went to Hall, etc. Um looking specifically to move into West Hartford because of that return on investment, that quality of life. Um and I think about, right, the feeder into Sedgwick and then Conard, and um you know, the long-term effects of being in the classroom size. And I know personally teaching in Bristol,
083um pre-COVID, I had a classroom of 26, right? It's crazy where my small group um three of, you know, eight or nine students compared to now where I have 18 and, you know, um similar demographics that my students are now reaching levels of success in literacy and math due to, you know, being able to kind of have that uh teacher-student relationship be a little bit more tight-knit, be able to push some my advanced students a little bit more. And I think about that for Charter Oak, and um kind of piggybacking off what Dan said, like um with the budgets and allocating time and space for that. Is is that something that's in the future? I know we're kind of locked, like you mentioned. Is that something on the table? >> we've looked at. We haven't
084looked at a major redistricting, but we have done spot redistricting in the last couple of years. I know we did some spot redistricting at Webster Hill within the last two or three years. Um the conversation came up last year. Last year, the the flash point for class sizes was more at Duffy. That's often where it comes up because it's one of our larger communities, our larger schools, and any potential for spot redistricting cuz Charter Oak and Duffy are two of your big schools. In your big schools, it's great to be a large school, but what happens is um it's it's because of the size, it's easier to get to the higher uh class sizes relative to guidelines because you have generally have more room. So, so like as soon as you crest as soon as
085you crest 54 students in a grade uh if I'm using 27 as the number, I get a third section and I and I build, you know, so it's that. But once I get into that fourth section, which is often what happens at Duffy and and sometimes at Charter Oak, you know, I got to I got to go a long way before I can get to that fourth section or a long way till I can get to that fifth section. And so, um we have talked about it. Charter Oak's a little different cuz you can magnet out if you're a neighborhood family, and then we're always trying to get more folks to magnet in. Truthfully, if if if I could magnet in five more families in fifth grade, you guys are going to have super comfortable
086class sizes. And and that's the difference. When you get close to the cutoff, it's a very small. I need one or two to move in or one or two that don't, you know, that move out, and it and it can collapse or expand a number of sections. And our projections, just to point it out, our projections are point in time. We talked about this last year. We look at them again, and we look at them continuously, and And don't make our final decisions on those staffing until we feel like the enrollment has stabilized. Um and when and then if we have to make an adjustment after that, we do so with TAs. Thank you. Appreciate it. Jason, appreciate it. Comment? Um so I know I was here a few nights ago at the last one
087and I'm also a Charter Oak parent. I have four kids who are all at Charter Oak. So I have a lot of experience across a bunch of the grades and I'm familiar with some of the different cohorts. Um I am going to work my way up to a specific question, but I'm curious about the way you're talking about the class size recommendations just cuz I think it's important to point out that Charter Oak does have some of the biggest class sizes in town. So when you talk about if they're reaching or getting close to their class size recommendations, so at Charter Oak at fifth grade for instance, you're talking about a recommended size of 25 and Charter Oak is at 24. And comparing that to other schools who they're so another one since magnets are
088two less, so their fifth grade recommendation would be 27 and those schools are at 17, 18, 19, 20, you know, so they're significantly below what that number is. Whereas Charter Oak, you know, we have three classes that right now are projecting to be around 24 each. So that could be four of 17, which is actually on par with what some of the other schools have. I don't want to beat a dead horse though cuz I know we were also talking about this a few days ago. So I appreciate the fact that they do have lower class recommended sizes at the magnet schools. I just think it's really important to point out that our real class size is in fact bigger than almost every single one of the other elementary schools. I'm not familiar with Duffy's
