[Music] welcome to the July 17th 2024 Finance subcommittee of the Brookline school committee um we will start with uh first agenda item which is approval of minutes of the June 26 2024 Finance subcommittee meeting um I will make the motion can I get a second I'll second okay okay um Sarah any discussion there is one discussion that I want to make which is um on the part where we talked about what was going to happen next on the class guidelines um Carolyn mentioned and I think she's right that the wording was a little bit prescriptive as to the next steps we had only talked about it going to policy um not as and the wording in the minutes is a little bit more specific about like advancement adoption I can't remember the exact words but it's a little more specific so we're going to just leave it at it's going to policy next and not sort of write the whole sentence out so that would be the one minor edit we would have to the minutes um so with that Val how do you vote Yes Sarah yes um and I vote Yes and we don't have Carolyn in the attendees okay so we are just waiting um I guess we don't oh there's Carolyn I don't think we need to wait on Carolyn though to make that change but I'll give her one sec Carolyn hi hi sorry to be late that's okay we just voted on the minutes with the edit um okay do you want to vote too or do you want to skip uh yes okay my vote is yes thank thanks yep then next item on the agenda is acceptance of gifts we do not have um any gifts to accept the next item is acceptance of Grants and the one grant that we have to review is the innovation fund award for fy2 um so in the packet you all received and let me try and figure out how to I can pull it up Mariah thank you so you received both the letter from The Innovation fund um which has a breakdown of the costs and the total is the $227,000 882 I'm sorry 227,00 $82 um and then there were some additional um the non-salary costs of the 42,000 so it's about 30 um 30,000 total I believe um and there was also an additional document um that the high school and OTL staff um provided us with which reviews sort of the details of what's both like the planning process for the in inovation fund and then some of the details like so sort of how this grant is really aligned to the Strategic plan and the budget impacts which I know we've all discussed significantly um over the past year or two in particular in terms of how the Innovation fund ties to um the larger plan and the budget impacts of it so I went through that document and um I highlighted a couple of sections in there that I just wanted the committee to be aware of so um in particular just these are in the budget impacts and so um the first one the memory fellow there is not really a long-term budget impact because it's essentially a one-year set aside to develop a project but then it ends and and the the curriculum is basically then ready for other teachers to use um but the Heritage Spanish Spanish speaking pathway has a highlight there because there is if you don't mind scrolling down Betsy thank you um just that the um Staffing model for this is a um it's sort of a shared it's not really shared but it's like an English teacher who's supporting the Spanish teacher in developing the literature programming and so just noting that that everyone is aware that there will be teacher reduction to to return to a sort of one teacher per class model in the long term um Betsy there's background noise for you I don't know if you want to go on mute and then um do you mind going down a little bit more Betsy thanks so um there is a all for the queer student program there is also a question of um supporting the leadership and the budgetary capacity so I think that that is not necessarily a question for this year but it's in the future um and this is a similar question to what happened this year as we were talking about the aapi Affinity program that had been um piloted through the Innovation fund um and the the transition of that into the high school budget um data science um there is potentially a budget impact it says it's going to evolve into a CO talk class um and then I think those were the only highlights of things that I sort of wanted to um point out to people that did have budgetary impacts but I see Sarah your hand is up so go ahead yeah I I think pretty consistently we hear from Anthony when the these um positions get um put in or these when a new class comes in with a FTE associated with it it's usually because a former class is going to um you know maybe it's not as relevant anymore is not going to run so I I appreciate that you've highlighted these but I also want to say that I think that both The Innovation fund and Anthony are always thinking that way so there isn't over the years an impact at the roll out I don't think that's entirely true wait one second because Affinity programs are not like classes so the Affinity programs there can be more of them that diversify and and it's not like we drop a different Affinity program because we have a new Affinity program I do agree with you the classes and then I agree in that instance yeah yeah and then for the courses if you're going from a course taught by a single teacher into a co-top model there's also a budgetary impact there so um so that's why I highlighted those yes I hear what you're saying and there is there are there are instances here which are particularly flagging of um the budgetary impact yeah and I agree completely that that is what we need to sort of be attuned to here so I appreciate what you're bringing out that that's really like our part in it as a school committee so thank you Helen yeah I um I I do think we need to keep as you said uh Mariah We need to keep our eyes on it they do go down to one teacher in almost every instance I think it's happened but I think the data science one gives me a little pause I don't even remember this one coming to curriculum but maybe it did I think we've gotten presentations on it in the past year I'm pretty sure it has gone to curriculum because I missed that meeting I may have I think there was a we because we definitely had a presentation on data science for social justice at full school committee yeah um Sarah go ahead so I'm gonna make sure that we're defin we're hearing about this upfront um in in the future as we plan so I'm the liaison to The Innovation fund and I've already started meeting with them but I'll make sure that I um update US during the regular uh school committee meetings and then hopefully take the take advantage of subcommittee meetings for a curriculum to kind of go more in depth with classes so that we can really be watching this but I do think that the impact of the roll out after the class is done is you know not adding many many additional uh positions yeah I just think like last year remember it came up because we had the Confluence of greaters class sizes at the high school and then I can't I can't if it was like it was less than one FTE but it was maybe 04 point6 cumulatively that was coming from multiple programs and so just every bit helps and to the extent that I mean the Innovation fund is amazing and they're doing this amazing stuff for um the high school educator to be able to give them these opportunities to innovate and we want all of that to happen and we want to make sure that it's sustainable and programs can be picked up completely understood yep yeah okay so do we want to make a motion to approve or to recommend a full Sub full school committee