001S 806. Welcome everybody to the SAU meeting. U going to call our attention to the fact that we're having trouble with the YouTube um connection. So we're not able to potentially record. So, just want to apologize also to anyone who was trying to get on to YouTube and who's now on Zoom. >> Um, we've got agenda review as our first item. Does anyone have anything that you want to add or change on the agenda? >> Great. U now want to open it up for public comment. Um, is there anybody online or in the audience that would like to make a public comment? Okay. >> So, we're going to move to business requiring discussion. And I have my trusty timer here. We've allocated 40 minutes to this, so I'm going to start it. Uh, and I'm
002going to ask Renee to kick us off with the budget process review committee report. >> Sure. Um, I do not want to say 40 minutes. We need 40 minutes for three things. Great. Hat itself. Um, so, uh, I want to start off by saying, um, that I a lot of work went into the documents you're going to be I we should have seen, um, and reviewed um, and we'll be discussing tonight. I am a little bit unclear as to what the action will be coming out of this. So if there's any clarification immediately so we can all do you know what the tip is the action >> review and discuss the budget review committee's progress and I think you have recommendations I don't know if there's recommend we can >> yeah so I mean it's
003like it's tricky because it is each district still has its own budget and so the process is different some of the recommendations are the superintendent some are each committee some are like but it's so >> may then let's come back to that I guess >> yeah I think so yeah that sounds good Okay. Okay. >> Um, so, uh, that helped clarify at least I did not Okay, I'll pause. Um, so the committee's charge, just to remind everybody, was to, uh, review the previous budget cycle, recommend efficiencies, improve communication, and recommend ways to improve the process moving forward. Um, I want to before we dive in, really give a big thanks to Robin, Tara, Michael, um, who were really, really important uh, contributors to the documents you're seeing here. Um, Garrett did help uh, along the
004way, although uh, he is no longer officially part of the committee. Um, and outside of that, Teresa and the leadership team really engaged towards the end when we had a little bit more um, some solid ideas. Um, and I want to give big thanks to them because it was a way to also help test ideas that we had with the reality of their everyday lives and different constraints they're facing. So, um, with that, uh, I don't want to go through every specific recommendation, but we can, but I want to talk of high level kind of the themes here. My assumption is that you've all read what is in here, and you will notice that there is no number 12. I don't know where it went. I hope it's having a great time. A typo that
005can and will be fixed. Um so there's 14 recommendations in total. Um and the first page of this entire document is the the philosophy um the kind of high level changes and what would not change that we've talked about many times and so I'm not going to go into details there but that has not changed. That really was the the guiding force I think throughout our conversations. Um in total the committee uh has 15 nope 14 recommendations. Um they fall into these four categories. One is around administration and board capacity and support. Um a second is about strategic alignment across preK through 12. Third is efficiency effectiveness and fourth is communication. So if we just take one by one um each recommendation in itself is not the same like brain size. Some are easier to
006do, some are harder. Um that's just kind of how it goes. So I want you to to not assume that we weighted these in any specific way. They are just group by theme. Um but one of the big things that we wanted to make sure we communicated to you all was not just the recommendation but like why is the recommendation even a thing that we were talking about. Um and so within the administration and board capacity and support there like we could not have a conversation about budget process without talking about the challenges within the SA within the finance team and making sure that capacity is is a thing that we are intentional about um addressing. And so you'll see really recommendations one and two are are in that vein. Um and Robin uh offered
007some excellent kind of specific feedback about like that rationale especially with the capacity of the budget office. I think it's important for us as we go into the next budget cycle recognizing that Theresa's expertise for this past year makes her the most senior member of that finance team. In addition to that, um, and through some of the leadership team conversations, um, I believe it was Lauren that pointed out that the new RMS and Ray School principles next year are going to be integral parts of the budgeting process. >> And if we are kind of needing to think about how we're doing things differently and better, we need to make sure we're thinking about support for them intentionally. Um, those things fall more under Robin's domain, but our recommendations um, nonetheless. Um, recommendations 3, four, and
008five fall in more of like the board members. Uh, so we know that budget development, the budget approval, proposal, all that stuff is a board core board member responsibility. Um, and so we were wondering um with ourselves like how do we support new board members getting up to speed on what have we been doing in the budgeting process? What does that really look like? How can board members engage in the budgeting process in an effective way? Um, and so that led to the three recommendations that you see here. One of which, uh, is really thinking about the rotation potentially of people on the budget committees. There's four of them. There's nothing to choose from. And I think Ben had done some analysis at some point and figured out like I think most people generally are
009on one or the other, but I think there's there's an intentionality aspect that we can and should have around who is on which committee and for what duration of time. Um, I think that's what we were talking about. Uh, the proposal like landed on a three-year period. We could I think we were tossing out two or three year cycle, whatever it might be. Um, but there's uh that's kind of the the thought process there. We can go back into any of those as you desire, but I'm just going to talk about the strategic alignment. Um, section number that should be number three, too. Awesome. Good typos. It's fine. Section number three, strategic alignment. Um, this has been also a very core focus since I think day one of our committee of how do we make
010sure that we can make better decisions that are aligned with kind of overall strategic plan, overall goals, thinking more long term, not just like a one year overyear thing, especially given all the complexities that are happening in the Vermont New Hampshire legislatures and and whatnot. So, um, that's uh that is related to timeline. um and the kinds of things we are asking and that's what you see in recommendation six and seven. Um recommendation six also applies to the timeline that is on the last page of the document as well. I don't think we changed that since the last time you saw it but it is still there. Um and then under efficiency and effectiveness, we've included um the things like that multi-year forecast that we talked about thinking about that multi-year aspect again. Um recommendation
011uh nine I think is uh maybe slightly modified but pretty much the same since you last saw it. Uh but that that is the the meat of it in terms of how we want to be looking at data earlier in the process. um to establish better budget guidelines, we need to have a a bit more information at our hand. Uh so we're looking at maybe a percentage or a target that is more realistic uh than than what just the expenditures would show us. Um we do have recommendation number 10 at some point. Um historically handover and Dresden budget committees were co-horned and run. Um we can explore all three of Norwich handover Dresen for that. seems like there may not be as much appetite but it is worth at least exploring what if any can
012be combined there for efficiencies. Um and then number 11 in that recommendation is also a piece that we got more specific about. Last time we talked about the concept of moving the SAU budget approval and um proposal and approval process earlier. This just gets at the specific dates that if this is a thing that we officially want to go forward with, um we would make sure Ryan has um adjusted kind of the fall schedule as such. Um last but not least in here is communication. One of the big pieces that I think a big piece that precipitated this whole committee um was the Hannover Finance Committee's concerns um and the kind of limited transparency. It's difficult to access things on assembly unless you know exactly which which place it is and what meeting it was
013and what version it was. And so we just want to be super clear like we we can do better about sharing documents in a in a way that makes sense. Um things that are board created and also created by the SAU. So I think that that's really important for us to all be thinking about. So we talked about um identifying kind of naming conventions uh finding a place in the SEU website likely under the finance section in the the budgets domain where we're just putting this is the most latest and greatest. Um and then having intentional communication with handover finance committee the handover board does have our wonderful liaison in terra um but I think that there's an opportunity for us to be just more intentional about how we as uh Dresden and Handover um
