[Music] all righty folks if uh if we could begin I'm going to call to order the Civil calling in to order jeez thank you my kids say I yell wild good evening everyone I would like to call to order the Silver Lake Regional school committee meeting for March 14th it is 2 5 I would like to call order the union 31 meeting it is 52 we're um I'm going to hold on calling the school committee to order since we on a forum at this point if I have a forum show up I will call my meeting ORD I call to order the Kingston school committee meeting for March 14th I'm calling to order the Halifax Elementary School commit committing meting at on March 14th okay thank you and we are being recorded thank you all for coming out tonight this is actually a a really good turnout um a lot of work the last few months have gone into our budget process and um I want to thank every body who had a hand in that it was uh it's definitely been a a a lot of um changes a tremendous effort this year and I uh commend everybody who's had a role in that um I would expect this to be an active meeting um we would welcome comments and questions having said that I would ask anybody in the audience who wants to ask a question or make a comment to please raise their hand give us their name and what town they are from um and before we begin the presentation uh Jason Frasier is going to step through uh Mass General law that guides voting a budget and um the impact of not voting a budget so with that Jason I would hand it over to you please thank you madam chair appreciate that the local budgets are pretty straightforward the school committees are expected to bring forth a budget that represents the needs of the student students that they feel the town is able to sustain and can get passing votes of town meeting when it comes to a regional school budget the complications increase exponentially uh and this is from chapter 71 section 16b and specifically if for some event the Silver Lake Regional School budget is not approved by 2/3 of the member municipalities than we the Silver Lake Regional School would have 30 days to reconsider amend and resubmit a budget no later than 7 days from the date of the amended Regional School budget the towns would then have to hold a subsequent town meeting to vote on the amended budget if that budget was not approved this is where things get very interesting the special districtwide meeting open to all registered voters would be held by the Silver Lake school committee in conjunction with the select boards and board of Selectmen of our three towns a single individual would be picked by the board of Selectmen and select Boards of our three towns to be the moderator and at that meeting a majority vote of those presents could pass the budget for the Silver Lake Regional Schools failure to pass a budget by the towns and by this school committee by July 1st would result in the commissioner of Education taking charge of our school budget certifying an amount sufficient for the operation of the district and other appropriation therefore in an amount not less than 1 12th of our current total budget for the most recent fiscal year then we would have until December 1st to work as a school committee and as our three member towns to come up with a budget that we vote and approve ourselves if we failed to do so by December 1st the Department of Education would assume operation of the district and its funds and shall be deducted from local Aid distributed to member towns so us not passing a budget at the regional level as the the consequences of us losing all control over our schools so I think it's extremely important that we fight for our students fight for our programs that we've created at all four of our school districts but to make sure we're doing it within the means that our towns can support and what we think we can get past a town meeting come May thank you madam chair thank you that was a a very good overview okay um going through the um presentation business director Sarah hickey will take us through that thank you madam chair this presentation starts with the changes so there are four different entities and I'm going to walk you through the changes that have happened to all of the budgets since I saw the Silver Lake school committee last so since I last met with you we had the version three Halifax changes do you want me to read through the numbers or is this something that you've seen ahead of time um I'm not sure that everybody in the audience has um maybe you know read through them very briefly we'll do um so the changes from the version two Halifax budget to the version three budget was uh removing $2,115 99 I'm sorry $215,000 99 I'm going to do that one more time and I'm going to be better with my numbers tonight $25,990 from um out of District tuitions removed $12,995 from special education Transportation removed $69 from special ed tuitions we allocated an additional $137,200 from the 240 Grant and then I had put in a a separate line called tuition offsets so the 240 Grant and the the circuit breaker two is and sets are all in the same line so that was between the version two and version three Halifax budget that was a reduction of 37 uh $374,700 and then moving on from the Halifax version 3 to the Halifax version four budget we found out that we were going to be awarded reap Grant funds so we Halifax will receive $4,5 se1 in reap Grant and there was also a retirement confirmed and the I put in an offset of $39,100 two to make up for the hiring a new teacher at a lower uh step for the retirement so there was an additional uh change of $79,700 to the Halifax budget since I saw you last and talked about Halifax Kingston moving from version two to version three we allocated an additional $170,952 from the 240 grant for next year to go towards tuitions we allocated an additional [Music] $869,500 circuit breaker in fy2 to go towards the tuitions I created a tuition offset line in the Kingston budget as well for a total decrease of 1,4 40,5 199 in the Kingston budget Clinton's version three changes uh there was the again we were notified of the reap Grant and Clinton uses the reap Grant to offset a kindergarten salary so going from version two to version three we reduced the plon budget by $24,275 um if you had recall if you recall I had explained that in December we were rolling out a new payroll system and the payroll my payroll clerk had covid and there was no time for her to put together a spreadsheet for me of what all of the salaries were and so I went into the finance system and I pulled the salaries and was using those numbers and two weeks ago 3 weeks ago I asked the payroll clerk to redo the uh to do a silver link salary um spreadsheet for me I went through and I compared her salary spreadsheet to my salary spreadsheet there were 32 changes up up $70,000 down $50,000 up $3,000 down5 you know there were a lot of changes for a total decrease of $290,400 we're moving $440,000 from Silver Lake integrated preschool supplies into the PK revolving account um we have allocated an additional $413,500 Grant to tuitions in transportation I'm sorry there was an adjustment to tuition's in transportation that added for $3,556 to the budget and then there was an insurance adjustment um for the school Silver Lake school committee members you'll remember last week with my financial update there was a $300,000 deficit in the insurance line what I learned is that there is uh there are teachers and uh Power professionals their staff members that are being paid out of revolving accounts they're being paid out of um grants and their benefits are paid out of the revolving accounts and the grants so the $300,000 deficit is because I have to charge the grants and the revolving accounts for the benefits that will pay back that line in the Silver Lake budget so that's for FY 24 for FY 25 all of those salaries that are moving into the um moving into the insurance line give us an increase of $1,741 124,50 42 so once the four budgets were recalculated I went through and I redid the assessments so the assessment is as I have said earlier p is formulaic that once we have a Silver Lake number the Silver Lake number goes into the budget um there was a change that I made in addition to the Silver Lake budget in the trans uh in this calculation it was pointed out to me that I had subtracted the transportation reimbursement from the state in two different places and it was $778,000 and I had to put that back in so the there was an increase to the silver L budget based on the version five changes and there's an increase in the assessment based on the fact that I'm not taking the same Revenue out twice and I apologize about that so the updated assessments have halifa tax paying 9 I'm sorry looking out of the screen 9,119 79655 Kingston would be paying $17,620.63 Clinton 3,469 29863 for a total of 30,2 2016, 69210 this would be a 51.2% increase over FY 23 this is an update of the elementary budgets based on the versions of the most recent versions of the elementary budgets so in FY 25 Halifax would pay 7,456 42343 Kingston would pay4 96239 2.50 King uh Clinton would pay 4,879 for a total of 26,5 [Music] 6,819 this represents an 11.7% decrease over what the towns paid in FY 24 and if you recall I thought this was a very important number this is the total cost of education so in the Halifax line for total cost of education is the town budget for Halifax Elementary School plus the town the town's assessment the Kingston budget and the Kingston assessment is in that Kingston line and the Clinton budget the Clinton assessment so it gives the total cost of Education to Halifax as 16,573 19.98 Kingston would be $ 32,5 [Music] 189,900 62 for a total of5 56,7 23,522 and this this is a 13.5% increase of on FY 25 from FY 24 so the natural question is why is there an increase in the total cost of education so what I've done on the next group of slides is I took all four budgets for all four entities and put them together on one spreadsheet and then divided them up according to how the department of el Elementary and secondary education categorizes expenditures for school districts the department of Elementary and secondary education gives us what is called the chart of accounts the chart of accounts breaks up all expenses into nine into nine different categories at the the end of the year well at the end of the fiscal year the school business manager in every school district fills out what's called an end ofe report and reports all of the expenditures to the Department of Education in all of these categories the administration line the one we call them the 1000s the instruction line the 2000s and the 9000s programs with other schools when those are reported to the Department of Elementary and secondary education those are divided up into regular education expenses and special education expenses so I have divided them up that way for you in this presentation and again keep in mind that this is aggregate so this is the Halifax plus the Clinton plus the kingon plus the Silver Lake budget the 1,000 category is Administration that makes that is made up of costs for the school committee superintendent's office the business office Human Resources districtwide administrative technology that's the computer programs that we use for running the business office our student information system it also includes Legal Services the regular education portion of the administra administration line had an 8% increase of 165,000 $761 49 this increase is largely due to me increasing the legal lines for all four budgets because we are currently over our retainer with stone and Chandler Miller we were over the retainer in October and if you look at the FY 23 expenditure and where we are now for FY 24 it makes sense to increase the legal lines in special education there's an 11% it's a special education Administration um there is an 11% increase of $6,195 194 you'll see on the bar on the right hand side there's an orange segment So currently in FY 24 we have a special education clerk who's being paid out of the Ida uh the individual uals with disabilities Education Act Grant we refer to that as the 240 grant that clerk is being moved into the shared cost budget in FY 25 so I've put that on there so you can see that this is a big portion of the increase if we were to remove that salary which is approximately $47,000 this would only be a 2% increase from year to year question Bo does the grant go away the Grant does not go away we have allocated the grant funds next year to pay towards tuitions okay the next category for the Department of Education with their chart of accounts is the 2000s this is the aggregate instruction Line This is if you're a school business manager the spreadsheet for the 2,000 lines is broken out line by line they want to know how much we spend on you know with every single entity on every single budget line this includes salaries for administrators teachers and support our substitutes money spent on professional development sending staff out for professional development bringing consultants in for professional development it is money spent on instructional materials equipment causing costing less than $5,000 and Technology it's uh money spent on supplies and guidance counseling and testing again this category is broken up into regular education and special education the regular education instruction line has a 5% increase of 1,427 23442 sah good yes um so of that um probably what say the 3% would be um scheduled negotiated raises and then what's the rest is this inclusive of things like health insurance or is that not counted as part of that is not in this line and I'm glad that you asked that question about the 3% of the raise is because this is important for everybody to understand that if the teachers negotiate contract and they receive a 3% raise a teacher that's earning a certain amount of money let's say master step three moves to master step four and the master step three is getting a 3% on that amount the master step four is getting a 3% on that amount but the teacher moving from step three to step four with a 3% increase SE Pro maybe even a 6% increase in their salary so I know we settled contracts for 3% increases but it's never going to show up as just 3% because teachers move what we call steps which is years of service and Lanes which is their education level and we would have additional head count in here as well so like I think you made a a handful or one or two highes in like Administration and things like that is that Administration would go in the ad Administration line in the administration line okay I thought the previous slide said that administrators were I'm sorry uh this would include principles and assistant principles yes all right makes sense okay so again this category is broken out by regular education and special education and again this is an aggregate amount of Halifax Kingston Clinton and silver lake when we look at the special ed instruction line there is a 91% increase of 4,664 5680 from FY 24 to fy2 if you look at the bar on the right hand side you'll notice that I have that divided up into three sections there's an orange section which is grants that is the idea grant that we are transitioning to use for tuitions next year so that that orange section is teachers and staff members that in FY 24 were paid out of this 240 Grant and next year they will be in the regular operating budget the blue section I've lab labeled as revolving I think that's the more confusing of the the things to talk about the practice in the past has been to uh set aside money in the out of District tuition line to pay for we've been talking about them as IND District tuitions but it's important to remember that we're not a fully regionalized school district and so those revolving accounts were how a student from Halifax would attend technically an out of district for Halifax program in Kingston so the money was being bud Bud budgeted intuition lines put into revolving accounts and then the staffs in those programs were being paid out of a revolving account so a student from Halifax could attend a program in Kingston the tuition money from Halifax would go into a revolving account the Kingston teacher