that they accept the grant so moved okay do I have a second second y second Carolyn thank you Sarah how do you vote Yes Carolyn yes B yes and I vote Yes okay um next item on the agenda is um review of PSB the finance section of the PSB policy manual um I'm wondering if we want to swap this and move just pause this for one minute and move up the conversation around class sectioning since we have some attendees who I think are interested in that and that way they don't have to um stay through the entire discussion of Finance policy is that okay with you Susan that we swap around the order and do class thank you and class sectioning an update first so just to remind people that we had um told the Hayes uh community that we would provide them an update in July and an update to the school committee as well um on the situation or the status of the rising third grade next year's third grade sections in enrollment yes so be before you is uh some historical information that I had previously provided to you uh in March and then uh at the meeting at the beginning of uh June and now what the numbers are looking like um as of yesterday so um I'm just going to focus in on grade three uh if you look back in uh Betsy if you could go the other direction I'm just going to point out grade three so we had uh 48 registered students in grade three back in March um that number declined in May uh by one and um uh and and those are the current second graders just right like when we say that right grade three we were sort of projecting for next year just so I'm clear in my own head okay next year's grade three uh grade two last year is concluded so this is yes this is uh as of um today as we've uh take a look towards September uh so in July um again the numbers change of course uh some up some down in grade three uh we're down to 46 with two sections that would make the average uh class size 23 uh we also are aware of uh two additional um students that uh will be moving out of that grade um and so right now though though they have not uh submitted the paperwork for it uh the principal was notified um and that uh would appear uh in the next iteration so those numbers in the third grade um are declining uh so that's good news I guess for those that may be concerned about the class size there um with those two out of course it would bring the class size down to 22 overall at Hayes the average class size is 18 you know which is very favorable um and so those are the the highlights you you know that uh I present what the guideline is in each grade and then underneath that if we collapse it by one section um what would what would the average class size be so in the fourth grade we added um uh section there uh so the average class size is down to 16 if we uh reduce that by when I'm not saying we are I'm just explaining how uh uh the table um what what the information on the table means that if we reduce uh grade four and five at the hay school by one section they would still be within guideline not saying that um we would do that the numbers will change this is July and as you can see if you look at each of these iterations the numbers um are in flux and they will continue to be so we're not recommending any uh changes in sections um any any further than what we've already added there at Hayes uh any questions about that um not I'll go on to the baker no I just want to give the chance to our attendees who are here here if they would like to make any public comment they are welcome to make comment so I think Betsy they just rais their hands if they want to uh let me just be sure they have that um ability give me one moment here and I Carolyn why don't you go ahead and um make your attendees now can raise their hand for whenever you're ready okay so we'll let Carolyn go ahead and talk and anyone if you're interested in making public comment on this you're welcome to just put up your hand and I'll call you after Caroline thanks Mariah and thank you Susan um I just want to make sure I understand um exactly um sorry I'm trying to bring this back up on my own screen so this is the information of um enrolled from the district office not from the where does this data come from from the district or from ASA which is probably the same thing but I'm just curious uh the information in this worksheet comes from the um Department of enrollment and registration okay and then how does rise fit into this is Rise a separate classroom and it has some inclusion during the day how where do the how does the Rise program fit into these numbers all want one of us to answer that sorry suan G let Susan go Susan go ahead unless you want sure sure so in terms of the numbers the students who are attending uh each School are included within the numbers the enrollment numbers it's out of District students that wouldn't be included in the numbers how the various programs work and how many students I I couldn't speak to that um okay so the these numbers are inclusive of The Rise program it's not a whole separate yeah whatever students are enrolled right now at the Hayes School are represented here thank you thanks it looks like we have no questions from the attendees so um I want to say thank you Susan for the update on Hayes and I think like you said you have another update on Baker um so we'll proceed with the baker update Mariah someone did just just raise their hand attendees just great if you want to call on is it Dalia doia we should be able to hear you now hi everyone thank you can you hear me yes go ahead hi I'm Dalia so Yi is my oldest daughter is going to be in third grade and our youngest daughter Ry is starting beep so we are fully integrated in Hay my main concern and I know that there's fluctuation in the numbers and there's changes we know that last year did not work well for the third grade kids we heard and I personally heard from friend a very close friend that her son that her kids suffered why are we doing an experiment I understand that maybe we're not as high of a number right now but the kids are suffering and the teachers are not able to handle this large number of kids maybe they're not trained not capable it's really challenging for them I just feel like at the end of the day it's only our kids that are going to be impacted by it we have already three classes in second grade I think we need to continue with three classes maybe a for the future but what we have what why we moove from what we have now so we've been emailing quite a bit we've been involved and it's really important to us you know we chose Hy for a reason we love the school and we really ask that you re reconsider um it's it's really challenging and to understand why and I know there's guidelines um but again the Second Great the third grade is will be the largest class at Hayes thank you thank you for your comment um Carolyn is this about Hayes okay go ahead sorry and I this might not be super relevant but I am wondering Susan and I'm wondering this just generally whether you know from the information that you got where you're saying that you know this is showing 46 in this third grade and you've been told I think you said by ASA that two more students two students are leaving we are asked as parents to enter information into Aspen about our intentions for the next school year do you know whether these are families that are choosing to go to private school instead of staying in PSB versus moving out of state moving out of the country Etc moving out of the Town my understanding