001Welcome to the meeting of the Londereerry School Board to be held on Tuesday, October 7th, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the library at Londereerry High School, 295 Mammoth Road, Londereerry, New Hampshire. The meeting will also be broadcast on local cable access channel 8 as well as the district YouTube channel. Could we please rise for the pledge of allegiance, please? to the back of the room right there. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Uh moving into consent agenda. Uh here we go. Upcoming meetings will be October 21st, 2025, regular schoolboard meeting uh down in the cafe at 7:00 p.m. and on November 4th, 2025 will be a
002regular schoolboard meeting downstairs in the cafe at 7 p.m. Could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50. Thank you. Um, moving into announcements and presentations. Jason, >> thank you. Um, London High School's Community Service Club is hosting the fifth annual Walk to Fight ALS on October 25th at 9:30 on the high school track. Um, participants and and people supporting this cause can purchase raffle tickets uh to win gift certificates to local businesses and restaurants, and all proceeds will be donated to the ALS association. If anyone in the community would like to honor uh someone they've lost to ALS, the community service club would be happy to have a lawn banner made for them. You
003just have to contact Kelly Jigier at the high school by October 16th. Uh it's a great event and we look forward to it on October 25th. >> Thank you, Jason. All right, I'll jump right into public comment. If anyone has public comment, please come up to the mic, state your name and address, and you have five minutes. Christine Perez, 5 Wesley Drive. So, last year I put in a bill and it got through and it passed and it was signed by the governor and I'm very proud of it and I'm more proud of London School District for what they did. So, my bill was the Constitution bill. Everybody knows when Memorial Day is and everybody knows when Veterans Day is, but it was amazing to me the number of people that had no idea when
004Constitution Day is and the history behind it because it was originally immigration day way back and it changed all this. So, I reached out to um Chairman Slater and asked him to tell me what um the schools were doing. And I have to say I was amazed. Y'all did an amazing job bringing it forward at all levels and I am so happy for you for doing that. So I just want you to know that I do appreciate it that my bill was honored. So thank you very much. It was brought to my attention that there's a lot of concern about kids being transported uh additionally to um learning tree and I it's my understanding that Ammon got quite a few calls on that and I just wondered if y'all were going to be discussing it
005at any time soon or >> we we we haven't talked about that. So, this is news to us. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Because I I do believe parents have been calling. It's my understanding >> they do. I have stuff to talk to you guys about in non-public with specifics because again, my main purpose in being here was to thank you all for doing such an amazing job. I even put one of the things you had on my political page because I got such a kick out of it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Christine. >> Anyone else? Seeing none, I'll close public comment and we'll move into committee reports. Student our student representatives here. Welcome. >> Okay. Okay. Um so for schoolwise, they're coming up next Thursday. We have the PSATs for the high school.
006It's a half day for freshman, sophomores, and juniors. Uh where they'll take the PSAT for I believe reading and math. Um, it's a no school day for seniors. Um, and everyone's just being getting prepared for it. >> Craft fair. >> Um, and then we also have the craft fair coming up. That'll be on Saturday, November 22nd, and we're finalizing a few things, but we can't wait for it and we're excited to see um students show up for that. And then what else do we have? Um I guess just >> in news of MacPack there was great spirit throughout all of MacPack. Um I know we talked about that at the last meeting but it was great spirit for both schools um for the all of MacPack. >> Awesome. >> Thank you both uh for that
007great information and I will uh please send back to your class and all your all the students that there was great representation. and I was able to make it to all the events um on both days and uh there was great support from from the student body and um just a little challenge for next year. I'd like to see that doubled. So just just to put a little pressure to hear that I'll bring that back for sure. >> But the support is uh was great and uh the enthusiasm um between uh the Lancers and the Astros was good too. Good spirit on both sides. So great job by the Lancers. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, moving to 5.2. Uh, schoolboard leaison. Amanda, >> I just have a couple new things from last time. Um,
008the kindergarten open house is I didn't write the date down. Oh man, hang on. Um well the teacher workshop is 10:22 and then um the PTA meets the first Thursday of every month at um 6 p.m. They offer online and in person um opportunities to join that and are always looking for volunteers for their upcoming events. And then if you could shoot back to me in one minute I'll have the date of the open house. I believe it's tomorrow but I just want to make sure. >> Sure. >> You want me to go? >> Yeah. >> I just have a few uh dates for LMS. Same thing. PSATs are next Thursday. 10:16. There's a sixth grade social on October 24th right after school. And 10:29 we have picture retake day. Um for the high school