who was actually a Silver Lake staff member would then be paid out of the revolving account and question yes so your explanation of that revolving section of the graph means that an equal amount of dollars came out of the local school committee's budgets to equal that grade portion of the graph yes okay my second question is for the grants which you're about to talk the 240 grants which is income to the district why is it being shown as an expense because those are the staff members that are in expense because they were being paid out of the 240 Grant but now they're going to be in the operating okay so in actuality what you're showing is just cost of Staffing yes they are no longer being paid from revolving correct and they're no longer being paid for from Grants yes but we still get just as much if not more in Grants in FY 25 than we did FY 24 so both of those portions of the graph are slightly misleading to me just the way I interpret looking at it until I got your explanation because those are funds that just move buckets so they're not actual increases to the overall cost of education for our three communities correct should be zero and that will come that will come up later on I just wanted to make sure because seeing it here it looks like grants are costing me money correct so I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page thank I what I was trying to do with this slide was not have somebody see a 91% increase in special education staff and had a heart attack there's a reason for the 91% increase the 91% increase is because we are moving staff members from a Grant which was in the T I'm sorry moving from a revolving account which was in the tuition line into the grant question J can I just clarify that my question to you last week as to why we were not seeing the massive decrease from the payroll and so like this is the answer to that because this is where those staff members were hey we're coming out of this revolving account not out of payroll correct thank you I'm sorry Gordon and then Jason okay so setting aside the revolving and the grants assuming that those net out close to zero we still appear to be at 6.1 million for special ed as opposed to 4.5 million for this past year making a difference of 1.6 or something like that million dollar in terms of cost which would um be I don't know what is that a 30% increase 16 okay so if thank you for asking the question that I anticipated was going to be asked so the fy2 instruction includes [Music] $953,000 salaries formally charged to revolving accounts if you subtract those out of the FY 25 budget there would be a 16% increase of 8 8,27 I'm sorry [Music] 827,000 the HR department keeps a staff change log I went through the staff change log for FY 24 the current year that we're in and positions that are being paid out of the FY positions that are being paid in FY 24 that were not part of the FY 24 budget are as listed there 1.5 teachers at Halifax Elementary two power professionals at Elementary four par professionals at Kingston Elementary two par professionals at the middle school one par professional at the high school 1.2 teachers at the preschool the preschool principal we had to look up when the vote was to have a preschool principal it was well after budgets were approved and there's one par professional the prek also so these positions are approximately $470,000 if you subra ract them out of the previous slide if you subtract them out um you're now looking at about an 8% increase not a 16% increase so that's net new head count to be clear okay coordinators Hala the cost on the previous slide actual costs that you comparing or actual to budget or budget to budget which slide this the previous slide prev slide could you repeat your question please is is fy4 the budgeted number that you used or is that the actual budget with those those positions included that is the budgeted number so then the difference shouldn't be as bad between the two okay I I kind of see where Gordon's coming from right cuz we're not having to go back to the three towns to ask for additional funds for any of our local districts are we are we asking for additional funds for FY 24 to be absolutely honest with you I have been spending all day every day working on this FY 25 budget and and starting Monday I fingers crossed put FY 24 under the microscope to see if we have enough money to make it through the year yes so one of the things that we've done since these additions are in special education you'll notice in your packet tonight there is um a special education comparison spreadsheet and in that spreadsheet you will see the amounts and the what we anticipate will be remaining in circuit breaker after we apply circuit breaker on that on that cover sheet there is um as you know Clinton will have a deficit we anticipated deficit but we have Frozen the budget so um that's the that's the one area that we believe may not be covered with circuit breaker so we don't anticipate having to go back to the town of plinton to cover the FY 24 remaining year budget Sarah will have a better idea and a a a a clear estimate the point being is this is the second year in a roow that I and my local school committee have had a fiscal deficit during the operational year and we did manage last year to backfill and then my town adjusted to where we thought we were supposed to be to cover our bills for this year and now we have the same situation happening again this year for about $216,000 we applied for Extraordinary relief and Reserve relief of 25 Grand it's something I appreciate it if we can't cover it from within the lines in pon you know or at Halifax Elementary the only alternative is to file for special town meeting and to try and get I have not I have not even considered that conversation because as this point I don't have enough information for my Administration to have that conversation with my town I've alerted them to the possibility but when you say we have all these additions and I'm not seeing major Holes In Like A desperate cide to go back to the towns it seems like we did have enough in our budgets last year to meet these obligations for these additional staff members so to answer that I'm only one person and I can either put together an fi20 like there's there's things that I have on my things to do list that I'm embarrassed about it must be done and I just haven't had time and if I may we have made significant changes as you notice we have two new people sitting at this table and we have also made numerous changes to the budget this year unprecedented changes of ways that this was done incorrectly for decades and we have a group of people here who have worked tirelessly to make sure that we've dotted every eye and crossed every tea to get you this information as quickly as possible may I just add Jason um so Kingston last year we had a um substantial deficit to the budget where we did have to go back at town meeting and we had to ask for free cash we applied circuit breaker funding and um we um dissolved our um stabilization St thank you stabilization account of over $200,000 it was a substantial deficit last year and this year I know that we're operating in a deficit we're expecting some circuit breaker funds to offset that but that that would add to this increase that you're seeing from 24 to 25 because we are currently is it about 600,000 for this year but I know that you know it's about 600,000 for Kingston and the areas that we're seeing these deficits come to is out of District transportation and special education costs all areas that we have no control over so unfortunately we're just being hit with hmer so it's not single so budgeting for special education this year I did not use a budget from last year and said Gee I'm going to be increasing I used actuals so I took the actual cost that was spending and I applied 5% to it so if you look at it if we looking at FAL year 24 that that's the budget that's not the actual what you spent in 24 so I didn't want to do that because you would always end up short because we have a lot of accounts that are over so I took the actual cost then added my 5% to it so what you may be seeing in the additional cost in special education is the overages or perhaps maybe even the under spending in special education on certain accounts actual from fisal year 24 plus 5% and I I appreciate that strategy and creating those numbers okay move on the next category from the Department of Education is student services student services encompasses Health Services which is Nurses Student Activities Food Service any food service that's not paid out of a food service revolving account um it encompasses any Athletics that are not paid out of an athletic revolving account uh School security and that's where our first student buses are charged the 3,000 accounts again aggregate all four towns Hal I'm sorry all four entities Halifax Kingston Clinton and Silver Lake the aggregate is a 7% increase so $ 23,9 [Music] 4023 the 4,000 so the 3,000 accounts and the 4,000 accounts are only reported to the Department of Education as a whole so these aren't split out regular Ed and special ed the 4,000 accounts are operations and maintenance that includes utilities which is computer networking telephone electric gas water sewer and trash any maintenance and custodial salaries maintenance of building and grounds custodial supplies and equipment maintenance supplies and equipment and Technology infrastructure there is a set % increase in the 4,000 accounts of $433,500 accounts are the benefits in fixed charges these are employer retirement contributions employee separation costs insurance for active and retired employees this also includes the rental or release of equipment sick leave buyback and other fixed charges so the there is a 10% increase of $474 75031 in this category are there was a 4% increase on health insurance we had an increase on the number of people in that will be getting the health insurance those are the people moving from Grants and revolving accounts into the operating budget and then there was a 10% increase on our other insurance carriers so liability Etc I are any of those Services negotiable um that that 10% increase there I we currently go with Maya I can't fize for me right now remember what it stands for Massachusetts something it's a kind of a municipal insurance company we could go out to bid on our insurance but I couldn't get that done within right understood 10% is just a Ste increase thank you um I included the 6,000 accounts in here only so that nobody would say to me hey you've got 6,000 but 6,000 accounts are for Community Serv service which is when schools pay for civic activities or Recreation services or services to non-public schools there are very few schools in Massachusetts that use this category and it's not used by Silver Lake or Union 31 the 7,000 accounts are for the acquisition Improvement and replacement of fixed assets so when you think of fixed assets um large purchases over $5,000 that are going to last 10 you know 10 years or more so this would be replacing a boiler or um new windows or doors Al so purchase of landed buildings equipment replacement Capital technology things like uh networking switches things like that or purchasing Motor Vehicles the acquisition Improvement and replacement of fixed assets lines have a 44% decrease $4 46,853 7 from FY 24 to FY 25 and and basically he bought some mowers and I think a golf cart last year and we don't need another Mower and golf cart or I'm not sure about the golf cart I know for a fact we bought a mower the 8,000 accounts are for debt retirement and service um and silver Lake Regional School District and superintendency Union 31 doesn't have any allocation for this in FY 24 or FY 25 budgets in Silver Lake our debt is handled outside of the operating budget and you will see that as part of the assessment [Music] process the 9,000 accounts again this is aggregate all four entities 9,000 accounts are divided up by regular education and special education our regular education 9,000 accounts are for the out of District vocational educational tuitions and transportation that is students that attend Bristol agricultural High School Norfork agricultural high school and we've um received some information this year of students that want to attend Southshore Regional Vocational Technical High School to study programs that aren't offered here within Silver Lake Regional High School so the regular education the out of District vocational tuition and transportation has a 21% increase of $86,500 So currently we have one student in flinton one student in Halifax and five students in Kingston that attend outm District vocational programs we currently have five applications for out of District vocational programs and the students and families have until April 1st to make a commitment to attending or not attending those schools they' apply to the again the 9000s are broken out to regular education and special education 9,000 aggregate special ed tuition and transportation line has a 0% decrease that's how the numbers work out of $935 756 I put the blue section on the bar on the left hand side because I wanted to remind you that in the FY 24 budget there was money in the tuition line that went into revolving accounts that paid staff salaries and that blue section in fy4 is part of the instruction line now in fy2 so that blue portion of the FY 24 budget is 2,540 25994 in salaries for revolving accounts and we moved that to instruction if you subtract that amount out there would be a 50% increase in special ed tuitions in transportation going comparing just the yellow piece of the bar on the left to the yellow bar on the right the I worked closely with the special ed Department to put together a year-to-year comparison chart for special education costs in analyzing that spreadsheet there was $98,700 18 and additional costs are an 24 so that is tuition and transportation for Halifax Kingston and Clinton tuition totaling $766,000 23 Transportation totaling $23,995 95 so this is what's happening currently in FY 24 that was not budgeted for that's part of the increase in the yellow bar from FY 24 to fy2 and and we are using circuit breaker FY 24 circuit breaker to cover this increase as best as possible in comparing the current I'm sorry the budgeted FY 24 9000 accounts to the current year toate spending of the 9,000 accounts to what's projected for f ju 25 there is an increase in all three all four entities plus an increase of extended school year which was formerly paid out of a revolving account there's a total increase of tuitions of 1,139 62 a total increase in transportation of 546,000 and I I want to be clear that a student that we knew about that was budgeted for in fy4 that we're currently paying for in FY 24 and expect to provide services for FY 25 is not part of this number so this previous slide is students that weren't in the budget in FY 24 that we're currently paying for that we're hoping to cover the costs with circuit breaker allocations and this this is all of the students that will be receiving tuition and transportation services in fy2 that aren't currently receiving services in fy4 or budgeted fy4 so if we go back to this slide here and we look at the increase of the yellow from FY 24 to fy2 and it's a 50% increase these two slides here is about $2.5 million of your increase so this segment of the presentation and I apologize it's a long presentation this segment of the presentation started with you know what's going on where's the increase so there's a total increase in all four budgets of 7,439 42274 and it is in all nine of well it's in all of these categories that I have just gone through with you piece by piece and again you have the actual line item budgets in your school committee pack in the school committee folder so I just want to take a moment to see if there are any questions on this part of the presentation so the aggregate at the top is 7.4 million but on the total cost of Education you're showing $6.7 million overall increase for the three towns because thankfully we have Revenue okay so the revenue has been so the overall budget has a 7.4 million increase but use of Revenue has allowed