001Okay. Hi. Hi. So, uh, my name is Sheri Caner. I'm the mayor of West Hartford. Good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. Uh, I just want to say that this is not, um, this was never an official way to talk about the budget. We in the past we've had by state statute uh by our charter actually uh we have two public hearings and during those public hearings as many of you have testified we receive comment and we can't engage in a conversation and we can't it's not an ask and an answer it's just one way. Um and there's one by by mandate in the afternoon and one at night. Uh couple years ago, as we have seen very challenging budgets, uh driven by a number of things that you will hear about,
002um there's important decisions to make on how our town invests taxpayer dollars in our community and what what all of that means. And so we last year uh got together with our board chair, our our uh our leadership, our staff leadership, and uh and said that we we need a little more input and interaction with the public. uh and we are here uh we want you to listen to the truth and the real facts. Uh and we want to hear you and you ask questions. And so we set up um three of these last year and we are on our uh we had set up three as well for this year and we are on our second uh we had an afternoon meeting Monday. Wow, it's been a long week already. Um Monday afternoon at
003uh 2 o'clock at the senior center. Um, I just want to thank John Lions was at that meeting as well. Uh, John and Lisa Lazarus from the town council is also here. Uh, we have our superintendent of school, Paul Vinis, who will be um doing a a presentation, our town manager, Rick Ledwith, our board chair, Shannon Maramon. Uh, deputy mayor Deb Polland, and then we have board of ed um member John is also here as well. So, um, we have to be careful about public meetings and notice. So um some of our colleagues are sitting here and some there so I apologize son. Um I so um these these challenging budgets are just going to give you an overview of West Hartford and a lot of people compare us to other communities and they you
004know they they can and they should um but it's never apples to apples. Um so West Harford is um we receive 90% of our budget, a little shy of 90% from property taxes. Uh 10% comes from the state and about 1% comes from user fees, permits, things like that. Um we have so out of that 90% 90% of that is residential property taxes. We have a very small commercial base in West Hartford. might seem like it's large, but compared to the housing stock that we have, it's kind of one of the reasons we're a town, not a city, you know, as people ask that question. Um, but we are highly residential and so, uh, many other communities around us are not quite like that. Farmington, for example, we're often compared to Farmington, a lot smaller
005community, but, uh, has a lot more corporate presence than West Hartford has. So, uh, the impact on our taxpayers is is significant. We also are impacted by the the state um has this heavy reliance on property taxes. It's the only way that that we can fund the town. Uh we do have a couple of small streams of revenue now that the town had that the state has introduced after uh a lot of um a lot of conversations about the property tax system being uh pretty ownorous and having a a large impact on affordability on taxpayers throughout the the town uh throughout the state. Um and we have uh you and whether you agree with it or not, it's a fact. So, uh, we have 3% of sales tax for cannabis. We have we can receive,
006um, we received a little bit of opioid settlement money. Uh, we receive if we, um, when we put in speed cameras, red light cameras, uh, school bus cameras, those by state statute have allowed uh, pro uh, municipalities to keep some residential property, some t some revenue from that. Um there have been some plans and I actually was involved in press conferences last year about five years ago. This is kind of an example of how the state and the municipal uh revenue streams have run. About five years ago uh Connecticut Conference of Municipalities has identified property taxes as very ownorous on the state of Connecticut and uh on the residents and the businesses in the state of Connecticut. And about um 5 years ago uh they said we need some additional revenue streams. So they decided
007to take a 1% impose a 1% tax on restaurants and uh and hospitality. Um and that was imposed 5 years ago. It was supposed to go to the municipality 100%. It was swept and all went to the state. Uh since that was imposed, the state has $500 million uh that has been and now sits in the rainy day fund and um has can't be distributed because of the spending cap and sits in the rainy day fund. Uh we have worked hard. I worked with our uh the Connecticut Restaurant Association now Connecticut Restaurant and Hospitality Association and on um trying to reclaim some of that revenue stream. As you all know, we have a lot of restaurants in town. Uh, and there's a cost to keeping those restaurants. There's a public safety cost. There's a land
008use cost with parking. There's infrastructure cost. And we have tried to uh make that happen. Latest the latest version. Uh, last year it was not uh voted to go back to municipalities. Um, actually then it was revised to do half to tourism and half to municipalities. For West Harford, it would mean about a million dollars. half of that uh a little bit actually more now but u million and a half about uh and if we had received the full 1% it would be three million um per year so for West Hartford it could have we could have received 15 million since the inception but instead again the state collected it the state has kept it um and uh we have been fighting again for half uh and the latest version of the uh the bill
009is that will go to all to hospitality so uh again, frustrating, a really hard uh situation. So, uh West Harford is also um has some costs that other municipalities don't have. We do all-inclusive, you know, we do trash pickup. We have a paid fire department that also provides paramedic service because we are a very dense community. Uh there's lots of um and we receive a lot of calls and if you're ever on a public safety meeting uh you can understand the activity that our public safety department has and that investment um is is really important to life and death. Um and so you know we we try to balance all of the demands on our wonderful vibrant diverse excellent awesome community. So many people want to be here. We have been ranked 19th in US
010News Report nationally. That is unbelievable. Uh and that's the first time uh last year and we've been ranked number one in Connecticut. There are amazing places to live in our state. I just said on our day, our afternoon meeting uh I met with two CEOs that have moved, relocated from other states uh to the area recently and they both have chosen West Harford to live because of the quality of life. Uh and so those are wonderful, wonderful stories, but we also understand that uh it's an expensive place to live and it's always been an expensive place to live. And when I went to high school, we were number one in per pupil spending in the state of Connecticut and we were growing rapidly. Now we're 92 out of 169 towns. Uh but we still are,
011you know, struggling with revenue and decisions we make today. Whether we take a one-time kind of fix for a year budget are all impact the way our town is operates uh the way the rating agencies view us uh and the way we um actually the future years out. We are and I know our town manager will address this a little bit. decisions made 50 years ago are impacting our budget today. Pensions that were granted in those years, nobody expected people to be living till 90, 100 years old and nobody also expected uh that um they would actually there was a a large period of time similar to the state that the town did not fund its pension plan. uh when there were double-digit returns, money was coming out, no money was going in and then
012people retired and you know it it really put a lot of stress on our pension plan. We are paying for that today for those decisions just as the state uh we are paying for some of the state decisions for some short-term uh benefits that really impact us which is really really unfortunate. Uh and so we again have to balance all of these things. How much do we cut from increases? Um, we're not decreasing our budget and the budget increases because we compete for talent. Um, municipal jobs are challenging. They are hard pe. It's hard to recruit people to do them. Um, we have a declining uh young population in Connecticut. So, recruiting and we want really good people to work for the town. So, we have to pay competitive salaries. So, and we negotiate those
013and it's all part of this whole municipal budget package. our pensions have changed to be more in line with private, but we do have a blend uh on our books and so we we obviously are a people business and need to recruit wonderful people. So any changes that we do make to the budget do does impact um employees uh and it impact services and those that's a those are those are real and so those decisions are important um and they impact your lives. So, um, uh, with that, I just want to thank the tremendous, we're all volunteers except our two town staff here. Uh, and we spend a lot of time, um, doing what we think is best for the community and we do listen. as hard as it is, we might not agree with
014everything and we agree with a lot and maybe can't do what we feel is is, you know, in line with with what you say, but we always always are trying our best to do what is in the best for West Harford tomorrow, but also 20 years down the road. So, with that, I think I'm going to our superintendent of Oh, schools. Yes. Or Shannon. Oh, yeah. Okay. And then >> um so, uh good evening. Uh Shannon Marimone, the board chair uh for West Herford Public Schools. And just to echo what Mayor Caner said, um this is a very um thoughtful, intentional process. My day job, I actually work for a nonprofit that works with school districts across the entire state of Connecticut. And uh West Harford is pretty remarkable with respect to the transparency and
015the detail that you are able to see the budget. And I encourage if you really want to dig into it, it's all available online. It's a very thick binder. Um, and it it it's really spelled out so clear as day. We know what is going into that budget. And as Mayor Caner said, it is predominantly a a peopledriven budget because our education system uh relies on people and the amazing uh educator talent that uh provides support and resources for students and families. Um it is 58.2% of the proposed budget. So, it's a significant driver of the budget and that is why these community forums are so critical because we need to hear from you your questions about it about this budget as it also ties into the town budget and also your suggestions and ideas
016for what we could be thinking about differently. Um, you'll hear from the superintendent that this is a maintenance budget where there's nothing additive. It's really trying to sustain the excellent quality of education that we've been providing for our students. Um, so we would have to think really hard about anything that would change that at this point and I think we're looking to the community to hear if there's any feedback on that front. Um, we do have a workshop coming up next Wednesday the 25th where there will be both a public hearing dedicated to just the school uh the the proposed board of education budget followed by a in-depth workshop where there will be additional um discussion from the administration explaining the thought that went into the budget that you're seeing. um uh proposed and then
017the board of education votes on a final budget with any proposed changes on March 31st and then that goes to the town for their review and then it's it's kind of a back and forth in until it's a final approved town budget holistic with the board of education budget. Um so very excited that so many people are here. Um there's one more of these on Monday night and we just want to hear questions, comments, and suggestions from the community. So, thank you and I'll turn it to Superintendent Vicas. >> Thanks, Jen. >> Good evening, everyone. Um Paul Vina, superintendent of schools and uh very pleased to have you out here and I'm glad to see a good number um for our second for our second such workshop. What what we're going to do, uh, Rick
018and I, I'm going to walk through and give you kind of a a synopsis of the more detailed presentation that I gave to the board of ed with the recommended budget. Um, I'll Rick will do the same on the town side and then we will open the floor for question and answer. And as it kind of has already been said, we appreciate this because when we're doing our meetings, we don't have the opportunity to have the dialogue with the community. So, it's really helpful in terms of being able to hear from you, but also respond and then potentially get some follow-up. Um, what I'm going to what I'm going to outline uh in in very short slides uh are just kind of the main budget drivers and then give you a summary of the overall
019number for West Harford. But, as has already been stated, we're a people business. Uh, so the majority of my budget, the majority of the board of education budget, 80 uh 80 plus percent of it is all tied up within salaries and benefits. And so it's it's really about the teachers that work in our schools directly with our kids. And I just came from Bua Vista. We had the opening of Artbeat. Um, and and you know, in terms of a return on investment of the people, I you know, I can't speak any more highly than what I just observed with the uh with the incredible artwork from kids from kindergarten through through high school. Um, as you can see on the slide, you know, our our talent is amazing. We we boast in the last two