014and SAU nationally getting the information out and it's more of a okay hey great we have we're talking about budget guidelines make let's make sure we're just sending it to them so we we know who's doing that. Um so those are all um the highle pieces of recommendations. The other things I wanted to just mention that were attached so you have context here. Um the one of them was about um kind of context for new board members uh which is uh lots of detailed documentation which is really really I think very helpful um for folks getting up to speed on what's there. The second is the set of um key questions, key steps, key questions by different phases of the work. This document um is intended to accompany the strategic alignment meetings, the three strategic
015alignment meetings we were talking about before. And actually the first one happened our uh fearless leader Michael uh led that conversation with our uh with Robert's leadership team. And the notes from that are the third attachment. And the reason that's really important we want to make sure you all had here is because these notes are a direct input or one of the direct inputs to our August strategic alignment meeting. Um so this meeting this it was called the look back look forward meeting. Um there's uh kind of the purpose and key topics are are listed on the the handout but overall we had to accomplish a couple things here. One was get them up to get the leadership team up to speed on like what our committee is. What do we do what are we
016doing and why? Um, and then also thinking about, all right, can we get some feedback either on what we're what we're planning on doing here in terms of process and recommendations? And then also the nitty-gritty, like what do you want to invest in? What should we be thinking about for next year? Not that everything in any way, shape, or form is like a thing that will be guaranteed to happen. We need to know what's on people's minds. What are priorities that they have so that we can then have more intelligent conversations in August. Um, so you'll see a bunch of stuff listed here. I think importantly um and I'm not sure how we have this conversation um it feels related to budget but not um the strategic um and budget process alignment issues. So if
017you look at look back look forward needing takeaways number one. Um it came up that there is a concern about the lack of a clear northstar vision. Where are we going there and it the kind of on the other hand there is a deep um usage and ownership of the strategic plan by school leadership. And so we as a board don't engage in the strategic plan in a in a super deep way. We don't I don't have it up right now. um like maybe we should. So that it just raised I think a couple questions for our committee as we were reflecting on that conversation of these things are certainly informing budgets but not directly related. Um so at some point we need to figure out who takes ownership 51 and making sure we're kind
018of moving forward on those items. Um but we didn't want to exclude it from the notes just because it wasn't budget related. So I just wanted to call that out as a difference. Um so that's what we have here. There is tons we can and should talk to, but I'd like to open it up to Tara, Michael, and Robin as the, you know, official committee members. If there's anything else you'd like to add or correct, please, please do so. >> I guess I I mean, the documents speak for themselves in a way. Um, >> but I would say I agree. Um it was very it was wonderful to meet with Robin's staff. I found that illuminating. Um I think Renee has it exactly right that there was some daylight there. There were some things that
019I found super interesting to pick up the desire for what is that north star? What is the vision of the board? Um and they definitely engage in those true seedure plan in a deeper way than I do. Um and so that I find that to be interesting. They're perceiving as if like the entire district is aligned around that plan and and that is what we do. Um, as far as the 14 all the recommendations, um, I really been thinking now at the benefit of the entire committee experience. Um, I'm torn. I I thought it was good work. Uh, I thought there was a lot of best practice there. There's a lot of opportunity to do better. Um, at the same time, there's a pebble in my shoe from my work as a healthcare executive. things
020I tell people all the time. Uh you don't fix a process by adding a step and and we're adding 14 steps. Um and be careful trying to like pol policy your way out of personnel issues. Lots of times people don't like to deal like hey in the grand scope. I'm not talking about any individual. Like in the grand scope of running an organization, there's a temptation to rewrite all the rules so you can then point people to that rule when what you really need is some like really hard conversations or decisions. And so I'd be very curious at um the reaction of my colleagues to our work um and like hey does this make sense to you? Does this seem valuable to you? Is this a set of informal norms? Is this a policy you
021really want to follow for all the reasons that are stated as rationale? Um and so that I'm very curious to hear what all of you think. Um but that's that's my two cents. >> Okay, I'll give my two cents now. >> Yeah. >> Um I saw this process as having two major goals. One was establishment of some cladresas um so that we had a durable reputable process that any particular board composition could touch and understand and be able to run with and being on the board for three years I didn't feel like we had that so the guard rails were really important to me. Um, the second is I really, really, really dislike established procedures that run without a break. >> And this budget process is not only complicated, but it seemed to be on
022autopilot. And um it was worth examining to see where can we dust it off, where can we make revisions, h how can we be more present in the process and have it feel more proactive rather than reactive because it it was a from what I have experienced thus far a very reactive process. Um, and I feel like we should have more vision and goal setting in a process this important. So I think um we did some good work on that behalf and I would love to see how folks would like to take these sets of recommendations and maybe try some or not or adjust them. I gota be smart enough to step back in a second and say since I said I want to hear from my colleagues to actually hear from my employees. Um
023I do think that one of the things that I know that I have to be careful of in my board service whether it's this board or other boards is that this is really different than my day job. In my day job I'm I'm part of a management team and I'm I'm exercising the executive authority of an organization. here. I'm part of a governance body. And so I think one of the tricky things about the whole process and the whole suite of recommendations is to be a member of a board means you're not going to touch every single thing that that board touches. And so we grant great difference to the budget committees do their job and you have to be very careful creating a committee the whole right and so I I just think one
024of the unstated tensions in the documents is hey there's a role for a budget committee. Budget committees exist for a reason. In our particular structure, there's nothing that the Norwich budget committee can do to the handover budget committee and vice versa. And so like yeah, like turning it from loosey goosey to better organized and everybody feeling a stake. Yes. Blowing up the role of the budget committees, I don't think that's exactly where you want to go. And so to inst people weigh in, I think that's one of the unstated governance tensions um within it. Before I open, I'm curious if Robin because you were also here. >> You have anything to add? >> Um, for me, I always think it's good to look at the end of the year at a process and how things
025have gone and see ways I can make things better, changes I want to make, things that we've done well. So, I always feel like it's valuable to go through things like this just for that process. And for me, it was the first year really being in this role doing that piece of the work. So, it's been valuable for me to look back on that and see what things I can do differently and I feel like I've done that with every part of this job. So, yes, just a natural progression. So, uh I think we'll have some good things. Lord, who has thoughts and comments done? Um, I very much appreciate the thought that went into all of this and I take personally my tendency and I'm not going to look at somebody to my right
026who is a lot like me of just sort of going I don't know anything about budgets. Um, and I I think that that's probably not sufficient. And I don't know I don't know that anybody wants to do how to read a spreadsheet 101 and these are the terms you need to know and when people are talking about revenue projections and they're talk, you know, I often just think I'm so glad Tara knows what she's talking about and Renee because I sort of am hanging in there. But anyway, my point is that I think it would be really good for every board member to have some kind of introductory training. And maybe all the rest of you have it. I know Carrie doesn't, but I don't have it. And I think it would be really, really
