e e e e e all right we're gonna all right we're going to get started in just a second so if the committee members who are present could take their seats or at least hover over them that would be great okay good evening noting the hour in the presence of a quorum I call the act and boxboro Regional school committee to order uh members of the public obviously who wish to watch this meeting and don't want to D Brave the weather this evening can uh watch it on the ACT and TV's YouTube website uh at actant tv.org and as a reminder this meeting is being recorded and will be posted on actant TV's website so welcome everybody um very glad that we have electricity and heat back in this building um very appreciative of that and that we've got cleared roads and driveways parking lots um so we are going to get started the first item on our agenda this evening is the uh high school student rep update do we have any student rep here come on down it is there we go our resident uh thank you very much okay hi everyone I'm dsha MRE I'm currently a sophomore um I kind of have a cold right now which my history teacher calls the funk so I apologize if I start violently coughing um since I'm the only one here today I'll just quickly touch on a couple of things that happened in the past month so um we just had the flex block on Tuesday last week during the mcast day which was a lovely Community event we saw organizations such as tuppet the tus University prison initiative we saw Danny's place come in and do a workshop um we had alpacas come in from farms we had we also had therapy cats and dogs and also groups AT AP had workshops um kind of some of them are the hip-hop Workshop from nine lives the dance club um the Muslim Student Association hosted a World Cup game workshop and um there was another women in computer science Workshop so this was an an event where a lot of students and staff and a lot of members in our community were present and engaging with each other and it was a lovely Educational Opportunity as well and so I just kind of wanted to advocate for clubs again because um we wish to have like these kinds of community engaging events in the future another thing that I want to touch on was I think it was just yesterday um we were talking to this Miss Dean about um stuco is pushing this Omnibus act academic Reform Act uh this is a bill to decrease student stress and improve academic performance through um highlighting grade transparency and adding some limits on assignments to decrease that stress and kind of help students manage their time and their mental health furthermore I just wanted to give a quick shout out to um the kitchen staff teachers and bus drivers today for having to adapt to the difficult power outage conditions they did a really good job managing all that I also want to raise a safety concern about the roads today since there's lots of student drivers out there um I was talking to a lot of people who had some close calls with driving today and that was a concern for a lot of students um I'll quickly touch on something that um my fellow classmates want to raise but they are not here today for weather conditions homework conditions the math homework doesn't stop so um Molly wanted to just talk about um kind of disturbances from um students being loud and such and how it um affects concentration in classes Julia wanted to talk talk about Window Seat the art magazine at our school window seats open mic night um she also want to highlight the support from a lot of administration and um the importance of all the clubs and extracurricular activities and a lot of people being able to again engage build that Community um up that school morale and school spirit and so that's the student update for tonight thank you thanks so much dixa great job representing all of your fellow students we appreciate that okay uh next item is scroll up public participation per our school committee policy bedh members of the public are invited to speak for up to three minutes each uh public participation only takes place at this time of the meeting um speakers must be recognized by the chair and the committee does not typically respond to comments during public participation do we have anybody here for public participation this is old school I planned on typing it but I am one of the Acton citizens who had no power till 15 minutes before my school council meeting so I'm a little less cold and a little less crabby so here goes my name is Mary sakanas I live on Joseph Reed Lane here in Acton my husband and I have lived in Acton for 33 years we moved here from Newton where I was a first grade teacher like many of you we came to Acton in no small part because of the excellent reputation of our schools we raised two daughters here they attended all AB schools and benefited greatly from the academic rigor personal attention teaching excellence and access to robust opportunities for cultural and social offerings through our schools and through our community we love this town we love AB schools we are now retired we also love retirement we continue to enjoy all Acton has to offer our library our recck department our conservation lands our fabulous neighborhoods and yes our act and box bro schools they all combine to make Acton a desirable town in which to live even when you're retired we continue to invest in this community our home is our most valuable retirement investment we recognize that its value is directly related to the success and Excellence of this school system retirement also allows us time to volun ER here in our community from the food pantry to community supper to neighborhoods and church we are very involved personally the most important and pleasurable volunteer work I do every week is to be privileged to work with Conan students Conan is the school where I finish the final 18 years of my 34 years of teaching I'm in the schools every week the effects of the pandemic are still being felt in our schools and yet I see skilled teachers and staff working tirelessly with patience and Grace and Good Humor every single time I am in these buildings 30 seconds Mary it's uplifting your teachers our teachers are doing their best in the service of our students and their families they deserve our support this override is long overdue I urge you to vote for our schools and for our town thank you thank you Mary anybody else for public comment Mr Kushner good evening good evening uh to be official Gary Kushner boxboro finance committee um I'm being repetitive and I realize that but please change your guidelines last meeting is a good example the school committee previously put forward a list of potential infrastructure changes to be discussed at a future meeting during last meeting there was a discussion about the Conan School msba uh application a comment was made that closing mothballing the con school is off the table but why it hasn't been discussed yet I've been at every single school committee meeting with the exception of the uh Saturday budget um seems to me um let's see uh that discussing the msba application is premature until there's a valid discussion on the future of the school some points to be made include the act on override the potential of a Box Bar override whether renovation of the con school is warranted and and if renovated is it going to have to be closed anyways and I'm using the term renovated as I was told multiple times by the previous operations team that the building could be renovated did not need to be uh replaced I know you can't uh you know answer me for your rules um but Corin should not be off the table until discussed I'm not saying remove it I'm just saying it needs to be discussed here not off someplace else as part of the infrastructure discussions thank you thanks Gary and I'll provide a point of clarification I don't think that the committee decided to take the um mothballing or closure of a school off the table the discussion was around whether whether or not we would submit that school for msba um core program support for next year and if my recollection is correct what we said was we haven't made the discussion yet but we also didn't want to put the the school in the program and then have to go through msba without having had that discussion so that discussion hasn't happened yet it is planned to happen over the course of next year so the decision around whether or not to submit for msba was made to withhold for next year so that we could have that discussion so to to clarify there's not been any closed door or behind the scenes discussion around the fate of one of our school buildings that's definitely something that has to happen out in public with a lot of public input thank you other public comments hello my name is Tanish K and I'm a junior from the Acton box Regional High School and I'm here on behalf of resource for and again we'd like to remind you about the climate resolution we sent last year and we urge you to vote for and pass the climate resolution again we would like to say we're not asking for Action right now but rather a commitment to action in the future and I also want to highlight that there has been increased student engagement and letters from students at the high school that have been sent concerning their opinions about climate action and again we we understand we recognize the current budget and issues with the budget but we're not asking for Action now and we really and although we're not asking for Action now it's important to make a commitment now thank you thanks Tes and a great highlight of the flex block that Molly spoke of was the letter writing campaign that happened from the resource force that all the school committee members received last week any other members of the public wish to make a public comment this is your only time okay seeing no one else at the microphone we are going to move on to new business recommendation to appoint an assistant superintendent for teaching and learning am I oh it's such it's in such a small font Peter I apologize I'm just getting you back for some of those committee chair and superintendent postings where I was in a smaller picture than you that was a requirement I had for Julie I'm sure um so you know a few things um one obviously we had you know quite a long day for a number of our students