009we have apply New Hampshire day on for seniors on October 28th. That's going to be in the library here. And starting 10:21 we have the drama club is hosting the haunted woods the town comics. >> Thank you Sarah. And that is um the 8th for the kindergarten open house. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you, Amanda. Tim. >> Yeah. So, I have a couple updates for Matthew Thornton. Uh the second uh school year PTA meeting will be this Thursday, the 9th, uh Matthew Thornton Library at 6:00 p.m. for anyone that can attend. And then next Thursday, the 16th, is the annual fall festival, which is always a great time over there in the Matthew Thornton Courtyard. Uh cost is $35 per family and they'll have a petting farm, uh inflatable corn maze, sack races, music, dancing, cornhole,
010uh pumpkin decorating contest, and uh numerous other things, including raffle baskets. So, um there is a rain date for a week after on October 23rd, but the uh date for right now is next Thursday, the 16th for anyone that can come out to attend. So Kevin, >> uh just quick update from the CIP committee. The final meeting for that has been moved from a week ago Monday is now going to be October 22nd, uh 6 p.m. So in the Moose Hill chamber again. >> Great. Thank you, Kevin. And just a couple things. Uh attended the town council meeting last night. Um, as I brought up a couple meetings ago, they are going to uh start a 501c for old home day and look for volunteers and a committee to put that together and be run
011by the community and volunteers again, but having uh help internally um with funds and collecting and and getting information out through some of the staff. Um, but they're going to try to go back to the way it used to be, which is great news. Um and then they had an update on the budget committee um um process that was brought up to the council uh a couple years ago. It was on a Warren article if whether the budget committee should um become uh elected and do more either set the default budget um and be more involved with setting of the regular budget. But after discussion last night, it sounds like they're going to start on the ground level and just work internally with quarterly state quarterly updates with the budget committee, get them involved year
012round. um which we can look at um inviting them to our quarterly meeting when you when you're going to in um give that to us AMD and we can put a invite out to them that that's the night just to kind of keep them more informed in any major um funding or that if we can notify them that we may be having a public hearing on a deposit I think if we can do that due diligence they'll be kept up with things rather than um go through a charter change at this time. So, it looks like the town manager worked it out with the council to head in that direction and uh we'll stay tuned. Um and they're going to do their part with them as well. So, they're engaged all year. >> Is there
013a specific budget committee member that is our liaison? >> Um Joe was there with Joe. Okay. >> Yep. The chairman. >> And and just for reference, quarter one report will be at the next meeting. >> Okay. Great. and um district office project we had uh met um week and a half ago and uh moved ahead with uh the committee unanimously moved ahead to go to 50% plans and should see those in roughly 6 weeks or so Dan somewhere >> somewhere there >> yeah did you want to add anything to that Dan >> no I'll just adjust but uh that pro process is moving forward with uh the task force with uh town and school in a joint venture for district office uh next uh where the old district office used to be. So stay tuned
014for that. And that's all we have for leaison. So we'll move into deliberations and 6.1 uh substitute nurse rates. AMD and Lisa >> just wait for Lisa to join us. >> Okay. >> Oh, okay. >> Do you want to go ahead? So, um, just as a little background, I know it's come up at several meetings over the years, um, that what we pay sub nurses is abysmal. We pay $12.86 an hour for a sub nurse. Um, and it's, it's come into play now that we're having a very hard time filling nurse substitute positions, and we've had several open since the school year started. Um, so HR and the business office met. We also talked with student services. Um, we believe that the need shows that we would like to increase this rate. Um, HR did
015a great job reaching out to neighboring districts. No surprise, we were at the very bottom of what every other district surrounding us pays for sub nurses. The average was $200 a day. That was the most common that we saw. Um, so we would like to propose tonight um that we raise our sub nurse rate to $25 an hour, which would be about $169 a day. This is a good starting point. and it doubles what we're offering um to see if it helps fill that need and it doesn't exceed any of the pdium that our um professional nurses that we have on staff all the time make currently. >> Any questions? >> Do you feel as though um what I'd like to see is try this and let update us if you're not having much luck
016and we can look at this again as well. >> Absolutely. We'll keep >> sound like a plan. >> Yeah, that should work great. Thank you. >> Yeah, that's great. Um, seeing no questions, I'll look for a motion to uh increase um the substitute nurse rate to 25 an hour. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> Thank you. All right. Policies uh 6.2. Uh it's our second reading to amend policy JICJ. Unauthorized electronic communication devices including cell phones. Any changes to what was presented, Dan? I didn't. >> Yep. Um so the the changes are in red or they're in the crossed out. So, we just made very clear in the fourth paragraph that devices can be stored away, out of sight, and can also
017be stored in a student backpack or locker. Just being very clear there. >> And then we got rid of the paragraph below it that I think was, you know, just causing some confusion. And then everything else has has stayed the same uh based on um the comments and discussion from last time. Okay. Any questions? Seeing none, I will look for a motion to approve the second reading to amend policy JICJ. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I. 5-0. Thank you. All right. We got a bunch of first readings. So we'll take these one at a time. 6.3 first reading to adopt policy K public complaints. So, um, all the policy I guess the lowhanging fruit in terms of policies are gone. So, we're into