us to not make it that bad if that sounds right no I appreciate the clarification between the difference in the two numbers um I I still feel like we've got to pull apart the 6 million in instruction um in a really simple way so 1.4 1 5 million of it was um salary increases and head counts and things like that is that right you're asking great questions tonight and I think future slides are going to help answer these [Music] questions um okay do you I mean should I hold off then or because I if you could okay um can I ask a question then also SAR how the presentation's going to come out are we going to get back to that slide at the end of the total increases we can the total cost of Education okay thank you 31 Gordon's question I'm sorry Gordon I think if you go to slide 31 the the the instruction line increasing am I going back I this SL this so it's simple and I think that um miss you no you just passed it forward going this one so there'll be more detail uh Gordon but the one part of basically the blue part of that um when staff was moved to uh the instruction line and came out of the revolving and grants that pushed up the instruction line so part of the reason that we'll see in the future is that those positions now in the Opera budget and so when we're on the slide and you see the 6 million um a simple preview for that is that uh that those positions were moved out of the blue and into the operating budget in addition to the increase that U yeah I mean the problem with that though is that there were there were revenues in those revolving accounts that were paying for that so let me be clear about the revenues those revenues were tuitions so money was put in the Halifax budget in the clemton budget and the Kingston budget in the tuition line and then the money going into the revolving accounts were being build to the tuition lines right so it wasn't really Revenue it yeah moving but the movement of them should not have increased the cost $6 million or something or $4 million or whatever it was um all did was move it from one Li to another so like the total cost of Education should not have gotten up gone up by the because that was included in the total cost of Education all along agree so that's that's why I really want to decompose that $6 million because I it it could be just me misunderstanding it but when we were pulling apart you know I mean we showed $4 million in stuff Ed or whatever it was but immediately discounted um you know 3/4 of that as being you know offset through you know really just kind of the accounting of how we've been doing so I want to get to what are the actual net expense increases um Paul Jordon I I think what you're going to find is when you go through the net increases to the special needs out of District cost you will see that you are serving more students now a lot more students than you served before and it just so happens that the money lines up and I have been staring at this for 60 hours a week for the last two weeks each week and thank you for that um in questioning these numbers as much as I can Sarah I can tell you had multiple conversations with her all of um and Jill I didn't want to believe these numbers either and it really wasn't until last night when I I stepped through each particular spot that they put into the spreadsheet that I said oh my God there's an additional 30 students or 30 items that they've added after they've taken away all the revolving accounts and put them into the elementary and Sil I didn't want to believe it it was like 2:00 in the morning I think when I emailed I'm sorry John John willamson Clinton so can I can I say it a slightly different way just to see if I'm if I'm getting this my head so if if we look at the if we look at the 9,000 lines we have 2.5 million that was revolving that's moved out of that into the 2000 lines and so 2.5 million of the 4.6 is that yes and what being hidden on that sheet is that there's 2.5 million of additional out of District tuition expense for students for for the new year there's there's a $2.5 million increase there's more that goes into this particular category than just the on District tuitions in transportation there are other expenses in there such as the industri private transportation and other things that go into but we have net new Services costing us 2.5 million in fiscal year 25 not so just for so the blue should have kind of not be there to to explain this section I understand Terra what you're doing and it's helpful but I I think there isn't a 0% decrease realistically in in 9,000 there's a $2.5 million increase so then we go back to the 2000 lines where we have 4.6 you have 2.5 of it that's that movement over you have about 500,000 which from one of the other slides is net new staff so I think the question that sits in my head is what's the extra 1.6 for so that may be answered later in the slides but that that would be the open question in trying to understand this number and I like Gordon I'm not liking what I'm thinking because some of this now actually makes sense but I still don't understand what the 1.6 additional there I don't understand that comes in to creating a 91% increase sorry I don't know if now is good time to mention the way that I kind of came to understand some of these changes um because I know that we're looking at an aggregate slideshow right now but one of the things that I know Kingston's trying to reason it why we're paying such an increased cost over overall and um not only has the structuring changed but the formulas changed because previously and I think Dr K might be able to talk to this we were charging 100% of special education costs for prek and then 7 to 12 students to age 22 100% of those costs were charged to their count so none of those costs were included in the CATE budget and now um D has informed us that we cannot charge those tuitions for 7 through 22 22 years of age 100% it has to be charged as an assessment so using a 60310 which isn't exact figures but Kingston at 60% ass and um Clinton at 10% and Halifax at 30% Kingston is now 60% of the entire districts 7 to 12 and preschool tuition and Halifax is paying 30% of the entire region to not Town special education services and Clinton is paying 10% so not only have these tuitions gone up and the transportation gone up but the assessments to the town has increased because the formula has changed for the 7 through 12 7 through 22 and the preschool so I think um Jason is sitting on a presentation about the pr School Halifax alone has faged slightly in the preschool tuition line item but Kingston is now offset almost a half million dollar and Clon is now overall their budget is paying for like an additional two out of District placement because of the change in the formula to special education so there's it's it's never going to be Apples to Apples orange or because we're looking at four separate budgets technically I think seven separate budgets but um um we're not going to be able to see those numbers so I appreciate the way that Sarah's broken this down with this is where the money came from but it doesn't I don't know if we're going to be able to answer the increases unless we're looking at exactly what they are so whether it's Transportation the curriculum Etc but I think that's the change of the overall Paula thank you Tim leis Kingston um maybe it's more appropriate that I I saved this question but are we going to go back to the cost to educate for all four towns or all four communities we can yes okay I'll wait then thank you any other question on this part so the next thing I wanted to do we so we looked at everything in the aggregate of all four entities everything added together and then split up by literally by the budget line punction codes so the next thing I wanted to do is talk about what's going on in each town and I'm going to apologize for my goofy Graphics love it so the FY 24 budgets were made up of four parts there was out of District vocational that was paid by the individual towns there was regular education and special education that happens in the brick and morar of the building and then there was outof District special education and the outof district special education is students that are K through six students that are prek and 7 to 12 plus and then there were what I'm going to refer to as Silver Lake staff revolving programs and it's important to remember that because we're not a fully regionalized District that it is appropriate to put tuitions that are being paid to Kingston from plinton in an out of District tuition line and it's not an IND District cost it is an out of District cost the changes that were we were asked to make for FY 25 changes what this picture looks like that the outof district vocational is still being paid for by the towns the there is still regular education and special education which is going to happen within the walls of buildings of your schools and then there is out of District special education tuition and transportation and the K through six is being charged to the towns and prek and 7 to 12 plus is being charg is part of the Silver Lake budget and I want to be clear here that when I say PK that's not the Silver Lake integrated preschool over there on the right hand side that's three and four year olds that are in a out of District placement that can't attend the inte grated preschool so those tuitions plus any 7 through 12 12 tuitions belong to Silver [Music] Lake so then I'm sorry the numbers aren't easy to see so if we look this is Halifax if we look at fy4 this is that same you have your out of District vocational on the left hand side within the brick and morar of the building is your regular regular Ed and special ed there's out of District special ed and then Silver Lake staff revolving programs the number for the Silver Lake staff revolving programs I'm going to apologize is an estimate based on the fy2 salaries of the staffs that were moving um I the the way the FY 24 budget was designed it would take an extraordinary amount of time to get you the actual number that goes in that box over on the right hand side so in FY 24 Halifax had $156,500 budgeted for out of District vocational within the school of Halifax Elementary School there was 5,225 $99.95 budgeted for regular education 1,341 14572 for special education the out of District special education costs 2,179 39462 again keep in mind that this is this number in FY 24 is prek up to age 22 and then over on the right hand side side I have [Music] $58,800 at Silver Lake Regional High School or paying a tuition for a student at Silver Lake Regional Middle School or in Kingston if you take a look at FY 25 Halifax is paired down we still have out of District vocational the outer District vocational is budgeted at 156,00 for FY 25 we still have the regular Ed and special ed that's going on within the walls of Halifax Elementary School 5,560 ,1 15164 for the regular education 1,691 4337 for the special ed programs and then the budget for K through 6 out of District special education this is after circuit breaker um and I should also have put in there that we're allocating 240 Grant funds so this is after circuit breaker and after 240 Grant funds are being used to pay down tuition that Halifax will pay 4,338 do5 that's what's budgeted for tuitions and transportation for Halifax K through six students in fy2 we do estimate $65,000 in circuit breaker funds will be used for tuition and transportation we do estimate $182,000 from the 240 Grant will be used for [Music] tuitions so to be clear a method of interpreting this essentially is that the out of District special education F fund from FY 24 is now in the assessment at Silver Lake yes okay and well not completely only the prek students and 7 through 12 okay but with that mov the net of the assessment plus their budget is an overall increase to them of like 1.3 million or something like that okay can I just make a point about how circuit breaker is being applied because of how circuit breaker la written for the elementary committees here this evening and those of you who are interested all of the circuit breaker will be BL still to Kingston Clon and Halifax committees because they're paid the year after the services are delivered so we will be servicing less kids in the budget being presented right here and we will all face many fiscal cliffs in FY 26 in Halifax Kingston and plinton when the circuit breaker goes to the same split that we're going to be seeing for our art district tuitions so we need to be prepared for that as well that the elementaries are going to face a small fiscal cliff I already calculated mine will be in 2% increase ref like 26 before we even take into account anything else so I'm starting two before any contractual obligations inflation Etc provided there's not any FY 24 I'm sorry FY 25 circuit breaker that can be carried over into FY 26 so we're allowed to carry over one year of circuit breaker cor he already your Market at circuit breaker is a reimburse program and the towns paid in FY 24 and so the towns will receive in FY 25 Silver Lake will pay an FY 25 and will receive some circuit breaker in 26 same so can you repeat how much of that um circuit breaker in 40 Grant was 65,000 for circuit breaker is our estimate and 182,000 for the 2 240 Grant circuit breaker is the 240 Grant um can be you both circuit breaker and 240 Grant can be used on special education costs um 240 Grant if we've only allocated that for tuitions at this time we went on to Kingston same graphic same little houses so little schools um keep in mind that the number on the top right hand side is an estimate based on FY 25 salaries so in FY 24 there was $198,000 budgeting for out of District vocational students within the buildings of Kingston 10,249 2474 9 was budgeted for regular education2 2,411 38 for special education there was 2,357 11937 budgeted for out of District special education and then there was another 1, 15278 3560 cents budgeted again for out of District tuitions that was Money Paid into to revolving accounts for students in Kingston to attend programs largely at the high school and the middle school Kingston didn't send anybody to flinton or Halifax for programs in fy2 we've budgeted $250,400 for out of District vocational tuitions within the buildings 11,463 N4 for regular education 3,496 52.98 for special education K through six out of District special education tuition's and transportation costs after circuit breaker is subtracted after we've allocated money to the 240 Grant is [Music] $174,800 of tuition and transportation we will pay for with the 240 Grant and an additional million doll in tuition and transportation will pay for with C traker Paul man thank you um Sarah my question is does the fy2 numbers that we're looking at right now include the additional proposed positions by the building principles no thank you none [Music] of none of these this is the level funded budget thank you service I'm sorry this is the level service Budget moving on alphabetically Clinton comes next same format Clinton in FY 24 budgeted 81 91741 for out of District vocational 2, 83213 3883 for regular education within the dennet elementary school $685,500 6,328 72 and then there was $96,700 that was um budgeted in the out of district line to page for programs in Halifax and kingon Kingston at the middle school and high school in in fy2 we have pled $93,900 for out of District vocational $3,132 $2,760 33 for regular education with in the building $688,000 of District special education after circuit breaker is $172,600 74334 from the 240 Grant boards tuition and 107,000 in CER for function and similar question to Mr Lewis this does not reflect the $160,000 in additional cuts that the plon school committee asked to be considered for the next version of the budget correct thank you so just look at our small numbers and we are already considering $160,000 in cuts to those numbers of there on that board tonight just to put things in perspective thank you so as you know the Silver Lake budget looks different so in FY 24 within the building of Silver Lake Middle School and Silver Lake High School there was budgeted $229,600 th000 for regular education and special education also within the