020years no fewer than seven educators of the year. educators of the year for the arts, educator of the year for world language, educator of the year for music, the arts supervisor of the year. Um we have incredible staff. Uh they're all incredibly dedicated and talented. Um they represent, as I said, 82% of our budget. Um we do have uh under salaries, you know, there's there's an increase within our salary line. One of the things that uh people came out kind of in droves last year to my meetings, um we put up um really lean numbers relative to our classes uh in in close adherence to our class size guidelines and um folks responded, you know, they were concerned about class sizes being too large and everything. And in the end, uh, we we stuck with
021our class size guidelines, but we received an influx of moveins to the district. Um, and we received them throughout the summer and certainly into late August. Um, we picked up, I think it was in the neighborhood of 73 or more just at the elementary level and moveins across middle and high school. Um, I'm on the phone with people. They are they are shopping. they are in other states shopping where to go and our name is out there and they come to move for for the education system. So we do have to make up um a deficit because we h uh in keeping with those guidelines we we did we do hire um and we are seeing our enrollment projections for this coming year to be to be essentially level. We're going to be level at
022the elementary school. We have 202 uh elementary sections currently. We're projecting 202. We moved up to three full teams at our bigger middle schools, King Phillip and Sedwick. They had previously been two and a half teams, but we've had an increase in enroll, you know, in in those grades. And they'll be slightly increased at the middle school for next year, but we're we're level uh level staffed at three full teams. And then we do have some offsets. We do we are we are expecting um fewer 75 fewer students total at one of our high schools at Connor. It's going to be slightly lower next year. that's going to allow us for some savings. Hall is going to have uh an uptick of a of a handful of kids and so we're looking at level staffing
023there. But um overall, when you take those additions that we had to create past the budget and the uh mark the market settled uh teacher increase, we have an overall increase to the salary line of about 5.6%. Um the big the big kicker on this is the benefits package which is the insurance. Uh we are part of the state partnership plan for insurance. We've been in the state partnership plan for nine years Rick. Eight or nine years. >> 2019. >> Okay. And uh overall the state partnership plan has been a great savings to us. We used to be self-insured but essentially by uh school districts and municipalities going into this large pool we got better rates. We got better rates for a very long time, but insurance everywhere is skyrocketing. So, the budget was built
024on a 12.5% programmed increase by the state partnership plan. Uh, a very significant increase. That is actually low for the state partnership plan. They price that out by county. Hartford County is the second lowest increase. So other counties that are in other towns that are in the state partnership plan in different parts of the state are seeing 15% increases. And then I have colleagues in other districts. Glastonbury I think is one. They are self-insured. They're having 20 plus% increases in their insurance. Insurance costs are just um untenable right now. But we've done we've done an analysis to look at it um to see if we can do better in today's market. we can't do better for next year. And the other slice of good news for the schools is that when we look at the
025ratio of the amount of money that is spent on claims in comparison to the amount of money that cost us for the insurance, we're at a we're at a 98% ratio over the last 5 years. All right. So, um so overall, while it is expensive in this coming year, um it remains the best insurance plan that that we think that we can have, at least on the school side. Um, my board chair did say this is a maintenance budget. I'm not proposing significant uh ads to staffing, although there are many ads that the community has expressed great interest in. We and and we know that uh the state of Connecticut as a whole and certainly the town of West Harford is seeking to expand its early education, its prek opportunities both in the public sector
026and in the private sector. and public sector is preferred because it doesn't it doesn't cost as much as in the private sector for working parents. Um that is something that I have been worked on working on that is something I've been uh you know it's been it's been tasked as a goal for the board. Uh it's not something I put into this budget this year based on the size of our overall increases. Um another thing uh that we've been talking about um significantly I I lost it. I had it written. I lost it. it'll come back to me. But but essentially, I'm looking to to uh kind of preserve the programming and services that we have right now. Not cutting things, not cutting world language or gifted and talented or things that came up last
027year and maintain the class sizes where oh, the other thing was the reduction in class sizes that came out as a as a very big ask from uh from the school community last year. Uh they wanted to see smaller class sizes in grades K and one. And you know that's something that we were looking at in policy but it's nothing that we've moved forward in this budget based on that. That was the second thing. Um overall there's a very minor net reduction of 2.6 positions in the global budget. Uh that's not significant. Uh but that's kind of on the heels of a reduction of over 20 positions in the school district in the last two years. And that does not count the positions from ESSER. we plused up an esser and there was there's another
028at least 20 positions that we had that we let go of uh three years ago. So um so we're 20 positions leaner. We're going to be 2.6 positions leaner in the coming year. Um and that's just to try to maintain uh the program and the services that we have in the schools. The next significant drivers are our outofd district tuition and our transportation. Last year the full story was kind of all around out of district tuition. Out of district tuition costs have been skyrocketing. And what out of district tuition is is when there are students typically um students identified for special education services that we cannot program for in the schools. Students who are medically fragile, students who may need a therapeutic placement that may, you know, may have schooling and roundthe-clock kind of living
029conditions. um things that we don't program for, can't program for as a public school. Um they're they're uh typically they can go out to either state um state authorized private funders or um at times based on you know based on the legal the legal legalities of a PPT can and an IEP can end up in a in a non-state approved facility as well. um we still have a responsibility to uh pay costs for that. We do receive a percentage of reimbursement for the state for excess costs that exceed four and a half times the per pupil average. So the district is responsible to spend four and a half times what you would spend for the average child and then after that the state would reimburse it. Last year, those state reimbursements because that that funding
030level hadn't gone up in quite a while. Those percentages dropped from what used to be at an 80% to a 70%. They were dropping all the way down. And then uh then there was a lot of action and a lot of outcry from and and the the West Hartford delegation specifically did a lot of work and a lot of lobbying and in the end the state came through and they plused us up uh at the state level with an additional 440 million and I think West Harford got about 1.5 million of that and that was that that kind of saved uh saved uh very significant costs. Um, this year we've done a lot of work to bring as many students back to the district as we can. Um, it's been an ongoing effort. We've kind
031of switched around our supervision to have even more contact with those families, even more on-site visits, and we went from a high last year. We were budgeting at 125 last year. We had a high of over 130 students in out of district placement. We're forecast for 117 in the coming year. And believe me when I tell you, two, three students makes a significant dollar value difference. Um, all that said, with with pulling back that many kids, um, that's keeping us level funded for the coming year because the costs have continued to move up. The state right now, the legislature is looking at bills to regulate what can be charged um, for from these out from these private providers. So that's something that you know your state government is working on that you know we've given
032testimony to and things that we've talked about and so there's a lot of effort with that. There are other efforts that the state has that we've taken advantage of. If you've heard of the seed grant, special education um expansion grant um expansion and development. We've we've taken advantage of that uh because we continue to have a growing population within special ed. Despite the fact that West Hartford's enrollment, student enrollment overall declines, our special education numbers continue to rise because um families know that we deliver on um the needs of of all students and they seek us out for that. Um it's it's not only our legal obligation, it's our moral obligation, but typically uh we we have demonstrated that we continue to track more complex cases as folks here that they have students with very
033significant needs and we do an exceptional job. They continue to move in. So um that becomes a fiscal challenge for us. Transportation, uh you know, transportation costs are just going up. Uh can't say it any simpler than that. It's adding about a million dollars to the budget in the coming year. Uh, and that's based on just running the routes that we have and the increases when you look at year-over-year contract negotiations. Um, so looking at programming needs, um, there as as been said, this is a maintenance budget. I'm not looking to do uh to do much at all with with new programming or anything else. I have very minor tweaks. Um there are some special education um ads that I need to make based on student needs increase. So it's about I'll be adding 3.9
034positions overall to the special ed department, but those are offsets by reductions in other areas. We do have some reductions in special ed and elementary. We do have uh reductions in some of our teaching and other positions. So as as I already mentioned, there's a net decrease in total of about 2.6 six positions. Uh but I would want to share based on you know things that that we've demonstrated we show need for behavior mental health and behavioral health always on the rise. Um part of this budget part of this 2.6 net reduction is increasing the number of middle school counselors to add a an additional half-time counselor at Bristol Middle School in the coming year. Um, the other thing is we're we're looking I'm looking at how I change the supervision model for our multilingual
035program, our ESOL program. That population continues to grow. Um and we need to have some uh we need to have a different model so that we can have uh greater curricular change, greater opportunities for pushing and basically in an effort to see uh more significant gains for our English language learners. Um we're in ex, you know, our return on investment for our program in general, I think it's up on the slide, our high schools, you know, our high schools rest on the foundation of our elementary and our middle schools, which are exceptional. Our high schools land in the top two to 3% of all high schools when nationally ranked by US News and World Report year over year over year. And they don't just magically do that in 9th through 12th grade. That's based on
036the fact that we have award-winning elementary schools. We had a blue ribbon school winner a couple of years ago. We have schools that earn uh the the school of distinction rating from the Connecticut State Department of Education. Um, we have our middle school kids, you know, they're out competing in literacy quiz, uh, competitions and they're going to world championships, um, and international competition. So, we know the quality of the schools is exceptional. Um, and it is it is essentially the return on investment that we speak of. Um, our effort is to try to maintain that excellence. um and not, you know, recognizing we need to have some cuts, what might those cuts be that can preserve the infrastructure that we have and the expectations that essentially the community sets for us. So the adjusted adopted
037budget this year was 214 million. Um when you add in essentially the costs for uh the new contracts uh essentially salary increases the increase in the insurance costs uh the increase in transportation and utilities it amounts to 14 million. Um we do have a net decrease of 2.6 positions. Um, but overall, you know, I have a very modest ad of $62,784 from the from the big picture changes, uh, which lands us at, uh, a 6.6% increase, um, for the district as a whole. Right? So, I'm going to turn it to Rick and he'll go through his piece uh, equally quickly and then we'll open it up to questions. Thank you, Paul. And uh again, I'm Rick Ledwith. I'm our town manager. And uh I'll echo the mayor and our board chair's opening comments. And uh