089numbers specifically, but in terms of Charter Oak and the class size there and why it concerns me the increase in class size um is concerning for two reasons. I know you kind of touched on one. They're one of the schools with a higher need population for a lot of reasons. Um a lot of reasons. You listed many of them. And I think that's reflected in some of the poor test grades that Charter Oak has been receiving over the last few years. I'm thinking specifically of the current fourth grade cohort and they have had a really alarmingly slow rate of academic growth year-over-year. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that that cohort specifically across the entire district has the lowest rate of academic growth. Um so which and they're one of the grades that
090they lost a section. Um so it is a little concerning that some of the cohorts who I think are most in need of extra support were the ones who lost uh a section last year. And twofold again, I know I'm repeating myself cuz I just talked to about this a few days ago. Um but I just feel like there's not a lot of people speaking up for this population, but the deaf and hard of hearing students Charter Oak is the hub for the deaf and hard of hearing students. So what that means for instance is I don't live in the Charter Oak district. I did not seek out a magnet school, but you know, we're told deaf children go to Charter Oak. So that's where all four of my children go. And deaf children are
091going to be especially especially vulnerable to large class sizes for two reasons. If you think of them, they have cochlear implants, hearing aids, BAHA bone conduction hearing aids. The larger the class size, the less effective those devices are going to be at transmitting language to that child's brain. So sound, they're going to get a lot of sound transmitted, but it's not going to be usable language. So when you have class sizes of 24 or even kindergarten, I think it's projected to be at 20, which is um I think there might be another school in town who also has kindergarten class sizes projected at 20, but I'm thinking about, you know, the deaf children I'm familiar with who are going to be starting in kindergarten, which is not the age that my specific child will be
092going into, but and they're going to be going into some of the largest kindergarten classes in town. So they're going to have a lot less just by the nature of the size of the class, less access to sound because their cochlear implants are not going to function as well. And then also, you know, their sign language interpreter in theory is just supposed to be interpreting for them, but in reality when you're in a class full of that many kids, you know, so-and-so needs help with their glue stick and this kid is asking you a lot of questions. You know, there's a lot of distractions. That's just part of the job description of being a sign language interpreter at a school. So it's just the larger class sizes at Charter Oak is alarming for me specifically
093for those two reasons. Just it's a population that has more need and it's the hub for all the deaf and hard of hearing students who are going to be extremely vulnerable to large class sizes cuz the larger the class size, the less language access they're going to have. So I would just, you know, respectively ask that you guys keep that in mind when looking at these projections for class sizes and I know no school wants to be the school that loses a teacher and every school wants to be the one that has a class size of 17 instead of 24. I just think the Charter Oak population for a number of reasons is really specifically in need of smaller class sizes and I swear I am gearing up to a real question. So I was
094curious about the administrator to student ratio in West Hartford cuz I know last year we lost a handful of teachers and student-facing positions, but I believe we didn't lose any I don't I you can speak Correct me if I'm wrong, but we didn't have any cuts on the administrative side. And my understanding is that if we compare West Hartford to other districts like Farmington and Avon and surrounding areas, West Hartford Board of Ed is really heavy on the administrative side. And I don't want to downplay the importance of any of the administrative roles, but I am really hard-pressed to believe that the administrative roles are more important or more impactful than the teacher roles. So I'm just curious about that. Yep, I can answer both. So first, thanks for your advocacy and the explanation. I
095have three board members here to hear uh the comments on Charter Oak, so that's helpful. And I think the argument as I was sharing is the the way that I'm going to frame it uh as a question that that we can wrestle with as a board is looking at is the reduction of class size to 25 uh for Charter Oak at those upper grades or 20 uh 21 at those lower grades sufficient or should it be lower? Because I can't really do the somebody got to break and they're at 17 because every single year that happens, somebody can be, you know, I can have I think I've Waiting Lane only has two sections in those they only need 34 kids in a grade level in a cohort. And now they have two sections of 17.