building there was 1,958 7675 approximately again these are approximations that is for programs in middle school and the high school that's in 24 is being paid for by the tuition lines in Halifax Kingston and plon and the money the tuition money is going into a revolving account and then paying the staff and costs of the programs there were no Silver Lake revolving programs at Halifax Elementary School this year the Silver Lake revolving programs at Kingston Elementary School and Kingston Intermediate School had Staffing costs of $581,500 19 and there are no Silver Lake revolving programs at D Elementary School this year and when I say revolving programs um those are class specialized classrooms that offer specialized Services where uh students from out of District which would be not your town could attend the FY 25 budget for silver L Regional High School includes 26,586 815 64 for regular education it includes [Music] 4,619 3.40 for special education and the integrated preschool is now part of the Silver Lake buildings and that would be $2,110 34210 Silver Lake is now responsible for prek out of District students and students grade 7 through 12 plus in out of District placements um and that we have budgeted 7,268 51939 again there is no circuit breaker offset in fy2 for Silver Lake we have allocated $52,000 in um the idea 240 Grant or uh tuitions for Silver Lake Sarah that's not a tremendously significant increase to 240 we received 498,000 in FY 25 at Silver Lake it doesn't seem to have the same follow the student modality that instate circuit breaker funding does so I just want to be clear if anybody's tracking the 240 versus the circuit breaker the 240 Grant is a Federal grant that goes to desie and then desie pays it out to us as a 240 Grand and what Sarah just quoted is just a nominal increase over what we got in FY 25 here at so which is what we've been using as estimates in all four entities great thank so what are our increased costs in fy2 contractual obligations please don't look at that and say oh look at those teachers contractual obligations the cost of elevator inspections the cost of fire inspections and we have contracts with vendors that is so all contractual obligations staff members and all of our vendors that we have contracts with there has been increased costs um there's an increasing cost for health insurance there's been increased costs for special education Transportation tuition increased costs in supplies and utilities these are the increased costs for fy2 that's the second part of the presentation any questions great we we have also in your packet tonight um a an article from the Boston glob which highlights that these increased costs are being felt Statewide this is not particular to Silver Lake what further complicates the Cil Lake budget is that we are creating a new structure and new funding mechanisms because the way it was being done is not allowable by the states and regulations and the law so this wasn't just something we chose to do this is something that we have to do but n I'm sorry N Net we would be facing these same increases the same budgeting challenge even if we had left the prek where it was yes I just want to make that clear and that's becoming more more evident I think as we T that is why I felt it was important to put everything together all four entities and look at all four FY 24 and compare that to fy2 J I mean I I'm extremely aware of what's happening around the state I'm in touch with School committees on a daily basis rural suburban Urban and I'm not seeing a double digit increase at other districts including Regional School Districts um now I know I don't have all of the schools here but the highest I'm able to find one was a 7% increase and that was a school that received eser funds and they're also a student Opportunity Act District so there back filling all their Esser positions with student opportunity outputs that's a 7% increase they're retaining all of those extra Personnel they brought under during Co and Regional 6.79% increase which is causing overrides in three towns that had been planned and spoken to the towns for over a year at this point to set up that potentiality most other school districts in Massachusetts are hovering somewhere between a 2.9 to a 4.9% increase and a lot of that is because of not what the school committee came up with but what is the constraints of the town's abilities today these are numbers that are believe to be able to get passed by Town meetings so I'm not seeing double digits getting past anywhere I understand that's the true cost after analyzing the numbers but unfortunately this is where it really comes back to that total cost of Education being 11.6% increase for Halifax but it's a 6.6% increase of their total Town's budget and in Massachusetts would prop 2 and A2 plus local growth a 6.6 is not doable and that's before any other department even gets a look at an increase 15.1% increase INE for Kingston represents a 7.9% increase in their $54 million annual budget before any other department gets the lookout Clinton itself is a 5.7% increase just for the $738,000 that's here today and last year my town put forth over $500,000 to support the schools and I can tell you right now and Rob can probably to attest to it as well when the new tax came in with the new tax rates a lot of my neighbors let me know that they felt pinch we don't have the capacity under the levy to do what's on the paper here today that's the sad reality none of our towns do and we're going to have to make some awfully difficult choices I really I really don't like seeing contractual obligations at the top there because your rights are the first thing people think is the teachers and there's two people or groups of people right now that I am absolutely devastated for and that's the students of our schools and the professionals who work in them because we know where this is going to land we have legal obligations to the special ed increases and we have contractual obligations that we can't get out of the star picture that you laid up today was illustrative of where the problem came from the fisal problem but now we have a tremendous managerial issue to deal with and I don't know how much longer we want to keep going through the how did we get here and when we want to start talking about what are we going to do about it may I ask please um there are these um figures that were presented are these inclusive all the versions that we see in our packet like yes including the ones that we haven't seen at with the King correcte okay thank you so there have been updates to budgets that haven't been presented to school FS yet but yet this like the 6 million or 7.5 million that's inclusive of all those changes that is everything was updated Saturday so to Jason's point it's still too extensive well and then part a comment on Jason's point is that we're in a different part of the budget process than a lot of communities we had a budget in January we had four budgets in January and when I put all the numbers together for the four budgets in January and did the assessment we kind of had been at the holy cow stage since then and put everything under the micrope and made adjustments and looked at everything and relooked at everything and brought in former School business manager Christine Healey to look at everything and I can confidently say to you that what you have in your hands for all five all four entities is the level service budget and other school committees didn't have to deal with a new school business manager and restructuring and got a budget a couple months ago and started doing things like they're other places are in very different time on this but we're actually at both places at the same time because of the statutory obligation to have our budget done in 45 days prior to town meeting correct I was hoping just like you were that you would find some mistakes in the money I I was looking for I was hoping for a big mistake I I was hoping for a mediumsized mistake in a 100 different places I would have been okay with a smaller mistake in a thousand places but I don't know if this is the point where we can say okay we understand we see that the 15.5% increase is legitimate let's start dealing with it or do we keep explaining it well I have three more slides okay finish I li I four more slot fair so I wanted to talk about just so we're we took a look at the big picture the 30,000 ft view we took a look at each of the towns now I want to talk just about Silver Lake what are the primary reasons for the Silver Lake increase $2.5 million was the addition of prek I know that so on two slides ago there was a different number for prek that's because that was an estimate with salaries only the this 2.5 million is the cost of the technology the room rental the nurse stipend this is the total all-in cost for prek we have outer District tuition in transportation for Silver Lake pre is 7 through 12 plus so 7 approximately 7.3 million and extended school year an estimate of 36 $66 keep in mind extended school year is a new cost in for each of the four entities extended school year was previously funded from a revolving account and money was charged to two visions the extended school year is in each of the four budgets now there was a salary increase and this is all payroll from FY 24 to FY 25 of 2,911 , 44460 that's only 14.7% increase that is now keep in mind all payroll is custodians power professionals um if anyone paid out of out of the operating budget not Food Service revolving accounts um we have our coaches in here teachers administrators I think we just need to illustrate that number again though for a moment Sarah 14.7% increase no individual's got a 14.7% increase we negotiated with our teachers in good faith they take the lest increase this is not coming from the teachers this is coming from the additional Personnel that we brought over to the silverway budget plus the increases of the Personnel that we currently have here so I want everyone to understand no one is getting a Payday from this terrible number that we're seeing in front of us in part of the work that was done in analyzing the where the heck did the big increase come from we put together and I mentioned this earlier uh special ed comparison a year-to-year comparison what happened in FY 23 what was budgeted in FY 24 what's actually being paid in FY 24 and what's projected to be paid in FY 25 so this is a link that you have that all in your packets I don't know if you want to spend some time to talk about that spreadsheet or had questions about that but essentially I it was earlier in the presentation and the the summary of that spreadsheet is we have approximately $980,000 in additional placements in FY 24 and we have having approximately $1.6 million in additional placements in fy2 are you adding those two numbers together so in our concern is those two numbers added together the the 980,000 is not Incorporated in 1.6 million it is not so when you look at the the increase in special education from fy4 to FY 25 it's going up in two steps unbudgeted 980,000 unbudgeted this year and another 1.6 and when Dr P and I first spoke about budgeting special ed there's there's different philosophies and this is what we have schooled business managers called butts and seats if there's going to be a child in a placement next year we budet Jason Madam chair I just want you to hold on to that $2.1 million circuit breaker number that's for FY 24 because we will have some of that for our FY 26 budget at the Silver Lake level and that's going to go directly to one of my proposals this evening for dealing with the budget shortfalls I'm sorry what number I know the 2.1 million overall in FY 25 or fy4 got it thank you right M and fy2 it's going to still be allocated to the elementaries yes but we can count on in FY 26 approximately half of that money potentially being Silver Lake funds if not more because of the additional placements that we just referenced here tonight so in FY 26 at Silver Lake we could see over $1 million in circuit breaker to help us offset the increases we're seeing to the budget it's we have a difficult year this year until we realize some of that c breaker I have a proposal later this evening that will come back to that number so I just wanted everyone to put the 2.1 million and circuit breaker into their head for a later discussion so at this point we really need direction from all of our school committees in our previous meetings the school committee talked about how they were going to present this to the towns how they were going to be prepared for town meeting with frequently asked questions discussions with the towns in terms of um what reductions could mean and the direction the school committee wants to go in so again based upon the direction that the school committee wants to go in will will influence how you present these budgets to your towns um and if you are looking for us to um reduce the budget we need direction from you mm may I ask that point sure when there is a suggestion like what Jason just mentioned he's going to Happ one later on does it need to be voted by an individual committee as we're going through discussion just so that we're not sending you on a tail but it hasn't been voted by the committee well I think we'll be go ahead Jason I I think since we have so many members of our town officers in attendance tonight and we have an agenda that will go through our own budgets right in a certain order I think it would behoove the school committees to open the floor to any questions comments concerns and direction from the towns and then we can proceed through and make adjustments to the budgets based on some of that feedback as well um if they if they're so inclined to give any comment or ask any questions at this point I would like to open the floor to our guests can I add something to that just before we do that um can we all also have a discussion amongst School community members once we've given our guests the chance to speak in regards to areas of the budget that we can look at um decreasing before we go line item by line item which might get a little bit more I think cloud because I think like to Jason's proposal I think we've all got something that maybe like to throw out there as suggestions but we don't want to um I guess blanket statement say you know I I don't know I don't know the best build out so again I think we need to open it up Silver Lake has three tiers of cuts as proposed by the administration consider there's other ideas but why don't we wait till we get to that portion once we hear from the thank Eric um Eric Kingston v selectman um as most of you know I was on the elementary school committee for 16 years and then the regional school committee for the past several years um certainly missing all the fun this year um for of sele is so much easier um compared to what you guys have to do you know I sat here many many years making cuts to budgets to make it more palatable for the towns but I've never seen having to start with such a high number that you have to cut down and I just want to remind you most of you guys already know this but um one of the biggest problems that we've had with the budget over the past 10 or 12 years has been charter schools so if you start cutting too many programs and cut cutting too many activities families are going to take their kids and say I'm taking my kid out and sending to Charter School which costs us more money it hits the budget even harder um and it's a big problem you don't want people leaving the school system we want people to stay here um the other thing I think is in terms of how to present it to the towns during the town meeting obviously you can need a lot of paperwork whatever number you if it's higher than a normal year it it's going to be a big sell to the towns and again I'm just speaking for myself there are other people here from Kingston we may have different views um but I think one of the most important things to do potentially would be to take the average cost per regular day student from 2 24 to 25 because if the cuts that you're making are then cutting that expenditure I think that's fair to have the towns understand that so if