038thank you all for joining us this evening at this meeting. This really is your meeting. Um Paul uh talked about some of the drivers for his budget. I will do the same on the town side. Um and then we really want to turn it back to you uh for questions, answers and suggestions as well. So um that that is a very much an important part of this process. Um we have a public hearing tomorrow um tomorrow afternoon and we have one on Monday of next week and then the following Monday as well. But that's an opportunity for folks to come in and you'll speak to us. but the the council and the board of education will just listen during those sessions. So, this is that opportunity uh for us to get into a back and
039forth. So, um are some of the budget drivers uh impacting the town side are very similar to uh some of the drivers on the board side as well, but I'll expand on a couple of things that Paul had said in his. Um so, we have our salaries and our benefits. So, as Paul said, we're a peoplebased organization. Um, we deliver services to our community. Uh, we don't sell anything. We it's it's basically the the premise of what we do. Uh, we have 22 bargaining units between the town and the school. So, we will negotiate salary, benefits, and working conditions with those 22 bargaining units. So, for our salaries on the town side this year, that equal a 2.8% 8% increase in our salaries this year. The health care, as Paul had mentioned, both the schools
040and the town participate in the state partnership plan. We've been in that plan since 2019. Um, and at the time we, and I'll talk a little bit about this with our pension plan as well. Since we are a peoplebased business, um we will also look at ways for us to do things differently from a benefit perspective and and if there are things we can do creatively on the benefit side to save money, we will do that. In 2019, we took advantage of moving to the state partnership plan. It's a plan that allows municipalities around the state of Connecticut to join the state healthcare plan. When we did that, we saved $3 million that year making that change to the Connecticut State Partnership Plan. There are about half the cities and towns now that participate in
041the partnership plan uh today. And during those first couple years that we were in the state partnership plan, we benefited tremendously. We had a 0% increase the following year and a 1.4% decrease in that third year. The last couple years, last year we had a 9.4% increase. This year, as Paul said, we have an 11 and a half percent uh increase. So, um that certainly is not anything that we're happy with. Um but as Paul said, we're again, it's a it's a benefit that we have to negotiate with our employees. So, we're watching and monitoring that plan very closely. Um, and if we think this is something we're going to be looking at these types of increases as we move forward, we certainly will talk about an exit strategy from a leadership leadership standpoint. And
042then we'd have to talk with all of our bargaining units about that as well. So, we'll always ultimately do what's best for for our community when it comes to these types of plans um and and minimizing that impact that it has on our taxpayers. So, again, this year, healthcare plan a little bit higher. Um, as Paul said, um, and anyone who's in a private health plan, uh, in the audience knows that you're you're probably seeing a similar type of increase with your healthcare plan. Um, national trend right now, healthcare trend on a national basis is 9% creeping up to 10%. So, it's it's had an impact on uh on the entire country. Um, certainly we're feeling it here. not happy about it, but as I said, we'll continue to uh to monitor um that plan
043and the performance as we move forward. So, I I won't repeat what the mayor said, but I think it's important, you know, as we are we deliver a tremendous service to our community. Um we are a high service community. We're different, as the mayor said, than some of our neighboring communities, and I think our community expects that high level of service. Um but certainly we always have to do our best um to manage that high level of ex um service with a a reasonable um impact on our residents and we understand that and we do our best to balance that but we're proud of our accolades. I mean, as the mayor said, uh, US News World Report, number 19 in the c 19th best place to live in the country, best place to live in
044Connecticut. Niche.com, best place to live in Connecticut for the eighth straight year. Uh, ARP just announced uh just within the last several weeks uh that West Hartford is the most livable community uh in the state of Connecticut. So, we don't take those lightly. We take we very much appreciate those accolades. Um, but it's it's about that partnership that we have with our community. Um, delivering exceptional ser services year after year. Um, but also doing our best to minimize the impact that our taxes have on our residents as well. And that's that's what we're working through a very challenging year this year. Um, but we have several weeks between now and budget adoption uh to work with our community uh answer questions as I said tonight and uh and and talk about solutions as well. So,
045uh a little bit about our operating expenses. So, our operating expenses went up 4.8% this year. $1.5 million increase in our operating expenses. uh a million of that $ 1.5 million increase is attributable to our solid waste contract. So as folks may know um we have been we were with Payes um Paynes had been the uh the manager the contractor for our solid waste program for many many years. Uh we had a outstanding contract. We haven't seen any kind of increases over the last couple of years in our budget as a rel as it relates to our solid waste contract. Uh Payes sold their business to All America Waste around this time last year and All America Waste honored the contract that we had with Payes, but that contract is up on uh uh October
0461st. So, and we're being told to expect anywhere between a 25 and a 30% increase in our cost to um to remove our waste from from town. So, um so that's a one mill about a $1 million increase of that $1.5 million increase in our operating expenses. So, our director of public works, John Phillips, um phenomenal director, uh incredible vision, always looking at these things and and ways to minimize our costs and the impact that that has on our community. We've looked at things, you know, we've done things like removing food waste from our regular ways to to minimize our our costs. He is now going out to bid. Um so, as we move through the next several weeks, that process is undergoing. uh we are if there's a a better deal for us to
047take advantage of out there, we will certainly do that. Um at the very least, we will use this process to uh negotiate a better contract with All America Waste. So, we will work to get that million dollar increase between now and uh April 20th. Um, capital financing is uh a portion of the contract that increased about uh 2 uh let's see uh capital is up $2.7 million this year. Um we have a $570 million capital improvement program. So it's a 12-year plan to uh address our infrastructure. We have 217 miles of roads, 300 miles of sidewalks, 170 acres of parks. We have two 2 and a half million square ft of buildings. That $570 million is our commitment to maintaining uh that exceptional infrastructure as we move forward. So, every year we issue $15 million
048in general obligation bonds. We're AAA rated community. We've been a AAA rated community for as long as I can remember, probably as long as I've been alive, and that's a long time, believe me. Um, so, and we we utilize that AAA rated status to get the lowest true interest cost um for us and for our residents when we issue those general obligation bonds. So, this year um we are paying $19 million for past obl general obligation bond issuances. So, it's not anything that's in our program this year that we can cut to lower that amount. That's a result of us issuing those bonds in the past and now we make those bond payments uh every single year. And then I talked about our AAA rated status. I want to talk a little bit about grandless
049growth. Uh this year we had a very good year, $81.5 million and grandlist growth resulted in about $3.6 $6 million in additional uh tax revenue to the town. Um half of that almost half of that is a result of u motor vehicle growth. So you've been seeing a lot of um developments that have been approved around the town. Um developments that will increase our grandless growth as we move through the next couple of years. Last year I was in this room and talking with uh I recognize a couple people from last year's meeting. Um last year we expect we were at 60 million and I expected that number to move up a little bit this year. It did. It moved up to 80. Next year uh if we're hopefully be back in this room again
050having this type of meeting that number will be quite larger than 80 million based on the growth uh of development that we're we've approved that are in some form of being built. So, till they're completely done and those apartment units are leased out, that's when we see the the largest benefit from that type of uh growth that's happening in the town. So, we'll see that number grow pretty substantially next year and the year after as a result of the Yukon property on Asylum and Asylum Avenue. Um, Troutbrook, you have 950 Troutbrook, one West Hartford, which is a new multif family unit at the Children's uh, science museum, former children's science museum location. Um, we have a a project here right on New Park Avenue. Um, the Jaden that was approved that will be uh, in
051some form of development over the next year or two. It already is. Um, we have development occurring in the center. Uh we have a new condominium complex um and a new apartment building that's uh in the process of being built as we speak. Uh and we have a couple of other um uh developments and and pro uh propositions that are in the pipeline as well. We've, you know, because of, you know, the accolades that we've talked about in our school system and, uh, West Harford being a destination, uh, there's a tremendous amount of interest in people wanting to invest in our community, which is a really good thing and it will help us in the future. Um, we are fully leased out with our office space. Um, folks heard Ernst EY is moving from Harford
052into West Hartford, uh, onto Far onto Farmington Avenue in the center. Uh we've had conversations with a couple of other larger international uh type of firms that want to relocate to West Harford as well. Uh we need to find them office space in order for them to to do that. But that's a reflection of who we are and what we represent and being that destination community and and we need to continue to work together and we will work with our uh colleagues on the board side and our council certainly to um to minimize the impact that this budget is having on our community to get us to where we are going to see that growth really benefit our community uh in the years ahead. Um the mayor mentioned our pension plan. I want I want
053to reinforce this as well. Um again talking about I talked about the state partnership plan and saving the $3 million when we made that move. Um we had a very underperforming pension plan for many years. Uh back in 2021 our annual budget allocation to our pension plan was $26 million. This year our annual allocation to our pension plan is $10.5 million. So, we reduced that by $15 million by uh using our AAA rated status back in 21, issuing pension obligation bonds and um essentially low lowering our actuarial determined employer contribution by $15 million and allowing us to set up a pension obligation reserve fund to minimize any swings that we would see in that annual year-over-year um um either increase or decrease. increase in our pension plan. So, so with that pension obligation bond, obviously
054we need to pay the debt on those bonds. But since we've issued our pension obligation bonds in 21, we have saved our taxpayers between lowering our ADAC from 26 to to 10 a.5 and making that debt payment to our um pension obligation bonds. We've saved $18 million in 5 years to our taxpayers. Net savings of uh $18 million to our taxpayers by making that move uh as we did. So certainly uh incredible vision on behalf of our mayor and our town council back then. But those are the types of things that we will continue to do uh as we move forward to again, as I said, minimize the impact that budget will have on our um taxpayers. So, uh, again, 6.6 increase overall. Uh, we're we're working to get that number down. 4.8% on the
055town. A little bit little bit less than 7% on our board of education. Uh, 16.4% on the capital side. That's that $2.4 million. Mill rate right now uh is increasing by 2.91 or up to 47.69. our motor vehicle mill rate um as of right now well and will be 32.46 and that will remain unchanged. So um again our goal over the next tonight meetings that we have next next week and then working with our board of education and our council working together to um lower that impact as we move to budget adoption later in April. So, um, that summarizes a quick summary of of both budgets. And I think at this point, uh, barring any comments that the mayor may want to make, we'd like to turn it over to, uh, our guests. >> Okay.
