001[Applause] [Music] Good evening everybody. Call the meeting to Wednesday, March 19th, 2025. This meeting is being video and audio recorded for future cable broadcast. Please silence all cell phones for the duration of the meeting. Could I entertain a motion to open the meeting? Mr. Hood. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, I believe that the FMS chorus is going to uh open this up with the pledge of allegiance and another performance. I'd ask everybody to stand. Come back to the flag of the United States of America. for it stands nation and justice. Oh, say can you see by the dawn early lights on what we last clean and bright stars through the bar of our spently [Applause] through the night was still there. Oh, sing as the stars sple. question. Okay. Uh so the
002first uh item on the agenda is the consent agenda. in the consent agenda distributed in advance of the meeting. Does anyone have any request for something to be removed from the consent agenda and discuss? May I have a motion to approve and accept the items listed consent agenda in the minutes of February 11th? So second. All those in favor? I do have no business. I just want to publicly thank Mr. Shamron and the FMS chorus for uh leading us in the pledge tonight in the national anthem and they always do such a nice job at their concerts and sing alongs. Um, and they do a lot of nice work out in the community and I realize that March is music month. So, we thought it was important to highlight them tonight. So, I would just
003like to thank them again for coming to our meeting tonight. Very much appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. First um on my report is Alphabest. As you know, we started the extended date and summer enrichment program and I will call Mr. Jerry up to introduce um the representatives here from Alphabest. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the school committee. I'm happy to introduce our friends from Alphabest. Here tonight, we have Chris Malone, the education consultant, Mary Rouso, who is our regional director for Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and Daniel Ramal, our area manager. We've been partnered with Alphabet since the start of this school year and um our relationship with them continues to grow and our enrollment numbers continue to grow. So we're really excited about the programming that they offer to the students of the Kushnet
004and the um of the Kushnet. So come on up. Thank you uh our community members. uh very special for all of us to be here today. Uh we're very proud to be a part of you with Cushion. I would like to start by saying a big thank you to uh Superintendent Bailey uh and district for partnering with us and working with us in a way that certainly pushes us to provide the best services we can for students. Uh I am an education consultant with Health Investment. I'm also retired superintendent from Massachusetts. uh really anywhere. So, um I certainly understand both sides of this and Alphabet wants to ensure that we're a valued partner with Christian public schools reform providing top quality services uh for your students certainly families in a cushion and Mary and Danielle
005will talk a little bit about the programming that you would see and and alphabast and and kind of how some of it works in but thank you very much for having us here tonight. Thanks, Hernie. Um, so why Alphabet? Um, we're in over 85 school districts and and almost 600 schools uh across the United States. Um, we have exclusive partners with um enrichment developers. Um, Danielle will tell you a little bit more about our expedition programs that we that we do at our programs. Um, in house studio developed videog guided lessons for instructors. So really easy material for our um staff to lead these um activities throughout the course of the day. Um and then uh newer territory for us is accepting childcare subsidies for qualified families. So families that you may know um or
006see that are maybe have reduced or free or reduced lunch and qualify for uh state vouchers that are that are available. M um our connectivity through creativity is discovering an innovative uh experial curriculum that taps into children's innate sense of wonder. So um Danielle again will walk you through um some of the the expeditions that we have going on in our program on a on a daily basis. Um ranging from uh maker space and world languages and STEM fitness programs. Um some of our partners across um the country that we we work with and then introduce Danielle to be able to go through just a sample schedule of what that looks like in the afternoon. Talk a little bit more about the expeditions that we have. Thank you, Mary. So, this is our sample schedule.
007Um, each afternoon, our children come to us after a long day at school. Um, and we like to continue that uh with a few enrichment activities. We always have the same five categories. We have STEM, world languages, arts and entertainment, fitness and wellness, and then maker space. And then each quarter, the content of these categories changes. For instance, right now uh for our world languages, we're doing a mandarin unit, which we've partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to uh write with us with our curriculum team. So, that's one of my favorites. Um when I visit my site and I go around and I see um you know, kids in Massachusetts that are singing in Chinese, I think that's pretty amazing. Um so something that is our the meat of our program. We do also focus
008on community circles which is connection with our kids and their connections with themselves with each other. Uh and we do also have a time for homework support as well and then clubs which is a little bit more of a free time area for our staff here at Kushnet. Um our site staff here brings over 60 years of combined child care experience. uh they are dedicated to providing a nurturing supportive environment where each child in a fishnet can thrive. With expertise in child development and a passion for education, our staff ensures each child's growth and success. So some upcoming events that we do have, we are having a parent night here at a fresh net on Wednesday, April 9th, uh the night after your next committee meeting. If you guys would like to join us, we'd
009love to have you. Uh we are also having a full day program um for April break from Tuesday to Friday on the 22nd to the 25th and our summer program will run from June 30th to August 14th. So as you can see we uh we certainly value our partnership with Push and Pucket Schools. We love to engage even more families with more students. Um, we'd love to get the word out more. That's why we're doing also a parent meeting, but um, we're hoping to grow as a program. Uh, we hope to be here to support the Cushy families, uh, and work with students in the long term. So certainly we're very proud to be part of this partnership. And if there are any questions or comments from the committee just the numbers question I can't
010recall how many students are participating now where you want to meet. [Applause] Yeah. So right now our uh morning program is pretty hefty. We have about 18 children that participate in the mornings and then our afternoon is where we would really like to see enrollment rise. We have about anywhere from 6 to 10 children in afternoons. Do you have any social media that I can share on the efficient PTO page regarding this? We would absolutely partner with you to get some materials. Absolutely. We'll certainly connect and get some of that available to you. We'd love that opportunity to be uh highlighted in that light. We really want to get the word out as much as possible. There's also kindergarten night, right, with information. So maybe that might be a time for them to sleep there
011as well. Yeah, we can let you know about those evenings where parents are coming in or registering their children. You'd be more than welcome. That would be great. And we're happy to bring pizza or anything like that to support the crowd and and get people motivated. But uh we we hope that the more people learn about it, the the more uh families will will take advantage of this opportunity. general house and then during screening on a table in the lobby where all I will have this was Jerry send you those dates and if you can have representation there with the table um I think it's good information for our families absolutely thank you thank you very much for this opportunity thank you so much okay next on the agenda is um re collaborative the president