you're cutting I don't know what the number is but if it's $10,000 a year for regular day student in 24 and 23 and we're cutting it down to 8,000 that's a big that's a big jump um so whatever that number is I think it would be important to know when these numbers are sent to the count meetings and also you know really explaining that the number of kids in special ed especially out of district has increased a lot and we've had this conversation over and over at Kingston Town meetings when people have looked at our budgets when we've had years for big jums and special ed and at one be separated amount so we had a special ed um budget as well as a regular de budget to make it more um understandable to the to the taxpayers so again thank you for everything you guys are doing good luck um I know it's hard but you guys are doing good work Kyle Pike from Kingston I'm the chairman of the finance committee previously the treasurer I'd just like to give you an order of magnitude number that um if Kingston is looking at an increase of $4.3 million for cost of Education we could our excess Levy capacity right now with our current budget that we put together for all of our other departments um includes the excess living capacity is about $2.5 million so that um we would be immediately a million dooll problem that we just could not do anything with except a proposition 2 and a half so I I think it's important to keep that in mind I think that a lot of you know me I have always supported the schools I will continue to support the schools um I've already been talking to our people that hey this is a year that 3% 3 and a half% doesn't make it okay however I also don't believe that a number of 10 or 15% can make it we've got to come to some kind of happy medium thank you uh you guys have these numbers tonight I think you're going to need time to give the administration time on whatever decision the committies make to come back with you for cuts right now Kingston's town meeting is set for May 4th you guys have to have a budget for Silver Lake by March 20th I I would recommend that the committee ask Kingston to push back to town meeting I know you guys you have to get to a number but I think to talk about what the effects are going to be I think you need at least two weeks we you need longer than that but I would request you ask for at least two weeks and ask the same from Kingston I mean from Helifax and Clon same so it gives the administration time to not only catch up from the work that needs to be done for this fiscal year to give you the the deficit numbers for special it for this year that you need to ask for the special to meetings that need to take place but you also have to have time to go through all the budgets of any changes you make in proposals and that's not a quick turnaround because you're jumping from one committee to the next committee and you're not making Headway on completing tasks I I understand the administration aspect of this any change you make you're going to have to give them multiple days for each budget so if you get two weeks that might give them 3 days to work and then they have to work continuously for the next two weeks so maybe a month is more realistic but that depends on what you guys decided to can I just add here without Kingston we um my understanding Kim correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is we can put in a placeholder for the budget number um it doesn't I don't think it has to be by the 20th and I did talk to the town clerk and the Town Administrator we can move our town meeting if we have to um obviously the more notice the better but um my WR yeah to I to add to that Kim member Kingston horse lman um my understanding is of preliminary budget number as a placeholder would fit the 45 day deadline and that can be changed if it's a couple days later even the day before we can change it you have to obviously not ideal but one just to tag on to Eric's comment earlier something I think will be helpful regardless of the end number that we end at it would be helpful not just to see the budgeted fiscal year 24 versus the budgeted fiscal year 25 but the actual as well even if it's thus far that's how the the sort of town side of the house does it we see the budgeted amount the actual so far as of the day that budget pulled and then the budget for 25 and I think that really helps you can see the increase or anything that happen during the year so one of the things one of the changes I've made and the school committee members might notice this when they look in their packets at the line item budgets uh the line item budgets that I provide for them have the fy21 actual expenditures 22 actual expenditures 23 actual expenditures the 24 budget and I added in a column for the FY 24 expenditures year to date and so the budgets that you have in your packets are our expenditures in those lines through Saturday last Saturday would that information be available to other committees the public anything like that so all these documents will be posted to our website but I also had asked Karen to please send out to the town administrators the presentation and the budgets after this's presentation great thank [Music] you Sandy hi [Applause] Town um if you're looking for direction Pala really canot afford we've been going through our budget it's a tight year anyways we cannot afford a total total school cost the total cost of Education to go up more than 3% we just can't fit it in the but go ahead Sor marn Brown finance committee in Clinton um I have to concur with what the the previous speaker just said we looking at the numbers that we're preliminary putting the budget together now with the figures you've given us we would be overall loing on it um we can't do this you please reduce the budget thank you Cody Cody at Halifax Town Administrator one of the things to consider as well is you mentioned the ad to staff for the current fiscal year 1.5 teachers two par Professionals for the elementary school we're taking on three more U Professionals in fisal 25 that's cost to the town as well particularly with health insurance so those are costs that aren't necessarily showing your budget but we are also okay all righty thank you all G is it fair to say Dr pany that the changes that have been or any additions that have been made to the 2024 budget are due to um special education requirements special education costs if you remember back in November when I gave my presentation I gave you the full warning there I showed you the historical data all the way back and that we had growing need for special education services more and more students especially in class the referrals to date also indicate that we're going to have another year big growth special education in this District in all areas in all all of our districts the cost that you see for personnel and not additional Personnel that we hired they were additional Personnel that came in after the budget last year the only Personnel that hired for special education are one toone power Professionals for the I teams and I believe you approve for one day a week speech and language just for the integrated school so what you see in that Staffing all of those power professionals those people came in after the budget for example in our Halifax school we have the DLC program one teacher two Paris so while we're saving money on the programmatic piece you know where Halifax doesn't have to send their children across the district for transportation and we're having our own kids in Halifax the cost of setting up that classroom initially is a lot more expensive eventually it will we equal but right now withing the first year it doesn't we also brought back approximately eight students from our district this year so those are tuitions that we're saving now some of them are coming back right now so we're only realizing a half the year of the savings but it's a savings for transportation and tuitions so that's helping to offset the those 14 students that were not budgeted last year if you remember during our first budgetting 14 students that did not have placeholders that went out of District last year that's helping confir them so my calculations for the kids that we retrieved is somewhere around5 or $600,000 give or take a few dollars because every child's coming back um it would help when I go to provide services for our school district if I can have flexibility so if I have services that are needs and my speech of myage person is in Kingston I can't cross over that so it's not the most efficient way of paying the Fed so the costs are not but there is a growing need to special education in the district are very hot in the district and you can expect probably those another 180 students ons just from the plrs this year and again those are team decisions made by the team and I can give guidance and I can make suggestions but I'm not so I think that the first area we need to look at is why it's should being referred where long since after Co now I would expect that to go up right after Co but it's been a while some schools have half of the referrals by teachers not counts I think I can partially answer your question I think parents all want the best education for their students and to what Eric just warned us about is if we don't provide what a parent thinks their child deserves they're just going to defend them elsewhere and I think parents not speaking as parent that's done it but maybe looking to protect their child's education and so if they get them on an IP then we can't make Cuts if if they're protected but everybody else is not protected so they're going to lose more services and is unfortunately going to have um the exact opposite outcome is we're just going to push children into those services that they still need so one of the things when I was looking at the cost of special education in our district is I also look at the outcome and the outcome is disal it's one thing to pay a lot of money for special education in the district but then have the outcome for our students be fantastic and it's not there's anywhere between 20 and a 25 Point achievement gap between our general education students and our special education students and that is so we're paying a lot of money but we're not getting the most money that's so Dr peni and you and I have talked a little bit here and there just chitchatting about this um you're a new Steward of this program for us you're bringing a fresh set of eyes um fresh ideas you've drilled into a lot of this since you've been on board I guess as one school committee member um I understand the the requirements and I would never deny any child anything they need um I guess I would just ask you to be um aware as you sound like you want to be an R of what the children need to successfully migrate through the school system and you know graduate and move on but be um aware of what levels children really need versus what levels perhaps um aren't aren't really um warranted we have a an enormous volume right now in the school system more coming so there's going to be a lot of own this on you and your group to be honest with you to make sure that're fing the children the appropriate way for the child the and the taxpayer I guess is what I'm saying I I understand what that is before me and I'm okay with it yeah I'm perfectly fine with that I have no fear of that I'm turn around principal I'm turn around special education director and I'm okay with that what I need to make sure though is that the staff understands reg and special education understand that subpop education for special education students is not going to be tolerated it just will not be tolerated and if that takes me walking through every single classroom inclusion classrooms and that only children that need specialized instruction according to the eligibility criteria of the law receive an IEP if you need to change the standards based curriculum and instruction that warrants and I but if you need accommodations that's a 504 and so we have to take a look at that as well and that that's training and building capacity okay thank you Dr pen this is a really really Minor Detail I'm just taking some notes and I want to make sure I get this data right when you were saying that there was a 25% achievement Gap was that all are total body of special education students or the out of district one specifically that um it's a 25 point it's anywhere between 20 and 25 points if you look at the pass scores and you can go through grades 3 to 8 and 7 to 12 it's anywhere between there's nothing less than 20 point gap between the regular education students and special so I guess my point of clarification is that when when you say that is that Gap referring to all of our special education students are only the out of District it doesn't include the out of District only includes grades 3 to 8 and then 7 through 12 which take the uncom go ahead hi Matt Melo Kingston I'm also a teacher but I just want a clarification do you have any idea how those numbers compared to the state average special education yeah in other words is yeah know I so the state special education is around 19% and I believe our percentages are I have them Mar you ask about expenditures or the Gap no the Gap the Gap that yes I mean I don't really care what the state says to be quite honest with you I'm not going to compare myself to the lowest average I want to compare ourselves to the best I've never done that as a as a principal I've always had higher um expectations sure a just a followup question on that what is lowest what does lowest average mean so the state means every student in the district averaged out and that's your average that means all the urban districts Suburban districts and average out I don't particularly like that comparison because we are a unique District we're a Suburban District we're a highly affluent district and our children come to us a lot more prepared and have a lot more experiences than an urban District so we have a great Foundation to which to build on so our expectation for our children are to be Champions and to reach at a higher level than I would a student that is not experienced or have any other types of experience to connect learning next question and we can get philosophical it's not philosophical I just want to I just want to know because your numbers you see there thr numbers out which is good and fine helpful um how do we compare to equivalent school districts then on that average so if you go to the dark and you can compare that have you ever been to the profiles website ran do you want to jump in and then I think we just want um the questions are good Dr fi and I are working on our mtss process to try to think about ways to intervene and provide supports for our students whether they be special education students or general education students so I think this is um I appreciate the questions and there's a lot of data behind it too and um we take it very seriously and uh we're working together on it so I I think it's a this is also the the budget piece too and it's a big big important part of it and I just want you to know that we're working on it and um appreciate the the questions too and and um it's a big big discussion okay thank you and we did in fact share our mcast presentations early in the year in each district and collectively so that information should also be on in terms of the special the um mcast data no I'm I'm sorry I'm going to make a suggestion I think we need to this is all very important discussion and we need to continue it I think we need to begin moving through the agenda um the next Pro Gordon I'll let you go and then I could could we ask that the elected Town officials and the appointed Town officials what number they want the total budget for their town to be for the total cost of Education because we heard 3% for is that number yeah between the two bugs that would be approximately $450,000 of an overall increase in education for the town of H Tax Cody am I good right speak to Clinton Clinton would be looking at like 3.2 for Max and Clinton that would give us approximately $250,000 for total cost of education and Kingston would like about a million2 as a total increase but I suspect we find a way