056>> So, we can, uh, we have a microphone here. Um, and this is just to be picked up by the microphone for the camera. So, it's not, uh, if you don't hear yourself, it's not because it's not in the speaker system. You >> have to hit the button, David. >> Okay. Red is on. Okay. >> Questions, >> comments? Yeah. Okay. Can you hear me? >> Um I'm just curious about the three developments uh by line Camelot and and one West Hartford. What is the annual uh property tax from those three uh developments? >> So great question. The question uh for our viewing audience at home is uh the tax impact of the three developments uh in the center. Um, we have the Camelot which is 900 Farmington Avenue which was a former West Hartford in
057and we have one West Hartford which is uh located at 950 Troutbrook and then we have the by line which is heading a little bit further on Farmington Avenue. Um, so the I don't I have some rough numbers for that. So, the the annual taxes received for the Camelot, um the Camelot, as folks may recall, and we do have, as everyone knows, we have a housing crisis, uh not only throughout the country, but uh certainly right here within the state and here in West Harford. And um we worked with a developer a couple years ago um to de to build a development that was fully af 100% affordable. So, it's not 20% affordable. It's not uh market rate affordable. Um it is 100% affordable. So, and we have an arrangement with the West Harford Housing
058Authority um that um minimizes the tax impact on those types of developments that offer that kind of affordable housing. So, we receive uh roughly about $50,000 in taxes from that particular development, but that go that increases every single year. um at 950 uh Troutbrook. Um that's in the process of uh moving they're they're finalizing their construction right now. Um so we hope to be issuing a temporary uh um cert certificate of occupancy um within the coming weeks and they will start to lease out units uh in that development over the next couple of months. and they'll probably do first floor and then we'll move to second and third. Um but we can expect uh roughly um 30 million roughly in in taxes from from that development annually. Um and then the by line I'd have
059to uh the by line would be um significant probably half of that at least uh 15 20 million for the by line. But I' I'd have to get those exact numbers and get back to you on that. grow. >> Oh, no, no, not taxes. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's grandless growth. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, taxes. >> Um, so we're probably looking at about a million dollars in taxes for 950 and maybe 500,000 for uh the buy land, but I' I'd have to >> Yeah, I'm not going to hold you, you know, those numbers. Yeah, you're right. I was doing grand list growth >> just cuz I think it uh everyone has an opinion an opinion on uh development but I think it might be easier to sell to taxpayers if they can say this building
060that went up which I drive by and frustrates me oh that can help offset pro other property tax increases uh down down the road. So I think that's >> um yeah good good to know the dollar values there >> and also the building Obviously, motor >> motor vehicle taxes included would would obviously add to that as you have more folks moving into town. Um and then um the mayor had mentioned uh in addition like one of the other revenue streams that we have is uh building permit fees that are associated with this development with these developments and those um those are significant. um you know, we receive about $3 million uh this year. We received about $3 million in building permit fees as a result of these developments. Next year, we're projecting roughly the same.
061>> And my other question is for the other affordability, affordable housing developments, would those also have the same sort of tax defropy tax decrease incentives to get those built than the other market rate? So all of the other developments, so we have one other affordable housing development on North Main Street, the L, which is at 1244 North Main that would have a similar uh type of arrangement as we have for the Camelot. But the other developments that are in town like the by line one west Harford Yukon Jaden um and some of the others the ones in the center have affordable housing included in those developments but at a much lower rate than the ones I spoke about. So those have >> somewhere somewhere about 10 or 20% of affordability but they have no associated
062tax break with that affordability. >> Thank you. Um so I was just wondering how much will the property tax go up? >> What is the increase in this budget? >> So the average uh taxpayer >> proposed this is proposed right now would be 6 and a half%. So with these developments that you were just speaking of and explaining about, could we hope that maybe our increases would not be as much every year? >> Correct. >> Yeah, >> that would be beautiful. We want to stay in West Hartford and we're starting to fear that we're going to be priced out, >> but with all this with all this building. Yeah, you're you're right. able if we know okay so 6.5 doesn't mean it's going to just keep >> no so next year we will like I
063said we'll see that number grow uh our groundless growth will grow next year next year >> we have um we're going through reevaluation so so next year we'll have two we'll we'll we'll break it down into two different types of grand lists essentially so we'll have as we all know and you know number one prized asset is our home and we want everyone to be able to stay here. We don't want to price people out of uh being able to live here and afford to live here. So, um so at the same time, we're seeing tremendous increases in the value of our homes. So, last year when we were in this room, um I and we we base it off of each revaluation cycle. So, in 2022 was our last reval. the average value, home
064value has increased uh last year was 35%. Now we're up to 45% since 2022. So, and I think that's a factor of what's what we're seeing on a national basis and on a state basis, but you are starting to see that slow down around the state and around the country. It's not slowing down here. It continues to to increase. Um so our mill rate will decrease significantly next year because of that reval and that increase over here on that 45%. So what we will do and work with our council to do and our board of education is balancing that other grandless growth as a result of this development to make sure that you know yeah the mill rates going down a lot but my value is up a lot so I'm still paying the same
065or more. We'll make sure we balance that granless growth on a development with um the revaluation process. It'll it'll be complicated, but that's what we will do. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Just just quickly to add, I mean um it takes a long time for a property to come online and be um a val of value and really off, you know, and create that tax revenue. And um this has been a plan for a very long time to take underutilized properties and make them more valuable to the town. And so that's and there will be there is significant impacts um that we will feel it when we're talking about raises of 14 million and you know on the town with the total dollar amount uh is uh 6 million on the town
066side and then 2 million. That's a lot of development. A lot. So this helps but it doesn't change the trajectory and that's why we talk about other revenue streams is a really important component to affordability. >> Yes. My name is George Kennedy. I've lived in this town since 1951. So I've seen a few administrations. I graduated from the schools. The problem with, as I see it with the budget isn't one individual thing. You're trying to be everything for everybody. And the result of this, yes, you got great numbers, but you're driving seniors out. I saw an article in one of the papers recently here. It said, "What can we do to be more senior friendly?" Simple. Reduce the taxes. Because most of us have a fixed budget. I mean, I have a good budget, but
067the reality is it's not going to get any bigger because I'm not working any longer. I'm sitting on my ass at home. I'd like to be able to work. The the point I'm trying to make is having been a management consultant for years, what you really need here, and you thought it maybe because it threatens your power, maybe you just don't want it, I don't know, but you need a finance committee. A lot of towns have this. A lot of towns also take and set at 65 or 75 tax freeze for seniors. We're not using the towns services and we're paying the lion share proportionately. I mean the only thing I do is I go to the senior center and I go through a strength and fitness which I call I have to pay for
068you know it used to be you had to pay to be in the senior center. Well, well, the point is that young people coming to the town, you mentioned about >> Just put the mic so people can't hear. >> You You mentioned about being um a destination for people with kids. We've become a mecca for this. I mean, this is getting ridiculous. Young man here has a neighbor who just moved from Farmington, but yet my house on the other side, Farmington line, is paying half the taxes. And yes, I know they've got the corporate things, but what you need to do is a systematic audit of your system, not just come and tell us how great everything is because like we talked about the budget finance guy. He lived in Sinsbury. He didn't even know
069what we were paying when we questioned him. I used to be in the taxpayers as she well knows and I was probably the only non-Republican who was ever head of the taxpayers. I mean, we can blame this on Trump, but I mean, that was only going to go so far. We need to get the taxes in this town down. And leadership is making hard decisions. all these programs. You got an empire in the board of education. All these staff members, you don't need them. I could go through there with a team of consultants and cut probably 10% of them without even blinking an eyelash. And you know this in your heart and soul. It's nice to have it, but the reality is, can we afford it? And that's what has to be. You want to
070be a real destination? Well, then get our budget down. This is not sustainable. And many states have layered their taxes to respect the seniors. I mean, I was in the military. I came here. I was a scout leader. I've done everything you're supposed to do do in a community. And yet, my taxes now are $23,000 a year. That's ridiculous. So, that says, yes, I live in a nice house, but I inherited. I couldn't afford the house. Now, this whole thing is ridiculous. And frankly, I have to wag my finger and say, you folks really, really ought to put a finance committee together, an independent finance committee. You've got executives living in this town who do nothing but finance. If a corporation was run like this, they'd go broke. You're doing the best you can. I
071know that, but you're trying to please everybody, and you can't. So, give it to someone else. Thank you for your comments. Um just to go ahead >> we you know and that's what this is about right we're listening um you know >> the result as you know and and everything we do is tied to a service and it is you know I mean and you and I know you Mr. Kennedy, I remember you. I've been working for the town for 25 years and I remember uh your role as well. So, but I I know you know all of this as well in finance and did management consulting. So, I have a fair feel for I can't specific. >> Yeah. >> And you know, our pro and and the mayor got into our property tax system
072in the state of Connecticut is broken and it needs to be fixed. We we we deliver this exceptional level of services. >> I'm not gonna live that long. >> True. Well, no, I don't mean that. I'm not either. I'm not a confident I'm not confident that that we're going to see that a change that we really do need to see. We need other revenue sources like other states have a sales tax that the mayor talked about so that we can continue to deliver these types of service. And and because of the way our model works here in Connecticut, it's a shared expense among all of our residents. So what when I had my three my three kids were going through our schools, you know, our per pupil expense is $22,000 per student. So, if I
073if my kids were still in school today, I have three. That would be $66,000 worth of services that I'm receiving for by living here and having my kids go to school. But I'm only paying $12,000 in property taxes. So, as as any young families in the crowd, they're experiencing that level of service that um is is more so today. you know, they're leave, they're paying less than what they're receiving. But as you get older, you know, your kids move out of school. I'm continuing to still pay that property tax, but it's going towards a younger family who's with more kids than >> but and again, it's, you know, we our our, you know, residents expect a very high level of service and we continue to deliver that. We have to find that balance and that's
074what we're doing. >> Yeah. I say everything sounds good except for one thing. the bottom line over here. And that's that's not just this year. That was last year, too. And we've been we've been paying taxes every year we we get a a decent tax increase. And it's always over inflation. So, you think that over all the years we we'd we'd be in good shape. And what out of nowhere a 6.5% increase last year and this year? And I know they're promising better things for the future, but I it's hard to believe because it hasn't happened. Every year we get we we get and now and I and next year we're looking at a revaluation. The last time there was re-evaluation, the mill rate didn't go down that well that much and I've been living
075in town here for 40 45 years and our taxes have gone up and we've gotten less service. The only thing we really get in this town if you don't have your kids in school is uh garbage collection and most towns have that except and it's a big expense is our fire department. and we saved the fire department by making them first responders. Big mistake because the fact of the matter is is that they're they're unionized and they work all kinds of overtime and things like that. We would we would been better off if we we separated up. It's too late now. But I have to to say I mean even the responses, do they need to bring a um a fire engine every time they go to a response? Do we need like 50 people?