096I can't I can't make everybody have 17, you know what I mean? Without, you know, I would have to move you know, it would be I'm just going to move redistrict everybody to make those class sizes equal. What I what we can affect is what those guidelines are. And if and if 25 is an outdated metric, that's that's something that we can wrestle with as a board and then that would inform priorities and I and I think you make a good argument with with what the need is. Relative to the ratios that you're talking about, um what I will tell you is what we had uh not necessarily student-facing. We had um we had uh our element we did a restructure of our administration uh specifically as it relates to the elementary. We previously have
097a principal who was the sole administrator at the elementary buildings. Um and then we had curriculum specialists and curriculum specialists were teacher leaders. They didn't have classrooms. Uh they would they would support uh student behavior. They would support teachers in the classrooms. They would sit in on PPTs. They would help the principal with scheduling. Um but they were they were in the teachers' contract. And the teachers' union said, you know, hey, this really feels more like an administrative role and we had the ability with greater needs that we were seeing in special education that we could give them um specific responsibilities relative to special education and make that firmly an administrative role. And so we did that. We transferred those positions from being teacher leaders to administrators. We did so at the same time reducing
098other um administrative positions. I think we cut two or three uh department supervisor positions across the district and uh we were able to accomplish all of that at a net savings uh to the district. Uh off the top of my head, I want to say it was a net savings of about $40,000. That does put us out of balance with what other other districts may have as their ratios, but I will tell you uh that I'm aware of a district in the Farmington Valley, not Farmington, but another district who who heard that we had made that change at the elementary level and they're very interested to do the same uh because they have the same needs. I don't know exactly what their setup is, but that's what they're interested in. Um so I don't know
099if that answers your question. Relative to Farmington, I did get an email from somebody else. They wanted to talk about comparisons to Farmington, Simsbury, Avon with our with our ratios of administrators, our numbers of administrators and all the rest. And the problem is it's not a you can't just say, well, you're double the size, you should you should uh therefore have, you know, if they're half the size, you should have half as much, you should only have double as much because there's weights involved with that. We have three middle schools by comparison to a Farmington that has one, Irving Robbins, or Simsbury that has one. Middle schools have more administrators. They have a principal and two assistant principals. High schools, we have two high schools. All of those communities around us have one. Our high
100schools have a principal and three assistant principals. If they have the same model over there, when we add the high school in, we're adding a heavier weight of administrators versus when you just count up the elementaries and all the rest. So, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Um but, you know, that's the explanation as to where our you know, our ratio went a little differently was based on uh changing a position that was already it was in the teachers' union, but I wouldn't call it a student-facing position. I'm fully aware of your presentation board, but I wouldn't know it as a school secretary. I know where the money goes, how it goes. And I'm really addressing the mill increase. Uh obviously, I think I'm the oldest person in this whole room. And I think I
101need a job. My medicals are eating me up. And I won't go into what's raised. I'm over the uh limit for assistance. My question is, how do you What can you do for me? Thank you for for that question. And that's what we're doing. And now that's what we're doing. So, to your point, uh the increase presently as proposed is a 2.91 mill increase. So, through these meetings and through our deliberations with our uh council, and every line item within the budget will is being discussed um by department. So, for example, police and fire will have their own meeting where our town council members have the ability to um essentially dissect each budget and then make suggestions. We will look to lower that 2.91 mill increase between now and April 20th. Yes. As I say,
102but you're all getting raises. I haven't had one raise. I did get $11.60 in my Social Security this year. So, with that, I have to help you. I just wanted you to know where I stand. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Uh my name's Steve Blanchefield. Um come from the Blanchefield family in town. We've been in town over 100 years. Okay? From my father to me, we came in from the north end of Hartford in I think 1923. We're still in the town. Coached football at Hall for 35 years. My sister was a teacher for 40 years in West Hartford, teacher of the year. And Paul, this isn't why I got up and listening to everybody, okay? I've been at Hall and Conard for 35 years. This year I spent time at King Philip. And
103to see these kids come into Hall and Conard as freshmen, and they are kids by any parameter you use to measure them, they are kids. And to see them leave Hall and Conard as young men and women, you you just it it's an unbelievable what's happening in the school system, okay? But I want to thank all of you for all the work you're doing on the budget. And I know it's very, very difficult. This is a very difficult time for the budget setters. And thank you for doing this. And you're spending a lot of time trying to keep it down. And we appreciate this, okay? The reason we've stayed in this town so long is cuz my father. I never knew anyone who loved West Hartford more than my father, okay? He grew up without