027important moving forward for all board members to have some training. And I Oh, I actually looking at the NHSBA to see is there a webinar on how to do this? But anyway, thank you. and I'll I'll try to do better. And if anybody wants to tutor me, >> um >> sorry for throwing you under the bus today. >> I'm under the bus. Um, I think I have various reactions and like Deb like just super appreciative because I think as a newer board member in the last year I think my general experience with the budgeting is I would have to be a financial person in my private life a to have these meetings to have me have any contribute and b I would have to be willing to work until 3 in the morning most nights
028of the week and that is not actually what I signed up for. Um, and so I think like I'm so appreciative because to me that's these are the this is a big thing. We do have a finance department and so I love the really looking at what is the role of the budget committee when we hire professionals to do a budget and I am heartened by Michael's comment about sitting with staff who use the strategic plan and know the strategic like that is who I think should I mean I should know it too but >> yeah they should breathe at our leaders they should be the ones who look at our budget and say this reflects this is their professional world and my role as a board member is governance is not to you know
029totally write the budget it is to look at the budget and I so I think yes I would love more training I would love to feel like I could contribute more but I would also I'm appreciative of this because I think the other piece for me is I think Deb has a value and perspective that's different than finance that brings us to the board obviously and some of that is just the like big picture stuff of where values line up with how you spend money, right? Um, and I certainly want to be a part of those conversations, right? Um, so I think the staff stuff is really positive. Like I was super grateful to hear that. That's amazing that they all know our strategic plan. Um, so yeah, those are things that come up for
030me. And I think the piece that I don't see as articulated in here that I already said um is that sense of manage like I want people to feel like they can run for the school board and that this is a place for our community members to represent their community. Um, and as a person who has, I think, very valuable personal experience and professional experience, um, how do we make being a part of the budget conversation attainable to our community members? Because that's who a school board should be. um you shouldn't have to it is very helpful um to have a diverse board but like um we should be able to have people who that isn't their expertise um feel like this board this general board is a place for them and so I think
031there's a balance for me there that yeah so maybe because I have a comment that's aligned the what I wrote down is I have concerns with number three >> as someone who thinks a lot about how do you best leverage team is when you leverage people at their strengths versus try to force people into things that are weaknesses or challenges. And while I appreciate the spirit of number three, I think it actually potentially inhibits who we can recruit to this board and will help us lose in other areas. Um, I think there might be some people I think we could make it more open to people who might say, "Hey, I'm not great at this, but I'm interested." Versus always picking the people who are the CFAs or the MBAs or just But that just
032because you have an MBA doesn't mean you're great budgeters. >> Um, but I think the training maybe gets at like at least a step one um of of giving. That would be my reaction. I that's the one I the other one I have questions about was number six. >> Um where if we are asking for improved alignment and asking for something in August, I guess I my question to Teresa and Robin is what are we already asking of our staff in August and how does that impact things that we need to do as because um it it at first blush it's like oh that makes so much sense. It's August, there's no school, but I know when when you're not school, you're doing other things. So, that would be my um question. Also, obviously like
033so grateful and I think this is so thoughtful the work that's been done and I think there's a lot of great stuff here. >> So, you guys talked about that. That is a really it is a difficult timeline in a lot of ways because Teresa had two big reports that she has to do. one for Vermont and one for New Hampshire that are due at the end of August and the middle of September and they take a significant amount of time. Um, but I think we're starting to think about how we can start formulating the SAU budget earlier >> if we can and again I think a lot of that will depend upon people that we have in place at that point and but we are assembling a good team. So, I feel like it's
034becoming more possible, more of a possibility than we had last year. So, >> I have another thought, but I'm going to wait because I'm going to open up other thoughts. >> Sure, we'll try. >> Yeah, >> I would agree with what most have said that I like all these recommendations generally. I think they're positively aspirational. I don't disagree on the face of them, but some of the nuances acknowledge that tension that you want. I'm envisioning this committee wants things to be more efficient and more structured and faster while also more inclusive of everyone. I may want to do it like others have identified there's an inherent tension there. >> And I want to call out too that if we're trying to do rotational type stuff, it would need to be three years because that's how
035long the vast majority of us have appointments to the schoolboard for three years. and that every other year currently you're going to have a push forward between this these tres points so roughly September to Januaryish for the budget committees will also be at the same time there are multiple negotiations going on as well. >> Yeah. And those meetings meet just as often if not more often than other meetings. And this year going to feature some of I suspect they'll feature some of the same people. And that is going to be a quite a trust point to see how we handle that as a board. And that will be tricky because those meetings are also typically late afternoons to account for schedules of the 9to5ers and then the admin. So that will be a curious process
036and I wish us all the best of luck on that, but it will be tricky. I'm looking at my trusty timer. We have 13 minutes left in the 40. So, are there any final comments, Neil? >> Yeah, I would just say like everybody else, certainly appreciate the work that was done here and I think it's some very valuable things. The thing that I keep coming back to, however, is this this desire for a a known repeatable process >> and the environment that we put in by both our state legislatores which completely disrupts that. Um, and I would love to be in a position where every year I could develop a budget, know that that was going to flow into a known tax rate, you know, months before it even went before the voters and be
037okay. But invariably what we end up with is a budget that results in a tax rate that nobody anticipated. And it was either crazy high or crazy low. And then you end up in this reactionary mode. And sometimes it just forces you to have to then pull apart things that have been previously decided upon. And that's just a terrible environment for anyone >> to work in. Um and um and and so while you know, you need a you need a process that's structured enough that gets us through what we need to get through yet flexible enough to be able to react when the moment in time comes that we need to react. And I don't know any way of being able to get around that. I would love to be able to say, you know,
038come mid December that we've got all of this stuff figured out. By mid December, I've just gotten key pieces of information from Vermont that, you know, helps me figure out what my tax rate might be. >> Yeah. >> Only to find out that that will change five times before town meeting and then 10 times after town meeting. So that the tax rate, like case in point, we just got the final tax rate because the legislature just set the yield number in Norwich and we're going to see a tax rate decrease from the prior year because of decisions that were made that were well beyond our control. Um, which is only sad to say that, you know, maybe there's a a point number 16 16 in all this which nobody wanted to add, right? that is
039like I I do think that it behooves us to pay attention to what goes on in our own states to follow the the law makingaking piece of things because it can have a dramatic impact on the work that we do in budgeting. I mean hearing what you just said Neil to me what that says is what of these recommendations are within our control versus which are with outside of our control and like the durable and repeatable is what can we those >> just just to clarify though the tax rate stuff we don't talk about in the budget process until the not even the 11th hour after the 11th hour this is budget pure like this is not tax rate because we don't have the control we do not manage those puppet strings All we can
040do is this that we put forth to the voters this work to approve the bad bills. We don't we can't control tax rates. So although that is a concern that's not some anything that we really planned. >> I mean in Norwich which we have talked more about the tax rates maybe than Hannah or I think that's what Neil think. >> Yeah. I mean I guess you know at what point does a very reasonable budget become very unreasonable because the tax rate implication was something that you know your community can't withstand right. >> Yes. We can't control that. >> Well, but I get I we can't control it, but we can anticipate it, right? And I guess part of that anticipation for me has been thoughts around when we develop budget guidelines, should we consider the