018more substantive stuff. So, if there's anything here that we want to take more time on, we can. There is no rush. Uh, but I just I put on a, you know, a series of of uh different policies and there's definitely more coming. So, the next two are kind of related. So, public complaints. Um, we haven't updated it since 1978. So, that's been a while. So, what we did is we went to the New Hampshire School Board Association. So, K is their updated language and then KL would be what we resend. Um, you know, I I I thought they laid it out clearly. We can definitely make updates to it. We can make additions. Um, we can cross things out, but it's just how how public complaints come in and how we deal with them. And
019I thought I thought that was a a good one to to look at. >> Okay. >> All right. Any questions for Dan? Okay. >> And these these are looking through them quickly. There is some wording in this that we'll take some time with. So we'll just for the second reading. >> That's fine. >> Where we typically make changes in the third reading before it's finalized. So >> I would just encourage everybody um to to read through these um in these areas for for any wording that may jump out at you. Yes, sir. Um, so let's go with uh 6.3 uh motion to approve the first reading to adopt policy K public complaints, please. >> So move. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> 6.4 to approve
020the first reading to resend policy KL public complaints. Please. Uh motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor? >> I 50. And 6.5, a motion to approve the first reading to adopt policy KB, public complaints about school personnel, employees, students, or administration. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Oh, did you want me to explain it? >> Oh, I thought you already jumped into it. >> Um, so if K is about complaints around instruction, discipline, or learning materials, this one's a little bit more detailed. it involves employee, students or the administration. So we we just kind of made a dividing line. Uh there are some similarities but you know just being very clear if there are complaints about employees and how to how to
021handle them. That's all. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Sorry about that. Jump ahead. >> Yeah. Is this based off of a recommendation from the schoolboard association as well? >> Sorry question. >> I'm just asking is this also based u coming from the school board association? It's also coming from schoolboard association. Yep. >> Any questions? >> I'll go through it again. >> All right. Now, we'll look for a motion for the first reading to adopt policy KB public complaint complaints about school personnel, employees, students, or administration. Please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I 5 Z. Sorry, Mr. Chair. Mr. P wants to jump in. Just a quick question from the audience on the second reading to amend the unauthorized electronic communication devices including cell phones. Is
022that second reading put that policy into effect or is there going to be a third reading? >> We didn't really just typically we do a third reading. Um I think we talked about I think the principal had asked uh if after the second reading if he could implement it set a timeline which I thought he said >> if I remember right was the 13th or the tw uh >> 14th. >> Yeah I think we discussed that procedure could be put in place >> right and we'll just finish with the third reading. >> Okay. You good with that Rick? >> Ready. >> Thank you. >> Good to go. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. >> All right. 6.6. First reading to adopt policy BH public comment and participation at board meetings. Dan. >> So, similar
023to the last one, this is about public comment at board meetings. We haven't updated our own language since 1989. So, beh we're recommending we resend and then we're we're updating beedh which is completely up to date with the laws. um and and just clarifying a few areas um around public comment. So, I I think it's a good updated uh policy. Okay. Any questions for Dan? >> Seeing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to adopt policy behings, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50. 6.7 first reading to resend policy BDDH public participation at board meetings. That's just to take out what we're replacing it with the new language. >> Any questions? >> I'll look for a motion to approve
024the first reading to resend policy BDDH public participation at board meetings. Please moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor. I 50 6.8 8 first reading to resend policy JFABB foreign exchange students >> you know so I have not seen a foreign exchange student come through in nine years I have the you know former high school principal next to me um it's one we have not acted on in a while um we thought we would resend it just to take it off the books it can live as a as a procedure if we want it um you know we we thought we're just trying to like basically not cloud up our our policy book but we can keep it. We just we put it on your radar that we just
025haven't acted on it in a long time. Um and doesn't mean we can't have foreign exchange students. Um so we thought we just put this one on your radar for discussion. >> Okay. Any questions? >> No. >> So the thought process here is if we resend this maybe move it to the policy book as opposed to putting it in >> Yeah. Procedure. Yeah. Procedure. Procedure. Yes. >> Yeah. So any for if we if we did actually have a foreign exchange student, we would still bring it to the school board, you know. Um Yep. But just not have it as a policy. Makes sense. >> All right. Seeing no further questions, I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to resend policy JFABB foreign exchange students. Please >> some moved. >> Motion by Sarah.