104a father, so his father kind of became William Hall, all right? He's the only person I ever knew who actually knew William Hall. He gave up a scholarship at Kingswood to stay at William Hall's high school and to play for Eric Northfelt, okay? That's how much of a West Hartford guy he was. That's why we've stayed here for so long. And I can always hear my father saying, "Where are you going to go and get what you're getting in West Hartford?" He said, "Nowhere." And unfortunately, that comes with a price. One last thing I want to say about this that a lot of people don't realize. Where West Hartford is today is through the hard work of many, many, many people over many, many years. This didn't fall out of the sky last week. Like
105I tell the Hall football players a lot, "Hall football didn't start last week." We're here because a lot of people worked a long time to get us at this spot. And people who come after us. But the vision of West Hartford can really be traced back to one man. And it's William Hall. And his vision for West Hartford was 100 years ago that he sold the town fathers on and mothers. If we have a strong educational system in this town, young families will always want to move here. They'll always want to be in this and we will always have a dynamic town. And that will also hold up the property values. And has not his vision come true 100%? And that is traced back to William Hall. And just one last very quick thing. Now
106I can see why the kids at Hall and Conard are so good. They have great mothers and fathers. I'm just so impressed with all of you coming here tonight and being concerned with your kids and the schooling they're getting and everything. That is just wonderful. And the day my mother died, she was never sick. She just ran out of energy. That afternoon, she called me up in her room and said, "Steve, I want to make a change to my obituary." I remember she was going to pass away in a couple hours. The The funds were going to go to the House of Bread in Hartford because she volunteered for 30 years to to feed the poor people. She said, "Add the lights at the Hall and Conard football field." That's when we were That's when
107we were getting lights at the field. And my mother said to me, "Personally, I like the Saturday afternoon games, okay? But if that's what [laughter] they want, let's put the money there and we'll donate the family, too." But her point was, "I want the town to know how much we're grateful that we could raise children in the town of West Hartford." So, I thank all of you for keeping the vision of William Hall alive. Thank you for putting your kids through this school system. You won't be disappointed. Thank you. Uh I just want to uh recognize a couple of people that walked in. Uh Latoya uh Yagalof is here, board member. Uh Jennifer Hertz is here, board member. And Jason Wang, town council. Yeah, I was at the last meeting, as you know, and I've
108already spoken my piece, but I want to reiterate that I can't see a lot of This is more of a Board of Education meeting cuz I realize it's important, but if you notice, 6.6%. That's 6.5% last year, 5.6%. That should concern you, too. I mean, it's not It's more than education in this town. And this is this is just gotten out of hand. We We've been paying high taxes for years, and it's been going up. And all we do is get promised that things are going to get better. Like when Blueback came through. Look at this. This is going to help us with our taxes. It didn't. And and And now this is We get We're We're getting optimistic about Oh, it's going to get better. But it just doesn't. And of course, that's the
109only bad thing about this town. And I have to say, it it's a great town. But it gets to a point where the taxes people say, "This is too much." And it starts to hurt the town. Now, I I wonder if all these ratings they take into consideration the taxes cuz if they did, I don't know if we would be that high. I know people have moved out of town because of taxes. And I know people that haven't haven't moved into the town because of the taxes, too. And I have to say, this is one of the biggest tax increases I've seen, and there's no promise that things are going to get any better. And that's why I want I you know, and I know it's going to be We're going to make some tough
110cuts. And it might need to be in being in the in in the in the school department school. Now, my kids went to the school, so I don't want them to make any any severe cuts. But ever since my kids they keep on adding programs. My friend uh mentioned a program about the one-hour program for the kindergarten kids. That should be low-hanging fruit, but it's still here. They wouldn't even think think about cutting that. And I'm saying, there are things we have to cut. We have to look at the at the I noticed we got all kinds of new equipment for the fire department. Was that necessary in a in a in a year where we're going to have to raise taxes 6.5%? I mean, you see that equipment? I mean, you know you know
111what I'm talking about? Yeah, it was um I think we waited 4 years for a fire truck. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the commander's chief truck that was parked there, you know? I I don't know what they think. I don't even know what they what they what they're doing, but I'm saying and it's saying capital expenditures 6.4%. Again, I'm not complaining about it. We're We Connecticut is one of the most highest property taxes in the country. The third. And we are one of the highest in the state. The most highest tax. So, we're not any bargain here. Yeah, it's a nice town, but we're no bargain. And it's getting out of control when you talk about cuz we're talking about revaluation next year. What does that mean? It shouldn't mean anything,
112really. It should be able to lower the mill rate, you know, when they you know, when the assessment. But it never It doesn't seem to work that way. It's 4.7%. You're paying I I would say we're a field almost a field I mean, on only But only the cities that are field pay this kind [snorts] of taxes. You have to look at it that way. Check it out. Go ahead. Go online and and see and compare compare ourselves to other towns. We're probably better town. I'm not everything figured in, but still, this is un- unacceptable. 6.5% on top of a 5.6% that we already had. And who knows what it's going to be next year. We're going to have to make some tough cut bigger tough cuts. We're going to go back. I think so.