041tax rate? Should the budget guideline include some, you know, not to exceed tax rate? Um, so that at least we're thinking about it. We we know that that that our community can only withstand so much and maybe that's one of the guideposts that we use so that when numbers start to roll in we're like crap like we're hitting the max here. You all need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what needs to be changed in order to get us to a reasonable tax rate. Renee, we we talked about that and like in very early on in our budget guidelines like do we want to recommend the budget guidelines are actually uniform in terms of structure across all all of our districts? Do we want to recommend that there's a tax a
042target tax rate in there and an expenditure rate or is it just what do we want to do about that? And I think and I'm recalling it was an early conversation where where we landed was we don't want to dictate as a committee given the weirdness of the tax conversations in in Norwich versus handover like that we want to specify that but each individual budget committee or board could make that decision. So I think that we it's not in here explicitly but we did leave it open for interpretation. And I think that there's a lot of conversation at least Hely and I had from the handover budget committee around okay well next year we really have to be thinking about tax rate and sort of and I don't know if it's explicit or implicit or
043whatever it's going to be we have to start talking about it. So I know we are going to start talking about it but I didn't it wasn't part of our explicit recommendations because of the differences between the two states. But um I have one final thing but I if you want to comment on that. >> Yeah. um agree and I almost wonder too if it um you know maybe the way to account for that is early in the budget process just acknowledge like maybe we do need a set of prioritized reductions >> ready to go and not turn to that work in the 11th hour when we realize what the final like maybe that's just part of the process is give us a budget and then give us budget version two which has some prioritized
044reductions in it so we don't have to do that work in in the moment. And then sorry, the other thing that I'll add too though is this this other aspect of long range planning and budgeting. >> And we've got some, you know, I I'll be the downer again, right? Some some very bad things coming our way in Vermont that can take what is already a challenging environment and and add to that, you know, million-dollar reductions year-over-year for five years in a row. Um what do we like now what like and at what point in this whole process do we talk about that? >> You have no idea. >> I think it's the same on both. Okay, Renee, >> we're at five minutes. >> Okay. the um I think a lot of the conversations around like
045how do we talk about like the implication of tax rate are these the things that come up that I believe is is and I I'm like trying to reread these things really quickly but like that is the intent of those strategic alignment moments. So the the there is a theory behind all of this which is if we can better align in terms of our overall strategy, priorities and vision >> for a budget cycle which includes capital expenditures as well as kind of the ongoing operations and curriculum or big technology things that are going to be coming down the pike. >> We or healthcare whatever it might be we will be able to more intentionally then plan. Okay, we actually need we're not just talking about adding. We're talking about reallocating. In this conversation, we're going
046to be talking about how we can make sure that we can actually do all the things we want to invest. That is a culture shift. That is a mindset shift. That is a process shift. That is not entirely budget committee related. That is a management thing. And we talked about that as like a it's it's going to take a lot um in order to make that like resource reallocation is a thing that we are going to need to talk about if we if we end up having so much outside pressure that's going to be on the table in some sort of way. And so I think you're right Neil like we need to be able to talk about like can we get ahead of those like what if can we talk about that those kind
047of potential reductions. Um, but I I would hope those would come out in our strategic alignment meetings in August and like October, November, whenever that is to say like here's what we're here's what we were setting the target as because of all the information we have at hand in terms of kind of the financial projections, the projection of health care. There's so many deals right now by the way everybody like that is reasonable. But then also because of last year or if it's $366,000 that's now just hanging out in Hannover's budget. We also have to be thinking about what are the options for us moving forward that don't just require us to keep adding um in a way that is not necessarily the most strategic thing. That was also a point of conversation um in
048our leadership team meeting around we always call it lasagna effect. It's like initiative overload. Um, so >> I I I don't it's putting a lot of of weight in these moments of alignment, but I think that at least I was energized by the first one we had. Um, that felt very productive. So, I guess we'll have to sleep. I wonder if a recommendation would be that with the next strategic alignment meeting, those of you are on the committee plus the administration come look at these recommendations and come back with what's actually realistic. Like I do think um 15 is a lot. >> Yes, it is. >> And probably not realistic in a year where we have two new administrators and a team that has finally getting its legs under it. And so I think my
049challenge to the committee or to you two working together, whatever the right combo or I'll happy to talk to you is like what's it really like going to move the needle um in and be achievable and make build confidence in the process and the team. I don't know if that's my right to ask for that, but that's what I would say. I don't know if others agree. I I mean really um what this is about overarching just is budgeting for your priorities. >> Yeah. >> Establishing your priorities, budgeting for them and then when you have to make cuts being prepared to cut in a way that allows you still to achieve your priority. That's basically >> we hope and that the priority bit is the bit that's currently missing from the discussion. >> Well, and
050I think the other thing that comes through in your the look ahead look back look back look ahead is that our board could do more around strategic plan and if the when is the new strategic plan written like I'm reading this as we have like everything but the kitchen sink in there and maybe next time we need to be a little bit more precise >> and it's already three and a halfish years old fiveyear plan. >> Five it was five years. So yeah. So is that is an ask from the administration that as a forward we look at it with fresh eyes and come back to you and say here's where we want you to prioritize or >> I guess that's if there's not a north star >> we're well I feel like the strategic
051plan is our north star. Okay. >> I mean that's the thing that is guiding us as a district as administrators and I think that came forth in our >> meetings but maybe that hasn't been articulated well enough to the board. So, and it was also the district's first attempt at really doing a fiveyear strategic plan. And I think we've learned a lot in that process. Like I go through it now and I'm thinking I need to spend a lot of time in the summer just because I've been updating things as we went along and initially I was involved in the curriculum piece which was huge and now we've already done that. So, I'm probably going to lay a lot of that to rest, which is going to leave us with some of the things that
052we talked about in these meetings. Preschool, you know, some of the big priorities that we've been talking about for the past several years, a social worker, these are all big things in our strategic plan. I think those have been our north star, but we have to decide as a board and a district which direction we want to move on those and what we can feasibly do in a year and that changes every year. >> Neil, >> two points. One in terms of the strategic plan memories don't last as long as they used to, but you know, the people on the board at the time were trying to create the strategic plan. It was not intended to be a kitchen sink type thing. those were our top priorities and we did already remove many things that
053we did not think to be a top priority at the time. >> Um, and then the second one, this is more of a clerical thing, but for those folks who are are hesitency into district finances, NHSBA just did their annual PowerPoint training about this yesterday and we all got the link to the PowerPoint a few hours ago and then you can also click on the um webinar as well. I think it's roughly an hour and a half and NHSBA is not perfect, but it's a decent introduction to the system if you're interested in pursuing it further. >> Yeah. And then maybe our closing. >> Yeah. Um I think in closing, the other thing that hits me is um number four, which is the communication piece of things. I think um what we're going to find