026>> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I zero. 6.9 first reading to resend policy JFABB R foreign exchange students. This is just the regulation that goes along with it that we would, you know, keep in the procedure book. >> Any questions? Seeing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to resend policy JFABBR, foreign exchange students, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50 6.10. um first reading to adopt policy JHC, student early release precautions. >> So, this one is not required by law, but we thought this would be a good one to have on the books. Kind of just how how parents uh pick up their kids early from school and just kind of mapping out um how
027that works. We generally function in this way now, but we thought this was just a good one uh to have on the books and we we never had it on the books. >> Yep. Any questions? Seeing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to adopt policy JHC, student early release precautions, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor? >> I 50. 6.11. First reading to adopt policy JLCK, special physical health needs of students. >> So this one's required by law that we don't have on on the books just yet. And it just basically says, you know, we're promoting good physical activity with our kids and so we want to adopt it and we think it's a good policy. Any questions? >> Seeing none,
028I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to adopt policy JLCK, special physical health needs of students. Please. >> Some moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I. 50. 6.12 first reading to adopt policy JLDBA behavior management and intervention. >> Uh so again this one is required by law. We don't have it yet. Um I think this this dovtales very nicely with all the work that uh Mr. Pin and Miss Carponi did for our multi-ter system of support. Um this is just the broad outlines of what the school board would expect for behavior management and interventions. We think we we function well within this. Obviously, there's a ton of detail underneath this and how we actually work, but um this is one we want to put
029on the books because we need to have it on the books. Any questions? >> Seeing none, I'll click for a motion to approve the first reading to adopt policy JLDBA, behavior management and intervention, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? I 50 6.13 first reading to adopt policy JLCA EA use and location of automated external defibrillators. So this one's required by law and all we're doing is updating kind of the new language around it because the last time we did ours was 17 years ago. So the one right behind it is the one we rescended to then adopt the new language um required by law and we think this does a pretty good job. Okay, any questions? Seeing none, I will look for a motion to
030approve the first reading to adopt policy JLCA, use and location of automated external defibrillators, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. All those in favor? I >> I 50 >> 6.14 first reading to resin policy EBBA use of automated external defibrills as superintendent stated this is replacing what we just approved. Any questions? Seeing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to resend policy EBBa, use of automated external defibrillators, please. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. Second >> second by Kevin. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> And 6.15 first reading to resend policy E BB A A E AE D incident report. >> That's just the the the that was like tied to the last one you just >> Yeah. And that's just how
031we report use of it now. >> Thank you. Any questions? Seeing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the first reading to resend policy EB B AE AED incident report. >> So moved. >> Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Amanda. All those in favor? >> I 50. >> Thank you everyone. Moving ahead. Superintendent report 7.1 October 1st enrollment report. >> Um so our October 1st enrollment report is here. Um, this is the one we turn into the state, we turn into the federal government, and then we kind of use to to build off our budget. This is our official enrollment number. Um, so I'll I'll highlight a few areas. Um, you know, uh, the LEAP program is about the same as we saw last year, but as you've heard over years, they always grow
032as the year goes along when more kids turn three and four. Uh, kindergarten came in the exact same number as the prior year. It's another small class. Um, so which we which we knew was going to happen. Um anyway, uh Matthew Thornton's about the same number. Uh one thing that did caught my eye, uh was first and second grade. They're about 25 kids to 30 kids higher than I thought this summer, uh from our projection. So that is definitely changing um probably how we talk about full day kindergarten once we get to that to that point. Um because that's two more classrooms than than I thought were there in the summer. And we just, you know, we got more kids moving in for first grade. More kids moved in for second grade. It it does
033happen. U school's down a little bit. Uh south school's down slightly. Uh the middle school's down a little bit because they they just uh because they got a smaller sixth grade class coming in. And the high school is down about 50 kids. Uh we're down about 103 from this time last year. Um and you can see the the home education. That's just the kids that report to us. We we really have no idea how many home education students are. Those are the ones that just report to us. And then adult ed always looks smaller in the fall. It grows throughout the year and we do have two more out of district placement kids. Um and that's the that's the whole report. >> Any questions? >> Dan, a question for you. Yep. The home education students,