113And things that I know you like to have everything in the school system. So, I'm sure you you people would want everything in the school systems. And we want everything in the town. I'm sure the fire department wants in the everything. It's always nice to have everything, but you can't sometimes. And I think this is the point where we have to make and go back and make some cuts before we present this budget and pass this budget. Okay. Good. Good night. Yeah, thank you. So, when I read through the budget and then I think under the West Hartford Public School budget, there listed three district goals. I will read them through. Goal one, advance achievement for all students and reduce disparity between and among groups. Goal two, nature the intellectual, physical, and emotional well-being of
114students and create a safe and respectful learning community where all students are held to high expectations. And goal three, attract, retain, and develop high-quality staff by providing professional development resources and appropriate learning environments. And when I read through the budget with all these three goals to see how this is illustrated within our details of the budget, I don't see that being answered except to see the year-over-year increase of the pension and health care cost and the out of district transportation being the main drive of our expenditure. But I feel like tonight's meeting kind of helped me to know like where as parents where [clears throat] we stand to reach those those three goals. I feel like a smaller school would be what we are looking forward to and a better student teacher ratio is what
115we are looking forward to. So, I'm happy to see that we are having the same goal or expectations, but I just hope that it could be providing more details to align this goals within our budget summary. And that's what I want to say. Thank you. Now, I'll take that feedback. Thank you. I mean, students are at the center of everything that we do and our teachers and all of the support staff that we have are, you know, they do amazing work to achieve those, you know, to achieve that. You know, I think about goal one to um you know, reduce the disparities and maintain high achievement for all students and you know, I hope some of the some of the information that was up on the slides that return on investment where we talk about
116the achievements that students are able to accomplish through the amazing staff that they have demonstrates that. But if if a closer through line is helpful in my budget, I'll take that feedback all day. Thank you. Okay. So, I have a question about about capital improvement plan. Um I saw several hundred thousand dollars that were earmarked for Chromebooks for the schools and at the same time for computers for the police department. And my question is is is it standard practice to buy computers using bonds? And and and the thing I have in my mind is that the computers may last three, four, five years. Whereas the bonds I don't know what the time is for those. Maybe 10, 15, 20 years? 15 year bonds, okay. If you could please So, I'll I'll start on computers just
117for schools and then I'll turn it over to Rick to talk more about the CIP and bonding cuz that's more his lane, but um First that is as far as I understand that CIP budget, you know, lives outside of lives outside of the Board of Education budget. I believe it lives outside of the town budget, but is a thing. Our computers that we buy in a perfect world, we'd have them on a five-year replacement cycle cuz that's that's pretty much the the industry standard. We run our computers um both for students and staff to end of end of life support. That generally is a 10-year replacement cycle. All right, which means that ideally we're replacing 10% of the stock each and every year. We were able to increase our stock through um through a grant
118that occurred a couple of years back during during the pandemic era. So, we do, you know, we're stocked. We're not looking to buy a lot more computers this year. I don't know. I've heard that referenced a few times, so I want to find out where people are pulling that out, but it might be just one example out of many. What what the Board of Education is looking for relative to the C and C N R E funds capital non-recurring expenses, right? That that live within the CIP. We're looking to replace a lot of our switches and routers. Those are five years out of out of service, out of date. So, they are at this point in time a security risk for the Board of Ed. And I don't know if you've seen any of it.
119I've seen said anytime I see education news on the news it pops up. We've had several districts in Connecticut that have been held ransom this year by people who come in and they they do these network attacks. The IT department, which is a shared department between town and Board of Education, can talk to you like and give you all kinds of statistics on what they were able to stop. They do an amazing job. But that's where, you know, the C N R E funds for schools it might be one year it might be computer replacement, one year it might be that. Those are as our director of information technology explained it to me, he uses those funds for operating expenses. Whatever might be needed in a given year that that in the same way that,
120you know, there's some money in CIP all of a sudden I have a a driveway that needs to get repaved because there's a problem or a roof that started leaking and I need to attend to it. So, we do have certain dollars that are set aside to kind of address those issues to make sure that we maintain being up and running. So, so that's that part of it. And a point of clarification, this is an annual bond issuance that supports >> to I'm going to let Rick take that. Okay, thank you. So, Paul mentioned C N R E, that's our capital non-recurring expenditure fund. So, that's not a bonded fund. So, what we do and it's not anything that our budget supports either. So, we have built a balance up in our C N R