and staff here um just to give you a little bit of sense of timeline of that um you know we started the day um you know obviously opened you know as scheduled um the roads you know I drove around actually the roads were in pretty good condition for a winter storm um and so obviously thanks to the town of Acton for that um town of boxboro so just as the high school and junior high students were stepping off the bus um we had a Transformer go um you know that was also at the same time the elementary students were getting on the bus uh which obviously makes it complicated you have to kind of continue as planned fortunately the power was restored within about 40 minutes um and we were back up and running and then at 9:30 um a telephone pole went down along Hayward road that knocked power out to campus for the better part of five hours six hours um so you know that obviously presents challenges um you know we tried to get some information from ever Source there were no updates coming they hadn't even listed the outage on their map um after an hour and a half so that was challenging um when we did get an update um we had just started lunch for our Junior and senior high school students we made the decision um talking with principles to let students finish lunch and then we would dismiss them after lunch um to get them home with Elementary School students it's really challenging once you get Elementary School students into the building to then consider a dismissal uh because you have to make sure the parents are home to receive students and you know we have lot of parents that work reasonably far away from from where that we live um so had to really consider that so we made the choice to hold our elementary school students in school through the end of the day uh to provide kind of a less chaotic environment for that um that is not easy on School staff teachers administrators um to work without power so I just want to you know really thank all of them and thank students for the patients because you know really having a pretty disrupted day is not not enjoyable for anyone so thank you to everyone for the patience um few other things um you are in a few minutes going to meet um a candidate for assistant superintendent of teaching and learning so I'm not going to talk about that right now um but I also want to announce that we did just recently hire a new athletic director um so James scandin um has been appointed as the next director of Athletics for the district uh James is the director of Athletics in Dudley Charlton Regional School District uh where he's been since 2020 um prior to that position James serves as the Director of Athletics at Grafton Public Schools um for three years he was also the head athletic trainer at Grafton Public Schools from 2014 up until 2020 um he has experience as a faculty lecturer grad assistant and athletic trainer at several colleges as well um he has a master of science and athletic training from Bridgewater State and a Bachelor of Science and Kinesiology from the UMass amorist um so he's going to be starting on July 1st so we're pleased to welcome him um want to just go over a few things that are being recognized and celebrated over the course of the month um April 9th and 10th um is e Al feder uh or Ramadan um it's a month-long spiritual period of fasting and prayer uh that commemorates the revelation of the Quran uh to the prophet Muhammad according to Muslim tradition um acum boxboro schools are closed on Wednesday April 10th and that's a little bit of a change in the calendar we have not had that holiday come during a school day over the last few years so we want to make sure people are aware that that's next week um April 15th is Patriots Day and that's a state holiday commemorating the first battle of the American Revolution on April 197 1775 uh Patriots Day occurs annually on the third Monday of April and we also do not have school that day uh because it's the first day of our April vacation week um April 22nd um to April 30th is Passover um and that is one of uh ancient Israel's three major pilgrimage festivals and commemorates The Exodus from Egypt Passover is one of the most beloved of all the Jewish holidays so we have more information going out to families on the different holidays but I just wanted to highlight those three things because they're coming up in our calendar I want to do a huge congratulations to our acum boxboro speech and debate team who placed second as a School in Massachusetts um so congratulations to them as we send things out to families we'll also recognize of a number of the individual students um who won some different Awards um so congratulations to that team um you know dixa actually spoke to this a little bit earlier but I had an opportunity to go to the flex block and attend number of those seminars that were going on um at the high school what an absolutely fantastic activity day that was um just as a way of building some community in the high school a way of celebrating some of the students interests around social justice there were student L workshops there were faculty-led workshops um and really just a nice celebration of the cultures of the school um and all of the different interests of our students so thank you to everyone who helped organize that um we had also National Honor Society induction this week so congratulations to all of our students who qualified for and were accepted into National Honor Society um Project Graduation is coming up and I've talked about this before um but that is an absolutely wonderful Community event that's held every year um for our high school graduating seniors um to be able to celebrate safely um they are in need of um some additional volunteer slots so I don't know if anyone in the committee is interested but that's a wonderful way to get to kind of be into the schools see what's going on give back to the community uh we will also be sending that out so hopefully parents districtwide can pay it forward we also um have launched our spring seniors read uh program um with the Acton and boxboro um senior centers so a huge thank you to them but um we have a couple of nice pictures that we took um from both Miriam and Blanchard um of some of seniors in classrooms but it's been a wonderful way to connect kind of the broader Community into our schools and our students um and help bridge some of those um kind of age gaps that that people can perceive um and make sure that our students have an opportunity to learn from our seniors and our seniors also have an opportunity to learn from our students um because there's a lot to give both ways um and finally um Vice chair uh Rebecca Wilson and I will be uh hosting a community coffee on Saturday April 27th at 9:00 a.m. at KJ's Cafe in Acton um so we invite all the members of the community come out and ask us questions about things that happen in the schools but in particular the fy2 budget so thank you and that's it for me thank you Peter thanks for filling in for me Becca all right now I believe we're on to new business where Peter you're going to make a recommendation to an appoint an assistant superintendent for teaching and learning absolutely so I'll I'll invite Gabby up to the the table here um so there's a memo in your packet um but I'll give just a a brief overview um so Gabrielle Abrams is currently the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction assessment for the Medway Public Schools a role she's held since 2015 she was previously the instructional leadership director and executive director for the Malboro public schools from 2011 to 2015 in Malboro she also served as an assistant principal at the high school and an instructional coach for grades 4 through 7 um Gabby taught grades 5 through 8 in Bristol New Hampshire um she's currently a doctoral candidate and actually I believe it's now Dr Abrams correct officially y yes uh who defended your dissertation so congratulations um at Boston College um and she has a masters from Framingham State and a Bachelor of Arts from Hofer University um so her complete resume and cover letter were in the packet for you to be able to review um we had an absolutely fantastic search team I want to thank Andrew I want to thank all the members of the search team um we had you know a variety of roles and responsibilities um from the district we had some parent engagement on the search team we also had um you know obviously um you know teachers Educators at all levels department heads directors coaches instructional support specialist um really involved in that process uh to be able to you forward three finalists we invited all three finalists in um for full days um I know some of you had an opportunity to participate in some of the meetings with finalists along the way um so thank you for taking the time to be able to do that um and over the course of the day and through checking references it was just really clear that um I think Abby's going to be a wonderful fit here at AB um she really Rose to the top not only for her experience but kind of the breadth of knowledge she brought across all three levels um of the school district and the variety of roles that she held fit really well with the goals that we have as a school district particularly you know having been an instructional coach um being able to bring that firsthand knowledge of being a classroom teacher and instructional coach working at you know Elementary grades at middle schools at high schools um really just that breadth of experience is so valuable uh to be able to bring to a lens of an assistant superintendent so we're really pleased to welcome Gabby I'll let her introduce herself if I didn't just say all of it um and then you know an opportunity for you to ask some questions and we are seeking a vote um to ask you to appoint um I gave you some of the legal language around why the school committee appoints an assistant superintendent um that's in the memo I won't go into all of that but um turn it over to you Gabby great good evening everyone it's so nice to be here thank you for that great introduction Peter um oh it's a it's really humbling and such an honor to be here what a professional Rich process that I experienced over the last couple of weeks in act in boxboro um it's really exciting for me to look