012of the superintendent to the board of directors. And as you know, each year um you have to take an official vote for you to appoint me to the board of the green board. Um and we'll get that signed tonight after the vote. Sorry, I'm just looking for the vote for that. Can I entertain a motion to appoint Dr. Bailey to the board of directors of Reeds Collaborative? So moved. Second. Any questions? All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay. The next thing for the reads board of directors is I gave you some documents to explain that um their death and heart of hearing program has been located at in Norton public schools and they've kind of outgrown that. Norton needs the space and they've been looking for a while for new space for their deaf and
013heart of hearing programs. Um, so they're they want to they've come down to buying a new purchasing potentially purchasing a new building in Norton so they can keep those relationships and have all the students there in one space. Keep the relationships with the Norton public schools. It doesn't really impact the cushion at this time because we don't have any students in that program. However, if we did, the tuition goes up a little bit for the deaf of heart and heart of hearing because of that purchase. Um, and that's basically it. But I just thought it was important to let you know that the board will be voting on potential purchase of a new building for that program and it's no change financially for us. Any questions? Okay, so moving on. The next thing, um, we
014have expiring high school tuition student agreements and, um, next at the end of next year, we have New Bedford and Fair Havens agreements expiring and as you know, those are very outdated agreements. They're old. Um, they're probably at least 20 years old. So, we've been talking as a group and we'd love to invite the area high schools and I know this committee is very interested in expanding that to Old Rochester as well, but we would love to have them come in in August to present to the committee on what they have to offer our students. And it's always been nice for the Christian students to have a choice for high school. Um, so what you have in your packet tonight, you have template letters to each of those superintendents. That would be Fair Haven, New
015Bedford, Old Rochester Regional to send them the letter co-signed by the chairperson of the committee as well as the superintendent to invite them to our August meeting to present um their school and their programs and let us know what they have to offer it. and then we will be negotiating a contract. By law, we only have to have one contract, but we're open to seeing what those districts have to offer us. Does anybody have any questions about that? So, tonight I would be asking for a vote to send those letters out to the district. It's a little bit different than what we've done in the past. motion. So, uh I entertain a motion to send the high school tuition criteria presentation invitation to for Haven New Bedford and OR uh co-signed by the chair and
016the superintendent. So second. All those in favor? I. Any dissents? Seeing none, motion passes. Thank you. Um the next two I'm going to ask uh Mr. McIntyre, we have a letter of intent for the solar power purchase agreement uh for the Aushna Elementary roof. And then right after that, we have one for the Ford Middle School Canopy. We're looking for separate votes on each of those, but I'm going to have Mr. McIntyre discuss those. All right. So, um, this conversation has existed in the past to the point where we went to, um, town meeting at one point to to negotiate to work to a contract with select, um, for a solar canopy project. Inevitably to, um, create a a source of savings for um, the town budget or or the school budget in particular if
017our electricity costs exceeded, you know, the savings figures. Um those talks halted for a little bit and now they're back. Um we've discussed that at our last meeting that select has come back into the picture um after we engaged train to sort of propose an ownership type solar project that we found out really isn't for us. And so we're back with select on a PPA which is a college purchase agreement where essentially we allow them to use our land or our site to put up a solar canopy or project. They generate solar power that they turn into, you know, their own revenue sources, but then they sell us the energy back at a highly discounted rate compared to what we would pay on market. Um, and I know it was of interest in the past.
018So, here we are again. Um, the letter of intent, letter of intent is just to negotiate um towards a project and an agreement. It is not legally binding. It just shows that, you know, we have interest and in good faith we'll work with them on, you know, finding a solution that works for us. Um, so in the initial proposals or the current proposals, a canopy project could essentially save us over 25 years, um, $1.2 million. And in a Kushnet roof project under the incentives, over 25 years could save us an additional $1.6 million. Um, so again, both of those together, it's substantial. It's an opportunity. Um, and again, I think we've discussed pursuing it. So ultimately we're looking to sign this letter to work in good faith with select on moving the project forward and
019next steps would include you know select presenting at a select board meeting um and engaging with the select board as the town article was written to eventually sign a contract on behalf of the town for this project just to be clear. So if for whatever reason it doesn't work out, we don't enter into a contract. There's no impact. There's no penalty to the district or the town, right? It's simply we didn't reach an agreement. Correct. So we're looking for each one separately. We pay rental on that those equipment. So we wouldn't pay anything. No cash would leave out pockets at all from start to finish. Um it will be 100% owned by select. They will be responsible for the engineering, the construction, the installation, the management, um the maintenance, uh the decommissioning if that's negotiated
020into the contract. Um and again ultimately the benefit here for us is they lock us in at an electrical rate a kilowatt per hour rate that is discounted compared to the market and we get to utilize that rate over 25 years while the market moves and to goes in whatever direction. Thank you. Can we add into record that we should discuss or be part of the negotiation that if the company was to go under that something would would happen whether the decommission would have to happen prior to the company dissolving or another company would take over something along those lines because I have had experience in the past where a company has gone under and then the contract is immediately null void and then you're stuck with this project and we we have discussed concerns
021on that in the past with obviously we can't guarantee that they won't go under, but you know, their their defense was that they're, you know, worldwide company with X amount of revenue and all that good cash flow. So, still should have that, you know, 100 year floods and and we still have that warranty on the roof. If it goes on the roof, we still need to make sure that, right? So, similarly to any roof project, we make sure we maintain that warranty and we'll have additional insurance or whatever it took. Um, and again, I know that's uh a point of contention for the select board, too, that ultimately they're signing the contract to make this project take off. So, um, you know, that would be up to them. I know based on the feedback we've
022been given, they would allow. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so could I have a motion to sign the letter of intent to formalize the willingness and intent to enter into a good faith negotiations to execute a power purchase agreement, electricity services agreement if energy storage is included and site control pursuant to which select will develop the project under the power option solar program for the AES rooftop. So move second. All those in favor anyone? Motion passes. Could I also have a motion to sign the letter of intent to formalize the willingness and intent to enter into good fake negotiations to execute a power purchase agreement, electricity services agreement if energy storage is included, and site control pursuant to which select will develop a project under the power option solar program for the FMS parking lot Canada. Second.