is there moves not not not uh uh moving out of the community that's my understanding sorry I didn't understand what you mean they moves not moving out of the community they moves move meaning moving out of the commun Community thank you thank you um okay Susan go ahead to the baker update okay um so Baker's a different uh situation uh it's not enrollment re related rather it is uh certification related so at the middle school level um there are uh two and a half FTE in uh social studies and two and a half FTE in uh English language arts and so the 05 position is being uh is currently uh being filled by a person with a certification in ela um and not in social studies so uh the administration is um uh going to be adding one FTE in order to be able to have a full-time uh certified Ela teacher and a full-time uh certified social studies teacher at the baker school I don't have uh you know information about where is the reduction going to be uh simply because I'm just returning uh today and uh the superintendent and uh the uh Deputy superintendent of teaching and learning are not in the office this week and I'm just looking at these numbers just pulling them together um uh and I haven't had a chance to discuss with them where where the the reduction would be so I'll have to bring that back to you but there will be um more information to follow about where the uh funding will come from and then in the future one of the things that's on my um uh task list is to uh codify the process for uh when we make these um requests to at a position and where the funding is going to come from I just uh due to my absence I I just haven't had the the opportunity to pull pull that together so I I'll bring that to you at the next meeting um once I have uh the opportunity to solidify the process and the forms and all of that thank you Susan I think that'll be great so we'll pilot that at probably our I think we have two August meeting so probably the last one in August to give like a full month to um plenty of time to to figure out the paperwork and the process and then and then so that'll be the first time we go through with the Staffing I don't know what we're going to call this but the staffing change whatever whatever it's called when we pilot it next month so okay that's helpful any questions or comments from the subcommittee before about the update to Baker Staffing before we proceed okay um next item on the agenda and thank you Susan for the update on Hazen Baker next item on the agenda is the finance policy update so just as a little bit of history in 2022 um we went through and started this process and got I had put together a draft that essentially took the masc um draft policy at the time and and Brookline IED it and we got pretty far into that process and I would say it was like pretty close to being done um and then our we we had some a turnover in the deputy superintendent position and um so we paused it and I was really excited to do it in 2022 because that was the 40th anniversary of the bulk of the um Finance policy most of which dates from 1982 some a little bit earlier some a little bit later but the bulk of it's from 1982 so so I thought it was going to be a really nice 40th anniversary present to ourselves to update that but we paused it um due to the turnover and now Susan is here and we are thrilled to have her um and we are not going to rush through this process we have three meetings scheduled this summer to talk about this and I thought that the um first meeting um I had sent out to you all the masc basically their draft policy and then our current um Finance policy and the question to that I posed to the subcommittee and staff who are participating in anyone else who's here everyone's welcome to participate but specifically it went to my questions that went to um the school committee and and finance staff were um what's what's missing from the masc that um that we want to add in from our current policies and then what in neither place but we think should be there my intention um is to is to adopt the spirit of what Stephen said that the masc policy Guru advisor I don't know what their title is director um said Which is less is more so to the extent that our policy can be relatively streamlined and we leave the details to policy under the direction of um Susan and lus and other staff um then that's probably the best way to go with that said there's some areas clearly that the masc policy um both re like it asks you to fill in local um speci specifics and there may be things that we care about and want to talk about and we just want to plug those in so um so I guess I would I just want to open it up for conversation I know not everyone had the chance to read the masc policy um and the PSB policy but I just sort of wanted to start by opening up for conversation on the questions that I threw out there of what's missing that we have and what's missing that is not present in either document um and I see your hand is up Sarah the thing that I would ask from the subcommittee is comments you make of sort of suggestions um if you can write them down and then send them to me afterwards just so I know we have this meeting recorded too but if you to the extent you can write them down and just email them to me afterwards that will be helpful to assembling the next draft so go ahead Sarah you're on mute you're still on mute it's funny is am I still now no you're good now okay um so uh what I really like about this document is when it um brings out the way that we think about education and how of course that's relevant to how we finance things so the the the thing that jumped out to me most was that we have started to use different language about Equity um the masc draft has like centering equity and I ideas of like greatest educational returns and I wanted to ask the committee if we are going for mtss and that's sort of like what like our our um our goal is this next year is to really address this if we might might want to change our language to reflect that so instead of saying like centering equity which is fine language saying things like for all students or also referring to how we want our education to be responsive to students so if you're assessing frequently and then tailoring what you're doing to the student needs so I proposed and I put this in writing to Mariah that we might want to have something more like um like each and every student be invited welcomed and given a sense of belonging and a system of teaching and learning that is fluid responsive and dynamic and that uses all available resources match to each student's need so I think that I'm probably getting a little bit ahead of us to give you us exact language but I was wondering if anybody felt like they wanted to update the way that we talk about equity in this document do you mean this document being our policy or the the NC one okay so like I I can give you the page number so yeah I'm wondering what where you are I think that's the very first page first yeah one of the things your comment hang on one second then one of the things your comment made me think of was rather than recreating language we can point towards our strategic plan which has a lot of this already articulated but um but it is good to Anchor Finance in um what we want to do exactly and what we want to do so how to the extent we can tie those things together I think that's powerful so I would I would I'll go back to the um to the Strategic plan and find where we've talked about