to my next stage of learning and see those opportunities here in this community as Peter highlighted um I am 26 years into being an educator and a leader I often say that this is my 26th first year in education because every year has been incredibly different and challenging and wonderful and Rich and this is my happy place um my work is incredibly important to me uh because of the opportunities that schools provided for me as a kid they were my safe place to fall they were the place that allowed me to see the potential and worthiness that was inside and so when I stepped back and realized that um that was the case I just went Full Throttle and so have been doing so for the last 26 years and I'm just really excited to be able to um be forwarded to you to join this team I know it's during an incredibly complex time for your community um and also really everywhere but certainly especially for your community FIS I think there's so many points of pride in this community and it's really an honor to consider myself a part of a team to go from strength to strength which is what I see this community being able to do you're incredibly Mission focused there's so many things to be proud of with the work that you have done and that you anticipate doing even in these challenging fiscal times and so it's really an honor to be here and thank you so much I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have thank you any questions for Dr Abrams Becca I don't have any questions but um I think you know it's fabulous that you have such a A diversity of experience and as a fellow Framingham State grad I can't help but be excited that you're joining us thank you appreciate that very much anybody else all right then I will uh accept a motion to appoint Dr Gabriel AB Abrams as the assistant super endent for teaching and learning effective July 1st 2024 pending successful contract negotiations with the superintendent of schools moved second all right that was Andrew with the motion and Tori with the second all of those in favor I any opposed any extensions that's unanimous welcome you thank you thank you appreciate it thank you so much all right so we have to V for 4 minutes because we have a public hearing around school choice um uh so give me just one second because I'm going to ask my superintendent something okay you think Andrew's gonna sing sing Andre it's three minutes now Andrew um all right so I'll give give everybody a heads up uh I will broadcast forward what we're planning on doing this evening so following our school choice hearing um we will welcome the chair and vice chair of the act and finance committee to share with us the uh finance committee point of view we will be cutting the district goal number two presentation this evening because we had some of our Educators who were involved in the power outage and wanted to give them uh a little bit of a rest this evening so uh we're going to postpone that until later um and then we'll go through our standard report of uh school committee communication goal updates ALG updates uh health insurance trust policy budget um updates and then we'll go through our consent agenda items while we're here and I'm still trying to Vamp for time um I will share that you all have on your calendar a meeting for April 25th a school committee meeting for April 25th Peter and I decided that you all did such a great job that we are going to cancel that meeting uh so feel free to strike April 25th from your calendars we will not be meeting on a school committee meeting that evening but we will be meeting on May 2nd uh so there will be a school committee meeting on May 2nd no school committee meeting on April 25th policy sub will be meeting on the morning of April 25th just making sure that we don't strike that from our calendars thank you it's not April 4th right no and it's not it's not April fools um and uh yes I'll just remind everybody again that that there is a Community Coffee on April 27th at KJ's Cafe um Rebecca has volunteered to attend I may attend because my plans keep changing um but thank you for for filling in um and now we have one minute left before we go to the school choice hearing I'm done I've got nothing else I'm sorry can I say something about project graduate please since there's a minute left I'll talk about Project Graduation I did it last year it was awesome and I signed up again this year and I know Leela might be joining me I know other people from other committees around town are joining I highly recommend you do it it's just so much fun to see these kids off you know into the sunset on their uh their Journeys and just sort of remember also how it felt to be at AB and and am I correct that to be able to volunteer for that you do have to go through the standard Corey process so one of the reasons to sign up in advance and we're putting the push on now for folks who may not have gone through this before is that you do need to have your Corey background check um done before you can actually participate in the program so tell your friends tell your neighbors to uh sign up for Project Graduation also remind them that on April 30th there is a ballot vote um including the override and on May 6th there is an annual town meeting in the town of Acton and on May 13th there's an annual town meeting in the town of boxboro uh you do not need to be in attendance in person to vote on the 30th of April that vote that ballot vote you can do like any other ballot vote which means that you can uh vote early or vote by mail but for the two annual Town meetings you do have to be in attendance in the meeting um at that time to make those votes and with that I will note the hour and the presence of a quorum and call the fy2 acting boxboro Regional School District Master ett's Department of Elementary and secondary education school choice program to order Andrew thank you for Patiently Waiting up there um would you mind describing uh the recommended motion uh remaining to remain withdrawn from the program yeah happy to so good evening everybody uh you have in your packets a memo regarding the annual vote regarding State um school choice just to be clear for all of you and also for audience members and those at home um when we were refer to school choice we're referring to the state school choice program I think here in Acton because our elementary um placement is often referred to a school choice when actually it's open enrollment but often referred to a school choice we are not voting on our our act in box Bureau enrollment process it's uh school choice at the state level is really a program where school districts can elect on an annual basis to participate participate in a program where students who reside outside of a particular School District could apply to be student at um a school district that is participating in the choice program uh and if if and when a school district chooses to accept students from other towns and municipalities um the incentive if you will is uh $5,000 from the state uh to then accept those students so for some the calculus Works where if they are looking for a source of Revenue and they feel that they have the space to accommodate then that's something that they could consider and so we used to do that uh for a number of years and then finally in 2021 we elected to withdraw from the program and have continued to remain withdrawn ever since considerations of um class size um Staffing and other things like that um we still have a few students remaining because part of the policy is about um allowing siblings of school choice admits to participate and so we still have a number who were grandfathered in um but once they are um graduate from the district or or leave of of their own choice um then we would not have any remaining assuming that we remain withdrawn we did if you recall talk a little bit about entertaining re-entering earlier this year as we were trying to be creative and thoughtful around budget um and as much as it did did entertain the idea as much as it did offer the possibility of additional Revenue um the more we learn just about the features and the parameters of accepting students um it does come with uh various Financial risks around um the cost of services that may come the students who um who elect to join us uh and so really in reality um the we've sort of felt and I think there was some consensus around this that um the risk did not sort of justify or the benefits did not justify um the risk that were also involved so we would recommend again that we remain withdrawn so just another clarification all schools every year it's not an opt in it's an we have to actively opt out so this is the point in the year where if we continue to say yep we're we're going to respectfully decline to participate this is where you would do that um the language for that motion is at the bottom of the me Memo so if somebody's willing to um if if that's you know the will of the committee then I would ask you to um read allow that motion and then move forward happy to answer any questions thanks Andrew And to clarify what we will do is we will have questions from the committee because this is a public hearing we'll open up for questions from the public then we'll adjourn the public hearing and then the most that is in your memo can be read and the only reason I know that is because somebody who helps me with my order of operations here wrote that down in my memo great so any questions or comments from the committee any questions or comments from the public regarding school choice program Gary I don't think I need to tell you my name you're making the right decision uh prior to regionalization between act and a box borrow blanch used to participate in school choice and it's good money up front and it hurts at the back end it really takes a long time to get out of the program um so you're making the right choice thank you any other comments questions from the public from the committee all right as there is no more discussion I will entertain a motion to adjourn the hearing so moved second so that was Leela with the motion and Tor with the second all those in favor I any opposed any extensions that is unanimous and would someone like to make the motion that is at the bottom of the memo I move that the Acton boxboro Regional