054is the board is increasingly going to need to um work on communication with our community um around what is going on. Why is this happening to us? What is the impact to our district? What are we doing about it? Um, you know, in a transparent way because you I guess I I have a fear that we're looking at having to operate in an environment with a lot less revenue than what we currently have. And if that's the case, then if we don't communicate with the public, things can go pretty sideways pretty fast. >> Yep. >> Quick time. >> Last time. Um Rob and I have been doing a lot of the survey work and one thing we're going to do this year that we have not done in previous years is kind of address a
055lot of those things where among the nearly 3,000 comments we received this year many of them are question that we all know the answer to matter of factly but we keep I think me as a group keep for the public doesn't and people are asking good questions that we are going to try to address back to the community sort of here's the questions we received from you guys here are our answers kind of like an SA7 FAQ list that we tend to be at that we can just continually update sort of here's the frequent questions we get. Many of them are budget but not all of them that we want to address and have it be posted very openly. Here are the answers to your questions. We hear the rumors around the community. We hear
056people are thinking anonymously or not. And here are straightforward two or three sentences each answers to these issues that I think will be helpful in the long run. Mhm. >> A final final. >> I have a question. I need to know what we're doing next now because the the like number eight I will just call out. I think it's like seven, eight, eight, and nine. >> Yeah. >> Directly affect what our finance team and administration is going to be working on sooner rather than later. And I think those are very critical for our ability to anticipate our future needs. So, well board, can you please turn to page five, which has recommendations eight and nine on it? And >> and there might be other ones, and I'm sorry, committee, we did not talk about this
057ahead of time, but some of these are like super small, but those those two are the biggest and most important. So, I don't want to table anything um that we need to make a decision on now until August because our meetings have to happen >> to kick off the budget cycle. >> I mean, I almost um want to cold call Neil because I know you've done board budgeting, but you're not in this committee. When you look at number nine, I'm curious, do those things strike you as ridiculous? to strike you as that's awesome. Like how does that sit with you? >> Uh no, number uh number number nine is great. The challenging piece will be multi-year modeling. >> I don't know that that's truly possible in given the landscape in Vermont right now. >> Michael,
058>> I mean when so I would separate roles and goals and then add to the L's comment. When I take a look at eight and nine, I I feel like the action of the board if we wanted these to happen would be to direct the superintendent to make them happen. Right. They're not they're not our job. >> Yep. Right. >> Um as far as I agree with you there there's no crystal ball I can tell you what Vermont can do. I mean so at that point what I would do is hey if we were a private business what does our expenditure 10 like look like and then what is the variance in pick a number 10% 25% either direction. Yeah. >> Right. try to figure it out. Figure out what your worst case foundation formula
059is and yeah and do that. So I think people would understand that it's a swag thing at that point. You just have to be very careful about any conclusions or actions we take in response to that enormous uncertainty. But I don't think I always have a strong handle of like hey our expense base and our um enrollment forecast and our contractual commitments trend out over three years. This is what they look like. Maybe the budget committee does. side up. >> Yeah. And just to be clear, I think the expense side is is easy. Well, easier. >> Yeah. The revenue side >> the revenue side is where everything goes to hell and and I can't like, you know, I've got scenarios that say in the next five years we lose $5 million. >> Yeah. I think
060>> and so >> dinosaur meteor. >> Yeah. >> And then I will also just and then the other complexity I'll add is when you look at the benefits piece on the Vermont side of the river, we don't have control over those benefit costs. >> Yeah. already. >> I was trying to this is more specific. I guess it's both eight and nine, but just to remind everyone that we have had budget oriented chairs and budget committee chairs before who have attempted all of these things. >> This is not new conceptually, but it gets to sort of the implementation and personnel points that Michael has made before that trip us up and trip up many folks who do this as their careers. Just be mindful like this. that these are not new concepts to us. >> I
061was not one of those people, so I can't dive into the particulars, but >> yeah, Robin, I mean, Renee, >> so I guess building up what I think you're you're getting at, Michael, is are we are we as a board wanting to direct Robin to move forward definitely on eight and n or like because it's not it's not an us thing. >> I'm hearing nine. I'm not hearing I'm hearing some question around eight or eight with >> I think we have to have eight. >> I think it's a vote. >> I I agree we have to vote but I'm just saying back to you what I'm hearing is I'm hearing nine and I'm hearing questions about the multi-year or how we do the multi-year um is it like bullcase bare case where that's what we
062say in NBA school but I don't know you know. >> Yeah. >> And just knowing it's a forecast and it's basically made up anyway. >> Yeah. So, well, would somebody like to call for a vote or make a motion about this? Also, is it hot in here or mine? >> Okay. I'm not having a personal weather moment. >> Yeah, I know you're If you are, we all are. >> Okay, >> fine. >> Okay. I will move that we vote as a board to recommend items 8 and nine to for Robin to pursue um for the upcoming budget cycle. >> Second. >> Okay. >> Discussion discussion before anyone discuss. We take a vote. >> We have someone online. Kelly and Garrett. Uh, Kelly and Garrett. Uh, why don't Kelly, you start us off? >> Yes. >>
063Garrett, I don't know if you you're allowed to vote. Yes. Garrett, >> I'm going to abstain from this. Just disagree with a lot of this. >> Um, then we'll go over to Neil. >> Ordell, yes. >> Tenton, yes. >> Christie, yes. Sullivan, yes. >> Ke, yes. >> Nelson, yes. Lozer, yes. Russell, yes. >> Costi, yes. >> Good. >> Jon, yes. So, okay. So, Robin, we can trust your excellent judgment to figure out to deliver. I can't guarantee it's gonna be perfect, but >> to acknowledge >> um and then just I I would make recommendation on the board side that we see if there is some way that we can pursue board level training on just budget budgeting 101. >> Um I think that's a responsibility of this body not of administration. >> Agreed. Is that
064something that >> Thanks for your email. If yes, so we have so can um how about summer homework if we have a link in their email is everybody willing to look at watch the webinar and report back and that you watched it. Maybe we can have a little quiz >> today at 3:57 from New Hampshire. >> Is there access to the recording? A yes, >> if it doesn't happen and B, um I find trainings virtually that I do not interact with >> about topics that I am pretty new to difficult for my ability to retain. >> Okay. >> Um so I will just put that out there. I think it is great. I believe I took the training on finance at the beginning of last year when I started. Okay. >> Um >> and I
065just I think it I think we should encourage it. I just always feel like um any in Yeah. Um >> I can reset the term. I'll respect. >> So maybe I'm just the body system. >> Yeah. I could also make the record. I am willing. So there on top of all of this there was a complexity of operating an interstate school district. Yes. >> Right. And the budgeting there is a little bit wonky. I am happy to meet with anybody and I can impart what I know. >> Okay. Um, if you all want to meet in a one-on-one session and just to share with you, I you know, big picture, this is how we do things. >> Not if I'm just going to do it oneon-one. Now, if you want to do it in a
066group setting, I'm more than happy to warn a meeting. That's not a big deal. We can do that. >> Neiel's going to do it in part. All I know is bring snacks and water. >> Beer would be >> will help with my >> I think we've done that was hardy discussion. Thank you, Renee. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, Cara. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Teresa. >> I'm gonna take us to the reading of the policy. We have the first reading of policy. EA is who? Deb. >> Yeah. So, this was a pretty straightforward one. You'll see that it's highlighted in green. That's the part that we just need to add to our current policy so that it conforms to um New Hampshire law. So, it's it's in Norwich. It's not in Dresden
067or Handover. We're bringing it forward in handover, but the green part's just conforming um to law. And it was updated to include contracted carriers per RSA 3762 in 2021. So, it's pretty straightforward. I hope that. But now you know everything I know. >> Okay. Anyone have any question? Yeah. Does SEU contract bus service? >> Yes. >> Any other questions? All right, that's first reading. So, it means we will it will come back, right, for second reading. So, okay, >> moving right along. Let me if you know that you know what that is. Sorry. Um, this is the board norms. So, um, for those who weren't at the retreat, um, at our board retreat, we had a healthy discussion about having how we could have some board norms to help us operate more effectively and efficiently.