to live with a million5 as the total increase members of the board of Select agree with those numbers defer to the chair of Finance thank you so since I wear the hats of two School committees I have the ability to digest that information and what that means for me in both of my roles and unfortunately that means I don't want to go too deep towns please hear me out on this I don't want to go too deep tonight on the silver budget because like you said we can always amend on the floor if we need to go lower you know how hard it is to amend up if we go to tonight so I would suggest that we need a reduction of about $1.5 million in Silver Lake this evening again I've already said that we are going to be discussing an additional $160,000 for the dened elementary school but we are also in a lucky position where we received $152,000 more in Chapter 70 funding than the previous fiscal year at $1.5 million reduction here a $160,000 reduction at Clinton and using the additional Chapter 70 funds would get me to a $250,000 overall increase in the cost of education for the town of Clon I ran the numbers for Halifax because our numbers are a little bit closer than the Kingston brethren in the house tonight uh if we took if we took the budget down by 1.5 million and Lauren I do not envy you this uh you looked at about5 to $600,000 at Halifax Elementary you would get awfully close to that $450,000 as well and Tim you have the biggest number of all of us as an individual school committee and I know that you've been desperate to add positions to your school for quite some time now unfortunately it looks like your chunk of change is going to be rather more significant I'd be happy to talk offline with you on that thank you so that's what I'm seeing as bottom line numbers can you email me those numbers I actually I kind of had a feeling that's where we were so I made a spring sheeet that I'm willing to share publicly since we're at an open meeting m so anybody would like a copy please feel free um again these are what I like to call back of the math and math problem CU I am not a school business administrator yes yes apprciate but I would say tonight at Silver Lake we need to go about 1.5 million in yeah and then the locals can handle it when they other next school committees and discuss it further [Music] there so we should continue down the agenda and then we will come to a point where we're going to be discussing that and Jason thank you for running all those numbers ahead of time I just one that my not on yeah folks I'd like to continue on I'd like to continue on thank you um do we do we want to um continue down the agenda or we going to move a couple things around yeah Madam chair I'd like to U Move the H discussion to later in meeting and go to number four the 6 curricul coordinator discussion possible vote for Union 31 members only okay um yeah second that was my motion second okay um uh any further discussion on so no all those in favor thank you is there a motion on the union because it's a joint agenda I'll make a motion to move item four on the agenda to the next item um to discuss the K through6 curriculum coordinator discussion and possible vote sure in your packet tonight you will see a shared cost agreement template that was produced by attorney Russ for your consideration uh this is something that the um the groups have discussed in the terms of the shared cost are outlined in appendix a you'll see a list under A1 the positions that are designated as employees of the district and the district receiving school system shall pay the percentage of the gross salary benefits related to set position based on the prior School Year's October one enrollment and those positions are listed there and then underneath that the following position shall be designated as an employee of the public schools and the Kingston public schools and receiving school systems shall pay the percentage of grow salary and benefits related to set positions based upon the prior School Year's October one enrollment number at the elementary level so the reason why I'm asking you to review and approve this first is because um the next vote would be about the the next thing would be to look at the curriculum coordinator um draft contract and potentially approve that so before you review the individual's contract I would I would recommend that you review first the language from attorney Russ regarding how that shared cost would be split among the elementary schools question I I I when we get to uh the actual dollar amount I would like to have a discussion that may I ask a clarifying question if we were to vote number four is that going to move this item to Kingston's budget immediately or would we still be able to discuss it in item five any dollar mon it would no long the minute we voted it goes to your budget right so would no longer be a so so just then prior to taking the vote and transferring any Authority from it um with the consideration that we're talking about doing potentially $1.5 million in Cuts this evening at so alone I would like to ask all who respect to the Administration has there been any conversation about the administration taking a zero for FY 25 to try and offset some of the budgetary implication of the cuts that we all fear will end up going to sta no there hasn't been a discussion we haven't been asked to have that discussion we have had that discussion in the past and we uh during co uh we did agree to take 0% in the past but that question has not been raised I do I do would like to mention however that we were in a different position than we were during Co and the reality is is that that in some cases we have difficulty just like our contracts have to be competitive so do our administrative salaries and so again I I don't know um what impact that could have so I just issue that caution because there are opportunities at competitive rates to follow a question to that how was the administrative team made whole or attempted to after the 0% what do you mean by that in the subsequent years M was the withheld increase recuperated in any manner by the administration after they took the did they skip a year of the contract and realize a 6% after the one year of taking the zero where there any monetary adjustments made to to salaries and contracts after taking in in the end uh we we didn't end up having to cut those positions and so if I recall correctly it wasn't required right so it was voted that we were willing to do it but it never actually came to pass I recall I just wanted to put everything on the table I just position those I want to make sure that if we are going to make cuts and and and hopefully we are able to give some direction to Administration on how we would like to see the cuts made that between now and town meeting if we find other ways to make those cuts that we we turn over all rocks possible and we take into consideration all of our options to make the numbers work with the least impact on the students in the classrooms on a dayto day basis thank you um I would actually like to table this item to keep number five intact to include this position um because speaking as both a Silver Lake Regional member as well as a Kon member we may not be able to afford this position in the Kon budget this year so we may have to table the conversation I understand this position must exist in one of the schools in order to continue it cannot continue as a silver late cost because it is purely Elementary it's it's another complexity brought about by our partially regionalized system okay so budgetarily what would the implications be would it be the same implications of on instead well I think based on the estimates that you just provided to us it looks like Kingston is perhaps facing more than a million dollars in Cuts than Halifax at Clinton so seeing these figures presented in real time I think that it would be more prudent to ask Hala or pin to assume this position so because I think it would have less of an overall implication to the budget I I understand it it's shared like we'd still be paying our per but the overall I I don't know I I think I defer to I understand you concern I I have no issue Rob I don't know if you do and if Pon is having concerns and housing this position if we look into having it as a pled position and sharing it up that way I don't know if that would change the bottom line no it won't because Kingston's still responsible to 60% of all all of our elementary students but I just want to make sure that we're not voting this too prematurely when we have other cuts that we're going to have to consider in line if if Clinton takes on the role we would be charged a percentage for that salary we're essentially the same amount but but I just think that I think this is a premature discussion to other things well I think this is why we push up the entire Shar cost budget in the first place some of them have some of them have contractual obligations built into them threeyear agreements with administra and again um we're in that situation unfortunately where it's a cash 22 because we do need the overall share cost number to facilitate the silver late budget tonight because we need to give a number to the towns however this position is slightly different because we have a different timeline for the local budgets I think what I'm trying to put into I'd like this particular discussion to be part of a shared cost discussion not just a casing discussion so I don't think that a necess trying to offer the position to PL in our I think M I'd like to take okay I number five out of order please thank you I make that motion is there a second to move item number five okay okay all those in favor hi okay let's discuss so would you like me to go over the positions that are slated there's um so again before you agreed to any of these contracts again you would need to agree to the terms of how the cost would be shared and then you have um uh Karen tringali executive assistant to the superintendent Dave turkot Director of Human Resources Dave Murphy manager of information systems and Jay o computer technician all of those um contracts were reviewed and presented at the um at the previous joint school committee meeting or reviewed by the administrative review team and discussed an executive session um if I may share that none of these um contracts have been voted um we retain the right to see where we were at with the budget before we voted these contracts and um I'm just wondering where we previously discussed them in executive session if this is able to be part of a public discussion now um indidual contract that possible okay so I will entertain any question so I I have no problem accepting any of the contracts as presented with the raises as presented with the caveat that we do as the union 31 members and as The Silver Lake Region School ask our administrators to consider taking a zero for f25 with the understanding that they have the option to say no I don't want to leave any stone unturned but at the same time I don't want to lose the valuable personnel and I also do believe that in a normal fiscal situation those people do deserve contractual agreement that I will vote Yes for this evening um if it was a normal year this wouldn't even be a contest at this point but I will make a motion to accept all of the contracts as presented by the Admin review team which I was a member of that executive session and heard all of the deliberation with the c the Silver Lake Regional school committee and Union 31 does ask the superintended to pursue conversations with the admin team about taking a zero for 25 that's my motion and may I clarify that that would include for the FY 26 and the FY 27 the salaries as presented or 3% of their current salary starting in F 26 yeah I wouldn't change any of the numbers in the contracts as stated okay and would be open to uh compensatory negotiations upon the year of the zero being completed okay is your motion made for both the union and Silver Lake I will make the motion for both committees I'll second for Silver Lake and I'll second for the union all those in favor of the Union I okay all those in favor of for Silver Lake I opposed okay and that was an ask to have an Ask y but it does accept all of these contracts as present absolutely um can we return to item number four which okay um which is the cas6 curriculum coordinator discussion hous vote can we go ahead and vote her contract um with can we make a similar motion yeah for and again when I first started at D at elementary as a school Committee Member back in 2014 we still had books on the shelves that didn't talk about the International Space Station in 2014 uh since we've hired our curriculum coordinator we've updated our curriculum have an updated cycle to make sure our kids are working with the best Materia possible and it brings continuity for when they come up to the late I will make a motion to give uh Melissa her contract as discussed and presented with the caveat that she has asked as well as the rest of the administrative team to consider taking a zero and FY 25 with the ability to come back for compensatory um charges after n FY 26 is there a second from the union all second from the union all those in favor now does the union need an additional vote to move that position to Kingston can we do that now okay go do that now um is there a motion from Union 31 for that position to be assumed I make a motion to move the K to6 curriculum coordinator to the King City budget all second all those in favor of Comm I thank you so Paul I'm going to defer you number six okay and I'm going to defer to which which number number six six shared cost budget yeah so Sarah has uh a total number with these uh anticipated um the number that I have includes uh moving the um special ed clerk out of the revolving account into the shared cost budget it includes the integrated preschool executive assistant to the principal who does a significant amount of work special at transportation across the district so those two things are in addition to um previous years total shared cost budget is 2 m 48,1 14666 Sarah I'm sorry can you give me that number again 2, 48,1 14666 no but going ask the question have we scoured that budget for all possible yes un unfortunately when Dave turot from HR and I scoured the budget we found things that should have been I am sorry to say every time I put something under the micr I find things that I'm not happy finding but there are things that were cont contractual amounts for staff members that were un budgeted understood it's just again might new shared responsibility to students is to make sure that again we turn over every Rock possible to make sure that staff is the last thing that we look at cut but we need right so there's nowhere to trim anything from that with the contractual obligations we just voted here this evening correct uh there is $110,000 I was asked to put in a buffer because the the school committee has run into issues negotiating contracts with administrators and I'm not complicating that at all by asking them to take a z potentially understood so so there's $10,000 in the contract that doesn't belong to I'm sorry there's $110,000 in this budget that doesn't belong in any contract second question this $2.4 million shared cost budget has this number been cooked into the overall cost of Education shared tonight or is this an additional $2.4 million um a good portion most of it is most of this is in there already most of most of it including the increases you just voted on I'm sorry okay so the increases we just voted had already been baked into the numbers used the SE all right just making sure so I make a motion to accept the shared cost budget as presented do you need me to read the actual number for the minutes or is that sufficient probably do yeah 2,481 14666 I'll second from Silver Lake okay I made that motion for in this well there thank you okay on the Silver Lake Side all those any further discussion seeing none all those in favor thank you and any discussion from the union all those in favor I I okay I am going to suggest a five minute recess before we start to get into the Silver Lake budget could we do house because the facility Police director is