076I'm surprised. I've been to responses one time. I'm surprised you weren't there. It seemed like there were 15 people. The half the town was there. I'm going do we really is this the type of response I when if I if something happens to me I want to I want them to come but I want I don't need like 50 people there just and what do they tell and I'll guarantee you they'll say look at all look at all the responses we've gone to we probably need more firemen or first responders and you know and the bottom line is yeah I hate to say it but you have to make cuts you want to compare to other towns there's right another beautiful town they went through this thing with they're raising tax, they cut things. We
077never seem to cut. We never and that's I don't want to cut. I don't want to be, you know, but if you have to, you have to. 6.5% means you need to cut because again, it isn't though we were having raising taxes in all these years. And it's not just for seniors. It's what about our younger people, too. I mean, it it's just we talk about affordability and and this is what we get. I mean, I you know, we didn't get the memo, I guess, on that because if if 6.5% is affordability, >> there's one more tax that people never talk about. >> Oh, there's one more tax. We used to have leaf pickup. Hartford still does. Farmington still does. You cut it out. I now pay $350 to pick up my leaves. Now, should
078I cut down all the trees? I mean, seriously, folks, you're cutting services and in certain areas, but you're not touching them in others. You can't be everything for everybody. It doesn't work and it's not sustainable. And if you drive the seniors out, hey, you've lost free money. Think about it. >> But it's not just seniors, George, it's young people, too. I mean, really. I mean, it's all, you know, just can't, you know, throw it on them either, you know. But >> they want services, let them pay for it. >> Well, there are certain things and like Mr. Penis again the central office he already mentioned it. This comes under a lot of attack. You start hearing things about the central office not not just from other people from teachers themselves. This is something that has
079to be dealt with. When New Haven asked um Lamont for more money, he said, "I'll give it to you, but you got to do something about that central office." cuz he's hearing about and it's all through education. Even at Yukon, you know, all these administrators and things like that, you have to really wonder, do we really need these many? I don't know to tell you the truth. What do I know about that? But I've been hearing things that people coming into the central office and they get their own secretary. Is that true that every every No, no, that's not true. Okay, that's what somebody told me one time. And there also somebody told me that we only have 200 pe 200 students at the at the middle school at the I'm trying to think of
080the name of the middle school. Bristol Middle School and possibly we should close it and save money that way too. >> Listen, we look at everything. So, I think, you know, West Harford Harford has Harford's a big city. Harford has a lot of state aid. They have a lot of infrastructure. And I think sometimes, yeah, we have a central office and in our central office, we have hardworking and dedicated people. Um, it's not going to, you know, and I'm not saying that we've made cuts there. We have a position here, you know, from central office that we cut uh just this last year in this budget. Um that's not 10 positions that's cut, but that's, you know, but I understand I understand your point. Um the Bristo Middle School was built when the size of
081our middle school population exceeded essentially the capacity of the buildings at King Phillip and at Cedric. And Cedric is probably the building that's uh tougher capacity wise in terms of classroom space and availability. King Phillip's a big school. Uh but um it's, you know, it's not small, it's not undercrowded. When we were building this budget, as we do every year, we look at we look at school utilization. We looked at Bristol. We looked at some of our elementarymentaries and we said, "What would it look like if we pushed, you know, everybody out?" Well, our middle schools couldn't absorb the 300. It's it's it's basically a team of about 105 at each grade level and we we take about half from each of the each of the two other middle schools through a lottery. Um it
082would be extremely challenging to absorb those into Cedric and to King Phillip and they're growing in this coming year. So um you know it's I never say never. There's always things that you can do. You can build portables. You can do different things. Um, but you have to remember that when we talk about closing a school, um, and we've talked about some of our smaller elementarymentaries, the cost savings isn't as dramatic as people want to think that it is. You still need, by and large, you still need the teachers to teach. Those kids are all going somewhere. And it's not like I can put one here and one there. I have to send them to the neighborhoods, which means I have to increase the number of classes so the teachers travel with them. So, at
083the end of the day, you might save uh a principal salary and and what it costs to put the lights on or something like that, but it's it's not the millions and of dollars. And so, it is one of the things that you balance and say, hey, as you look at enrollment projections down the road, is that going to be your smartest move uh or is it a short-term move that you're going to regret later? But we do look at those things. >> And there's other things, too, is it's like the overtime. We've talked about the overtime. Now, I realize it's contracts, but when when I when somebody makes $125,000 in overtime, I think people that should raise eyebrows, but it doesn't seem to for some reason. And that's just one guy that never mind
084all the other overtime that goes into public works and things like that, too. I realize that the union I don't understand how they even get these things called minimum staffing, things like that. We shouldn't even have We should be call We should be able to make the staffing. Somebody told me that they keep five people down at at the Rocklidge uh golf course all all winter. For what? Is that true? >> Um yeah, there's a super ground a superintendent uh for the grounds and there are a couple of uh ground maintainers >> all winter though. I mean the thing is in the winter time >> I I don't and I walk take walks down there. You know, the thing is by bottom line, that's probably just still a drop in the buck, but it but
085it all adds up. Everything adds up. And all I'm saying is this is not acceptable. Not two years in a row. And you're promising better down the road, but we've we've heard that and we're not getting it. In fact, it got worse. It got worse. So really disappointing to tell you the truth. You know, Thank you. >> Uh just on the other end of the spectrum, you know, I'm I'm 30. I moved down two years ago and property taxes have gone up $4,000 since 2023. Um and I I I echo the similar sentiment of is is this sustainable? Obviously, no one has a crystal ball. I don't see inflation or, you know, health care costs or or any of the cost drivers uh in a in a town budget get, you know, getting any better.