023All those in favor? I I desent see none. Motion passes. Okay. Thank you. The next one is um happy to announce that we received a green communities competitive grant of $500,000. You know that when we talked about the ballot question for the debt exclusion, we've been saying we don't know. We're waiting. We're waiting. We finally was notified. And I'm going to turn it over to Mr. McIntyre to give us the details on that. So essentially, uh, as Superintendent Daily just discussed, uh, we applied for this award. The maximum award amount was $500,000. Um, and we were awarded that. Um, it plays into the strategy of how we've approached our building concerns. and from an environmental approach versus a capital approach. Um based on doing so, we were able to to highlight some of these fixes
024and corrections as decarbonization um strategies which allowed us to apply for this grant and then be awarded this grant. So that's a little bit of credit to us for thinking outside of the box um and approaching it as a grand community project. um you know with the support of the select board we're able to apply for the award and again it's it's a town award so it's not directly to the school or school committee they will have to um vote to accept it and and sign the contracts and everything like that but ultimately it helps pay down um on a debt exclusion that we're anticipating for the the air/ environmental quality project um and it won't come to fruition if that project does not pass. So that would be, you know, we're forfeiting half a
025million dollars that we might not be able to get in the future um if this project doesn't go through. So So now is now is our chance. You know, we're we're chasing all the incentives and grants that we can and we continue to. Um so this is the start of it. We're still awaiting incentive amounts from Eversource. Um, and there are other uh requests for interest grants out there that we can apply this project to that hopefully would amount to to more rewards um and less of a tax impact on the community. So, all good news on this one. Yeah. So, I think this is great and you know I think it's a great first step. So, uh congratulations to you. I know it took a lot of hard work and perseverance to kind of
026stay on top of it. So, thanks for doing that. Would there be a final figure what we'd be seeking through the cadet exclusion for this grant? You know, well, a couple of other incentives, but so then initially the not to exceed number on this project was 4.2 million. This obviously drives that amount down to 3.7 right away. Um, and again, we're still chasing up to, you know, $500,000 on the high side of incentives with Eversource. um which we actually had train out here Tuesday, Monday, I'm not sure what week it is. Um one of those days and they were looking at some of the the concerns that Eversource had to see that if he made these tweaks or adjustments to the system that's being proposed, could it ex increase the incentive um you know exponentially
027so that the added cost of the project is outweighed by the incentive. So that figure is still in play. We hope to have it an estimate by the public hearing next week, if not by the final public public hearing on April 16th. But right now 4.2 reduced by half a million essentially they're not to exceed amount 3.7 million. But it's fair to say that with the savings of electricity, you know, you know, with the solar and you offset that with the cost of the uh debt exclusion that we looking almost a flat figure eventually because it would be saving that amount of money and it be added to the cost of any way you can say over 25 years if the projections came to fruition, you you know, that 3.2ish million that Solar is projecting
028does offset the cost, but it does not um eliminate the fact that we still have to pursue this via debt exclusion. And once a debt exclusion is implemented, we can't recoup that tax increase to the residents. So, it's not an exact wash. Even though the funding to the town or the savings that the town might wash, it won't be to the but it cuts back on the the financial impact on the taxpayer. That's I'm trying. Well, no, not on the taxpayer. No, it's kind of like apples and oranges, right? And then what we need now this the solar savings would ultimately impact the operating budgets of the town by not asking for as much in utility expense which again we don't you know increase the taxes unless it's a proposition to a half override for
029are we still uh under the assumption that the selectmen are going to try to maybe not make it a debt exclusion once we find out all these grants. Um, that's a good question for them. I know they had a meeting last night where they approved the ballot language. Um, and at that point I did hear uh the select board discuss having more meetings and conversations about this project and moving it forward. Um, they didn't specify how what created the exclusion components. You're probably waiting for us to find out how much more of a reduction we're going to get, right? timeline on that. Um so we've met with Eversource three times just since the last school committee meeting trying to accelerate um the process but because a technical analysis on behalf of Eva Source is being
030conducted they're really going through every component of the project that train is put forward and they're questioning it and drilling down and looking at uh sequences all these engineering terms that I can't really explain. Um but it's it's a heavy lift and they understand we're against the timeline and they're doing whatever it can whatever they can um to help us and help the sort. So you're hoping that we'll have a late the second year final. Yes. And there was a range right that gave us it was I think the amount was up to 500 something thousand. Um, again this last meeting there were discussions that there could be more based on the different coil routes and sequences and and controls that they had. Um, I know Train was anticipating in the $300,000 range, you know,
031kind of round one, but we haven't had another conversation to say, you know, are we closing the five now? Again, they were out this week, so things are moving and they're they're trying to maximize that for us. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Next, the school calendar and as you know that was on last month's agenda. So tonight, um there's no changes since last month. We would just be looking for a vote from the school committee to adopt the calendar for next school year. And Dr. Billy, just a reminder, so this is relatively similar, I would imagine, to the past year. No major changes in terms of start. So, could I uh entertain a motion to approve the school calendar as present? Second. All those in favor? I see none. Motion passes. Before I get
032to the recommended um budget, I just want to have a very quick discussion on school choice and actually table it um for next month. Um Patrick and I have been meeting with Desie. We've been looking at all of our options um to see um if there's a possibility of adding some seats say to kindergarten and then over the years we'd have a revolving account for school choice that would actually you know build up so that we have that tuition money for when those students get into high school. And this would only be if we had certain number of seats. It would not be increasing our class sizes. Um it's something we're looking at. We're looking at some legal questions and Jessie is supposed to get back to us, but they haven't yet. So, I'm hoping
033by next month I'll have the answers and we'll have a complete presentation on this. I will be asking for a vote though next month because we have to let Jesse know the number of seats if in fact we do want to go in that direction. And I know this is a very different idea for this committee. But we're we're looking at all of our options, these very tough budget times to see if it would help generate some money for the district. As you know, we get $5,000 per student for school choice. But I think we would do it very not this random, you know, very structured number of seeds to start in kindergarten and work our way that way. But um I'm having Miss McIntyre run the numbers on that. We're getting some questions answered