school committee moves to remain withdrawn from the school choice program due to class size and space limitations existing school choice students will remain through graduation second again Leela with the motion and Tori with the second all of those in favor I any opposed any extensions that's also unanimous thank you everybody thanks Andrew thank you okay uh I am happy to welcome up uh Christy Anderson the chair and Jason Cole the vice chair of the Acton finance committee um to share the Acton finance committee point of view um Peter is going to bring up your slides hi everyone um I haven't done this in front of you all before for if you've been around doing this you know we make this presentation generally much earlier in the process but because of the override this year it's all a little backwards and someone I'm going to talk about is why we have the override and you'll see the two different uh budgets get on here uh basic level here spending is predicted at P Rue as you all know know for fiscal year 25 um there are also no turn backs projected for the school or the town uh we have some very expensive capital projects coming entirely separate from what the school has told us this is just in the town of Acton um and the same things that are driving the pain that the school has encountered inflation Etc really hurting the taxpayers too and we're looking right now as you all know it an operational over operational override um I mostly skip this because I assume you all know how prop 2 and a half Works uh the basic level of it is is that um we're looking at fiscal years 25 26 and 27 far exceeding revenues we are looking at them exceeding revenues even if the override does pass but the money coming in just does not match up with what we need to operate um at this point this is where I point out to anyone in the audience who's listening that it's actually normal prop two and a half was not designed to be a level that can be operated at Forever it's designed to Force us to periodically look at what we're spending on you're going to at some point growth and 2 and a half% increase in taxes every year is going to exceed your needs and so it forces the community to come together and say what are we actually spending on is this a time to look at our Legacy programs and consider getting rid of them are our ideals aligned with where our money is going so it's not a problem that we've gotten here it's actually a very good thing good part of the process but we got here a little faster than um is really beneficial for getting through the process explaining to everyone uh ideally I don't know how much you all have thought about it we on finom knew an override was coming we just thought it was going to be next year not this one so it's really been sped up so I anyone out there listening who is feeling sort of freaked out about this it's not that it wasn't going to happen it's just it came on rather suddenly and um because of large expenses coming in and I am missing a page okay um so here's uh budget a is uh if the override passes that that's why you see if you look the yellow line is revenues and there's a big jump up between fiscal years 24 and 25 um you'll see even with that that going into fiscal year 26 there's a $1.1 million uh shortfall difference between projected revenues and expenses and then 1.8 million in fiscal year 27 those are numbers that are entirely closable in the ALG process we do that sort of Gap just about every year 1.8 is getting a little high but that's not anything to worry about however this is budget b this is if the override doesn't pass and I'll get a little more into why it's happening but you'll look at fiscal years 26 and 27 are upwards of $2 million are really hard to close and so we're going to be looking at needing to cut further expenses um further Services Etc if if this override doesn't happen this isn't a question of does the override pass this year and then we walk away if the override does not pass this year we're going to need another one more or less immediately it's going to keep having to happen so um everyone prepare your good arguments if it doesn't pass because we're going to need to do a lot of public education on that front give you a sense of where Acton's budget stands in terms of spending um we've highlighted here three sources of expenses that we don't have control over there is the minute man assessment the middle sex retirement assessment and the health insurance trust those are bills that are just handed to us then there's that whole green area which is what we have to work with um is and there are things like electricity contracts for um what we get from you and then contracts for the various firefighters Etc we have a bunch of unions in town so that green bar is all that we pay for um being members in active boxboro and everything else we do to run the town you'll notice even with the um we're looking at budget a here even with the override there has to be a decrease in spending at some level in fiscal year 26 just because of growth on expenses that again these are ones we have no control over um on budget b that's even worse um and and this again drives it why an override is especially necessary um one thing to look at here also with the expenses going down the money we have to work with the screen bars are much shorter than back on budget a um there are things that are getting delayed in all of this Acton has build that need maintenance they have sidewalks that need maintenance they have a bunch of things that need to happen that can only be pushed out for so long so well in over it gets pushed out it's just going to push up the need for one that the scope of it even more and I don't think anyone wants to see a larger than what we're at at any one time right now um our basic overview of our Reserve policy as you might have heard based on Department of Revenue guidance in the state we like to keep the um free cash floor for the town at 3% of total spending so that's every assessment we have including the ab assessment so that's that's a fairly large number we also would really really really like you all to get up to your floor of 3% on andd we are happy that you're not using it uh outside of this there are also stabilization funds from that both the town and the district have for capital projects and their other types of reserves to maintain fiscal Health as you all know we have really good Bond rating that's important thing to keep having as we have large projects coming up it saved us a ton of money in the borrowing for the school um we need to achieve those floors and stay at least at them so just longer term view that is an important thing here are the actual levels of the reserves for the town and the school district and um you don't need those right now oh um important to note however that for budgets A and B we are very happy to see that you're not using and money in either one of them thank you going into capital projects this is a hard trade list from the C Town's Capital Improvement plan of proposed projects going out over the next five years none of these are selected to be done this is just to give you a scope of what the town sees as mostly being necessary even the ones that look like they might be um want a haves are safe related like there's significant sidewalk project on there and I've heard some very good Arguments for why that matters for people be safer walking around so there's a lot of money that needs to be sent and as I said many of these cannot be put off for very long um specifically areial ladder talk um things like that these are not the town being frivolous in any way with money but this is a scope of the problems we're looking into uh when dealing with any sort of budgeting across both entities here's a map of the current excluded debt excluded debt for 5 Second primer is what we pay on top of our tax assessment for your property taxes it's for a large Capital borrowing that payment goes away the second the mortgage as I think of it is paid off so as you can see we just dropped off one and in fiscal year 29 we will finally Pig figure finished paying off the Junior High Senior High updates debt and we'll back to about where we were um before we started building the boardwalk CIS however Acton has a large DPW project coming it's going to cost a lot of money and it's coming in the next few years so anything that's big happening needs to be have this sort of in the corner of your eye budgetarily coming when thinking about taxpayers wallets at this point in time unsurprisingly we recommend not taking on any new exclusive excluded debt this is less of an issue now that the um select board has not taken on doing the proposed sidewalk debt exclusion when we wrote These slides we're also specifically asking that town look at the DPW project and try to keep it as limited to necessary as possible um kind of can't imagine bells and whistles for a DPW project but we want to make sure they're not in there uh as you can see here tax bills have been going up unsurprisingly these jumps are for a variety of reasons that have not not caused any problems some of them is just mathematical but it has averaged out to about a $490 per year tax bill increase for people which is what it would be next year regardless this the question with the override is how much above that people are going to have um Big Picture People are hurting healthare costs which is part of what's driving here are up for everyone a lot of wage growth hasn't kept up I remember at budget Saturday someone stood up and said you know everyone should be getting raises that have been keeping up with inflation I was sitting there shaking my head going we haven't gotten those we've been happy with what we've gotten but it hasn't kept up with inflation uh definitely not uh cost of having a home is increasing cost for our renters are increasing and in the town of Acton we're having um the water district is doing upgrades for the past treatment that is going to hit everyone's bill this is outside of tax bills and there are also sewer treatment facility repairs that's only a part of town but these will significantly hit people living around here uh again looking here at the numbers just the revenue increase will not cover the fix cost increases I showed you a whole