086So, should we kind of as a town get used to 6% uh per year? Again, I'm I'm I'm not trying to be unrealistic. I I you know, costs for everything have gone up. Um, but just uh I I I wonder how long this the level of increases can can continue. Um, and I'm curious, you know, if if you had to maintain a 0% increase last year to this year, not saying you you you know, this is required, but let's just say if you don't make a 0% increase, the sun's going to explode. What would be the the items that are even feasible to cut or are the mo majority of these uh pre-negotiated contracts that you know the benefits and the salary increases are out of the town of Westford's control. We're just kind of
087going along with um you know these these contracts that have been negotiated >> as I can't remember who said it but the board of education uh represents about 60% of the town's budget. I think 58 this year. Uh just to give that context that's not unique or specific to West Harford. That's pretty much how it is across every town in Connecticut. Uh generally speaking, the contracts um are uh by and large 99% of my employees are are contract unionized employees. Um and those contracts are set. So, you know, those are those are some of the things those are um when I tell you they're uh they're market settled fair contracts, it's it's the going rate. Uh was it for instance, was this last contract um expensive? uh you know teachers make up the majority but
088not the not all. Um yeah they they got a good settlement but they got the average settlement. They didn't get necessarily this above average settlement or super high and that's in the midst of uh a teacher shortage in the state of Connecticut. Um we have we have a lot of steps in our teacher contracts. We see a lot of which which is a slow progression till they get to the highest step. Uh we see a lot of teachers who will move out uh from West Harford mid-career to go to other places because they have shorter steps. They can take their experience and they can jump and get a 10 $15,000 uh increase in a neighboring district. Um so it's something that you know isn't is an issue for us uh because we are not known
089to be the highest paying. Um, so, uh, we have we have decent salaries for our teachers at the top step. Um, and and they're year-over-year increases are are are less. They're they're not the same figure that you get. I think it was two two and change somewhere between two and 3%. Um, I forgot the second half of your question, but uh, 0% what is Thank you. What does 0% means on the education side? you know, you look at when you take salary and benefits of the average teacher, uh you're talking about uh 10 teachers to for a million dollars. So, if I needed to reduce, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood, I think it was 70%ish of my increase is is salary and benefits for for all the employees. Uh Rick talked about the number
090of different unions. I've got 1,700 employees. It's everything from a cafeteria worker to a school security officer to a teacher to an administrator to a teaching assistant. Um you you'd be talking um you know hundreds to to make a 0% you'd be talking hundreds of teachers uh programs that would have to cut. you know, it's it's world language programs, it's it's athletics, it's um and when we have made the cuts, I I made mention that we're we're 20 positions thinner uh in just in the last two years. Um and we do start those cuts as far away from the classroom as possible because uh I may not be smart, but I'm not stupid. I know that when we make cuts like this um and it impacts a child um that's going to be the constituents
091I hear from immediately because I know that's uh a big reason uh why we get a lot of movement into the district. People aren't coming here to pay the taxes. They're coming here for the education. They're coming here for the services. They're coming here for the reputation of the town which is outstanding. So it's a balancing act of how do you maintain the affordability and the livability and at the same time preserve the things that people come here to you know when I say expect I often you know it's expect and demand. So um it's your concerns are all very legitimate um and they are they do represent the challenge. It sounds like to me if you're not going to be able to bring down the growth in the budget to grow the pie to
092have more entities let's call them paying >> paying taxes. Uh but to to echo the sentiment is you know is that one five 10 years down the road of development you know hard hard to say. Uh so I think that would be my my preference is to to have more more residents and more businesses paying paying uh taxes to to kind of share the the burden. Um obviously everyone has a very strong opinion on you know oh back back in the day it used to be a farm over here like a lot can't can't can't put that the toothpaste bath in in the tube. So appreciate the answer. Thank you. >> I beg your pardon. >> Oh, yes. Yes, we'll do. Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you for Superintendent Vinus. Um, so >> I I've
093I'm kind of a budget nerd. I've been I think you know, I've been following this budget for years and years and up through 2019, he really seemed to be managed incredibly well. And uh maybe manage is not the right word because through I think COVID there were a lot of external factors um that and we're I know we're still coming off that at some point. The concerns I have um I'll talk about maybe the on the board of ed side is when I look at comparing uh surrounding towns just simply their rate of increase I I look at two or three metrics that scare me. Number one, the rate of rate of increase for the surrounding towns is lower. And I understand that some towns are paying a little more in insurance. So on a
094line item or a little less in insurance, but when we look at the overall budget, the rate of increase is highest in West Hartford by a fairly significant margin. That's number one. Number two, when we look at um teacherto student ratio, the ratio is the lowest in West Hartford. And then when I look at meaning less teachers per student, it's under 50%. I think we're the only town in the area where it's under I think we're 47 or 48%. And then finally, the third thing is uh it seems like there's a prepundonderance of TAS. And it's tough because different budgets show different show it differently. So, it's a little hard to understand. And I I should I should have probably said out of the gate, I am a town counselor. Uh I'm one of the
095town counselors. And um I to me cutting, you know, cutting uh changing class size or or doing anything that would impact the kids is a complete non-starter for me. So I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to head down that rabbit hole. I am not. I'm just trying to understand some of the budget drivers u behind it. So and I'm going to hand the mic off to Mr. Kennedy. >> So um >> there you go, sir. One of the things point out are >> because I I this is the second time I've heard this 47% I want to have a better understanding of that but um you know historically as I as I present to the board of ed when we look at our per pupil expenditure per pupil expenditure is a it's an
096easy concept it helps it's intended to help describe board of education budgets across multiple towns that have different different size of population different things. So you just basically take your entirety of your budget and you divide by your number of kids. That's your per people expenditure. Um histo historically West Harford over the last 10 15 years or more has been in the lowest third um for the state. Um as the as the mayor as the mayor mentioned we're at 92nd this year. Uh we were we were above average last year in terms of the increase. We knew that. We talked about that it was our out of district tuition. Um we are we are I I don't know which districts you're comparing to. I have I have a list. So I'm aware uh there are
097uh quite a number of districts surrounding us um that or at least they're in our DUI because those are generally the ones I look at are demographic reference group. Um and we're we're going to be above you know with with what I'm proposing we would be slightly above the DUI average but we are not out of the ballpark. We are not an outlier in the same way that we were last year. Uh I'm aware of districts that are pitching 12% 13% increases and a lot of that is being driven by their insurance costs. The 47% teacher to student I I'm just going to be honest. I don't understand that because that means a 2:1 ratio of I assume students to teacher and that there's like there's just no reality in that at all. Um in
098our in our um online in our materials, you know, we we have identified um on the special education pages, you can look at uh it breaks out right in a graph the teacher to student ratio for special education student population and it's not it's not a challenge to we also have the total number of instru Okay. I apologize. >> All right. So, so I would Okay. Interesting. So, I haven't I haven't looked at it through that lens, I would need to look at it. Um, but I think at the basis of your question, you asked about kind of uh par and thank you for explaining it because it's the second time I've heard it and I've not understood what people were talking about when they said it. Um, >> to paraphrase you, I'm dumb, but
099not that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because that counts everybody. That counts our, you know, that counts our and I don't know how if other districts are reporting it the same. So, that's an interesting question. Uh, our PAR educators, uh, because you asked about that specifically, it's it's PAR educators, teaching assistants, uh, registered behavioral technicians, a whole group of folks that are in, um, in a similar union that are in in that union. Um and and that's something it's a group that has um increased over time and a lot of that increase the the majority of that increase really is tied to um students that are required a one-on-one in in their IEP. And it and it's a reflection of the growth in that population. And as I've said, we not only have grown in
100the number of students serviced through an individualized education plan, but but we've grown with the complexity of need. And so we get a we do get a high number of moveins and often times that support is written into the IEP that they carry with them when they walk in the door. Uh we do a lot of work to re-evaluate that and to see what we can do to help uh provide those services, you know, and and just talk about what the setting looks like when students are here. Uh but it is a legal document that we have to that we have to follow. Um when the other just to to put them in context, we have a handful of teaching assistants uh or pair or pair of educators that work in an office alongside alongside
101of a secretary. So like at an elementary school, you'll generally have one secretary and one pareducator to help run to help run the school. And then the only others we have instructional paras we typically staff on a a 2:1 ratio for the number of kindergarten sections that we have. uh for every two kindergarten sections, we generally have one instructional parah. So they can go in and work with the teacher and do centers and and help provide recess duty coverage and thing things of that nature. So um it's not an exorbitant amount when when you you add them all up. Um so the the real big ones that we see uh come come really for the specialized needs for students individual programs and we as many as we have we are short. we run short on
102what is technically required through the IEPs. Sometimes we've had to rely on u they have services TA services and placement services that you can essentially rent help from um at times but that costs more than when we can hire them ourselves. So um we have seen an eb and a flow an increase and a decrease over years. I don't I don't have the specifics in my head but I can get them because they're all in our budget book. >> Thank you very much. >> Sure. Appreciate I have two questions and then >> I'll shut up. >> One for you, one for you. >> When you go by a construction site in the road, you have a cop there, which is a good thing. Okay. Now, my understanding was that the construction company pays not an
103actuarial uh guaranteed, but they pay an amount that goes into their pension plus the salary. they pay toward this. Frankly, that's private work. It should have nothing to do with their pension. And that's what Gary mentioned, $150,000 for a cop. I mean, I if I had to do Oregon, I'd be a cop. So, what I think should be done, an immediate savings to cut pensions with the police officer. And I realize I got tight contracts. Anything that they earn on private work like that, like if they worked at the mall as a private cop, you wouldn't put it in their pension. Why put the construction in? Makes no sense at all. >> Great question and and I have a a good response to that and we have made those changes to our contracts over the
104last several years. So, um so with all of our contracts, we talked a little bit about overtime earlier. Um we have public works employees and police officers and firefighters who all earn overtime. If someone's not going to be there, well, public works, we know what they do all winter. Um, but for police and fire, when someone's not there, we require someone to cover that shift for them. That would be overtime. Over well over half of our police officers and firefighters are now covered under a pension plan that no longer uh incorporates overtime into their pension. So, they've res they've received a significantly reduced pension in comparison to what we call we have three tiers now. Tier one is our older police officer and older firefighters and we have less than 20 officer police officers and