068And, um, there were draft norms that we looked at as a team there as a board and then we made some adjustments uh, to reflect some of the discussion. The version you see here reflects those um, modifications. A couple of things to call out. Ben asked but we already have a policy or we have a policy around you know what is our role member as a board why do we have norms and this is really having a shared sense of commitment and also just maybe understanding of how we want to operate as a board and in our meetings um and to help us help shared agreements um together. It's often something that I see really strong teams do and it's also something that the strategic plan encourages to do right. So, we wanted to do
069that. And um Oh, sorry. I see a typo that the six should be on the next level down, but next to five or no, there's two. Sorry, I've got bad numbers, too. Um the one thing I wanted to call attention to, which there were discussion around is we talked about how we're thoughtful about how we represent board decisions publicly. We can share individual perspectives while being being clear about what the board decided and why. That was one that we talked about. Um, right. And the one around that we don't speak on behalf of the the board. Lisa, you had raised a question about that. I think I just want to make sure I incorporated the feedback in that one. Um the other one is we used to say that we followed Robert's rules of order
070and we had a discussion that we are not actually following Robert's rules of order and that rather than trying to learn Robert's rules of order that we have norms and things that address some of the issues within Robert's rules of order which is mostly having orderly board meetings and having the ability to maintain and manage who's talking. I said mostly looking at you because I know you love other rules. uh not that I love it, but it certainly gives us a platform to make sure that we do things effectively and efficiently. But the other thing is um >> uh we might want to look into this because some states and I can't remember if it's Vermont or New Hampshire actually require boards to operate that way. >> Okay. >> So before you think that we
071can just throw Robert's rules away and just do something, you know, on our own, we might want to confirm that. >> Okay. Um >> and then I would ask us again to even review that decision because I do think Robert's rules of order um even it uh in particular if you do like the Roberts rules board for small boards um it gets it can get rid of a lot of the complexities >> and leave you with the structure that I think does help run an efficient meeting. >> Carl requires Vermont requires New Hampshire does not >> New Hampshire does not. It's a lovely cliche. >> Thank you. >> I just did the same one. >> I I up that and we talked about this before that it is a lot of these policies already covered
072in current policy including BBAA which is not the same thing. It was not a carbon copy of each other, but several of these are also addressed in BBAA and that one which the board approved less than two years ago explicitly said board members will follow Robert's rules of order and several of these other ones we do actual in there such as board behaviors and expectations and you talking with one voice and all those types of things. So if this is going to be a thing that needs to be addressed by policy which we're suggesting conflicted with policy has to policy anyway. Yeah. What I would suggest we do is take these norms, bring it to policy. We can address that and that with BBAA and several other policies that get at this indirectly or not
073directly and bring it back to update this within where we think the board wants to go. >> Okay. I do think and I could be in the wrong here, but I think there is a difference between policy and norms or shared agreements around how you operate and how you work as a working group. And I appreciate the policy. And I think the biggest thing when you said is that we're saying we do one thing and then we're not saying it here. And so there was for the two people that weren't there, there was a healthy discussion about is Robert's rules working for us as a board because we're saying we do it and we don't follow it. So I think maybe what I'm hearing is we need more of a discussion and it's not tonight
074because it's 9:03. So can I make a recommend? >> Do quick vote. >> we could do quick move on >> Lisa. Yeah, just um there's a caveat apparently to the Vermont rule about having to use it that if you're a board of fewer than 12, you don't have to >> okay use Robert's rules. I'm not saying that it's not a good guideline, but I'm just saying if we're worried about breaking the law and not our policy, >> um there is a caveat in the in the Vermont statute. The one concern I have around taking norms and putting them into policy is then how do we like I like the idea of like teams reflecting on and each year saying how are these norms working for us and making it not be as formal as a
075policy but being something that it's a shared agreement but I could be out of my lane here because I'm used to working outside of the schoolboard setting. Renee. >> Um, sorry. >> But, uh, I, my understanding is that policy gets decided on by policy committee and then comes here to be reviewed, whereas I feel like the norms are things that we would own and discuss here. And it feels weird to me to have a subset of us or whoever's in the policy committee make that decision. So, I'm definitely with you on the norms front. Um, but I again I don't I don't necessarily know the pros and cons of it all, but I love I love them. I love the fact that they're there and I would just put a pitch wherever we go follow
076norms that they're like attached in our agenda each time so that like I don't know it's in the opening or wherever the Zoom link is or whatever like we we have access to it immediately and it's not just something that >> you have to search for on the policy. >> Okay. Uh, who raised your hand first? >> I'll go ahead. Go ahead. >> Um, wait a minute. The policy committee is not a one-way street. There are many that come from board to policy to refine and make granular and do all the fine print stuff and then bring it back to the board. My concern here is that now there's a direct conflict >> and there are several policies and BBA is one of them where the board does discuss and reapprove and sign roughly I
077think in February March I forget the exact time period. So it is discussed theoretically at the board level. I think more the concern that we're having here is we all tend to regress to the mean of reverting back to our previous behaviors and we don't really want to do that. So it's more how do we continually remember that we have these policies and act on them which is why like the public participation one is put in as an attachment at every board meeting in the public participation speech. So we always quick look back at it if something comes up quickly which has happened in the past and perhaps this rules and duties of board members and similar ones because there are a plethora of board expectation and behavioral ones could be either further refined or
078put as attachments that we just reflect upon yearly or as it comes up in meetings and things of that nature. >> Michael, >> yeah I I mean sorry I'm I'm accustomed to board norms and etiquets and behaviors. And the point is well taken. They shine on board norm that directly conflicts with policy. And if the policy committee wants to do a sidebyside of conflicts with board norms and board policies, that's fine. Um I I don't think they're incompatible. Um and you know, to the extent we're having a conversation about >> how these norms might conflict with policies, I I think that tells us a lot about adherence with policies. Um, but the the meetings can be a little like sand in the gears and so having some shared norms perfectly fine. I've been on boards
079where there's like there's no rule against speaking twice on an issue. The strong norm was you just simply to do it. You could >> but you did that or hey um you deferred the committee chairs did not like anybody speaking about their stuff. Did I agree with that norm? No. But that board had agreed that that was the norm. So I think if the policy committee wants to show where they stray as a follow the rules that that's fine but some strong norms I think would help us. >> Actually one thing I can call out is we don't say we don't do Robert's rules. We just don't say we do do Robert's rules. So technically the norms are not in conflict with the policy. It just doesn't repeat that we use Robert's rules of order.