Equity there and bring out some language for us and then I'll write that to you in an email does that work yeah that works thank you you okay um Helen was were you talking before yes I was just a Qui question I only see our policy in the where is the masc policy to look at it um you got it in your email yesterday and I think Betsy said she had trouble linking it to the agenda online yeah so it should be on our materials page okay if you look on the materials page yeah um Carolyn and then Susan if you're willing I would love if you would talk to us about the the philosophy of Finance policy as well sort of what you think it's useful how does it help you in general and what are some really good things you've seen But Carolyn go ahead um thanks so first I just want to make sure I'm understanding are you suggesting Mariah that we so I did read through the whole mask and then I've started reading through the PSB existing policy are you suggesting that we now and I agree with the less is more and already just looking at the PSB it was like a lot more um so Mariah are you suggesting that we in this process now just begin with use the mask as a template and almost put aside okay yes basically I'm thinking right like let's start with masc okay and then as we read through the finance one and we don't have to do this in the minute now but as we if we think like and I did read through it and I'll show you all some of my comments but the things that I think we should sort of pull over um into our next draft because I think they're important and and I flagged a couple things that I don't want to see come over and we can talk about why too so um but that was but yes I was thinking let's start with the thing that we know is legally accurate and um yep and ties to all the different state regulations and such and then just fill in from there a little bit great and so um with that understanding I'd love to comment sort of piggybacking from where Sarah was so it did jump out to me and I liked that this The Mask document is um centered on education goals and uses that term frequently um I like the use of educational returns there are other things that I liked that I don't know if they're in hours um I'll look later in a later comment about Community Values being reflected um when I read the first page and The Mask document says one allocate public fun funding centering Equity while achieving the greatest educational returns um to be honest what that makes me think is what does equity mean here I I think that that's a word that at this point is so ubiquitous to have to some extent become unclear as to what it means so if anything if any addition in that respect I think I would be looking for a refinement or a clearer definition of what that means um and while still sticking with the less is more and I think I would probably um yeah I think keeping it at that sort of high level in terms of meeting student needs providing what students need education what we get for the dollars that we're spending that kind of works for me less so than getting into specifics of programming or approaches um that may sort of come and go um so that's that that's a couple comments I'll have more that's helpful um Sarah go ahead when you were when you were talking about um what to leave out on page 13 it talks about purchase orders are 13 of masc you mean yes okay of masc yeah are purchase orders the only way that we can buy supplies at this point no that right so that definitely goes into the category of leaving out why would we can you pull it up [Music] um I think it's one more yeah what's the um well then I don't think we want to exclude that or we might want to right I don't know because when we have Susan when we buy stuff from Amazon or whatever when people are putting stuff on credit cards is there always an Associated PO with it well then there you go oh there is yeah okay there you go all right and then um I just want to make sure sorry if I can speak again to another issue without raising my hands um I just want to make sure that we all are aware that Dr gillery talks to us about um over the December break it would be great not to have our senior leadership working hard um to meet goals uh for or you know right after break um and so I thought that that came up in our um version when you're looking at page 13 of section D of our version um and it it says at that point that when the school committee needs to get the um the information about what's no longer necessary and and um that that should come in on January 1st that might be a date for us to change I was thinking to late do you follow I do I was and I have notes on this too which is essentially this is an opportunity for us to um rationalize whatever the calendar is so that to sort of EX continue the conversation that we had earlier this year about what are the dates that we want to live by um and I think that there is a section in the masc one where um Betsy can you go to like page two I think it is it's like right in the beginning um yeah that one and it starts to talk about deadlines and so forth and and it highlights it says it you know um basically we need to make sure that we're following along it talks about the um the statutory requirement of the public hearing but we need to um sort of come up with something and it says the calendar year will be determined by calculating backwards from the final adoption date essentially we need to modify this a little bit and I think that it also gives us the opportunity to talk about defining calendar every year if we want to formalize that we're going to have guidelines which is in our current one we should put that in there too so the that's an opportunity to personalize this and when you're thinking less is more what are you thinking do you think that it's better to say that there will be a calendar at and at the policy level not have actual dates or do you think that we need to have the actual dates uh I don't know yet maybe this is a chance um Susan if you're willing at this point I might put you on pause just for one second Helen and Susan I don't know if you got the chance to read through this at all I know it was you had a lot going on um but I was wondering if you are willing to um talk to us about sort of what is useful from a finance perspective in policies um maybe the tension between it's not always a tension I guess between like what's what's articulated versus the flexibility you have so on and so forth just a little bit as we start to think about this you're on mute yes you're right Mariah I this has not been on my radar uh coming back you I had a pretty full uh agenda of things to do so I have not had the opportunity to read either document um but we'll do so and and be able to offer some some of my thoughts um at the upcoming meeting uh I prefer to just kind of listen to what what what what's on people's mind tonight um and then I can as opposed to taking a deeper dive or or talking uh through anyone particular one I I'd really just prefer to listen to what people said night and then yeah be able to really engage um at the next meeting if sounds good that's perfect yeah I just didn't want to not give you room to time in as you might feel fit um I can't see Hands do do you mind if I just make a comment on calendar whether we do it more specifically or not we just sure we we do need to think about the fact that um we have more layers of review I think in Brookline than many other cities and towns so I think we need to