034do we have to uh have a seat for them? >> No. So it's not included in our overall enrollment. It's separate for that reason. >> Yeah. So it doesn't add up to that 38. 51. Yep. >> Yeah. I didn't know if we had to have a spot for them. >> We just do it. Um the these are all the families that self-report. Um and that's we just we just keep a tab on it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> All right. That's all I had on that. And um 7.2 school care notification of assessment for 2425 school year. Amity uh and Lisa and Dan. >> I'm going to turn over to Lisa and Amity. Um, and then I'll kind of come back at the end talking about the the graphics and timelines, but Ammy
035and Lisa will kind of tell you where we're at. Um, the research we've done. Um, we have done nothing wrong, but we we we do have a problem we need to solve, and I'll kind of turn it over to them. >> Yeah. So, um, if you've been following the news, it was a story on the union leader. It's been on MUR um, to put out there first and foremost. This was nothing any of the districts who subscribed to school care saw coming. It was a surprise to all of us. It's an assessment. Um, school care is our insurance provider, but they are an accessessible risk pool, meaning all of their participants contribute to the risk pool that pays um for the insurance coverage. Um, and they basically sent the email out to everyone who is
036part of the pool on September 23rd with no warning. um that this was coming and um that by October 1st we would have a bill to know what our portion of the bill was, but we could expect it to be about 1.5 um times what we pay monthly, which is about a million. So we were expecting it was going to be $1.5 million, which is significant. Um and then we got the bill and it was actually $2,16,000. Um so basically what they did this had to do with um 2025 claims. They took what everybody contributed to the pool that total amount for 2025. Then they factored what Londereerry had put into the pool and they calculated that that was 6.7% of the pool and they factored through their actuarial study school cares um that they
037needed to do a $30 million assessment. So every district's um or participants part of the pool um the percentage is what percentage they would pay of the $30 million. So 6.7% was our portion. 6.7% of the $30 million is how they calculated our bill. Um as you can imagine this went um very surprising. It's a significant bill. Um so everybody called legal representation. and the DOE hosted um a meeting because we had already turned in our um our audit and our reporting for our financials to the DOE and to our auditors. Um so we needed to talk with them. Lisa attended uh the school care town hall meeting where they basically reiterated what they had said in the memo. Um, and then it's they they reiterated to us that the assessment was a statutory and
038contractual obligation under RSSE 5 RSA 5B. Um, which has to do with accessible risk pools. Um, and it's part of our membership participant agreement. Um, the bill, our portion is due by January 1st. After that, every month late will incur a half a percent interest fee. for us that's over $10,000 a month with about $60,000 total interest if we don't pay it um until July. Um and then additionally, if we don't pay it by July, they will stop paying our claims for our employees and we essentially lose coverage for our employees. Um you know, we we talked to the auditors and our attorney about options. Um, did you want to talk? Did you want to speak to the options or >> Lisa is going to jump in next or like go after? >> Sure. I
039I just wanted to add a couple things to what AMD said and then I'll I'll let Dan follow up with the options for payment of the assessment. So, I just want to emphasize here that this assessment, as AMD said, was a surprise to all the participating members, districts, municipalities. It's not based on your claims experience. So this assessment of $2 million is not because London Derry had higher claims than anyone else. It's just that we're one of the biggest entities that they cover. So it's based on our contributions, how many employees we have participating, how many covered lives. Um other than that, we all know that healthcare costs are going up. The healthcare landscape is constantly changing. So essentially the easiest way to understand this is you know overall for the risk pool itself all
040the participating entities the medical and pharmacy claims came in higher for 2025 than the monies they had collected which is essentially where we are and because they are an accessessible entity they can levy these assessments think of it like a condo association I hate to say that but you know when they have to levy assessments so that's where we are um and I'll turn it back to Dan happy answer any other questions. >> Maybe Ammy should explain the first option we have, then I'll do the other ones. How about that? >> Yeah. Um, so this is a little technical, but um, we have to have our financial report into the state. It's called the DOE 25. It also has an MS25 that's connected to it. That is our financial report that is used to set
041the tax rate for Londereerry in December. Um, so they spent all this time going through it. When the department of education had their they also were surprised by this and all of us it was past the deadline of submitting our financials. We had already done our unassigned fund balance hearing, public hearing, all of that sort of stuff. So they they said that if we intended to re-report our financials with the understanding that these are 2025 bills that they would allow us to take the DOE25 back restate our financials. This could be a special circumstance and then we would need to recalculate what we would um potentially have for fund balance and return to the taxpayer. Um the the DOE was just telling us that we could resubmit our DOE if we planned to do that.