034from Jessie. So if it's okay with everybody, this will be on next month's agenda and we will be having a vote next month. Okay. Discussion first. What is it? Well, there'll be more discussion. There'll be more discussion. Definitely. I just I don't have all the answers to our questions tonight. Um because quite frankly, Desi is asking their legal counsel because they didn't know some of the answers to the questions that we asked. So, anything else? Okay. So, next is the superintendent's recommended budget. Um, I would ask that we hold all questions until the end um so that we can get through the presentation, but tonight we're presenting to you the FY26 Superintendent's recommended budget. This budget has started with our leadership team members submitting their initial requests based on actual spending and needs. This information
035has been compiled and analyzed closely by the business office and myself. Um since these initial requests, we've met many many times with central administration and the leadership team members as well as our budget subcommittee meeting. Um, we've also had a meeting with the finance committee and we've really been able to sharpen our pencils and reduce the initial asks significantly knowing that we have limited funding between the town and the state. Um as typical we will be receiving your feedback on this current recommendation uh for the budget and then we'll make any necessary changes and then we would plan to have a joint meeting also with the board of selectmen and the fincom and hold a public hearing thereafter. Um, but we would be looking for the school committee to adopt a final budget prior to
036the town meeting on June 2nd as a final. So ultimately, I think in the past, you know, we've presented the recommended budget. The next month we've held a public hearing for the meeting. Then the month following, if we didn't adopt the budget, then by school committee, we would look to in May. Um you know we've strategized in the past we go faster or slower depending on the state numbers and you know the expectations on those changing and then again with conversations with the town um you know them sharpening their numbers on the other departmental budgets as well as revenue projections. Um so the timeline is a little bit fluid right now but we will look to dial that in with this team and ultimately you know um whether we have to call a special school
037committee meeting or anything otherwise we would need an adopted budget by June 2nd which is the the time. I think it's important to note that we're we it's fluid. We continue to receive changing changes as recent as today with high school tuitions people moving in and out. So, um, we're trying to get you the exact numbers. Um, okay. As you know, these are our current mission and vision statements, and both revolve around partnerships with all to promote student success and growth, and we aim to be a high-erforming district. Right now, we're currently in the process of reviewing our strategic plan, and we're writing a new one to begin next school year. And these are our strategic objectives. We have achieving academic excellence for all students. And we do this because we have a complete staffing
038pattern which includes teachers, carers, coaches, interventionists, librarians, specialists, etc. We know that what we are doing is working as the scores at the middle and the elementary schools continue to rise. And AES was recently recognized this year by US News and World Reports at best schools. AES ranked 104 out of over 1500 elementary schools in the state, placing the elementary school in the top 7%. Prior to that, as you know, we were recognized nationally one in 55 schools across the nation as a national distinguished school. Uh so we do continue to receive national attention. Also FMS continues to be a model for applied learning and the school has been recognized recently by the 18 Foundation and you'll have a presentation on that next month. Creating thriving social emotional learning for all students. An example of
039this is the enrichment afterchool program at AEES and we had that presentation today from Alphabet as well as the sports program and the clubs at FMS and advisory. We also have responsive classroom districtwide strengthening partnerships with parents in the larger community. We send out parent and student surveys to encourage a sense of belonging for all students. We we partner with many people in the community for field trips. We're maintaining our facilities so a lot of our youth organizations can access our schools. This year we've been developing a new survey with cutting edge with a cutting edge tool which you'll be seeing in the very near future to help us get feedback and insight from all of our families and stakeholders. And as you know, we've been working very hard towards significant improvements to our buildings
040in which we will have two public hearings in the near future. So these three pillars sometimes work together and overlap. So just as a background um we wanted to discuss in general how our operating budget is funded year. So accordingly, the key components are town appropriation, state aid, federal and state grants, circuit breaker reimbursements, as well as other funds. Um so for town appropriation, um that's based on chapter 70 formula and it's disclosed as required district contribution. And for FY26, the state is requiring the town to fund the school's budget by a minimum of approximately 9.3 million. So generally, the town funds approximately 57% of the school district's budget. We also want to recognize that the town doesn't only fund the school district or our own operating expenses, but they also incur additional expenses related
041to the insurance for active and retired employees, debt service, and for our capital projects as well as other expenses. So, these also live within the town's operating budget. state aid. The governor's numbers show that we once again are a whole commerce district or or a minimum aid district where they would have preliminary budgeted for us to receive an increase of only $75 per student. So, generally chapter 7 funds approximately 43% of the school district's operating budget. And then we have federal and state grants and those are listed as the um ESSA grants $137,000. The IDEIDA grants at $329,000 and our accelerationmies and applied learning grants that we've received at $50,000. We have the reimbursement of special education related expenses from our circuit breaker reimbursement at $145,000. And then of course we have revolving funds such
042as the school fund service, the school food service fund which funds um completely 100% of that food service program at $600,000. We have the school rental fund at $21,000, our preschool tuition fund at $62,000 and our solar credits at $244,000. So, just to highlight something new in this year's budget, again, as you know, we work to be creative and and try to relieve the town is as much of an expense as we can. Um, we've decided to implement our revolving funds to help fund our budget. So, those those line items down towards the bottom are new. I mean, obviously, our food service program, we fund 100% through that reimbursement annually. Um, that's not the case everywhere, you know. So, that that is a good job again by our school district. Um sometimes salaries the director
043or other expenses overflow into the operating budget. We have the luxury to be able to selfund that not ask the town for any funds for our food service budget. Um the school rental fund, those are the fees that we receive from, you know, soccer renting our fields, basketball renting our our space. You know, Alphabest helps pay a rental fee for the space that they use um for their their care. Um, so this year we were anticipating on using $21,000 to offset our operating budget, something we haven't done in the past and we were waiting to do um once we established, you know, a a a healthy fund balance in that account um you know, sort of before gambling it away. Um similarly in the preschool tuition fund, we're looking to use that fund, you know,