just make sure that we're accounting for all that whenever we work backward from a town meeting vot sounds good thank you Helen and then Sarah two piece es one I think and I'm not sure but I think there's a town bylaw that we need to have a budget presentation and the top line by February 15th I may be wrong but I would like us to check that because that's the date that always stuck in my mind and always felt way too early along with that I think Mariah if I'm correct me if I'm wrong but at the Town School partnership they were talking about trying to work on these dates is that correct I missed the last Town School partnership meeting I can't remember what I had but I had a conflict or I was traveling Cliff remembers Cliff has his hand up but one thing I would just say is that Town Council has applied that the town bylaw relating to dates doesn't actually apply to PSB and not that we don't want to be cooperative or and collaborative but that is but the bylaw yeah but I mean to the extent that we still want to be you know all rowing in the same direction but that the byw itself doesn't necessarily apply of so that February 15th isn't in stone Ed in stone according to Town Council right um go ahead Cliff yeah I I I'll make a couple comments I think first um uh you Town Council has made a lot of um statements uh uh over the past six months about variety of matters um that he's kind of gone back and forth on and so you know before everyone sort of gloms on to what Mariah just said I think it's really worthwhile to um go back and and and see if he still feels quite the way that he did earli this year but having said that you know I do think there were conversations at the town School partnership um about uh stretching things out and I think it to the extent that that's going to happen it would be in everyone's interest to have some sort of a modification to the bylaw so that um town meeting members and others uh in town government and uh uh residents don't look at the laws and start saying why aren't things happening the way they're supposed to um and that is you know there's plenty of time to get something um you know ready by the end of the summer for uh the fall um uh and I would suggest that maybe some time be spent on trying to craft something there thank you Cliff if if I jump in yeah um thank you Cliff for sh sharing that and Helen for for taking me back because I was trying to remember which meeting that had come up and I think um to Sarah's big Point um about timelines as well as Val saying you know let's sort of count back from from town meeting and know what the deadlines are what I think I was hearing at the last Town School partnership was this notion of the February 15th date and I think what we were doing on the school side was adding some heavy stressors to ourselves to try to have a final budget by that date or voted or adopted budget by the committee by that date but what I understood and I think it was Melissa that said it was this notion of you should have your budget submitted to the administrator by that date or your preliminary budget by that date and we were trying to do a lot of that work in January which didn't give us time number one to even understand fully what our assessment was from the Town School partnership so we were doing a lot of work what I called in two different gopher holes from the town and the schools in that regard so I think it's really worthwhile in exploring the timeline for this year to say what is it that makes sense and when we had this this um conversation with the administrator and Deputy Administrator Susan and I about timelines we we just asked the historical question well in the past when did PSB um submit its budget or produce its budget book and it was always around this this notion of around the February break came up so we have we have sort certainly accelerated that which has made it much more difficult on the school side to produce the documents in a way we we're producing quality but we'd like time to be able to interpret and work through those rather than pushing or advancing forward to this February Ary date um given given some of the initial things that we had put in place before then so yeah I would just I would just add one or two things um uh I think that to the extent that the Town Administrator um expects some sort of preliminary information on the 15th that um you can anticipate that everyone else in town and certainly in the advisory committee would expect to have the information at that point in time as well um and as long as that is something that the PSP is comfortable with then that's then that's fine um and I I I do know that you guys push to get something out earlier this year than um you wanted to uh I I I just think that there needs to be an understanding and agreement among the parties certainly at the Town School partnership uh about uh the timing issues and to the extent that there needs to be any clarification or modification to the bylaw than that something that that should be done um I'm gonna just make one comment on this and then I'll call on you Sarah I think one opportunity is something that we've talked a little bit about because there is there is a difference between having a budget that Susan has an Excel for example and a print ready budget book and with all of the accompanying justification backup and other details and I think that there's an opportunity possibly to be doing a lot of that backend calculation work and accompanied by a brief memo possibly for February 15th and then giving an extended deadline or something like that for um for the actual book at self so that but this is something we can look at at our next meeting of what does seem like a reasonable schedule and what are the deliverables because if if whoever if one person is thinking of a budget as a bottomline number and someone else is thinking of it as a 150 page document those are very different things and so if we clarify our terms a bit it might be really helpful to both alleviate staff and it might mean changing dates too but just there's there's different things that can when we mean when we say the word budget that we have the opportunity to relieve some of that stress um while also providing some level of meaningful information on earlier dates um Sarah go ahead I want to ask a little bit about our assumptions here so I assume that we're working off of the Town date for town meeting being in May for Budget approval and is that why February 15th came up was to give enough time to work up to to town meeting that's one question I have and then the other thing that I want to make sure that doesn't get lost in this is we keep on saying and so all of us know that we have to have our budget approved before we can go out and hire for new positions and that may town meeting date is difficult for us because it puts us a little bit behind where other schools so that we're not able to hire the best people early on I don't believe that because there's like how many towns in the Commonwealth that go through town meeting and I think this is like a manufactured Brookline crisis frankly so I'm not saying we need to sort that question out right now but in a future meeting I think when we talk about the details of the calendar we can get into that because I don't I don't think that that's real okay and then or somehow everyone else is working around it and I do think it's an issue when we are have a budget that's well in excess there might be some challenges