042Um and still of of note, we voted or the board voted to retain $3.4 million into our unassigned fund balance and you can't retain more than 5% of your net assessment, which is roughly between 3.6 and $3.7 million. So, um we're we're pretty near at our max as to what we can retain. So redoing any of this doesn't really necessarily get us much more than $200,000 uh to do any of that. If you did the special circumstance, then that can get a little more um complicated. But of note for for the taxpayers, that would mean it would change what amount we said we would return to them to recalculate the tax rate in December. Does that make sense? I know it's complicated. Any questions with any of that? questions. >> Then I tried to make
043a graphic to kind of explain where we're at and and what we're proposing. So the headline is we're going to propose a solution by December and and the only reason we're going to wait two months is, you know, here here's what we see in front of us. Out of nowhere, the school care problem showed up. Not good. Um, we spent a significant amount of time and effort on the district office plan uh talking about full day kindergarten and we're about to start budgeting. Um, I mean technically we already have. Um, but in November we'll know what 50% costs are for district office plan. We'll we'll start to get a reasonable sense of full day kindergarten and our operating budget in general. So by December we'll we'll we'll know all those costs and I think by
044then we can we can make a good recommendation outside of what AM just explained which is kind of complicated. It is you know um you know the four basic pools of money we could use are are our reserves which we have about $3.5 million. Um could we have a potential surplus from this year? Sure. We don't we don't know yet. It's very it's very early in the year. We'll see our our first quarter report uh next time. But we could use surplus from this year towards this bill. Uh we could build it into default for next year and and we could also ask employees um to contribute to this. So those are those are four options. You know a as you look ahead I mean I think you know what I what we were trying
045to say with with this timeline is um you know the way they play out can be very different and I'll kind of go over that in the next page too. But in terms of the district office plan, I think if if we do end up using reserves as an option, I think there is time to to replenish uh our reserves. Um you know that we always thought we had to use them for a broken roof or or something like that. We didn't think a big healthcare bill come out of nowhere, but these are what reserves are for. So so we have time. So if you flip to the next page, um what I was trying to come up with was just this is an example solution. Um I'm ju I'm just showing the viability of
046of of any of these things. Um these are not real numbers. These are just, you know, examples, you know. So for an example, we we could we could pay uh a million dollars out of reserves. Um but the but the the issue is every every part of the bill we don't pay by January 1st, we're going to get charged interest, you know. So we we would end up spending more money if if we don't pay things by January 1st. So, we can definitely, you know, see if we have uh surplus this year um and we can pay it before the end of the year, but we'd probably pay interest on those costs. Um same thing for default. Uh if we built it into next year's default, that would be a way to pay for it,
047but then we'd have to deal with interest. Um and but an employee contribution we can kind of do right now also with reserves. So, those are just some examples. Um you know, most likely what we think we're going to recommend, but you know, again, we want we want more time to study this. We want to see all of our our costs come in around the district office, around kindergarten, around the operating budget in general, and just kind of see where we're at, but I think by December, we we'll we'll make a recommendation. Um, you know, we could do that at the first or second budget meeting in December, so the school board has plenty of time to think about it and then we would put something in motion uh to hopefully, you know, kind of
048resolve this problem and and move ahead. I mean, I'm sure there's a ton of questions. Um, so >> I I would just like to add that if if we are not going to do option one, we need to rule that out tonight because if we delay that, it will delay the tax rate setting. Um, so if if you if we don't plan in the next couple of weeks to look at the DOE25 and redo our audit and financials, that would be something to rule out tonight and then it would leave the other options on the table. Um, in a nutshell for the taxpayer to understand, if we leave it as is, we are not taking back any of the money that we had that we have said we would return to them and then any