bunch of slides ago so it this point we really want to encourage even with the override there is a shortfall here um going into next year it's time to look at cost cutting it's something that uh fincom Rings up every year and largely gets ignored about but uh we would really love to see Town district and any other um people come together and think about taking a long-term look you all have been we're hearing a lot of um indications from the school committee that you're looking towards what are there any fundamental changes we can make can we realign um our cost structures in a way that will be sustainable um for a long time because you another of's coming eventually but we'd like to hold it off as long as possible so please take that up maintain some momentum um in working on that going forward this is just a general uh view of what has happened I I would really like to point out here that we all are to some degree victims of your success um the school district and the town have done a very good job over the last two years keeping the assessment increases for act in to a very sustainable level and just being sideswiped by the the special ed and the health insurance and a few other unavoidable expenses this year that put us into a sudden need so I want to make sure everyone who's listening knows we didn't get here because of negligence we partially got here because of doing the right thing and um it's it's really just time for an override but very appreciative of everything that has been done to hold off getting here as long as we have So based on all this we support an operational override of 6.6 million in conjunction as I've said with other cost savings measures uh we recommend spending 5.4 million of that in fiscal year 25 um leaving the rest in part to help smooth out the tax bills um the tax increase over time but still get the towns what they've needed we have the um ALG processes come up with using some of the towns free cash still staying above the floor but spending more of it than we would in order to offset some of the um tax bill increase for townpay tax Town taxpayers however we can't just have that money go away so um taking some of it back and replenishing it um I'm doing a horrible job explaining this and I will it Jason fix it later but basically balancing out that need with the taxes uh tax increase next year and again we recommend a task force please let's convince everyone let let everyone be a part of the discussion of how we can avoid getting to these situations um think the town and the school uh have done a good job managing to get here there are things that can be adjusted for everyone but I think the biggest failure has been on public education and keeping people part of the discussion it's really hard I've been around this block enough times to know that people are only interested once there's a problem but as much as we can foster a general discussion that would be great I believe that's everything I have to say if I could just if I could just add a couple of things the um do not be surprised if uh taxpayers come up to you in the next couple weeks and go what there's going to be an override this year it it's going to happen so um also want to say that a lot of the slides in this presentation were probably completely repetitive to you um because this point of view goes to as wide an audience as we can possibly get so we were trying to make this also for a public side uh on the public side um as for the you asked me to um comment on the replenishing okay right so one of the push backs that we've received uh in public comment uh at the finance committee is why do we have a $6.6 million override if you're only going to have a $5.4 million increase over the next year why not just cut the overow down to 5.4 why not give the $6.6 million away all at the same time and while christe mentioned I want to take one more stab at trying to say we are trying to make sure that this step function is not as painful as it could be um yes inflation was running at zero for a very long time and that's how we were able to U manage to live within prop two and a half once it things got ugly in the form of inflation and all of a sudden we overran our budgets uh what we're trying not to do is we're trying not to correct for everything in one one fiscal year because that would be North of4 to $1,500 average tax increase for every tax entity for every taxpayer in Acton so while we're trying to provide as much money as we uh as we feel is feasible which is where the 5.4 million came in and we do appreciate the three rounds of cost cutting and budget slimming that uh that we all I was in the room for two of them that we all sat through uh for this um the the purpose here is that you get we'll be able to do 5.4 million right from the start the taxpayers will not even have to pay the full 5.4 million right from the start because we're pulling we're pulling the reserves to the floor this does leave some money and unused tax levy capacity for the upcoming years um I beg you not to use all in one year but if you have to you have to and we'll go through the regular algy process to see if that to see if that is the only method to move forward but this does allow for for the taxpayer not to pay for everything all at once this also does allow you to make a multi-year projection so that you can see what you can potentially squeeze squeeze aside for one more year right from the start while not having to acit immediately so we hope that this is the best compromise that we can get to between all of the different desires the desire to have every every possible good project you can possibly think of whether it be capital or educational or elsewise while at the same time not completely um potentially overrunning the capacity of the taxpayer to pay and then we would run that we we would run the risk of getting no increase at all so we all appreciate this has been a very difficult year uh the entire committee has voted to recommend the uh override this year and we hope for a very successful outcome on the 30th thank you we'll be happy to answer any questions if you have any qu if you have any Curiosities about how the the mind of the the fincom is is thinking thank you Christie thank you Jason questions from the committee Tori not actually a question because I feel like um you have all spent a lot of time trying to make me smarter this year so thank you for all those efforts but um a comment I appreciated seeing this for the first time and the slide where you showed the difference between the a budget and the B budget and the gaps that remain in the out years and how steeply they grow if we don't pass the override this year that to me we all need to understand that slide that should be our bottom line for the elevator speech when somebody asks you why do we need to do this we are resetting the Baseline because there is not enough money based on the fixed costs and if we don't do it now it's this doesn't go away so thank you for that visual I think that's really powerful and I appreciate it I also don't have a question because I know that you know us and Tori have spent a lot of time together and I just want to say like I really appreciate how the process has been um through ALG but also you know having uh fincom members come to the budget sub meeting it feels really collaborative but also people are not afraid to speak strongly about how they feel to push for what's best for everybody in the community um and I I hear you chrisy about the transparency issue that you know before I joined the committee I was thinking oh it'll be so easy to get everybody to hear what we're trying to say but it's you constant work to try to reach people where they're at and continue these conversations and I think we've all done a really good job about that and I hope we continue that next year I know we're all very committed to you know looking deeply into those structural changes and make sure that we're looking at a sustainable budgeting process going forward um you know to sort of keep and hold that Community Support Court um one thing that I did maybe make want to make a comment on is I wonder if the task force um that we end up creating because they'll be members that are also you know this is sort of like representative also of ALG minus minute man um sort of like maybe who would we pick different people to go so we get some different sort of perspectives um is there anybody else that we could maybe add into that process to maybe cast a wider net um but I totally agree that this is something that is really important and should be done ASAP there have been test fors like this in the past um but this is also the time to to put forward what you want in and how you want the task force to be done because the task force is not a standing body this is something that is done on a as ad hoc needed basis so definitely if uh if you don't want the same two people who have to go to LG meetings Monday mornings at 7 30 uh if you want you want to spread the spread the love around by all means please do U put forward the the people that you wish to uh as we all have communications about it well and we also we want taxpayers and other things um I'm trying to think the people I know who have mentioned stuff like this I believe Diane bom was one of them and Mike a people who've been paying attention to this stuff since previous overrides are good people to talk to just about the processes so we're not Reinventing it and any other former uh school committee members who might be interested yeah I think you know getting people who have years of experience not that I'm calling you old John that sort of have seen a lot and can you know bring some of that to that this task force would be fabulous get people that are not on committees currently would be great um and this is not a a a plug to say you know I'm not willing to put in more work but I know that you know I can only speak for myself at at times and it would be good to make sure that everybody's heard and and part of that process L is this task for just for Acton this tax force that you're recommending is one that is forend for Acton um I I recognize that there are budgetary issues um for the district that are are um very tightly um together with boxboro but given that we are