121E account over the years and we'll use surplus at the end of the year to fund C N R E, to fund laptops and purchases like that. If we're looking to buy a police car, for example, we may use C N R E for something like that. So, bonding is heavy piece of equipment that would have a useful life of 10 years or longer. And every year we issue $15 million of general obligation bonds to fund our overall help fund our overall CIP. And we essentially use our general fund to pay for certain expenses and then use that bonding to pay ourselves back and put it back into our general fund. Can you explain why there was an increase this year? If we're, you know, bonding the same amount every year, why this year was
122it So, this year's amount went up by $2.4 million in our capital financing. So, that's not and in questions have been posed, well, don't buy this this year. That would not reduce that number. So, that's the number that we owe for interest payments and our debt payments that we've already issued in the past. And when we issue a general obligation bond, we get bond premium. So, when we sell those bonds on Wall Street, we get a bond premium as a result of those sales and we'll build up an account of bond premium and we'll apply that to our financing charge. Our account our our bond premium account is now down to $600,000. We used $300,000 to lower our capital financing number this year. So, we have a balance of 300,000. We'd like to maintain a
123balance in that bond premium account. This year we'll sell another $15 million in bonds. We'll get more premium and we'll build that brown brown bond premium account up and use that to offset help offset next year's increase when that happens. Um our police department has become incredibly technical. You know, every police officer walks around now with a camera on their uniform. And we have a a command that all filters back to our command center at our police department. Um essentially, we have a pretty extensive camera system in town. Um it could be a lot it could be bigger. And we're looking to increase that over time. Um but we have a camera system in in town that goes into our command center. So, our higher end technology, we will bond for if it's going to
124have a useful life of 10 million 10 years or more. We will bond for that type of expense. But for our laptops, our desktops, things like that, we will use our C N R E account using surplus from a previous year to help buy those computers. Rick, can you address the question about the fire Yeah, so what was the question again? It was our So, So, we have our our assistant chiefs have their own our chief and two assistant one assistant chief, two assistant chiefs actually. Our fire marshal's an assistant chief as well. They both have Tahoes. All three of them have a Tahoe. And then our deputy chiefs, who are we have one deputy chief on duty at all times over our 24-hour shift, they have a SUV type Are you talking about a
125vehicle that says West Hartford Fire Department? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, so that's our deputy chief who's driving around in those. And we we will drive those until they get 120, 140,000 miles on them. >> [snorts] >> And every few years we do get a brand new one because of They're they're on the road literally all day every day 365 days a year. Any other questions? Thank you. Um, not a question but a comment as a parent. I'm a parent in the district so that's where I'm speaking from right now. Um, just wanted to, you know, express my gratitude too for all the hard work that goes into the schools and in the town. Uh, you were talking about your family being from North End of Hartford before coming here. My family's from the North End of
126Hartford and um, coming to West Hartford is like a dream when you're from the North End of Hartford and so, you know, being able to be here now and my family, I come from generational poverty and debt. Um, first in my family to get a college degree, first in my family to get a master's degree. Um, and really just like that's a a barrier breaking thing for my village and so being able to come to West Hartford and, you know, I don't I didn't have money for a house. I still don't. I'll probably will never be able to afford a house here. Um, so yes, I pay high rent and every time you have the taxes go up, my rent also goes up. I know it's different than mortgage but it's a sacrifice that I
127decided to make um, so that my daughter could have a high quality education. Um, I live have to live well below my means and have a very different life than a lot of other I think some of the folks in this town. I think that's one of the beautiful things though is West Hartford is really diverse and there are families like me and people like me who are now able to come here and live here where that wasn't always the case. And so, you know, for my daughter the quality education she's getting and also because the district values equity, um, she's able to get access to opportunities that she wouldn't have otherwise because of the resources that are put into the district and now she's going to be on track to continue breaking those barriers
128in our family as being the next generation getting her education. I've also met a lot of other, um, you know, students like me, um, who came from, you know, a a hard beginning, humble beginnings, whose families moved to West Hartford. They graduated from the high schools and some of those students have businesses in this town now and it's interesting to see just kind of how West Hartford has really helped reshape some of those narratives for folks um, and and through that diversity and so I understand like things are, you know, getting more expensive for all of us but I also want to express my gratitude to the town, the schools and also everyone here who is paying taxes because that financial sacrifice that everyone is making, there is a return on that investment and I