049surplus we tried to get in this year's budget would be from a more careful watching of how we're spending the money this year. >> Yep. Okay. Any questions? Let me uh let me start. It's been a busy couple of days um since this landed on our plate early or mid last week. Um the efforts that this district has made to start moving forward with projects and things that are needed um to to help our community um with some tax relief moving forward. uh coming in with a flat budget for this school year and worked extremely hard on getting grants that we were able to return, you know, so so much tax dollars to our community with that vote of a couple weeks ago of the 1.36 million to return for the December tax bill. Um
050you know, it's it's very upsetting. Um, I was on the phone today with Sharon Packard, the speaker of the house, uh, Sharon Carson, the president uh, of the Senate, and uh, then had a conference call with Sherm Packard and Dave Scandlin, secretary treasurer. And, um, I expressed the concerns of how the school districts have been held hostage here. This started last year. They knew it was coming by the explanation at the conquered school board last Monday night. Um and explained they started seeing these deficiencies back in October of last year and into the spring of 25 and then um the assessments came in at the end of the year and then they decided to go with this one-time assessment. Um nobody has seen an audited report, nobody has seen any financial reports and I have
051a problem with that. So this is words from school care to the districts out of the blue at the end of the first quarter of a school year. Budgeting takes place November December voting in March for July 1 allocations. This is holding school districts hostage. They've got to pay it or their employees aren't covered. It's not fair. Um, that's why I put a call into our representatives and asked them to look into this and they got Mr. Scandlin on the phone which oversees the state insurance. And my last call at about 5:15 is there's a meeting being set up next week with all these people in school care up at conquered. I will let you guys know and I plan on attending and I had a long drawn out conversation with Mr. scandlin on how
052we operate here and how other school districts and a lot of the SB2s don't have any fund balance. So, they're in really bad shape and trying to find this money. Um, so I would say I'm glad we've got some time um to do some research. My feeling is school care should have met with each district individually, set up a plan to pay this money and work through their deficiencies that they seen coming and not hold us hostage that you have till January 1 to either tell us your how you're going to pay or we stop covering your bills in April. So that's my take of the last week and a half and made some headway today. I don't know what'll come out of the meeting, but um I don't think it's a time to take
053our foot off the gas and not pursue this to maybe come up with a business plan that works for our district and other districts because I feel bad for them as well. Um and I had a conversation with the chairman of SAU49, uh Brody of the Governor Wetnorth District today. They had their meeting last night and sent a letter to school care asking for a lot of this information that I'll share with my colleagues and with you Dan and Amity and and uh Lisa and um they basically asked for this information from school care. So um and they host nine towns up there and they owe 1.6 million um and they're an SB2 no fund balance. So, I think a lot of uh school boards are talking trying to find a solution and get into
054uh hopefully next week meeting with school care and and the secretary of state um we can come to a better resolution moving forward. So hopefully that will be a uh worthwhile meeting to attend. I don't know what'll come out of it, but I will update you once I get that date. No, I mean I I think I think your your frustrations are warranted. I think when we got this email, we all said, "What >> is this for real?" >> Yeah. >> Um because I think what we've seen over the last couple years is um the health trust school districts were getting just gigantic raises in costs every year. And we felt pretty good about school care because we know they're coming in lower. But then here are the costs, right? >> You know, they I
055I don't know what happened. I don't know how they got to this place, but if the costs were higher in the last two years, give us those costs, we could build them into our budget so we're ready for these things. >> And and I think just the process of how they went about this whole different story if we know this in July. >> Mhm. >> Versus September. >> Absolutely. >> You know, for the tax rate, for everything else, you know. >> Yeah. >> So, yeah, the process and how they handled this was terrible. Just in general, how we got here was terrible. So, we understand your your frustration. We're frustrated, too. >> Yeah. Like I said, the the board has worked hard, you guys have worked hard, the administration to bring this this district, you