talking about act and specific expenses here they I think they should be kept separate and the um school can have a separate Force for the boxboro thank you and and we have agreed that we're setting up a task force inside the school Community to look at some of our structural items and my guess is that following next year in boxboro there's very likely going to be a task force in boxboro to look at similar challenges as well so we'll be uh we'll be full of task force why next year though whiteed uh we there could be one in boxboro starting now I think if you want to recommend that can speak to the finance committee and the select board in boxboro and see if they want to start thinking about that now okay thank you yeah I just have a question so like what's the difference between the ALG group and the task force is it separate or like I was too many groups understand that you you can you can definitely kill things by a committee uh understood but um ALG ALG has a very difficult remit ALG requires complete ensus which getting 10 people to be in complete agreement on is no easy task um especially when some people on the committee are sometimes more ordinary than others uh the um the purpose of a task force is to try and take a multi-year a holistic view of this with people who are not necessarily just on committees try and get a much more diverse group of um of um points of view into into this so that we so that we don't ever end up in a situation where we stand up and say the Committees have decided that this is what we're going to do we want to make sure that the entire Community has had a chance to we in on it because some people are more interested in sidewalks than others some people are more interested in making sure we replace the AAL lout truck that's going to take three years to get delivered and some people only care about making sure that the the the two major school um uh Appropriations are are fed fed constantly um you can't you can't do this in a peace meal peac meal matter um one of the things that um my mentor on the finance committee is fond of saying is that the residents T of act and only receive a single tax bill so we need to make sure you know if if we were to say to you there's going to be a 30 40 $50 million DPW building and that's going to starve all capital money for the school district for the next five years probably not going to be very well received by the school committee similarly if you came back and said we just finished the bordwalk camp time to move on for a whole another twin building uh over by by Conan and that's going to starve out all possible Capital money from the town of Acton that's not going to go over well the community either so the purpose of this is to make sure that that um it is not just a committee it's not just the 10 people on the ALG but that it's the entire Community saying as a community these are where we want to slice and dice our uh slice and dier dollars for the next five to 10 years and we want to make sure that it's a longer term point of view because one of the things that I worry about is school committee members have a three-year term select board members have a three-year term uh finance committee members usually get to stay until they get run out of town on a rail so we want to make sure we we take take away the short-term nature of this and and have it be not just the committee side sorry long answer hope that answered your question um task force gets to focus on details that don't work at the ALG level ALG is really about just a much higher level negotiation and getting to all different points of view reaching hopefully a affordable tax bill or the most affordable in the needs of the current situation whereas the task force can really look at okay how does this District handle things in different ways how does this town manage one thing they were looking at was do we do curbside trash pickup things like that would be in the purview of a tax forks and are far outside of what we want ALG to be doing staying on the task force topic quickly and recognizing that I'm not a resident of Acton but um something that that I know is also affecting the town of boxboro and I'm I might recommend adding to part of the scope for the task force is not just cost savings but also other opportunities for Revenue generation how can you grow um your community in a way that's suitable to your community but also recognizing that new growth is a big part of how you can um continue to stem the tide of having to do another override and putting that burden higher so um I I think that a task force a great idea I would just recommend as they put as as the consensus comes together around what the the goal is for that task force that we look at both sides of the balance sheet to make sure that we're we're getting as much out of what we've got in town as possible absolutely yeah that's a great idea not just spending any other questions or comments from the committee lxme does the task force has to start that conversation has to start with the select board is that what it is who sets up the task desk um TK Force I it's being it's being discussed now it's being formulated now it it's not a specific set up by a specific um area thing because the the school district is its own government the town of Acton is its own government and the town of boxar is we don't have any control over what either groups do so we're going to need to come up with some sort of consensus in the separate communities to form groups for this okay thank you anybody else yeah I would certainly also volunteer School leadership um to do that as well thank you excellent Christie Jason thank you so much for your time thanks for coming to speak to the committee uh leave it open it's always bad when that thing gets closed okay um moving on uh as I mentioned we are going to be skipping uh this evening the discussion of District goal number two we're going to come back to that at a future meeting so we're on to our ongoing business which uh first up is the school committee communication goal update anybody doing office hours have any updates from their office hours Yin um so I had an office hour in a town hall last Friday Jason Cole the vice chair of actum think actually graciously came and uh was planning we were planning on educating the community but it was just the two of us so please come we'll be there every Friday at 10 from 10 to 12 at act and town hall room 126 thank you anybody I actually did uh Thursday's office hours at the sergeant library and made some lovely crafts with the kids that were there um I have taken up all of the space in my refrigerator now and um there are a number of not yet elig voters who are ready to totally behind excellent glad to hear it yeah I know that um there was some like posting of this online and maybe other places but there's going to be a forum at the uh library next Thursday the 11th at 6:45 Tori and I are going to be there to represent the school committee uh we have act and fincom representatives um somebody from Hit and somebody from the select board and together we're going to sort of do a little presentation and also answer questions so anybody who wants to and you know Works 9 to5 and hasn't been able to attend some of these office hours please come please ask us questions please give us your complaints and concerns we want to talk with you Lea um a student group reached out to me to ask questions about the override um and so I went to the high school to talk to them and it was fun they have some really thoughtful questions that mirror actually a lot of what we're hearing in the community um and so I just want to say a we have some really thoughtful students and B um happy to continue having these conversations if other folks want to reach out great thank you anybody else Tori I will second Leela's comment there on our students being not only thoughtful but some of the best questions I've been asked have been by high school students um in my case I got to talk to a scout group doing their citizenship in the community merit badge and so they grilled me quite thoroughly for almost two hours I was shocked and their questions yeah top-notch they're critical thinkers they're asking good questions and none of them are 18 yet so hopefully they shared this with somebody who can vote nice thank you anybody else with updates all right uh moving on to subcommittee and member reports um I'm going to take this a bit out of order and I'm going to go through the ALG the policy and the budget and then we'll we'll end with the the hit update since they'll be probably some discussion around that uh so Rebecca are you giving the report on ALG I was actually going to hand it off to Tori because I had to leave the meeting early ALG met March 25th at 7:30 a.m. in room 204 at Acton town hall and virtually via Zoom topics discussed included a fiscal year 24 update a fiscal year 25 preliminary budget budget projections a review of the multi-year financial model and details of the override both the town and the district are closely monitoring revenues and expenses and believe they're on track to stay within the fiscal year 24 budget although Andrew may have more updates for us uh for fiscal year 25 both entities have voted to adopt their a budgets looking at fiscal year 26 and Beyond members discussed reflecting the actual need in the operating budgets which for fiscal year 26 will be 3.75 for both the district and the town so this is an update to what we've done in the past as with previous ALG models and annual town meeting warrants this results in a deficit when compared with projective revenues and reflects the difficult work that both town and District conduct every year in order to bring the operating budgets into line with proposition two and a half the next ALG meeting will be Wednesday May 1st at 7:30 a.m. in room 204 at act in town hall and virtually via Zoom thank you policy subcommittee Liz all right the policy subcommittee met on Thursday March 28th at 7:30 a.m. via Zoom we were pleased to enter into productive discussion with our energy manager K Crosby on ways that we can be responsive and thoughtful about the many requests we have had from our student resource Force while a resolution was initially proposed by the students we would like to