080It says, "We wait to be recognized." Which I believe is a part of Robert's rules. Board members signal the chair and wait to be called on before speaking. The chair manages the flow of discussion to keep the meeting on track. >> And then number five and number six, as we know, we we're going to need to move on and that we will ask, is this a board conversation or committee so we can understand and basically have discussion happen at committee level to save us from having big discussion boards about committee. But that Carrie, love that point. Um, that's all I have to say. >> Yeah, I think it's >> and so, so, um, >> I guess I'm being hung up where I know you have like writing say Robert's rules in writing, but we also
081said in the notes that the goal is we're not going to follow Robert's rules anymore. And I'm not advocating for against Robert's rules. It's more just it conflicts with policy. He wrote and updated recently. >> Yeah. The discussion was explicitly we are we say we are and we are not and that we are all so time crunched because we're on so many committees and doing other things anyway that rather than asking people to learn yet another framework is what could we agree to that felt important and fair and it was that we wait to be recognized we can help move on in meetings and we can move toward a decision. Um >> but I open up because others I wasn't the only one there but that was what I took away from the discussion. I
082would agree, >> Tara. >> I suggest that we close session. >> I agree. >> Okay. So, I guess uh >> making a motion to close debate that requires a twothirds voting. >> It was anyone can say at any time. I was not at this meeting. So if anyone can say at any time the discussion should be any further. So anyone do we vote on sorry I'm getting confused. We don't need to vote. So we were closing the discussion. We had second. Okay >> great let's move on to business requiring action. Anyone we need to um approve expenditures minutes non-public minutes and we do have approved board norms in. So, does anyone want to make a motion to approve items B through E by consent? Renee, >> I move to approve items B through E by
083consent. >> Second. >> Okay. Um, sorry. Discussion. >> I would like to separate out E from the other. >> Okay. Does anyone I don't really care about separating out think we should just go home and I don't know what happens when we have that kind of >> anyone else. >> Yeah, let's let's just do it. It's two quick votes. So we can do B through D by consent and vote and then we can vote on E instead of >> Yeah. having great. Okay. So, would someone like to make a new motion? I approve. I move to approve items B through D by consent. Second, Lisa. Great. All right. Let's start with Garrett. >> Uh, Paul >> and then Neil >> Nelson. >> Okay. Sorry. I'll get you at the end, Kelly. >> Nelson. Yes. Yes.
084>> Russell. Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. Yes. >> Approve board norms. Second. Carrie. >> Uh let's start with Carrie. Uh sorry with Kelly and then Garrett and then we'll go to Neil. >> Final. Yes. Thomas. Yes. >> Anthony, yes. >> Christie, yes. Yes. >> No. >> Nelson, yes. >> Yes. >> Russell, yes. >> Yes. Okay. Great. Uh, moving on to report of the chair. Um, this is our last meeting of the school year and so and we'll be meeting again August 18th. Um, >> great. all the just incredible work and contributions of everyone on the board. I think all of us dedicate a lot of time, energy, and um just like human care to supporting our schools and I think that's really incredible, Robin. Really grateful for your leadership. Thank you. >> Um it's been
085a great year having you and also Lauren kudos you guys. um without giving anything away, your partnership comes out as one of the highlights um in the review that we did. And so just want to publicly acknowledge that so people know that that's something great. Um I was going to share, but I I'm going to wait until August. I think it would be great. I'd like to have an agenda item in August where we talk about the strategic plan and specifically the pieces that are related to us as a board. We had a pretty healthy discussion about that at the retreat, but we didn't make it through all the way. So, I'd like to propose that we add that to our agenda in August if that works for people. And other than that, I want
086to keep us moving and take us to committee reports. So, um, are there any other committee representatives, Deb, who would like to update the board? Well, this is not really a committee unless it's the one that I appointed myself to, but I just wanted the board to know about HB1300, which calls for a mandatory tax cap bill. And there are multiple problems with this piece of legislation. So, by all and and the governor is not clear if she's leaning towards supporting it, which means she could lean the other way. So, if you want to call her, I can tell you her phone number is 6032712121. And um I I think it's perfectly okay for people in Vermont to call because it has implications for this district's budgeting. Um but it has to be brought before
087the voters in November, but in March is when we do our school budgets. It sets a limit of 6% for SAU. There are all kinds of confusing elements. There's a whole page of issues that I shared with Kelly and Ben and Robin and perhaps they can pass that out to you, but it will apply. We have to ask if it if she signs it, we have to ask this November 26 and again in 28. It will apply to the 2728 budget. it takes three-fifths of a majority to implement. Um, but then you also have to undo it in the future at some point. So anyway, this is just so that you know about that particular tax cap and how unclear it is and how problematic it is. And the other thing I just wanted to
088let you know about is that Governor Ayat already opted the state of New Hampshire into the federal voucher bill and it it will divert money from the federal treasury and it is a tax gift to the wealthy because they can take the amount is a 100% tax credit. There is no other charitable donation that counts as a 100% tax credit and you can have your um anyway there there's just a whole lot about it and I can certainly share a document with you. I was on a Zoom for 45 minutes and I have two pages of notes that I can happily share if I have the approval of the board chair to do that. But I just wanted you to know that there's in that the federal voucher goes into effect in January. >> It
089seems reasonable for you to share notes if it's in anformational >> okay >> way. So it's not required but if you're curious andformational like to read those documents I would say that that seems fair. So >> we'll do that >> keep it short. >> Are there any other committee representatives that need to update us? uh just as the chair of the spec superintendent eval performance evaluation committee. We were going to talk about that non-public, but >> we have an update. >> Great. >> Robin, is there anything that you would like to update us outside of your report? >> I just have my report and I included all of my goals for the year and whether I felt like I met them or did not meet them. and you've given me a lot to think about
090for goals here. >> You're 27. So, I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Robin? >> This is not a question. Well, I could frame it as a question. Total visits to the four schools in our district, 218. >> That's That's a number. That's quite impressive. I think I was being served. >> You and yeah, you did say minimally this number of times just to give you an idea of what my visits have been. >> Thank you. That's great. >> Lauren, is there anything you would like to add to your excellent reports in >> I have nothing to add. >> No, you've questions for Lauren. Seeing none. >> Moving on to Teresa. Thank you. >> Teresa, do you have anything you would like to add or comment on in your report this evening? >>
091Well, I'm right now not appreciating being last. >> Fair enough. >> Because I brought you good news earlier and this one's not so great. >> It's not anything we can do. Um, so I just go back to the cover page, all the reports that I uploaded. 1.0 is the summary. Um, we already knew coming into this year that we had a deficit of 166,000. So, >> we did everything we could to cut cost based on the budget and everything else. We anticipated that we could probably reduce our expenditures by about 80,000 from what we had. we actually reduced it 124,000. So even with that said, our revenue shortfall due to the contract with um lime not materializing that was going to put us at 150,000 already short on revenues. Um we had some extra refunds
092or whatever, a couple refunds, so it actually came back. We're at 146. Um, with that being said, at the end of this particular year, just the revenue and expenditures, we are still short $22,000. So even with cutting, like I said, even reducing our expenditures by $124,000, it wouldn't have um with that and in what I had was 151,000 and conferring with the auditors roughly looking at instead of 166 last year, it's close to 151. A little give there. That still leaves us going into next year at 174. We anticipated 145. What occurred was although we had staff leave, we also had at least three staff leave that had acred benefits that had to be paid out. That's to the tune of about $56,000. >> So otherwise we would have been even under the 145. But