056know, into a good place and we're moving forward with all these great things for our students in our community and then we get we get this thrown on us at the 11th hour. It's not the way to operate. Like I told the secretary of state, I said, "This is not the way New Hampshire is supposed to operate business. How can you allow this?" you know, so I'm hoping some good comes out of the meeting and um uh we'll go from there. But >> the one time um they're they've been calling it a one-time reassessment to bring up their reserves back up to $30 million. And I know we're figuring this out on the fly because the information hasn't really been out there. I mean, had to go and watch 40 minutes of a conquered school
057board meeting uh just to get the information from this school care rep who didn't come here uh didn't share it with us uh despite us having a $2 million bill thrown at us that they expected us to pay on receipt. >> Um but they're gracious enough to give us a three-month window. Um, so that being said, I I plan on digging into this further with you, too. Uh, but as far as that $30 million figure, have they talked about where that came from? >> I I think they just >> Why isn't it 20 million? So, I think they they said in one of their I think it was at the conquered school board segment that they really were recommend their actuarial study showed that it really should be 45 million or and I think they
058said that they they were going to start with 30 um and that an assessment is separate from the rates. So, they might try and build the rates. So, we haven't gotten what our quote our rate increase will be for the year yet either. So, I think they were just trying to to get get where they need to be and make up for it and some of the rate increases. >> Anyone else? >> So, one of the big things that we have to decide >> is on the 1.3 that we already voted to give back to the taxpayers. >> Uh, personally, I'm not of the mindset that I want to go back on that. >> I know I'm one of five here. I don't want to do that to the taxpayers. Um, I think we can
059work through figuring this out. >> I agree. And I don't want to put it on the employees either. No, >> I know you guys we need time to talk about it and think about it, but >> we got a long process here over the next couple of months. So, >> but if that's what we need to decide to make. >> Yep. >> Agreed. >> Yeah, I agree. I don't want to go back and and revisit that. >> Yeah. Sounds like u consensus is move forward. Leave everything with the um the DRA and everything's fine. The 1.36 goes back. >> Yep. >> Our taxpayers deserve it and we've worked hard to get it back to them and we do have reserves that we'll work through over the next several months >> with the superintendent and yourself
060and >> you know figure this out and let's see what happens with uh the meetings over the next couple of months. >> Yep. >> And and that. So, >> and our our DOE25 and our uh DRRA documents have already been accepted and approved. So, if we had gone another route, they would have had to have been >> um recalculated. So, there should be no no um delaying the tax rate being set then. >> I mean, this is nothing that anyone in this room or this this town has brought on. >> It's uh it's the world of um the medical world out there is it's it's getting scary. >> Um so, we've got to just watch it moving forward. Uh it's happening all over the all over the country. So um but yeah, you're you're all
061set with that and we'll uh keep you updated, let you know when the meeting is. So, let all of you guys know too once I get that date um and keep you posted on the outcome and hopefully they'll work with each school district that has different needs and different services so they can afford to educate their kids and keep their uh staff insured. So, appreciate it. >> Thank you. All right. Anything else? Okay. You got anything? >> Nope. I'm good. >> I'm good. >> Yeah. >> Are there any topics the school board needs to see before the budget? You know, we basically have um you know, two meetings before we deliver the budget. >> We know next time we'll be doing like a joint meeting with the with the town uh on the district office.
062Um we have policies and I think we'll have some joyful moments from our schools. It's kind of the start. >> That'd be great. I don't know if there's anything else the school board uh wants to you tackle or get done or talk about before budget. >> So if anyone has anything just shoot >> I know we mentioned it a couple meetings ago maybe just um it's like an update on where the CUTT is at the educ the continuing educ >> and yeah >> that's the only thing I could think of off top of my head though. So, if anyone thinks of anything, just shoot me and Dan an email and we'll we'll get an on once we get into budget season. It's tough to >> take care of a lot of things, but we're in
063pretty good shape now. So, >> all set then? Yep. >> Okay. Thanks. Amity. >> Yeah. Good. >> Good. Good to go. All right. That ends the regular meeting and I will look for a motion to go into non-public session requested under RSA 91A 3 section 2B and C. Please. So moved. Motion by Sarah. >> Second by Tim. I'll ask for a roll call vote. Left or right, please. >> I Kevin Rick. I Tim Porter. Hi, Bob Slater. Hi, >> Sarah Laughlin. Hi, Amanda Butcher. >> Good night, London area.