he still [Music] here if we could just contract so any anybody object to that okay let's do that and then take aak okay is he okay oh okay I didn't know go ahead so um Silver Lake Regional School District went out to bid for what is called the house doctor agreement for engineering for projects we over the the kids from different architectural firms were received a week ago a week and a half ago and a committee convened to review the proposals the committee consisted of myself facility director Michael laist School Committee Member Mark we deoni who is the chair of the safer subcommittee uh superintendent Jill crew and assistant superintendent line Ryan Lynch we went through the process of evaluating the house doctor proposals which which um we had to go through there were we received nine different proposals and we had to go through them and rate them uh less advantageous advantageous highly advantageous award points numbers to them it took two meetings to get through all of it and we had homework to do over the weekend to read all of everything we couldn't read on Friday and the in our meeting yesterday we came to the um the the clear I'm going to call it a winner but it's just the best proposal and it came from khabib and Associates and I would like to ask the school committee if they could vote to enter into a contract with khabib and Associates for 5 years for House doctor Services go ahead Mar I'd like to thank the administration for the invitation to participate to spend the 5 hours in uh in the conference room working with this uh we vetted this uh company uh very well I feel very happy with the uh results and very happy with the process that we used to do that um I'd like to encourage everybody to support the uh candidate we have do have their presentation if anybody wants to take a look at it thank you goad Jason I'd like to also say as a former chair of the safety fees and facilities for Rue subcommittee that we've worked with the be and Associates in the past I believe they also worked in HX on the gr project to some we've had great success in a great relationship working with them when I saw the on the the front of this as one of the proposals I was thrilled to see that their hat was in the ring and that this is who you settled with to potentially offer to us tonight un thrill yeah I I have um positive feelings about the past experience with them as well so I'm I'm also very pleased and and briefly for those that didn't understand what house doctor is going to provide us with engineering uh review services that will uh make our facilities management much more efficient we're going to be saving time as well as money we hope in uh in planning for our facilities needs with our schools now being almost 20 invol so we appreciate uh the support of the committee and whoever's idea of the administration was to move this along thank you so you need a vote right okay I'll make a motion um to se as our an associate Architects as our House doctor for Sil I'll second right any more discussion okay seeing none all those in favor I thank you I am going to request a 5 minute break for everybody and we can reconvene and a solid gated five minutes if we could okay folks thank [Music] you did you I believe Union 31 would like to adjourn meeting within this meeting is there a motion I would like to make a motion to adjourn for Union 31 is there a second second all those in favor I thank you thank you all so much I'd like to make a motion for King school committee to adjourn is there a second second all right all those in favor to adjourn say hi hi eyes have it we are adjourned thank you okay keep up the good work everybody does anyone want to make a motion for I'll make a motion to adjourn the silver I'm sorry Nota elementary school committee thank you everyone okay so civil a budget discussion got I'm just waiting for them to Sure Dr um I believe we're going to be presented tears of cuts we presented uh tears of cuts in the first assessment presentation the slides are in there we have not been advised to go beyond that at this point um the uh the tier one totals came primarily from uh line items for 167,000 uh tier two came to about 265,000 and tier three came to 48,000 so a total of 855 I think it was yes oh Jason those those were in the presentation tonight though right no no no we asked for some room to potentially consider Cuts these were provided us I think on our February 7th meeting right after our initial proposal yeah okay so I have no problem with T1 and I actually think that we need all $855,000 in cuts from tier one to to tier three but I have some clarifying questions first if you would soel in tier two we have two full-time special ed support staffs at $55,000 each two full-time Middle School 160,000 total one full-time equivalent High School $80,000 are these Cuts being made through attrition in any capacity in the tier 2 level so it depends on which position you're talking about so it's a mixture it's a mixture okay can you explain to me how much of this is attrition and how much this would be an actual reduction of for sure so the 1.0 FTE let's start with the easiest 1.0 FTE at the high school um we have budgeted 80,000 for a computer science teacher that we have not been able to fill uh the 2.0 FTE at the middle school so J I'm sorry I don't have much voice I understand what you did this evening I am sorry um at the middle school there there's a probable retirement but then there's also some positions I didn't fill that I might be able to um consolidate things in a way that I could keep the people I have it might cut programming like we talked about in we have a Spanish teacher but know we don't know how that's going to fall out with different electives what needs to be filled so that's consideration okay okay uh Dr pen would you like to speak to the special education supports So like um with some care scheduling we can we have a retiring um integrated preschool teacher that we do not need to replace um I think I think that's I think we're talking about special education support on this line item oh professional professional so we look at the student enrollment in the substantially separate classrooms and have structured the classrooms to have two powers and one teacher for a total of six to8 students that's all the powers in teachers that are necessary it's still what the state tells us we have to have because it's one teacher with eight students we're doing one teacher two Paris to support or six to eight students so we're far above with the state mandates there still a lot of service in that one classroom and anything excess of that we have to um cover that should be the standard across all schools and all district if a student requires incredible support that's a whole different story but we have to have a structure and the structure that I chose more than more than what the state and then not to support students so that be attrition do you believe would they be retiring no no no so out of this one of those positions is cut or both of those positions both of those positions I mean with that in mind Dave's not here tonight but um with that mind if if You' been part of the conversation Dave would in the past has estimated that every year we have about a turn we have a turnover District wide of about 15 par professionals every year yeah so I mean I know tier three is going to be even harder to discuss since we're already talking about actual to people potentially being laid off to to human beings with the family and hopes and dreams and the life and all that stuff I didn't want to walk out here tonight not having that in my gut after I make the vote this evening of what I'm actually doing what we're actually asking the superintendent to do again this is why I asked for the consideration of the zeros from the admin team um is this like are there no other supplies that we can fil for for a year deeper than $152,000 before I have to start considering letting two parent professionals go so that was the question that we asked the principles and this was as far as they could go to meet the needs of the the building you know ultimately we could we could um if we go much less we end up spending over in lines and we end up in the same problem that we're in well I mean that that concern came up and then you said to special ed supports staff and we've been hiring special ed supports staff after we budgets and we realize we have a need right so the supplies people supplies people I mean we're talking the same thing in tier three you have another $48,000 2.0 fulltime equivalent Middle School 2.0 full-time equivalent High School 2.0 full-time equivalent sea support staff 2.0 full-time equivalent support staff I mean this is 12 positions of people who work for us or we've been trying to fill positions I understand it's not exactly 12 but this is a handful of people our people that we'll talk about right now but um you heard them tonight if we bring this budget we're not going to get it approved by Town meting we're not and if we don't come up with the budget by July 1st the state comes over and takes over our finances and if we don't get one by December the state comes over and takes over our district period end of statement No More local control I went to Southbridge on Tuesday night don't know if you know what sou bridge is it's one of three School committees school districts in Massachusetts that are in state receivership it was the saddest thing I'd ever seen in my life the state receiver doesn't even go to their meetings set the budget doesn't listen to their they don't even vote their own minutes at their meetings the impotence of that group The the absolute dejected hopelessness was pal like it was terrible so I I think that we need to take all three tear of these Cuts but I implore I implore the building principles and central office to please again turn over every rock you can find every penny quarter dollar you can to try and keep some of these people hold and not cut into the staff as deeply as this indicates here tonight so I would make a motion to direct the superintendent I I'm sorry before you do jeie do you have a question I do um since we're talking about cuts to the budget and based on Dr panry I guess not opinion but I guess fact that we have a turnover within our um par professionals typically year to year what are the implications of voting these decreases and then having to pay unemployment because someone does not turn over and has to take layoff so there's always that risk we have now until the end of the year um some are actually getting their teaching degrees so I don't expect them to be working as any longer I would expect them to be moving on to being a teacher KS so I mean it may not be in Silver Lake but it would be within Silver Lake School Regional um so I don't anticipate not having work if they want for there are some pars that have already applied over to the different schools knowing that you know things are going to be shifting so this is just two and it's just still like it's just the middle school and the high school there's more to and I'm not sure did we put that school teacher I just asked to keep in mind because um even though we're seeing like for instance a reduction of $100,000 there's still cost to cutting if um if there's a clim so there's always openings and there they didn't say there's like 15 turnarounds every year historically that's what we're used to so I think that if people thank you so my motion is on the floor does this get it it's over it's part of the plan I can explain more if I get a second we can continue discussion okay any further discussion on Jason's motion Jason discussion oh you have to get the motion he he got a second yeah he got a second motion is now being entertained we have further discussion Jason could you please repeat the motion yes um to accept all three tiers is proposed by the superintendent but to employ the superintendent and the administrative team to find alternatives to stack cuts to realize $855,000 in cut to the Silver Lake Regional School budget to try and find Alternatives yes yeah yeah okay scour the Earth please do you want my additional piece now yes do we not want to vote that no he wants to know the whole plan okay discussion all right so the reason why I kept bringing us back to the $2.1 million in circuit breaker that the elementaries will be receiving in fy2 was because in FY 26 we will own at least a million of that here at Silver Lake so I'm going to propose is something that would usually create a fiscal cliff but it won't in this case if we consider it giving ourselves our own circuit breaker this year using our end funds in a one-time expenditure of $750,000 of DV to offset the assessments to Our member communities this would bring the total cuts that we're making to the budget tonight1 m6500 and I would suggest we stop there and then see what the elementary committees do before we go any deeper we should not bear the full burden of the increases being seen in the cost of Education to the three Towns at the lake alone it should be equally shared by all four School committees and to be clear doing that end movement because it's not like we sit around with end money and do nothing with it what would it normally be doing well end has been fully certified just over $1.5 million that is basically the fullest it can become those of us who've been on the committee for several years we have been excellent stewards of the SS efficiency fund for this exact purpose someday it was going to come a major catastrophe a major issue and we would have it to draw from we have drawn from it in the past we've actually used it to save these two buildings for during the snow apocalypse if you recall we had ordered by the fire chief the Fire Marshall of Massachusetts to shovel off the Roes of the buildings or they would deny us occupancy we went up there we shoveled the roofs we punchered holes in the membrane we took our own Roes out of warranty by complying with the state order we used an envelope study to assess the water infiltration of the building and instead of paying $7.6 million to put two brand new Gres on these two buildings we actually got them fixed to the point that we were resarch certified under the warranty for those groups those are the kinds of things that we did the capital plan has been funded exclusively out of D andd since 2015 2016 we are not going to go as aggressive as superintendent before we even said anything had already adjusted the excess and deficiency drop for the capital plan to 204 and brought it to the safety facilities fees and revenues and we were extremely pleased this I think we were going to suggest that angle this is a way to save jobs this is a way to preserve the education for the students to still relate to the best of our ability and it is not going to create a fiscal cliff we will just assume that money with circuit breaker an FY 26o amount again what's up what was the amount you said I want to take 750 from it multitud reasons for that and been certified at 1.5 million they just didn't no but I want you to hear my plan too cuz you're the numbers person right we're looking to take in about 204,000 204,000 for the capital Plan and there's also an overhanging project that we're trying to complete that we may need to put about $400,000 worth of cost for before we get rebates on the project so we need the four sitting in the IND who use the two for the Capal plan and we're going to use the 750 to offset the increases we're seeing in silver l so it doesn't hurt our classrooms that's the idea that's the other part of my planning work and you expressed that extremely well thank you for that and having sat on a school committee for nearly two decades now you never use money like that onetime money Etc to fund your operating agreement because you're left holding the bag and then some the following year and as Jason indicated we already know how that would then be filled replaced next year understanding that reasoning I would support that idea save our schools spend the money we're we're sticking our finger in the Dyke with a with a reasonable backup plan with with rationale there will be a small fiscal cliff at each of the three