093because of that factor and that's not something they could control. >> Okay. >> Um like I said, we're sure last year. >> So going into next year means that we're already, you know, what we what we hadn't anticipated and assessed the extra 150 to make it up means that we're going into next year doing the same thing we did this year that we're automatically going to be saying we have to cut 30,000 right away. somehow someway, >> right, >> that happens to put us back where the plan was next year to be at least break even or on the positive. And that's still the plan, Michael. >> And from an accounting basis, where does that expense live be accused? >> It's in the wages. Um, yeah, they they were all benefits. >> Yeah. So, you're
094going to see I have one of the documents that shows everything by um object code and you'll see in the 200s. Well, I did it by department. Sorry, I did it by function and department, but no, I have sorry I do this one SAU we're done under the um object code. So, you'll see and everything else, but it's strictly benefits. >> Yeah. But I'm just thinking and maybe it's that's what I'm trying to figure out if it's different here. Um I'm used to accounting systems where if somebody takes earn time off that creates a cash problem for me but it does not create a budget problem for me because I've already acreded all that expense. So, >> but it wasn't because >> even even though because even though these particular um employees the cash payout
095even they've earned they worked their hours and everything else. So, they still got paid those out. Then we still had to we employed the new person that came in. So really that was above and beyond what the two two employees together would have total >> above the budget. >> Pay out 25 days of vacation with people having used them. >> Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out the accounting treat. Just trying to figure out the account when >> Oh, when the tech director left at the That's a bad one. Sorry, it's not the one I want to use. When the payroll person left where that salary You're right. Up until then, even if the person stayed, they would have had that factored in. But when they left and then the new person comes in, I'm
096still filling that same wage, >> but now that payout on top of it is what puts me over budget. >> I guess like one very quick followup question is we cash or acrual basis. >> It's a hybrid. >> Oh, okay. >> It is a hybrid. >> Not that answers. It is a hybrid because there's certain things that are absolutely treated on a cash basis and then we're certainly um doing still again on the balance sheet. I mean >> is there any way to save your way out of this like to find that money in this budget to get back to zero for the next budget >> for for this one? that we've got. >> I I mean that's what I I have looked at everything I can think of and what's pretty much left really
097is wages and benefits for the most part. Anything else we have to pay the phone bill, we have to pay, >> you know, they're they're all we have to we also I mean that was part of the reason that I didn't fill the technology position. I didn't fill the administrative assistant position up here just trying to save money but these are unbudgeted expenses that we've had from people leaving and having acred these benefits so it's nothing that we should have budgeted for unfortunately >> minus minus that I mean we would have actually way into that 145 >> target that we were hitting Sorry, Sarah. Then Renee, >> it's not the benefits themselves that really um hit the budget. It's the having two employees at the same time, one outgoing and one. Yes. >> Technically, we
098can look at it that way too. >> Yes, that >> the benefits as um you know, Michael mentioned are already baked in to the budget. Those accured >> Well, no, the payouts are not. >> You're supposed to you account for them as a liability in the year back or if they just stay um it's already baked into the accounting. >> But for this particular year, we would have built in that the person was going to work the 260 days. But if you're allowed to carry over two years of benefits, then you get the >> Well, actually, we understand. Yeah, >> there were different rules for different employees. So, >> then >> it's okay. Am I more I'll just chat with Jenna Edwards. >> Jen, >> were there overlaps on those hires? >> Yes. >> No.
099Um, one person I would like. >> Sorry. Um, on on the outgoing there weren't overlaps on those particular employees. Um, the only overlap I guess would have been on the superintendent role, the outgoing superintendent. So theoretically we'll have >> but the other two there weren't and and then when we had an employee that was out used all their time because they were entitled but because that position was open for so many weeks um each time I I had to have part-time help just to get things done. So that was another unexpected cost. It's just circumstances just keep rolling. >> This is my last question and it's not about those specific employees. >> Are we under acrewing >> earn time for exempt employees or others presently? I I would say no to that right up front
100only because um again when they leave if our our agreement says you can cash out one years even if you have two years you can't cash out on two you can cash out on one >> but again if we had two employees equal 260 days >> and one leaves you still have you know 200 hours that you're paying out that I didn't anticipate. Okay. >> It might be worth looking at is what I'm hearing. Maybe just to look and see. Maybe the questions are coming up. >> Any other comments or questions for Trees? >> I mean, I certainly think that based on what I know about the district, I can tell you um and a lot of people have been around longer than I have, but this was a bit of an anomaly. again there
101there's a lot of things about this year that just >> every time you think okay this should be it and then something else would happen. So >> it's been one of those years. >> Thank you Teresa. Any other questions? Okay. >> All right. Oh, do you have a question or no? Great. Davis is queued up. Let's move into non-public. It looks like we have a need to move into nonpublic for the Yeah, you probably know where to go. I move to enter into non-public session at 9:28 p.m. under RSA 91- A 32 C. You have a second Lisa and starting with Garrett then Kelly then Neil. >> Mom, yes. >> Mal, yes. >> Anthony, yes. Christie, yes. >> Sivan, yes. >> Enie, yes. >> Nelson, yes. >> Wilson, yes. >> Russell, yes. >> Austin, yes.
102>> A yes. Great. Thank you. >> Head into chamber. Good night. Neil pulling you into nonpublic. >> Yeah. >> Um, okay. So, big highlights. People are quite happy with Robin. Um, there's, you know, we pulled out some themes. We set some goals, but, um, you know, it was a tough year of transition. and she did well. She's wellliked. She's visible. She's connecting the leadership team. First theme, she's visible, relational, and supportive leadership. This like over and over again, we've got some quotes that people have shared. Um theme two was just that there's increased collaboration and leadership culture across the um and this is where the Lauren and Robin combo came up in most interviews. does not appear. There's no public here >> and there's no public online. So, um, one thing that we realized, um,
103that we want to just maybe take a quick vote on is we had that discussion, um, about the, uh, review and we just want to make sure that the board is comfortable that based on the conversation we just had with the updates and feedback that you are okay with us presenting the review to Robin without needing to see the final draft. Um, can I take a vote to make sure that that's everyone's comfortable with that or um someone make a motion? >> I would make a motion that the board authorized the committee to provide a review to the superintendent consistent with the discussion we just had in non-public session. >> Thank you. So have a second Renee. Uh, starting with Kelly then Garrett then Neil with Jacob. Okonnell. Yes. >> Palm. Yes. >> Yes. >>
104Christy, yes. >> Sullivan, yes. >> Deie, yes. >> Nelson, yes. Yes. >> Russell, yes. >> Rusty, yes. >> Yes. If any Does anyone have any agenda topics for our next meeting? Right. I will take a motion to adjourn our meeting. >> Death. >> I move to adjourn at 10:01 p.m. >> And I hear it. All right. and Kelly starts off. >> McConnell, yes. >> Bomb. Yes. >> Yes. >> Christy, yes. >> Sullivan, yes. >> Yes. >> Nelson, yes. >> Yes. >> Russell, yes. >> Cost, yes. >> Yes. Speaking is journ. See you all August 18th. Or tomorrow. >> Congratulations to parents of graduates. Have fun. >> Or to the headover board.