105probably less than 10 firefighters who are still covered in that in that tier. >> Now that's leadership. >> Thank you. >> Now you're on the hook for a second. >> You used to have a program I've been out of the thing as you know for about four years. You used to have a program where you had a smorgish board of languages like Spanish and French and they had teachers that would go around to the thing and give them an hour or two a week. Do you still have that? >> Talking about world language at the elementary level. >> Uh I don't know what it was called. I can't remember. >> So we do still instruct world language at the elementary level beginning in um fourth grade. So we do fourth and fifth grade. Uh, and
106we've moved to entirely almost entirely Spanish. We have one magnet school that does. >> And how much per week do they get? >> They get uh they get an hour per week. They get two 30 minute sessions. >> You seriously believe and no, only a person that's trying to maintain their job will support this. No one is going to learn a language complete if they don't use it at home for one hour a week. That's reality. >> It is reality. the I'm simply gonna say this much. Um the the research does show that >> could speak a little >> the research does show that language acquisition at the youngest grade levels is is where you're going to have the greatest propensity to learn >> but not an hour a week. >> I mean, you know,
107I had a teacher who was in the program back then. She came to me and she said, "Why would you do this?" She she says, "I just saved my job by refuting you." That was what it was all about. It wasn't about the kid learning the language. It was about teachers getting keeping the job. You go around to the schools. And that's not a rumor. That actually happened. >> Yeah. >> Now, the other question I have is we discovered back four or five years ago that we were taking in students from Hartford, which is fine. Harford was getting paid for the state because they're on the state dole basically. They were getting paid for those students. We weren't getting any money. Has that changed? >> I don't think that was ever true. >> True. We
108take in students from Harford. >> No, we found that to be true. >> Well, we get we get paid uh for every student that comes in from Hartford and then if they have special education needs or additional requirements, we get reimbursed for that fully from Harford. So, that's a revenue source. one of the people that >> was in the tax found us out. He was a dentist. He did research on the side >> and they weren't getting paid at that point. And as I say, this was five or six years ago. >> But it's good that you've done it now. >> No, I honestly can't imagine that being >> I will wag my finger when you're wrong. I will turn around and say like good decision, >> but we should get paid for that. >>
109And we do. >> And now I'll shut up. >> No, you're fine. One other thing also because of the special education um it does seem like people are moving to this town for special education. My neighbor just did that and he said I don't get the services in Farmington in Farmington. So to me and there's nothing you can do about I'm sure but do do we can we apply for more state shouldn't we be applying for more state aid? We should be. >> Yeah. >> So >> I mean and I'm sure you already have thought about that. So but we >> transit >> what >> take them in as a transit. In other words, let them come in and pay. >> So, one of the things we're actually doing this year, uh, is we have
110a we have an intensive behavioral program. So, when when folks say they moving in because they can't necessarily get the service in a smaller town, they might not have the same depth of programming. And so, if they're going to get that service, they're going to be potentially placed out of district and move away from their home school. Um, so they may decline that service and just not get the level of support their child needs and stay in their district. or they may move here. One, so we have we have an intensive behavioral program that works with students that are disregulated. Um we are showing that there is um a slight decrease in our number of students that we forecast that we need. So we are opening up slots to um outside districts and charging them
111a tuition. Um and so that's one of the adjustments that's happening in this budget and we see the potential for that in our post-secary program. We have a requirement under the state uh for students uh with significant intellectual disabilities to be able to educate them through their uh through the school year in which they turn age 22. Um we have a very strong program. We have the next chapter bookstore in the center of town. Um and we do a lot with them. Um we house a lot of the we house some of the program at town hall. We house the rest of the program offsite at the American School for the Deaf. And uh that's a program that we see as uh very attractive for other districts who can't necessarily provide that same level of
112service. We could do so costneutral and charge tuition seats, not to the point where we'd have to hire additional staff just to just to uh fill open seats without any decrease in service to our own students um and make revenue on that. The thing that's holding us up from doing that at the postsecary right now is the space. We don't have um we don't have the physical space. We are offsite at ASD. So, we're looking at spaces to see, hey, can we find a cost-effective space we could move the program to and then and then open up um open up tuition seats for other school districts um in an effort to you know create that revenue stream and uh you know basically maximize the service. other districts are way open to it because that's instead
113of them having to pay the out of district tuition which is a skyrocketing cost they can pay a reasonable tuition to another public school. It's very common. It's it's what a lot of school districts do and the state has grants available that we're taking advantage of for as I said earlier special education um expansion and development. Um, and so we're taking advantage of that grant in order to be able to uh utilize state funding to help grow and exp, you know, and basically deal with the expansion that we're seeing just from moveins. >> Good to know. But still, the bottom line, back to the budget, 6.5% unacceptable two years in a row. We have to do something and I I know it's going to be tough decisions, but I think I think we have to
114make them this year. So, >> so well on that topic, so on the town side, we have a million dollars as the solid waste contract increase. It will come down because we're going out to bid, but we spend $5 million on solid waste pickup. So, one of the one of the initiatives that we started working on a number of years ago was to reduce solid waste, right? to put um just meal weight the heavy food waste into compostable drop off locations. We had talked about uh town wide uh you know uh um front yard pickup which is expensive. Um so we we opted for these drop off locations. We're doing well but not good enough um to to kind of definitely not to offset the increases. Um, but there are options of um of having
115that be a paid service. So, letting the town not do it anymore, taking $5 million out of our budget and handing that over to individuals to then have potentially $300 fee uh that they would have to pay. But then you wouldn't have those increases year after year uh potentially for solid waste unless the contractor that's negotiated is. But it's something that we have to think about. It's we're going to be talking about it. Um and you know what? People ask for an additional week of recycling. Well, that's going to cost us half a million dollars. So, you know, we we can't do that without dropping the cost somewhere else. Um I thought the question I don't know your name, sir, Mr. 30-year-old, welcome to town. Um and I I really I I have a couple
116of sons that are, you know, 29 and 32. live in town. >> 32-year-old does and a 37y old does. And um and it's hard. It's hard to afford a house. It's hard to educate your put your kids in preschool. It's it's really tough. Um I have four generation. My I have a 97y old mother, myself in my mid60s, uh my um my son, my two sons in their 30s, and then two grandchildren. Um and so I see the fixed income. I see the preschool and I, you know, and the new homes and I I feel it at every single uh stage and that goes into every decision we make on the first responders. If if our do our first responders compromise some times to get to by cutting staff, do we we have changed our
117response to a an emergency event? We have um a a uh triage better triage at at um at a call. Um we have police as first responders. Uh and we have a fly car uh for fire rather than a full truck. It's changed a lot actually from uh when from even 5 years ago, four years ago. So those things we are continue to work on. Some of it is initial investment to ultimately get uh we have changed minimum manning to allow for the um the EM or the um the EMTs or uh >> paramedics I'm trying um to have three three people on a truck. We don't make up those minimum Anning. Those are standards that come from the safety professionals. and we had had a consultant that came in that was giving us some
118efficiencies but actually told us to hire more firefighters. So, um we actually have had a quite a few fires in town uh that have shown how how important it is to have a fully staffed fire department. But, um again, if if you know, you personally haven't been touched by it, a lot of our residents have. So, uh, unfortunately, but, um, but I will say those decisions of, okay, what do we do about a solid waste cost that is going up close to a million dollars, do we change the way we deliver services? That's what happened with leaf collection. Leaf collection was going up. There was no contractors. The towns that do them hired inside. We were contracting out and the contractors were, we would have had to increase our headcount by, you know, 15, 20,
119I don't know, pe 10 people. it would have really increased our cost. So we made a decision to pass that on that we the town couldn't do everything right. So as we said before so those are things that we do think about and if we we always we talk about what would a zero look like it would be closing libraries and closing senior centers. that would be probably where we would have to start uh before we got to public safety one's mandated uh and contract driven um and um if public safety if the if and I don't know if any of you um participate or listen to our public safety meetings we have an active community. There's a lot going on and um our our police chief every year asks for more officers um and
120he doesn't get them but but we we do the best with what we have um and we have been able to keep our community very safe but if if at if if we do go down to some level that is going to slide. Um, and we have had times where there's been a rash of either car burglaries or breakins into homes and we've been able to respond to those hot areas to say to really um lean into bringing that public safety up to a better uh, you know, really respond in a way that is more robust. Um, we we public works runs so lean um, but we create a great product. uh we don't do as many as many miles of roads as I would like but you 10 miles of roads every year no
121matter what to our 220 miles so it is so hard to squeeze everything and and be the town that we are if we do continue I mean we we can't continue at this rate and that's one of the reasons why we've been so um focused on grandless growth uh bringing more residents into town having that revenue pool grow we've been able uh to uh recruit and some is confidential some head corporate headquarters that want to be in West Hartford and and we're hoping that we can uh release some of that soon. People want to be here and we want to maximize that where we where where we can. So uh it will be a balance. I know you have another comment. It it will be a balance, but um but we we are not going
122to continue at this rate. We can't. But we're all going to have to there's going to be sacrifices we're all going to have to make. Uh and I hope you make them in an honest and really um uh you know an a a way that is really candid. Uh and let us know if there are places where you do see waste. If you feel that there is something that isn't working, you know, let us know about it. Um and and we can look into it and respond as appropriate. But George, go ahead. Mr. Kennedy, >> Richard, >> you just made the argument. You just made the argument for an financial advisory committee and an advisory general advisory committee to get other thinking in to give you options because if you're dealing with a closed cell,
123we used to uh in management consultants say people in corporations were like cylinders. They didn't go this way. And I'm suggesting basically and been suggesting for years and so is the committee that a financial advisory committee would be helpful. It's not going to dilute your power. It might expand your power. And an advisory independent advisory committee, it gives you other people with input. >> Yeah. >> Not necessarily me. That gentleman is talked. I nominate you. >> Yeah. We know we can talk about it. I by charter we can't establish like a commission. we'd have to open our charter which would take two years and a and a lot of work but but we can talk about if there's other >> ask people to be ad hoc >> and it would be helpful. >> Yeah. Yes.