129see it in my own household with my kid and the things that we're able to we're able to take part in because we do have a village of people that are paying into the system and so I'm just grateful for that and for having the opportunity to be here and for my child being able to have, um, access to high quality education and for us to have a high access to high quality of life and being the first in our family to to do that. So, just wanted to offer that. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Any Any other questions? We have the room for like 12 more minutes. The library is closed so I don't we don't want to have it be Of course. I rewatched the men's game this morning. >> [laughter] >>
130No, but I rewatched the men's game this morning. So that was good. >> [laughter] >> Uh, No. Okay. Sure. I'm just even this year Um, I'm not sure how many units are being built within a quarter mile radius of Blue Back but has like a school impact assessment been considered as part of the budget program for the new construction, new housing and you mentioned kind of surprise increase in student enrollment in the area. So I'm just curious about what the considerations have been for something like that for new development. Yeah, so I can share we did, uh, our enroll So the short answer is yes. Um, we work both with, uh, PowerSchool Analytics to look at, um, general enrollment trends, year over year cohort survival for kids that are already enrolled and then we work
131with the town engineer, um, and PowerSchool to talk about new developments that are that are coming online, what the price points for those are. They get into all the specifics in terms of are these, uh, you know, multi-bedroom, are they homes, are they apartments? Um, what's the price point for them to to get sort of estimates on what the impact to school enrollment will be and that's built into an enrollment projection. We do enrollment projections every single year. We just, uh, provided that report to the Board of Education. You could find it online. Um, and we have two models. We have, uh, a conservative model and then like an average model. They don't differ very much in the next two to three, uh, and then they do diverge in the out years based if we
132have more aggressive growth or if we have more limited growth, um, based on those, you know, based on the maturity of those, um, Can I just modify my question then? Um, so far as charging the developer for the impact that they'll have to the school system in the community specifically. So, it's just so I understand your question. So >> um, I'm not sure what the one next to Kingswood uh, school is but if you have all these new units coming in, you've expected rate of, um, tenants that will have children in the school and for the developer, they pay a fee to the impact of the school system at time of development and purchase for the land and also, you know, So that I mean >> it comes into the taxes but I was I
133was wondering if there's a a way to get at a school assessment tax to that. Yeah, I mean those we do have a significant amount of investment happening in town and it's great. We had this developer right here paid $13 million for that parcel of land, uh, building 177 units. Um, that will give us grand list growth to offset um, some of the expenses that you increases that you'd see in our school district or town services and um, so there's inherently that tax base increases because of that um, new development. We yeah, I mean statutorily we can't we can't assess additional tax because someone, you know, that a developer might have school kids. We have all this. We can give tax breaks, um, for a variety of things but we can't add a tax for
134that. We could do, um, what Blue Back had which is was a special services district tax to pay off our parking. Like that was a arrangement that was made but it was specific to pay off a public building, something like that but it doesn't allow us that kind of flexibility. I will say that increase in students has come I've been talking to realtors to understand. It has come from more from single family homes that have turned over that are, you know, people have have decided to empty nest or age out or whatever, sell their homes and then young families move in. So. And thank you. I'm not a tax expert so I just figured I'd pose the question here. Yeah. Sure. Hi, I just do want to add on to that and I know some
135people have been concerned about the pace of development and whether we have space in our schools for these students and that is something that the town council always takes into account when reviewing a proposed development, whether there's room in the schools for the students and Paul, you'll have the numbers but I think that, uh, we've had, uh, a slow and steady reduction of students in our schools. Something like 15 years ago, we were at 10,000-ish students, maybe even 10 years ago and now we're at 9,000 students. So we have seen it decline. We were at an I think a high of maybe 12 or more thousand students a couple of decades ago so we know the schools can can hold more kids, um, but I do see your point about, uh, what that means as
136far as staffing goes. Correct. We don't have any immediate, uh, spacing needs, um, and Deb's very correct that it was, uh, it wasn't all that long ago that we were at 10,000 students, um, and we've come down into, you know, depending if you're counting K-12 or pre-K-12, 9,000, [music] 9,300. Um, we have adequate space, um, you know, middle school the the building of Bristow has it helped middle school. Middle school is the one space. If we were only relying on Sedgwick and King Philip where we're tight but with with Bristow online, um, we're able to have that. That was a question at one of our earlier community workshops is, you know, have we considered, can we do anything to collapse the number of buildings and all the rest and, you know, Bristow's a spot that
137that we would have looked but, um, our our projections show, uh, we're not going to we're not going to because not that we would close we'd love to utilize Bristow for different ways with some of our other programming but, um, there's no there's no immediacy to that because the the numbers that we'll have in the middle schools just require that we we maintain three middle schools at this point but we've got adequate room, um, even within that. Thank you. I just remember when I read the, um, budget, there was a Elmwood Community Center, uh, will be rebuilt in a different location. Um, I remember that maybe complete the project in 2030 or so. I just wonder like cuz I think Elmwood Community Center was from my perspective provide like affordable summer camp programs, but I