there but I'm still not sure that that's true I I feel like other people have figured this out and we can figure this out too the part that you're not not sure is true is that we have to have the budget approved before we can hire correct correct somehow everyone else is working within the right town meeting cycle and managing to hire people so and then the other question um is it from February that is the reason why we have that February 15th date is that's as much time as we need prior to a town meeting in May is that where that comes from well I think that there's different things on it because advisory has some cycle I don't necessarily want to dwell on all the details of calendars so if everyone's hands are up on the details of calendars let's just like the point of this meeting is just to flag the things that we want to put into the next draft and so we don't have to probe every nook and cranny of the calendar question today Helen you have a different topic to talk about it's just a point of information not everybody has their town meeting in May there you go so another intrig some Lexington knows their budget in November how they do it I have no idea yeah but okay um Susan go ahead um May is a very common time to have a town meeting in my experience um for four towns so uh I don't see that as being a uh something that should create a hardship for us and again I'll I'll I can talk more about budget process and protocols at an upcoming meeting this this is good because if there's needs to be a lot of dialogue around this particular topic I think it's it's well worth the time spent to dig in and really have meaningful conversation on on each policy if possible so that we get to the right right place for Brookline today and into the future thanks Susan um if people are willing I would pull up my document that I went through and sort of flagged the stuff that I was interested in um retaining let me see if I can get it to come up okay so I called it things in our policy I would like to see retained and my computer's getting angry about scrolling um there's a couple of things that are in red which are not in our current policy but we have discussed them so I included them here too so the first area is what we've just been talking a lot about about the brook line specific timeline for the budget and deliverables and what those are and when it's published and blah blah blah all of these kinds of topics um the next area is when changes are made to the financial plan so we publish the budget and then something needs to change and um what are like do we want to talk about the details so this red one the approval for any new positions that's what we were just talking about right before this um session of how we how we work that into the um process so that there's a a process for that approval um and then the next one is notification this is in the current um bylaw is basically notification of any changes I think it says like any transfers across cost centers is what it says now um and so that's something of like you know I think it would make sense for us to include that but we might want to consider the policy that we have Now doesn't talk about any threshold I believe for those for those approv and so we might want to say we don't need to know above we don't need to know below x amount I don't know um and then our current policy also talks about having monthly during the school year budget reports by cost center um and then quarterly by operating budget and then by the other accounts so the quarterly is what we do now and the you know and then do we want to consider these monthly budget reports I have this um feeling of tension in my mind between like so much reporting taking away from the other time that staff needs to do things and so this balance but on the other hand it is interesting to be able to see things by cost center which our current reports don't so this is just something that I was mulling on of being interested in seeing cost by cost center um grants and gifts right now it says that they must be [Music] um brought to no actually this is a this is a hybrid right here no it doesn't it's not a hybrid it says that grants are are supposed to be brought to the committee before they're submitted which should happen and doesn't happen right now um and then they're supposed to get reapproved or I guess approved before expenditure and that's true for Grants and for gifts so I would like us to um and Susan and I have talked about this too have a better process around grants so that they're not submitted um before they at least are it doesn't NE have to be the full Grant but some sort of intention to submit with key details is brought to um the committee and then there's some nice language that we have now it's a little wordy but it is helpful talking about the relationship with pto's you know sort of equity around PTO spending um what kinds of things PTO should spend money on and what things should be paid for by the district which I thought was really helpful um to sort of clarify that relationship because PTO are so present in Brooklyn schools and really um we want to make sure that everyone's on the same page about what they should be funding how their funding is um approved by the school committee and so forth because those are again those are still gifts to the schools although often they are directly funded by the PTO and they aren't even presented as gifts to us so how we should be handling that and then this other thing is and we've talked about this um is this idea of how to you know what are the third-party platforms should we be asking people to just or discouraging those like when staff are sending up go fund Mees for different things should we be really collecting the money through PSB and not having it to me there's a big risk about an individual collecting money on behalf of a school district um it puts them at risk it puts the school district there's just a whole bunch of concerns I have about that and so how we protect our staff protect our families and our students and their caregivers and make sure that um the flow of money and support of the schools is very um clear so that's one thing I thought about and then signatories the the right now our documents designate the finance chair and the capital chair for their specific warrants and that's not written I don't think in the masc documents or maybe it's presented a little bit differently that like the whole school committee has to vote on it and I just thought it was more simple if we just designated it um then there's these miscellaneous things our documents said that like contracts over $100,000 are supposed to go to school committee for approval you know is that something we want to consider we right now have a petty cash policy and a cash in school buildings policy those aren't represented in masc I don't even know if our schools have petty cash anymore but certainly cash in school buildings is happening people collect money for field trips and again that's another risk just like the GoFundMe platforms whenever someone is has is handling money on a onetoone basis and you notice that those numbers were really low right for petty cash for petty cash they were but um but also again I don't know if petty cash is happening and this is something we can talk about separately of course Susan but it just made me think like should we have should we retain this policy or is this something that should really be a procedure and it shouldn't be