044the tuitions that parents pay for their students to attend. Um use those revenues to help offset $62,000 worth of costs that we would normally ask the town for. And then the solar credits are part of a deal um way back with rental a solar sort of again like a PPA agreement where um credits have been on the books and continue to utilize those to offset our utility costs. Moving to the next slide. This is I guess really difficult for those in the crowd to try to see from your seats, but ultimately this is the preliminary chapter 70 uh summary that's given to us um once the state budget moves along. Um so initially the governor is proposing a $75 per pupil increase um for our district. So again, minimum aid, health harmless. And really what
045I want to focus on is the comparison to FY25. So you know, our enrollment is down approximately 42 students, which is based on our October one numbers. That's kind of the standard uh report that they use year in and year out for a lot of uh compiled data. Um so at that point in time, our enrollment from 25 projected for 26 is down 42 students, which impacts our funding. Um, our foundation budget has increased $16,821. And ultimately what that represents is the amount that the state thinks you need to spend on your budget to provide an adequate education. Um, from there they adjust it based on your demographics of special ed students, English language learners, um, other components uh, that have left my mind at this point. Um, but altogether, you know, that's the bare
046minimum that they expect. They required the town to fund the budget, 9.2 million, which Superintendent Bailey spoke about. That's a $435,000 increase year-over-year from 25. So, almost a 5% increase that they're expecting the town to pulling up on um the school budget. Um, while their aid has only increased $84,000 or 1.16%. Um together those two figures equal your net school spending which again is required. Um if you do not hit this target they will withhold chapter 7 funds or or make you utilize them in a future year and then if you don't they will penalize you. Um so it's important that we hit net school spending every year. And ultimately um the required net school spending percent of a foundation budget they expect us to spend 6.54% over um again the foundation budget which to
047them is determined as that adequate education that we're responsible in giving our students. Um more on this later. Okay. This chart outlines the chapter 70 funding that we've received over the past seven years. So, as you can see, aid has been very minimal um every year except for FY24. Um and that's really due to the implementation of the student opportunity act. So minimum funding has been very detrimental to our district in town in appropriately funding our operating budget as the cost to provide an adequate education to our students outpaces the base funding and minimal increase dictated by chapter 7 funding formula. So, specific to FY26, um the increase is only $84,8825 or an increase of 1.16%. So, that does not even cover the cost of the increase of our yellow bus transportation for next year.
048So, another slide with a lot of numbers and a lot of figures, but what I want to boil it down to is just trends, right? knocking that button. So, chapter 70, you've seen it. It slightly increased year-over-year 6% 0% half a percentage 1% you know 10.84% again that was in relation to implementing the student opportunity act when we received a big jump. Um 1.7% and then 1.16% is what we're currently looking at. Required talent contribution again this is required by the state has again significantly increased 5% versus the 6.6% 6% we received in chapter 70 you know so on and so forth um up to 5 excuse me 4.92% in FY26 um is the increase over the years we've realized again you know at net school spending we haven't been able to operate as a
049school so generally school districts spend above net school spending um and and by doing so you know there's additional talent contribution that is needed outside of what is required by the So, it's important to see, you know, again, that number has fluctuated year-over-year. Um, but we've really done a good job in the past 3 years to kind of keep that honed in. While all these operating costs and mandated costs have increased, you know, exponentially, we've kept down the the require the additional contribution that the town has needed to give our operating budget, which ultimately means we're stretching the dollar that, you know, the state is requiring between town and chapter 70. Um, again, in the past, you can see we used to have to ask for you know 10% on average more than what has
050been required. So that formula has kind of leveled out, but also we've been able to to to reel it in and not, you know, be overzealous in what we ask the town for increases. Um, and then in summary, our total operating budget, you know, you can find in this column, it's increased, you know, 3 2% over the years in the past. Um, we dealt with inflation, special ed increases, transportation increases. Um, and now we're landing at a 4.6% increase. Um, again, town share has always hovered around, no matter what the total budget has been, has always hovered around 57%. Um, even less next year and in the past couple years. Uh, one thing I do want to point out and just remind everyone, in the last year, we sort of agreed with the town and
051internally to fund our budget with some one-time funding, um, which represented our prepaid tuitions and, uh, some stabilization reserve. If you take these components out of the picture, last year's budget increase would have been about a 4.3% increase. From there, this year's amount would only be a 2.36% increase. So again, if those another way of putting that is if those stayed consistent, if we had another $360,000 to offset our budget this year through stabilization and prepaid tuitions, we'd ultimately only be looking at a 2.3% increase. Okay, so net school spending has disproportionately increased at an average of $459,627 or 3.13%. Placing a higher burden on town funding, which as you saw in the last slide, we've we've kept to a minimum. Circuit breaker reimbursement is directly dependent on eligible expenditures and everchanging reimburseable rates. So
05275% for instruction and tuition and 44% for transportation in FY25. Ultimately the more expensive services become the more you are reimbursed. Um revolving funds are directly dependent on what we charge families. So, as you know that we charge families for preschool tuitions or community groups who rent our space as M. McIntyre alluded to earlier. Um, that's another offset to uh solar credits is another offset and that's rapidly decreasing because of the spike in utility costs and it could nearly dry up by the end of next school year. We have high school tuition costs and we can't control these costs as they're calculated based on the formulas included in those outdated contracts that I mentioned earlier tonight. So, we're taking a closer look at this to renegotiate those contracts for next uh for the next several
053years actually. So, ultimately, you know, the town has averaged approximately $500,000 in growth year-over-year. We've had discussions with them on that amount and you know some of it is to conservatively budget for revenue. Um some of it it is best practice to fund free cash at x% or close out uh your stabilization at x%. Um but again you know you'll see later on in the presentation our mandated costs nearly outpace this number year over year as well. Um, other things to highlight on here is, you know, our high school tuition as Superintendent Bailey just spoke about, we don't have a high school, you know, we don't have the FTEs for a high school in our budget, but we we make up for those amounts in these tuitions that we pay. Um, which are always a