lay out a more detailed plan for how our district can decarbonize and what the timeline for such a plan would be we also decided to add an additional meeting so our next meeting will be on Thursday April 11th at 7:30 a.m. via Zoom to continue that discussion and also start brainstorming a policy for the district in relation to the appropriate use of AI in the classroom absolutely go ahead Leela and if you're on budget or Capital we might be coming to a meeting near you to talk about how it may impact those subcommittees potentially if they're meeting great budget sub Rebecca budget the budget sub met on uh April 1st at 5:30 p.m. on zoom and discussed updates including the hit one we'll be hearing some more about in a bit uh we also discussed what to focus on for town meeting and how to split the work of preparing a preliminary presentation outline for discussion at our next meeting uh we are rocketing toward the Finish Line April 30th where we will find out how the community will vote on the override issue to to override or not to override that is the question before us the community must come together and decide if it is nobler in the mind to suffer or if we should band together and fight for a better future for our students I personally hope the override prevails not because I want to see more tax revenue squeezed from my neighbors and myself but because I recognize the impossible position we are all in with prop two and a half we all want what is best for our kids we all want what is best for our neighbors and we all want what is best for our community and in my humble opinion what's best for everyone is to support the proposed override our next budget sub meeting will be on April 22nd at 5 5:30 p.m. on zoom and we will continue to work on our town meeting presentation please continue to reach out through email attend our listening events and make your voice heard thank you for that literary interpretation of the last budget subcommittee meeting um and before we go over to health insurance trust I'll just share that uh this Monday Laxmi and I uh joined the joint ptso meeting um it was great to hear from all the pto's uh and PT ptfs uh and ptso uh a lot of them are planning their spring fundraisers so lots of fundraisers going on lots of really fun activities for each of those School communities um and then as uh Peter mentioned uh a big shout out for volunteers for Project Graduation health insurance trust update Andrew this feels a little clickbaity I hope uh we live up to the hype health insurance trust met on March 28th 20 in 2024 discussed the current state of the trust how the two entities the town and the district May remove themselves from the drust and as you've seen in the packet Peter has provided amendment that will express some of the involving information I'd like to seed my time in this update to him to review the information that he has in the memo to talk about our next steps so hand to you Peter thanks Ander so um you know I'll cut to the chase I have some really significant concerns that are new to to the future of hit uh you know we received an update from Gallagher where you know after you know four five months of Fairly stable health insurance claims um claims for uh February came in $720,000 above projection again um so we ended up with another you know $2.2 million month of of claims um what was really concerning about that is that left hit with a total cash balance of $60,000 um the next month's claims are 1.5 million if we come in as project um the you know we we did receive right after the treasurer had done the report um about $255,000 of um a stop Gap stop loss Insurance um payment so that brought the effective balance probably to 310 $315,000 um but that that's not enough money to to pay future claims out um the the chair did request that the town and School District um prepay premiums through the end of the year um you know we are currently working on that Sherry I don't know if we've already transmitted those um but we're working on on getting there we did we do want to see something in writing from Hit requesting that or at least from the chair just so we have something to pay against um I did talk to Melissa about that and she said it would actually have to be an official vote from Hit if they really want wanted to do it and they didn't make that vote the other day okay so we can't do it yet all right we'll let's get word out to Steve noon and we can make sure they get that vote um so you know I I copied the table that I thought was most pertinent from Gallagher's report for you just so you could see how claims were projecting uh now based on last year um right now are about 20 point 20% over Benchmark from last year which is a really significant number um I am concerned I'll be honest we have not yet seen a cash flow report um as part of hit and we don't have a cash flow projection through the end of the school year um I actually volunteered the the district to undertake uh to try and create a model for that um I think we're probably going to have to use you know a range of potential outcomes one being what happens if claims level off back to you know benchmark what happens if we continue at 20% over and what happens if we actually see another year-end spike in claims and we end up more than 20% over Benchmark um I do have some concerns though about hit making it through the end of this fiscal year um and having enough money and we're clearly as a district not in a position to have more reserves to put toward hit um you know as we've brainstormed this out internally I think you know there are a few levers um that we have left to pull um we obviously had $600,000 in a contingency fund for next year but we can't use that until July 1 um I am worried that we're going to need at least that and we're we're trying to get projection calculations from Gallagher over what we might need to carry for for the runout um you know the the early numbers and and these are not verified by Gallagher is that you know those numbers could actually exceed what we've budgeted in that contingency account so we're trying to really nail that down right now um my thought is you know we might reach a point during FY 24 where we don't have more money to give to hit in the current fiscal year um and it might be that we have to wait for fy2 to tick as of July 1 um and then in the worst case scenario um and I really do not want to go down this path but in the worst case scenario we do have you know the OPB trust where we could again request reimbursement for the current years's expenses um at the beginning of fy2 that is a bad idea just waiting for a place to happen to quote you know a TV series but um if that's all we have left then that's what we have left um you know I wish I was giving you a a a better projection and I wish quite honestly we could end right now but we can't um which will lead me into the the second piece of this which which is you know the process for how we're going to have to close hit down uh we had previously taken a vote um to withdraw from Hit effective July 1st we had both the town and school's attorneys attend the hit meeting um to actually discuss this and share their perspectives the good news is town and schools attorneys are working together on this the you know they are aligned in what needs to happen there's no difference of opinion on that um but what's going to have to happen is runout Claims can come into the trust for a period of about two years after you know July 1 so the trust is going to need to exist for that period of two years so there's an amended Motion in your packet and that motion language is designed to make clear that we're stopping active participation for health insurance purposes in the trust as of um July 1 the trust will need to continue for two years and we will continue to participate in the trust for the purpose of paying run out claims and then the trust will be disbanded at the end of that two-year period so there's kind of that three-part motion for you um we're going to have to follow that process there's no easy way out of this um but wanted to just be really clear about what we're learning as this evolves from from that um I am hoping that you know by the time hit meets I think the end of a end of April um we will have a cash flow projection ready to go um Sherry and Melissa our Treasurer have been working on that um Sherry and I have been going over it we've actually been going through bank accounts we've been going through Treasurer reports um from Hit to just make sure we have a really good handle on the actual expenses um we have a meeting set up um if you remember the district independently contracted with Cooking Company in sush shalu um who's been around for a number of years and knows the activity of the trust um we're going to bring that cash flow projection to her to ask her to also verify some of the numbers in that so we feel comfortable with what we're bringing back um so I would hope that you know by end of April early may we can actually show you as a school committee what we're projecting out as well I think it's probably best that that go through hit first um for some feedback because we want to make sure that you know town and the health insurance trust are all on board with the numbers that we're including in our projections um and then that will give us a better handle on what we're going to budget and how that's going to have to play out um but it it's it's certainly a very very frustrating situation at this point um you know and you know claims are legitimate claims it's you know people need health care and that happens um but the costs of the health care are extremely high right now and that's certainly impacting the trust sorry for the very long update but there's you know this is significant and important thank you Peter all right questions from the committee okay I've got a couple but Liz go ahead um my other question and this is again not me suggesting anything just knowing like you know of the different levers so if we were to you know say not vote to um pull the lever of you know let's say we get into that worst case scenario because I'm a pessimist um we you know have to pull that lever of opab trust again but we vote not to do that would we then have to go back to the towns