Elementary committees next year when their circuit breaker comes over to us right but I will wait to solve that problem at a later date understood so my motion right now is to accept both Cuts with the urgency of finding other resources other than staff members additional staff MERS I I I don't want any of these staff members I want to find $855,000 I mean that's what we've been praying for yeah for two months now I'm not afraid to say it praying for it hoping dreaming wishing yeah right we don't need to tell the superintendent of school is exactly where she needs to make these Cuts if she finds something that makes more sense please feel free to make that change right other than that so Jason does your motion include this 750 transfer is that a sep sep motion this was under discussion so G could understand the whole plan yeah any further discussion or are we ready to vote um Jason thank you for your attention to this and being able to explain it to all of us especially like I'm new like Regional comme um but I think your knowledge to this topic and all all of this is extremely helpful to getting through this so thank you mam chair just to remind you we need 11 votes for budget vote including cuts and proposals right right um I'm only one V is it 11 without Lucas here yeah okay so on the motion that is on the table all those in favor I anybody opposed okay that was easy math Karen all right it's still still a horrible V it it it is this is a horrible year but it could be worse if you hadn't come up with the idea of potentially dipping into e and D I also need to give credit to everyone else who's sat at this table over the years that we haven't abused that fun um okay so I make a motion to use 700 $50,000 from the access into efficiency funds to offset the assessments for member towns for fiscal year 25 okay any further discussion on that seeing none all those in favor that was just again for the record $ 1,65 that we just reduced silver Lake's overall budget and I would inore us not to go any deeper until we know what the elementaries did if we need to look at this number again and amend on the floor so be I have a pathway in plon to meeting my number after tonight's votes here at Silver Lake without going any deeper at Silver Lake Halifax also has a pathway though it is going to be much more difficult because they received $8,000 increase in their chapter 7 fund they are one of the minimal Aid districts that you may have heard Kingston Clinton we are not the minimal a districts even if you may have been disappointed in your chapter 7 if you want to see real Strife you need to look at our neighbors and Halifax and what they're dealing with they have to make all of the cuts at the local level there is no reor for them at all so we need to give them the room to see how far they can go and then we may need to come back to the table and I'm happy to work with the chairs of those committees ify their decision yeah I ask a question um Dr pan you mentioned earlier you'd like some flexibility within your role um since you are the director of student services for the entire District how would we go about I guess giving you that Authority without further complicating what's been what we are unraveling and I'm doing from an improperly structured District so we have people that collaborate across the district and help each other and that's really the way it should be if I have really good PC my end and have an issue over to go take a look I should be able to take that person they can you go take a look said eyes get some interventions help with some strategies but I can't do that right now because that person's PID under Sil that person is K so I can't utilize the expertise that we have inside our district to be able to support all these because we all have gifts and talents right some people are really good at this and they can hop over to another district and help out there like my consultation or coaching I would like that ability to do that right now I cannot do that and I don't want to break right I guess that's my question is is that even something that's feasible with our current structure of four separate but foration it's it's it's more of a collaborative effort everybody's in and everybody another and there's expertise over one area of the town you know we can utilize it to help others if if I may speak I was surprised to learned that there was it bcba and in Kingston paid for by Kingston and we had to hire a bcba from Silver Lake for the Silver Lake integrated preschool because it was two separate things and the Kingston bcba couldn't walk across the building because it was not part of their job can I make one comment that I have in my notes and it's sort of anecdotal to and I I don't mean that in a uh a nonchalant sort of way we we kind of found a path perhaps to our budget this evening but one thing we did not address and our Auditors have told us to address it is that our accounting department is underst staffed they've recognized it year after year I'm just putting it out there because it was a recommendation from Lynch and Marini that we are unable to do anything with at this time but I just want to acknowledge that we have a need that we have we kick the can down the the road we can't address it this year but we still have a need go ahead but we need to be careful because we made a mistake procedurally last year where we could have potentially added that capacity in the business office when we realized we had some excess funds in Chapter 70 last year we as The Silver Lake Regional school committee said oh maybe we should add remember chill saying you know we maybe one or two bodies at least in the business office and we said oh great we can use some of our money here and then we realized that the shared cost budget had already been voted and almost everybody in that business office is a shared cost so just to make sure we have our ducks in a row and set up for FY 26 I didn't I get where you're I in shared cost yeah completely agreed I just want to say we procedurally this the vote last year we could have had those positions potentially last year already so you just need to be careful right but we would' be struggling to fund them again we would yeah yeah we would yeah do you imagine what would have happened if we used that poll increase in chapter 7 last year and we held back and didn't and gave the towns a little bit of breathing room mhm yeah no I I don't disagree I just we're we're ignoring a a recommendation a repeated recommendation from our Auditors to to that point Jason I understand what you were just saying about if we had utilize all of those funds but I think the whole purpose of when we're adding positions we're hoping that increases the efficiency of the district and therefore you know it it can help us find money in other places and I don't think we've been able to take advantage of that because we are so under staffed I mean we've made multiple requests of Sarah tonight she's been on the job for 4 months and probably hasn't slept you know in three and a half so I just I think we need to be aware of the requests that we are making to our very limited staff as it is so agre okay um are we moving on to Capital [Music] plan we have the bill schedule the bill schedule I keep I skip that every single month I don't like bills we IGN them they aren real right office space to do that anymore do you have a total of are we I don't we're on the bill schedule all right schedule of a total of what we signed for number eight I had left a copy of it at your place's a piece of paper oh this it it's horizontally and a bit larger than microscopic in the past okay so um just want to make sure I'm getting the numbers right um we had a total of 20 vouchers totaling um there's two numbers here there's uh 1,295 419 87 uh total accounts payable from um high school middle school activities of 2,829 882 sorry 2, 82988353185 $92 so there's 20 warrants I'm sorry 20 vouchers and then there are there's one for middle school and high school student activity and there's three payroll vouchers and I might have passed around some food service that nobody needs to sign I'm sorry I had everything in the big pile we lose a yeah oh dear I got that can mess it up really bad I came with I'll take yes 855,000 [Music] okay Capital plan for met and the administrator presented us pretty much the we get um a lot of it was based on house doctor helping us save money going forward some planning but we also had to uh remove the ad building plans for that and part of that is looking at some alternatives to constructing an ad building on site so investigating uh and planning pling engineering is not didn't make sense to do that yet but we haven't thought about for our staff The Proposal went down from some 700,000 to $24,000 we'll propose to have come out at this point which will still leave us yeah some money left over and because we didn't have the house doctor on hand we have a couple projects that we need to put some effort into anyways didn't make sense to add to the list let's get done the jobs we already have in the pipeline it all lined up we have some projects from in this year that have been funded by outside sources that we need to take advantage going to get us to that point uh going that once again so um 204 for the vote me tonight motion for a plan for the Y 25 at 204 exactly got front of them I um ter nicely made me a copy that I L is it the one that's online yes it should be the one that's online but it is [Music] page no um 39150 I don't have the right the right thing 391,000 it 391,000 is that with the Vans that's with the Vans no no no no don't point it put the back in we need to talk about it with the committee that's what we discuss yeah that's we did go ahead talk about can you talk about the implications of us not having these Vans and why we put the Vans into the capital plan sure Sarah uh had an a done we um we had a transportation consultant to come in and take a look at our we had some questions about the vehicles that were purchased with grant money and we're not sure that they were actually 7D compliant and we don't have a transportation professional in the district so um we contracted with a transportation professional who came in to discuss not just the vehicles in the special ed department but we walked around and looked at everything because I had questions about the plating of vehicles we could have um Municipal plates there's student plates there's set there's different types of plates and I quite frankly don't know the difference in what goes on what so I did a walk through and in the part of the walk through where I was talking to the teach in the pathways program she mentioned to me that the two vehicles that we have that are sub be compliant are not sufficient to transport the number of students with wheelchairs and Walkers and also um she's expecting additional students next year and so in order to transport these students in 7D Vehicles which I believe is what our legal council has recommended in order to transport them in 70 Vehicles we would need additional vehicles and was this primarily for the path Bas program or was this across the board usage for students in wheelchairs and special needs this they would be used by the pathways program during school hours but the possibility to use them for home to school transportation should we want to do that would exist and Christine could I ask you for an IND District student that we drive to Sil the lake and if we have the contract now how much could that run us it does not have to be an accurate like ballart you have two things going on here so the additional BS will be able to supply the transportation to and from the pathways students also receive specialized Transportation first thing in the m and last thing in the afternoon I'm hoping that the procurement of these Vans would eliminate that save $142,000 office office Sil L budget that's the first thing the second thing is is that once those vans are used by the coaches and the people with the 7D licenses they're offsite so it's not like I can use those vans for our preschool students which travel back and forth um the other thing that I would I would the only other thing that I would think of is that the more drivest we have the more risk we have if somebody's out sick and then who does that so you know I'm fine with that I like little buses and and can you let the committee know do we already have 7D licensed drivers on yes right so you can see where thereal savings here ex and can you explain the weit time currently for 7D vans in Massachusetts I I believe it's a onee week like if we if we ordered in July we would be lucky to get them during the year next year so listen like as I said this would be an increase to the end number again now we're taking it down to a sliver but does take in money over the course of the year we don't have to pay the full price of the Vans till we actually accept delivery delivery correct I am riding the razor's edge here tonight saying that I think that we should put those vans in if it proves itself as a program that works we might want to expand this endeav to provide more of our own transportation and have the drivers be our own employees to have more control so I would encourage us to actually accept that higher number with the Vans and the and number 391 uh knowing that it won't be paid out yeah yeah I'm playing the keep the checkbook balanced by knowing when the bills come to when I get paid yeah yeah can I ask one more question just for we did buy Vans a couple of years ago this is before you saw so I apologize those vans are uh 7D Vans correct so there are currently four vans we're on the second floor there are currently four vans outside the door downstairs two of the Vans is my understanding um are belong to the high school y they referred to as Michaela's vans staff members that I spoke with and currently the uh P programs are using those vans um the the 70 Vehicles were purchased with um their were Grant funds during Co and nor the the 240 grant for special ed and the 262 for preschool special ed are pretty standard but during Co there were you know pick a bunch of numbers the 254 the two and so those those vans were purchased out of those Co okay I just wanted to be sure we had 7D Vans because I know when we were buying and that's what we talked about that's we ordered I just want to make sure that's actually what we ended up getting okay I okay understood thank you and and just to cap that all off um SAR has capacity to work on this Senator Mary has put out um workshops that we can take as webinars that are from the American Rescue plan but also from the inflation reduction act that allow entities that don't pay federal taxes to get tax refunds for environmentally compliant projects so we will start looking into pursuing some of the use of those grants they're non-competitive I mentioned this last time non-competitive and uned in scope we can go back to the well as many times as we want so I will work with tar to make sure she gets those webinars and work with Senator Mary's office and we'll try and realize some savings by using those grants instead of taking from MH okay that makes sense okay also with the AC project that we're trying to put together we're also going to lean into that as well for that project so the BS included the motion 391,000 our and I was s okay any further discussion is is it 391 500 just want to make sure yeah I think it is I think it's 391 50091 second the amend motion okay all any further discussion all those in favor I I all right folks um this has been a very um informative but incredibly painful evening um and I I I um commend the committee for um its discretion it's decisionmaking and again Jason the time and effort you put into this meeting and working through numbers and Etc beforehand thank you so much you're invaluable invaluable I am honored to do it and I honored to be part of the school committee that restores all of this cutting that we're doing and make sure that I am here until we see that happen glad to hear that uh I would entertain a motion to adjourn all right I'll second no further discussion okay all those in favor I thank you [Music] folks [Music]