138wonder like because of that rebuild would that increase the cost or like the price of the summer camp or other community activities? That's my question. So just so I understand your question. So if we build a new community center, would we have to charge more for our summer camps? >> to even out the cost cost of like building this new facility. So that would not be our plan to to take the cost that and we've we've been working with our community to look at the design of the new community center. We started that a few years ago and that's merging our current community center with the Faxon Library. We will close the Faxon Library, close our current community center, build a new one. And the combination of all those programs have created a rather large
139building and we are we would fund that building at some point through our capital improvement program. So it's it's not impacting the budget right now. We are looking we've been working with our delegation to secure additional funding for that building. So we would not at this point want to put that on the backs of our taxpayers without the ability to get funds either through the state or our federal government. We're applying for a congressionally directed spending grant as we speak. So we're hopeful that some combination of federal and state funding will help offset the cost of that construction, but we would not take the cost of that new building and ever put it into our programs to to help pay for it. Our programs we have a tremendous summer camp program and programs throughout the
140year for our families and children to take advantage of at a very you know affordable rate generally speaking and it would be our goal to keep it at those rates as we move forward. It's it provides a great service to everyone within our community depend you know regardless of level of income and for folks that have lower levels of income we have programs to help assist them. So we would never want to change that. Glad to hear that. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, like you mentioned like West Hartford is good town and we are trying to improve it like with the 6.5% increase in mill rates for the coming year and I was wondering like like like we need support for that like as I mentioned earlier about the after school program like if you
141have both parents working and to support that high increase in mill rates. I know it's not in like the Board of Education um but there's I don't see anyone that's like responsible to resolve this issue here um so Yeah, it's just like 5 years waiting list and everybody is like waiting and there's no solutions for that. Now this is a this is a problem that you're absolutely right. It's not um it's something that needs some vision in terms of how can we solve it? You know the most I can share right now is is as I shared before we're working with the town right now to try to put a dent into that. Um my hope is to be able to provide some updates to our Board of Education on where we where we are
142with that effort and and collaboratively with the town, but um you know we're hopeful that our leisure services department can work with our schools and there's the potential that we can maybe have something going for next year, but um will it be at the capacity for what it needs to be? I don't I don't think so. So I think you know we need to welcome those ideas. Um we're looking as I as I think I shared we're going to look out at another district that does their own thing, but that that'll be a that'll be a big conversation we need to have with the town cuz I don't know how insurance works with that. You know now it's it's not the it's not public education. So I don't know you know who's who's who's running
143that or how we ensure it and all and all the rest and I loved this I can't remember if the gentleman was still here that was suggesting you know student volunteers. We can always get student volunteers, but it doesn't um it doesn't forego supervision responsibilities or liabilities that we do need to think about in terms of when you're running a program and you're accepting responsibility all kinds of regulations that we would need to follow. So it's it's not a town service that we've ever had. It's not a board service that we have ever had, but we recognize I think I think we I speak for everyone. We all collectively recognize the need here in the district and we are already trying to partner to see what things we might be able to figure out. Okay,
144we are just about at 8:00 and the library was kind enough to let you all host us and let us use the space. So I just want to thank all of you for your your questions, your input and and the process. It's not an easy process. Whatever we do is not is far from um going to please everybody and it will be far from perfect. We will continue to advocate. What I would say to all of you obviously keep you know giving us input and your I I also think you need to message to our state leaders that property the reliance the over reliance on property taxes is really onerous and for a town like West Hartford we don't get the state support that other communities get. When you were talking about there are communities
145that get more state support. We don't and it shows in our mill rate. But you know but our community has overall not everybody but not not all the time, but as overall just you know made decisions to invest in a community that does offer the quality education that we have, does offer the public safety and the and the front yard amenities and and all of that. So the quality of life does depend on what we you know but the affordability is it it is really challenging and we have to advocate for additional streams of revenue or fully funding special education ECS and so I would ask for your help in doing that. Thank you. All right, this goes to Jen. That goes to the Board of Education.