054large portion of our budget. Um, so just again important things to highlight. Okay, next one. I know you've all seen this slide before, but I think it's important to keep mentioning that our budget is composed mainly of fixed costs. So, the first is salaries and wages. We have approximately 137 uh full-time equivalent staff members. Many of our of our employees belong to a union. Those who do not are typically employed under one to sixyear contracts, and all agreements dictate an individual's employees annual pay and benefits. uh technology. We're a onetoone district, as you know, meaning that we have a ratio of one device for every student in the district, which allows equitable learning for all students. And it also permits immersive learning, gamification, better engagement, blended learning environments, whether it's online or in person, and
055the ability for long-distance learning if needed. Um so with this comes the fixed cost of maintaining a strong and safe technological infrastructure that can support our devices teachers as well as our student needs. Our curriculum that's the central guide for our educators as to what is essential for teaching and learning so that every student has access to a rigorous academic experience. So without core curriculum, teaching techniques would be disjointed and inconsistent from one classroom to another as we know that was the feedback that I had received when I first started. So in order to substantially save funding on curriculum, we generally enter into one to threeyear contracts fixing that cost over that period of time. Special education. So out of everything on the slide, this is the most volatile, unpredictable, but it's mandated, right? So
056on a per pupil basis, special education costs are at a minimal um approximately double that of a general education student to provide equitable services to all students. We must have funding for fixed and mandated costs which support early identification assessment related and social and emotional services just to name a few things in the special education realm. Um and finally in order to be eligible for supplemental education funding our district must budget and spend at least the same amount of funds as the prior year which is known as maintenance of effort. transportation. We're legally Massachusetts um schools are legally mandated to provide transportation to students who reside more than two miles from the school. But our school committee um has adjusted this threshold um the distance to a mile and a half, I believe. But the
057cost for transportation to our district is approximately 1.45 million um for both general and special education. and the in um the increases it and it increases regularly due to the contractual obligations that we have. And then last is not last but high school tuitions. Um we've already said we don't have a high school so we're legally mandated to pay tuition for resident students who are attending area high schools. Um traditionally this is covered in a municipal budget. However, in a Christian, we have the added challenge of carrying that expense in our school operating budget. So, high school tuition costs make up approximately 21% of our school budget and it's one of the more unpredictable costs because, as we said, we've got students moving in um and out and we just we don't know. Um we
058currently pay tuitions to Bristol Aggie Fairhaven High School as well as New Bedford High School. And then we have operations and maintenance. Um the district's parcel of land is 54 acres where we have building spaces, parking and recreational space that cover majority of that acreage and and it all requires our attention. Um maintaining and operating our facilities is very costly to the schools. These schools were constructed over 50 years ago. So much of our major equipment is out ofd and inefficient. So while we work very hard to mitigate the costs that we are able to, many of those related costs to operations and maintenance are fixed and they do become significant budget drivers. So again, this should be a familiar slide. Um, you know, every year we start our budget as superintendent Bailey discussed with
059departmental asks, but ultimately we boil it down to our baseline budget or our level services budget. So we take how we operated in fiscal 25 and what would it cost to provide those same services or maintain those operations in fiscal 26. Um, so what this slide highlights is our fiscal 25 budget was about 16.4 million. Um, and from personnel costs alone, that increases, if we do not make any changes to personnel, $355,000. Um, you know, again, comparatively to a half a million dollar revenue growth in town that we're discussing, that's significant. Um, administrative costs have actually decreased. Um, instruction costs have decreased as well. Uh a large portion of that is because of in FY25 there was curriculum that came up for renewal that we did pay for three-year curriculum. So some of that, you
060know, organically helped us realize savings um in fiscal 26, but also we are, you know, we aren't entering into as many three-year deals because we're looking for these grants of free open source curriculum and applied learning grants um that have have, you know, started off as trials but have produced results. Um and, you know, we're looking at sticking with those items. So that that is reflective in a decrease there as well. uh people services um decreased minimally, operations and maintenance uh increased slightly. Again, that's typical when we look at, you know, what contractors are charging and they're all increasing their rates year-over-year. We need to project for that. Um community services, again, minimal increase, and then programs with other school districts. That sort of highlights our high school tuitions and out of district tuitions related
061to special ed. um that ultimately, you know, we either don't have the resources for in-house or we can't yeah, we can't otherwise provide the services that we have to contract them out. Um actually, a big piece of that increase too is the $360,000 that we spoke about as a onetime offset last year. So, um if you factor that in, this would really be a decrease, but ultimately that's because we've had some students age out of our programs. And then again, that's once again offset by the increased cost of contractual uh fees to to some of the collaboratives and the transportation um for these killers. So, we're looking at a baseline budget um of 17,13,870. Um, again, our goal is always to provide level services, but with changing demographics and the needs of our students coming
062out of the pandemic, we're seeing more and more challenging needs of our students. And we realize that we do have to make changes. So, one of the changes that we'd like to highlight tonight that we will be making and proposing for next year's budget is the additional um FTE for special education self-contained classroom subseppparate classroom and going along with that. So, that's $79,000 and going along with that is the van transportation. Um, and it's much more efficient for us to provide those services to the students inhouse than pay the tuition as well as the transportation for each of those students to go out of district. Right. So to elaborate on that a little more, I'm going to do the math on my calculator and shoot here, but you know, $133,000 adjustment for essentially a whole
063another classroom that services, you know, five plus kiddos, um, which otherwise would almost cost $80,000 per kiddo out of district, you know, for transportation and tuition related. We're able to keep that in house and save substantially. So it just it makes sense. So we're looking for an increase of $133,000 just over that. So we started with a baseline of 17,13,870. We added 13 just over $133,000 for the 1.0 FTE for the subsparate classroom which we discussed would ultimately save the town and the district hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, the superintendent recommended budget lands us at 17,146,872. Okay. So, as you can see, hopefully you can see it. I know the type is a little small, but the salaries are 60% of the overall budget or 2.65% 65% increase. If you remove high school tuitions,