a policy but some of this stuff is important and I want to make sure so these are things we can put aside um there was something about credit cards um in our policies about who I think about just using them in general I thought should we have something about who can have um procurement cards and why there's a section about sales calls basically um and who can who is allowed to access the school that might be less relevant now with our current way we do things but maybe not um there is a section that we have now about Student Activity accounts and the balances that should be retained in them um and maybe that should be updated and maybe it needs to be included maybe it doesn't and then there's really interesting things I don't know why they ended up in finance um except that maybe they were more expensive at the time but basically like this idea of um environmentally friendly cleaning products and using those and then like using um energy star buying Energy Star Equipment um so did those I don't think those necessarily need to be there but I don't even know if we need policies about that at all these days it might have been more controversial when it was set up but not sure it's a thing but if it does need to be retained it probably shouldn't be in finance at this point so um those were sort of things I I sort of wanted to flag of I thought that they might want to go somewhere but we should talk about them um there is a whole section on scholarships I would like to propose that we that PSB gets out of the business of scholarships this is scholarships for college attendance and the high school um has a significant number of scholarships that are awarded and the high school and bef um bef also gives out scholarships and I'm sorry BCF thank you BCF gives out scholarships and there are people from the high school sitting on the BCF scholarship committee and people from BCF sitting on the high school scholarship committee and I just don't see that our role is in as a public school district um is to administer scholarships I think that that's a very worthy thing but I think it's a distraction from the core work up the district so that's my proposal is that we do not um that we do not that we somehow that we gradually um transfer the scholarships to BCF who I believe would be willing to Ste them and then the last thing is there is a financial assistance policy which I believe is in the student um student section of the handbook and I thought this is an opportunity for us to possibly move it to finance and refresh it tied to all these other Financial things so these were some of the things on on my mind as I went through um Brookline specific things that we might want to roll into the into the masc policy Helen I see your hands up yeah I had two comments if you could go up a bit yes here I just wanted to clarify um oh no he went through so many things sorry the notific a of changes across cost centers yes there isn't policy there certainly was a practice for many years when Peter Ro was here to flag if we moved more than $5,000 from one and there were like a a through G categories Personnel being one a whole bunch of categories uh if we were to move any money that was there so it was a practice I don't it is in the policy it that's why it's black because it's in the current policy oh okay but we've been been informed of it or that it's been used recently right so that's that's that with regards to scholarships I have somewhat of a problem because BCF I know needs money to to do their stuff but they take money out of the scholarship fund people give scholarships to us to the town to the school committee so I would be very hesitant to move scholarships out of our purview and the town's purview I'm I am not sure that that's true they do I'm telling you that they take an administrative fee off of it y okay well we can look into it but I um yeah that was just my initial thought on it Caroline go ahead oh and the one other piece I'm sorry Carolyn if I could just finish the thought sure it just was a question about yeah the one other piece about scholarships the staff at the high school knows the students and families better than anybody else and so they are better positioned to help to know which students really need the scholarships or which ones fit into certain categories but the staff sit on the BCF scholarship committee too yeah because they have other scholarships because they but my point is even if the scholarships transferred to BCF it's not that the high school staff wouldn't be there to to inform who is the best fit for what I still think it's something we need to do but okay um any other questions or anything on my I interrupted Caroline oh that's right sorry where did Caroline go there she is no yeah no I interrupted you Helen but I think that that was just clarified for me I was just asking a sort of learning question about the different that the high school does it the high school does scholarships and that's completely separate from BC B CF it sounds like okay and does BCF I feel like I heard something about something once and I don't remember what it was but that it might have had more to do with Park and wreck or recreation activities but that sometimes money goes from the town and I don't know if this is the case also with the schools to the BCF and then the BCF administers that money so is that does that happen is there does the school department give money to the BCF in any way to then allocate or or Grant or to the best are you are you talking about the scholarship pool specifically well I am I am but also generally or is it it sound but it sounds like you're saying there are different scholarship programs and they're completely separate but did raise that question for me different piles of money some of scholarships come from BCF both for beep and for the uh College they have they have a fund and then we have the T Town treasur keeps money uh I'm not sure if we get a report on it we probably should um of how much money there is in scholarship funding there are scholarships that go back 50 years you know that longer than that actually maybe there are like Pierce best boy and best girl scholarships from like the 19 teens or something like no I didn't go to pierce but I was the Pierce Treasurer and we had to fund some of these so and that's part of it too is uh the the BHS ones are not endowed for the most part they're what do you call it when they give in the money like Susan what's that called no it's not one time they essentially have to be refunded like annually um at least some of them are of them are owed I mean maybe some of them are endowed but yeah some of them are refilled like annually so that's another thing where people there's a lot of Staff time being spent on chasing money um Sarah go ahead I wanted to just go back to the point of the lesses more and sort of insist on it a little bit um when we're thinking about putting less into policies it doesn't necessarily mean that things won't happen because we can have a level of trust with Susan where we say to her we really like to see you know a monthly report and she knows that you know she she does that when she can but it doesn't have to go into the policy so I just wanted to kind of like go back to that point again is that not having something in our policy doesn't mean that we won't get that we can just sort of like take off some of the things that are practices that we all sort of agree on I agree with that and I think that there's