124>> I'm sorry to change the topic. I I certainly would like to on the record. Um, but I do appreciate all the hard work represented by the folks here, the time that was spent uh on the board of ed uh on the on the board of ed budget and the town budget and and West Harvard is a great place to live and I love living here. Uh I am one of those people that has two children who take advantage of the public schools. So I guess uh I am perhaps a a bit different than a point of view that's been expressed. But I have more of a a micro level question than a macro if it's okay just to sort of change the focus. Uh you mentioned um uh last year uh we had to
125make some cuts to the full-time staff teachers at the elementary school level. I think it was at 199. Then at some point when the numbers came in, you made a decision to increase to six and at your discretion you made changes to the sections. Um, unfortunately, Charter Oak, where my daughter goes to school, didn't benefit uh from from those decisions. And I guess from my perspective, I'm wondering when you have when the numbers come in and you have your discretion to potentially hire more teachers, do you strictly look at the guidelines which I understand are 27 or do you look as well at other criteria like the achievement gap at certain schools and the needs of the individual schools and whether or not the students would benefit from a smaller class size based on the
126individual needs of those classes. Understood. Absolutely. So, we do look at all of those things. I I won't I won't lie though that, you know, the class size guidelines are something when we do make the change, any change that we're going to make, if I'm going to if I'm going to and what happened this past year uh where we had some of our upper grades, you know, all of a sudden we were hitting at a 27, which is the maximum um that we'll usually do. Um, if I'm going to make that change and I have multiple 27s, um, I'll generally and and I can feel and I can be looking at, okay, let me look at the density of students with IEPs or 504s or the number of multilingual learners or I've had principles call
127me up and just say, I have a very difficult cohort. They don't necessarily um, flag on all these boxes, but let me tell you, and principles are outstanding at advocating for their schools. um if I'm making a shift somewhere, my my goal is to then okay, can I make, you know, is it going to be equitable? Am I going to be able to defend it? So, the guidelines themselves do certainly come into play. Charter Oak and Smith as our two magnets. Um they do have lower class size guidelines. They're lower by two. Uh but I've heard from some of the Charter Oak committee uh community u specifically in the upper grades this coming year. I know the projections uh for Charter Oak are going to approach um in fourth and fifth grade 25 per class
128and I know that there's a concern that that's heavy and while while all the other schools you know while that's within Charter Oak's guidelines and all the other schools are within their guidelines all the other or the majority of the other schools um you know they have a higher guideline like 27 but if they have uh 62 kids in projected in a grade level. I can't do two sections, I do three. And now they have comfortable sections. So I can appreciate um the concern and and know about the achievement gap for Charter Oak. But Charter Oak also does have you know one of the things that goes beyond that singular dimension of number of classroom sections um are the other supports and components that they have relative to and how those things are funded through
129some of the magnet funds. Um, but it is something I'm talking about with my team because Charter Oaks area it's um I think Gina is doing an outstanding job. She's starting to make um a real dent in um some of that gap and uh and I want a mass resource. you know, I want when we have our when we look at our our literacy supports, whether it's literacy specialists or what have you, um, you know, there's a certain number of those supports that are distributed across, you know, across every school, but is there the same degree of need? Is there a higher density of need? And do we need to mass more resources and take away from other schools? So, that's something we looked at. We redistributed our tutors last year. Um, it's something that
130we do look at relative to, you know, as I was explaining on instructional PAR educator support, um, and and magnet funds, but I don't know if you had a follow-up on that. >> Listen, I appreciate decisions that need to be made. It I still wonder at the decision because you're you're talking about a projected number this year, but we if it really is 25, which by the way is not documented anywhere that I could find online. I only could find the 27. um we were at 24 and 23 this year in the fourth grade sections and all the criteria that you listed out. I would think that our school is probably on the higher end of need than than other schools that are at that same number. I think the other issue with the guidelines
131that it it does it does address the upper limit, but it doesn't address the variance between schools. So, it would be a little bit easier to swallow if you're looking at across all elementary schools and everyone's in a similar range, but you really do have class sizes that are as low as 17 in fourth grade at some other schools and we're at 2423. And so, I know it's a numbers game that and it matters where people are living and all of that, but it is sort of difficult to understand why that criteria didn't carry the day last year. And it's also a question now. Is it going to be the same waiting game where we're going to be waiting to know fingers crossed we get our teachers list next year to find out if the
132the criteria carried the day this year? >> Yeah, you guys were in the criteria last year. The criteria is actually listed on uh it's in a board policy. I can't cite it. >> Okay. >> But it's class size guidelines and it and it should identify it's 27 is the typical class size guideline max for grades four and five across the district. >> That's right. too fewer at Charter Oak and Smith. >> It doesn't in the in the guidelines on the it doesn't stipulate for magnet schools. It doesn't matter. I mean, okay. It didn't it didn't make a difference here clearly. So, >> understood. Yeah. But but I I mean, you're making the argument for um and it's an argument I appreciate and I don't disagree with >> for for lower class size guidelines and higher
133in areas of higher need. We do have Charter Oak's a title one school. We do um we do have five title one schools, elementary schools in the district. um they do receive additional supports through the title one grant um and and that money is used to fund different things. So there there is I don't know if you can you know just see it in one policy or in >> class size guidelines beyond that minor difference of two students um but there are additional uh funding supports to to to provide the additional resources at our schools with higher need. >> Okay, just one followup and I promise >> Sure. It does it matter the amount of outreach and what you hear from parents at the school? >> I will tell you it it matters very much.
134We've had we've had um things in our budget that we've looked to cut and things in our budget that we've looked to had and we've had um significant uh teacher voice come out in to talk about those things that have during our budget workshops that uh have very clearly uh I think driven driven some decisions. Um you know there are difficult decisions. You know the you know leadership matters as was said and sometimes it's sometimes it's a challenge. Um but uh but I would tell you that voice does matter. I think as the mayor made mention, we knew in the last two years we're coming out with hard news and so we are we are seeking the discourse that we're receiving. We're welcoming, you know, the the very frank, candid commentary on on concerns and
135ideas that come forward from this. Yep. >> Just >> we're going to wind up in about 10 minutes because this uh library closes so we we have to move on out. But um so thank you just because you said number of people reaching out does matter. I also have kids at Charter Oak. Um so just to piggyback a little bit on some of Jake's comments. Um I know also that the smaller um the 25 number for magnet school I am familiar with and the 27 for the regular but um piggybacking on the sentiments I understand that those are the class recommendations and so Charter Oak would have lower class size recommendations but they still have and I think are projected next year to actually have larger class sizes than many of the other schools as
136Jake was saying like per class and then I don't remember the exact which schools they were you know morally or whatever. Um whereas Charter Oak is still projecting to be right at that 25 headcount. So, I mean, I know they do have the lower recommendation sizes, but they're right at those levels, whereas the other schools, and I know you don't want to cut teachers at any school, and every school deserves to have as small of class size as possible. And to your point with, you know, they get the extra funding for different things, but balancing it with my understanding of Charter Oak having some of the lowest test scores in the district. Um and then just because it is something specifically on my radar, I know it's also the hub for deaf and heart of
137hearing students. So I mean that's a population that's really exponentially negatively impacted by large class sizes. Uh one of my kids is deaf so I'm very familiar with the bigger the class, the less access he has to language and also the less in tune his interpreter is with his needs. Because when you have a class with 24 kids and one teacher and his interpreter, you know, in theory, the interpreter is only supposed to be interpreting, but like the reality of being in a classroom with 24 seven-year-olds is you're not going to be able to do that job efficiently. Um, so agree, I love all the services West Hartford has. I think you guys offer many amazing things to our students. I would just piggyback on the sentiment of concern kind of for the direction that
138class sizes is going, especially considering, you know, new residents moving in and the potential continued growth for the student population. >> No, absolutely. Um I'm first off, thank you and I know I have board members here intently listening, so thank you. um because I think that's you know something I've I've gotten couple of emails from Charter I have I wouldn't say I've had a ground swell but um this is good to be able to kind of hear it directly um it is that you know the numbers um blind adherence to the numbers is difficult because in a situation like what you're describing if I have say just under or just near a hundred uh a cohort of 100 that's at at say Charter Oak and it and it builds that four sections near their max.
139Whereas if I had 105 all of a sudden we'd have five sections and we'd be you know we'd all be very happy because it would have exceeded those guidelines. And so it becomes one of those questions and it's one of the one of the difficult decisions. Do you um if last year when I was in this boat we had uh we had published our um elementary projections and those are those are moment in time projections and we did the strict adherence and said here's what it would look like but we had three elementary sections to give. We said, "We know that there are going to be some sections that break." Um, and we have these three teachers that are as yet undetermined where we would go. And everybody wanted, everybody came out and they all
140wanted to know, am I going to get the teacher? Am I going to get the teacher? We published updated um projections, which was another moment in time. And all of a sudden, just based on a move in here, a move out there, um the picture shifted somewhat dramatically. Um I don't know um if that's going to happen at Charter Oak because generally it can come down to four or five kids. What I don't have this year as of this moment is I don't have those elementary sections sitting in reserve right now. I'm projecting 202. I've got them all I've got them all planned. Um but I have to you know but we always react to whatever happens wherever the population goes if it increases or decreases. and and I do hear what you're saying. Um,
141is there, you know, at the end of the day, if it if if it didn't move, you know, is there is there an interpretation of those guidelines that assesses a greater amount of need to either divert a resource or add a resource? So, I I hear the question. Um, I don't have an answer for you today, but I very much hear and understand and respect the question. And it's a good question because as I was saying with just as with other resources, um, I, you know, we want to put the resources where they're where they're most needed and and where they're, uh, most effective. >> Okay. So, we are really at a windup time and I I just want to first thank all of you for taking time out of your busy schedules and coming
142and talking to us and and listening and uh we do have really hard decisions to make um ahead of us and um uh we have made some very strategic decisions to, you know, to to write the ship a bit. Uh we'll continue to try to do what we can to bend the curve. Um, but what you can do is talk to our state reps, talk to people in leadership to talk about the property tax impact on you. Uh and I think it's really important uh for to have some change uh and property taxes and um I I we are talk they're talking about a little bit a little bit more ECS money maybe a million a million and a half doesn't help that much when you have a budget going up 145 million uh on
143the education side. So from a town perspective, we've been asking for other revenue um some other revenues, the revenues that were intended to go to municipalities to go to municipalities. So um when Massachusetts did two Proposition 2 and a half, what they did was they said, "Okay, municipalities, their their property taxes were going up pretty rapidly." Um and they said, "Okay, municipalities, if you want to go over two and a half, you're you're going to you're going to have to go through some approvals." But they they also said we know that the costs are going up higher. So they started increasing their funding to municipalities for education and for some of the other costs maybe um construction costs. So our legislators need to hear the property taxes are really do affect affordability. Um it does
144impact you talk about the emphasis on housing affordability. Well, you know what? Then support municipalities um in in in this uh in you know in leveling off or or you know maybe easing off of property tax reliance. So that's what I would ask you to do. Stay involved in the process. Um we hope you will and um and thank you again so much for for being here and thank you to all all of my colleagues that are here as well. Thank you. >> Okay. I'm looking forward to