064then the salaries would actually make up 76% of the overall budget. So, we really we don't build in the flexibility into these budget lines. What you see is what is actually being paid. So, for example, if there's an employee that is replaced and they need come off the books at 60,000 and we have to bring someone on for 80,000, we make up that difference in our budget. We don't go to the town and ask for more money, at least since I've been here. Um, we make up that difference. We also don't charge any food service salaries in our local budget. As we talked about before, these are charged to the school lunch revolving account, which is 100% self- sustaining. Transportation is 8.4% of the overall budget and a 33% of the overall increase. So, there
065is a mechanism for us to be reimbursed for some of our special ed and homeless transportation through circuit breaker. However, unlike regional school districts, we do not receive transportation reimbursement. Um, see, tuition is 20.86% of the overall budget, which includes high school tuition and out of district special ed tuitions. Historically, the budget has carried extra seats for tuition and enrollment unknowns. Um, but obviously we can't do that because of the budget situation. Um it in the past we've discussed with the town a verbal agreement that if we had savings as a result of local high school tuitions we would return those funds to the town or opposite if we see increases due to the result of local high school tuitions um we would request additional funding from the town. So overall these fixed costs which
066are highlighted in blue are 89.86 86% of the budget and they result in a 5.12% increase. And please note the overall increase is only 4.59%. So all other items represent 10.14% of the budget and results um in a 53% a 53% decrease. um included in here are more mandated costs instructional and special education. So just to reiterate, Superintendent Bailey, again, what we're trying to do here is highlight, hey, a lot of these costs are fixed, you know, um and all these other other categories that we can control, we've ultimately cut from, you know, to the tune of $86,000. Um you know throughout this process, Superintendent Bailey has highlighted um the importance not to touch our personnel um and to maintain our staffing pattern that we have. Um which is why you know again this is
067a a representation of you know a larger portion of our budget but also a larger portion of our increase. Um and then we worked hard on these other lines to really keep them to a minimum or a decrease um where we can. Again, some of these things like transportation just locked in to kind of contract out of district tuitions. We just don't have the personnel, the space, um the assets to to run programs and then these kids back in district um outside of you know the subsearate classroom or otherwise special ed services that we already maintain again. Um so ultimately I'm just showing you the same information in a different way. So this is based on desi object codes. Um so you know overall 4.59% increase. You can see we've cut other expenses by 25,000.
068We've cut supplies and materials by 100,000. Um other salaries this isn't so much a cut as it is an offset to those revolving accounts. Um removing them from operations. But then you know our no object codes are 9,000 series which is our high school tuitions or out of district costs. um some of the special ed transportation um as well or excuse me Bristol County transportation and then you know our professional salaries which we've already discussed you know we want to maintain that staffing pattern. Um so it's just another way of looking at it to show you know where we've sort of tried to buckle down and reduce costs. Um and again same thing another direction. So you can see at the district level of expenses was reduced with you know minimally but it did increase
069so that's a win right um special education has increased again I alluded to a larger portion of this is due to the onetime offset that we had in prior year that does not exist this year so it looks like it's higher than it really is um combine that with some moveouts and then overall increases for the services that we provide um you know it's it's still an increase with those one-time offsets Um the Christian elementary, this is reflective again everything under that roof. So personnel, salaries, curriculum for middle school. So minimal increases at the school level and then again get into high school and special education high school services and there's a little bit of a spike there as well. Just another way to look at it and try to isolate different categories. Yeah, but
070just to go over some stats, we average about a 100 students in each grade. Um, but we do have fluctuating enrollment. So, some years it's higher and lower, but what we like to do is um shift or shuffle a teacher when we have to based on enrollment. So, it's not always an ad. Um, we've had to find as you know um which negatively impacts our chapter 70 funding. Um, so compared to the state average, I think the thing I really want to highlight here is that our district has more students in a class. So we're able to have three additional students because we provide excellent PD for our teachers. They're well trained. It's really not realistic in a cushion to try to compete with this number per se with the state. Um, we agree that
071we continuously advocate for smaller classes, especially in the K to2, but you may think that these are big asks for our district, but on average, $1,000 less per student than the state, all while outperforming the state. Important to note, and I'm just going to highlight some of those numbers because I have it in front of me. Um, but ultimately, so what we highlighted here was our PK through 8th grade. in fact in high school. So on average, you know, our class composite is 946 students. Um our classroom size, as Dr. Bailey alluded to, um averages around 20.09 kiddos in a class over the last uh couple of years anyway, grades K through eight. The state averages about 17. Um and then, you know, more importantly, we're able to educate these students at a higher level
072at a lower cost. if you will. Um where state average for per pup people expenditures is about $16,000 versus maybe our estimated $12,000 um here in Kushnet or a delta of you know $4,000 less than the state. And you'll see that why that's important as we proceed to the MCCAST slides. Um again $12,000 to educate a student in the Kushnet versus 16,000 in the state. Yeah, we all perform them in almost every MCAST category that Superintendent Bailey is going to go over. Yeah, and this is a separate presentation on data, but just this is an ELA, three years of MCAST data for ELA, we're meeting or exceeding 12% higher than the state. Then if you go to the next one, the math, we're 12% higher than the state. And in science, we're 4% higher than
073the state. Um, so again, this shows how important it is that we need to continue to fund our schools. Our data has been very consistent over the years, and we're doing more with less. So, closing remarks. Um, this is the superintendent's recommended budget. It was an all-incclusive process that, um, principles spoke to teachers, to staff. We met several times with the leadership team, with our central office administration, um several meetings with the budget subcommittee. Um so the next steps of the budget process will continue to collaborate um with input from the entire committee, the public as well as town administration. Every item in the budget can be aligned to our strategic objectives that I went over tonight. And then the budget maintains level services and looks forward to growth opportunities and efficiencies as we move