an expectation of like continuity and one day it won't be Susan and it won't be any of us and what are we what are we trying to retain over time um so to the extent policies guide that that then that's I think what we want to make sure we're articulating um Carolyn um so I'm trying to toggle back and forth between the zoom screen and the document and highlight it a bit there there were a few places where the mask um policy talks about transparency and the and information available not just to the school committee but also to the public um and I'm interested in that always and I think the public is interested in that um and I say that with again I'll say it for the until it's annoying full appreciation for Susan and Diane and everything they are doing and all the improvements in that respect um but I do think that it behooves all of us and the system generally um that the more information that the public can easily access the better um and so although I do think think less is more and I only skim through this I I I might be interested in sort of um whether there are places where there may be a couple additions or even examples of um like when we say um transparency presentations and documents Associated I think this is on the second page with the budget sort of like what what that mean what the expectation there is um that's something I'd be interested in in in discussing and hearing others thoughts on um and there was something Mariah that you said that made me think of this which I think had to do with the cost center um transfers like I think you said or there was something where you were saying it can be interesting for school committee to see and in my mind I'm thinking and for the public right like we want absolutely so so anytime that anything where there's opportunities to be specific about um information availability um detailed information um I think that's really helpful for the system thanks so at this point unless people have additional comments I think what I what we can do is probably wrap up for today um take the time if you haven't already to look through the documents you know take a slow read on the masc one a slower read on the PSV one and just see if there's other things in PSP you want to retain and again that sort of that was my first question the second question was what are what's not present in either that you think should be and if you can feed that information back in the next week or so that would be helpful our next meeting is I think is it August 7th yeah yes that's right August 7th okay so that's three weeks from now so um hopefully um it would be great if people can give sort of feedback in the next week or so and then that gives me some time to connect with Susan and um sit down and talk about some of these questions and and issues and then we can um come back to you all on on August 7th with a with some sort of a draft for um for feedback does that sound like a reasonable timeline Susan does that sound okay to you as well in a couple of weeks coming back to this um I I I think um what would be really helpful is if we prioritize the ones that um perhaps are are most uh important and then focus our attention on doing them in batches that makes sense yeah because it sounds to me having listen to the dialogue tonight that people are interested in going maybe a little deeper uh if we if we do it in that way for you know we can provide some examples of of what complimentary documents might look like for financial reports and things so that um you know we can craft a policy and then the procedure can uh dovetail you know that so you can kind of see what are Best Practices why uh would we recommend it being done in a certain way um without having to feel like we have to cover everything all at all at once so sounded to me like the budget calendar was a high priority here tonight uh the financial reporting I would agree with both of those um and let's see how how long it takes us to just get through maybe three of them and then some of the other ones are going to take take more time because there's a lot more background work that will need to be done especially around scholarships and things in order to educate everyone to make informed decisions about what our policy and practices might be um and I would argue that some of those are are probably um uh more useful to us because we do have a work plan to kind of get us back on track from a financial perspective and those policies that dovetail the work we're already doing would be be the ones that I would I would prefer that we spend more time on and even if sounds good yeah yeah okay um Caroline go ahead my hand is just raised for new business when you get okay go for it no new business time so again thank you Susan for the um enrollment and uh sectioning update you provided on Hayes um I would just love to put in a plug I don't know what the typical um process is for school committee during the summer um but I would love to have an update on enrollment districtwide at the whatever's the typical or appropriate time or um I'd just love to see how all the schools are looking um and I don't know if that comes from Susan or Megan or Mariah you tell me go bu I don't know that we usually get a summer update I think we get like a post October One update usually this is my recollection because Summer is like people are moving out people are moving in Megan's office is like Megan and and I think it's mostly Megan I don't I don't know if Megan has a team right now right it's mostly Megan who is doing okay she does have a team so onboarding offboarding students I don't know that there's like I think the numbers are in flux and um okay that makes sense impression I don't know if that's accurate Susan that it's be point in time data at this like point in time report at this point would probably be very short-lived understood y I'd love to make a second longer term plug and I mentioned this to Mariah and it might I don't know that it's Finance um at some point when people when staff has their head above water and it probably would be Megan I really would love to understand a little bit more um or or get information about families students um staying in leaving PSB for private school um for for all the reasons um I think that's important and I know it's a lot and there's a lot in there um but I would just like to I I think think that's sort of I'd be interested in seeing kind of the historical where we are I think it tells us something about how we're doing how families perceive how we're doing um and just kind of about the town and who's who's moving here and why and all of that so that's just a thought oh here's my husband with my dinner thanks Carolyn um I don't think that that's a fin answer one but I think you can bring it to Andy and Suzanne is okay who can take it to docket okay happens yeah um okay so we'll wrap up 15 minutes early thank you everyone and again if you can just provide that feedback and um and then we'll make a plan for in three weeks to reconvene with hopefully something and and I like what suzan Susan said about focusing on the key bits and leaving a whole bunch of the rest of it for to figure out later I think that's a good way I really just want to rip off this Band-Aid of A 42-year-old policy at this point and get like a a modern policy and we can fix some of the stuff around the edges as we go so that sounds good thanks everybody have a great evening thank you Mariah yep thanks Susan bye everybody thank you lus bye