074forward. So we're strongly encouraging everyone, all of our stakeholders to stay engaged throughout the process. Um, as considerations take place on how to address the needs of our schools and other town departments, it's really important that everybody have input and their voices are heard. This is important to keep in mind. For each percentage, 1% of our budget, it represents approximately $171,469, which is the equivalent of two to three teachers or two school buses or chapter 78 for 26 students. All budget decisions have consequences and behind every number is a student, a teacher, etc. And just because a need goes unfunded does not mean that the need has gone away. Then in close for me um you know again just highlighting the figures here right so our budget increase our 17.1 million ask is an increase
075of about $750,000 year-over-year. Um if we were asked to maintain just a 3% increase ultimately we're saying we would have deficits and services down to 261,000 um you know we can follow that trend up the ladder. Um what was a reduction to our budget mean? It would mean ultimately reduction in staffing. You saw we cut from almost every other category. Um so next would ultimately become staffing. um significant changes in programming which is tough to do this late in a year and just to do on the fly you know in one year not you know in line with the strategic plan. Um we would have to consider student fees obviously with discussion from the budget subcommittee and school committee. Um or we would just have to start eliminating you know some of the activities that
076we provide and some of the services that we provide which again inevitably would uh you know create overall setbacks as a district here in the progress that we've made um and on the national level. So um and we continue to strategize. So you know we're looking at new things with the tuition contracts. Um, we're going to try to be creative with some of the language uh that we eventually negotiate to make sure that the fees that we're paying for tuition are fair to us, but also fair to the the high schools that rely on those revenue sources. Um, earlier in the meeting, we talked about potentially looking at school choice and seeing if there's a model where school choice makes sense um at the small tuition rate that we would receive over, you know, K
077through 8, 8th grade before they're sent to high school. Um, we could talked on and off about regionalization and I know that hasn't left, you know, the table on a possibility in the future. Um, you know, to address operational needs from a facility standpoint. Um, we've we've procured energy management services projects, which I would argue, you know, have saved money from just outright procuring as construction of paying for services. um five by 10 years. We were able to kind of pile it all together and provide incentive and rebates and savings that we wouldn't otherwise realize. Um you know, in the past we've changed our policies and fees. So for preschool, you know, we have to make sure that that rate stays competitive and in line with what we'd be reimbursed by the state or would
078make sense to charge um versus get chapter 70 use of facilities. you know, we don't want to outpace what our youth organizations can afford, but it's important again that, you know, we're paying to keep the lights and the heat on for when they do use those facilities. Um, school lunch, again, we try to maintain a proper fund balance so that we do not have to ask the town for any expenses related to school lunch. And you know, I know our curriculum director has been working hard at, you know, finding ways to bring down the cost of curriculum in the district um and apply new strategies and and the teaching and learning. Um we've seen the results and we've seen the savings. So that's important to continue to keep focus on as well. Well, thank you
079so much. And at this time, we'll take your questions. Um, have we heard from the town of any changed numbers in the last meeting that we've had? We have not. I know they are going through their departmental budgets at the town level. Um, and they're really trying to dial those in and find, you know, every opportunity for savings or or, you know, realistic cuts in those departments. Um so they are sharpening the pencil and trying to get their projections more accurate and their departmental budgets um you know reasonable I guess if you will but nothing far has been included to us on the bottom line. So the revenues haven't changed or funding from state or anything. We haven't had any updates. So, this is where we're at. We'll be working closely with the committee, especially
080the budget subcommittee to see about a timeline if you want. I know it's very fluid right now, but we want to keep it open, but the goal would be hopefully to possibly vote on this next month. No other questions? Do you think by I'm sorry. Do you think by next month we'll have some more information from the town? Again, it's it's a question for the town. I'd be happy to ask. I know they're going through their budget process and you know, I I hope you know, we have to plan a joint meeting in common and the select board as well. Um, so I'm hoping to gather more information through those avenues. Um, and then again, feedback on our presentation from tonight. You know, this committee needs to digest that and and let the superintendent and
081myself know kind of where we stand and what we're going to push forward with. Um, you know, while we continue to try to think outside the box and understand, you know, we understand the situation that the town, the state, you know, the federal government is in at this point. Um, you know, we're doing our best again to put our put the right feet forward in our district to to continue to provide excellent educations for our students. We don't want to go backwards. Correct. Now, to make it very clear, we've shaved off everything we possibly could. Um but our all of our money is in the classrooms and staffing and we don't want to touch that if we don't have to. So if we do have to cut the next round would we unfortunately would have
082to look at staffing. We're hoping not to go there though as all these reasons that we just talked about tonight. It's important that we refund the schools and we're not asking for a lot. We're really not especially with the inflation of transportation and special ed costs. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Next, um the superintendent contract, we will go into executive session for that. And that is all I have. Super tonight. Director of technology business management just there. Any other schools? [Applause] Okay. So, there's uh other communication information, district newsletter, AES newsletter, the environment quality update, FMS newsletter, personnel report communication. I did want to just um publicly recognize on behalf of the committee Mrs. Potier who donated a guitar to the FMS music department. So thank you Mrs. Pier for that generous donation. We appreciate it.
083Uh so I think that's it for tonight. We would I would ask for a motion that we would and we would return a meeting to executive session pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 38 section 2182 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiation non personnel where to conduct contract negotiations with non union personnel including superintendent and business manager to reconvene in open session for the purpose of superior contract. Given the late hour, uh there's some additional discussion that needs to take place which we will table for April. So we will not take a vote tonight on the superintendent contract. So may I have a motion to adjurnn in the meeting? So moved. Second. Yes, Mr. Hood. Yes, Mr. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Meaning is a Thank you. Thank [Music] you. Heat. Heat.