to request the additional money or what would be the other option there I don't know the the mechanism there my my I mean we could potentially go back to the towns to request the money um I think they would probably look at the schools to look at you know excess and deficiency or other you know items first would be my gut answer to that um the the school department could go back to the towns I mean I think um I don't know what the appetite for that will be I'm pretty sure it would be less than none but I just want to make sure that if we're looking at okay this is potentially worst case I want to like really look at the ugly oh and really opep is not the the preferred route but it might be the only source of direct income that the district has access to which is concerning other questions all right I have some clarifying questions for you Peter so if I understand correctly it's quite possible that the trust may not have enough funds in March to pay for the March claims is that correct they might get through March because it even though they have the 310 $110,000 balance they also are going to get the normal monthly you know payments from the town and schools um as I recall that's about a million and a half dollars I think for us for us um and then the the town is you know we're we're about 80% of the total so you know 1.75 million somewhere in that range um plus 300,000 that gives them probably about 2 million it kind of depends on what happens with claims so maybe in the me next month and a half to two months they'll be out of funds and they've asked for the town in the schools to prepay their portion are we also asking for the employees to prepay their portion no the district would actually be so the employees pay on a certain rate you can't really ask employees to prepay um so what we would do is we would pay the district share of the premiums and as the employees pay in we would then pay that out to hit as well but you know we would certainly not be going to employees and asking them to prepay okay um and then by by the time we get to June we are no longer collecting or paying into the trust is that correct yes and well so in in theory that's the goal um because we'll be as of July 1 we'll be paying premiums to Maya for the health insurance through Maya correct and we've budgeted the six 00,000 as a buffer to help with the runout claims um but after that we're talking about potentially 24 months of runout claims for which right now we're projecting having 600,000 in our budget for next year to help support um and maybe something in the following year but not guaranteed and so this is why we're looking at going to reserve funds like OPB to help sort of close out the the open claims um you youve talked bit about stop loss or reinsurance those do we expect that those um claims will continue to come in over the 24 months that we're running out of the insurance yeah so you know run out claims are for claims that are incurred during FY 24 is is really what that is and so we would continue to be covered by stoploss um during that period of time and we' continue to receive money back to the trust um that doesn't change um you know Gallagher did give us a formula based on our current claims Pace to be able to project out what runout looks like um and they gave it to us after the the trust meeting um we we need to verify that because it's actually in several million dollar range um that it comes out to so you know I was a little surprised that that you know we had to ask for that and it was shared with us when we asked but that had not been a topic of discussion yet with the trust um so I think there's a lot of conversation that needs to happen Happ within hit to really button up what the financial plan for how run out is going to work and what that means for the town for the schools all right um I I will end with a comment once again which is I'm I'm still not very pleased with our consultant I'm I'm not blaming them for the situation that we're in but I am not pleased with their ability to help us forecast these future expenses and you know it regardless you we know we're running at about 20% over now and if we continue to do that it's we're we're going to be in a pretty big hole at the end of the year so I'm glad that uh the district has gone and contracted with an an outside consultant to help verify this and I'm appreciative to the the district and the finance department that are going to help us get a a cash flow plan finally at this point I you know My Philosophy is I'd rather know the bad news than the surprise because we we can't plan for a surprise uh but we can plan for bad news y one more time around the room here question questions comments I I am going to make a an executive decision given the fact that this is a a big financial concern are there any members of the public including the boxboro finance committee who might have questions or comments that they wish to make at this time knowing that uh this is a this is something that's going to affect both towns or or a retired member of the school committee who looks like he's just itching to come up and talk to us well I'll second your comment with respect back to Gallagher it's been extremely disappointing to you know suffer for the lack of data uh John Peterson 6 Jackson Drive just respect that formality um the estimate about what the um liability um might look like it it seems to me should be estimat from ibnr so at the end that's that would be incurred but not received so in the annual audit at the end of every year you know there is an ibnr number and my data is a little old like myself but you know the idea that that could be several million dollars just strikes me as foolishness that's just not a reasonable number you know a number more like $2 million might be okay and um as Andrew pointed out to me although um the reinsurance you know doesn't necessarily help you in a cash flow sense to the extent that you know we have these really surprising uh claims a bunch of that has to come back in stoploss and the history of stop loss if if you look at that is that most of that comes back in the first three months of the new year so my view is that however this plays out um once you get one quarter into the next year you'll really know what the number is it will be unsettling in the meantime but you know I don't the several million dollar number I get that somebody said it people say a lot of things I would ignore that thanks John I'd say the whole Situation's unsettling but yeah Andrew one more piece on that regarding the quarterly lag of additional funds coming into the trust the way that we're currently using um Pharmacy and prescription based rebates is that it's a quarterly lag as well the expectation is to get at least two more rebate hits from Blue Cross Blue Shield after June 30th which will bring in another few hundred ,000 Plus in the account for each of these pieces thanks okay uh there is a recommended Motion in the packet that we need to vote um given the sort of change in status of our withdrawal from the trust uh I got this one I move that the committee hereby clarify its prior vote on March 7th 2024 to withdraw from the ACT health insurance trust effective June 30th 2024 so that first the committee's active participation in the trust for purposes of providing health insurance to subscribers shall cease on June 30th 2024 second the committee will remain a participating member of the trust through June 30th 2026 for the sole purpose of administering and paying runout claims and other costs of the trust and third the Acton health insurance trust shall be completely dissolved as of June 30th 2026 second I'll give that one to Andrew since he is the liaison to the health insurance trust and uh thank you for the emphatic third position there Liz uh so all those in favor I any opposed any extensions that is unanimous thank you all for that uh moving on to consent agenda items as a reminder items on our consent agenda don't usually require discussion and are approved with one vote unless any member would like to hold an item for discussion or separate vote so I'll read the two items on our list if you'd like to have one of them held you say hold and as a reminder you don't need to be present at a meeting to vote on the minutes so item number one is approval of absc meeting minutes of 37221 that is not correct that's got to be 3724 and uh meeting minutes from 32124 um and the approval of item number two is the approval of the regeneron STS 2023 School award Award of $4,000 to the abhs okay given that no items were held uh is there a motion to approve the consent AG consent agenda as presented so mooved second that would be Leela and then Tori uh all those in favor I any opposed any extensions also unanimous and we're moving on to the statements of warrants and a recommendation to approve who would like to make the motion for that I mean you've been doing so well with the words no okay it's all you I move that the school committee vote to approve the below-listed warrants totaling 6, 38,768 AP vendor warrants as follows 24-19 B dated March 21st 2024 in the amount of $881,000 14 24- 020a dated March 28th 2024 in the amount of 1,998 24-20 as dated March 28th 2024 in the amount of $465 even payroll vendor warrant as follows 24-19 PR dated March 21st 2024 in the amount of 1, 12284 4.7 and payroll warrant as follows p2419 dated March 21st 2024 in the amount of 1,933 46019 second that was Liz with the motion and Tor with the second again all those in favor I any opposed any extensions also unanimous Peter anything you would like to highlight in the FYI this evening um couple things uh one we have you know the election calendars um are in your packet so just to to note that for you um school committee meetings for next year we put together a proposed schedule of those as well um so it might be worth taking a look um I would suggest maybe sending Adam any feedback or Adam Julie and I so we can take a look if you see something um that needs to be adjusted and then um Sher also had done a conflict of interest form someone that she knows had applied for a position here um and so she called the state ethics commission made sure that she was following the process and that requires disclosure to the school committee it doesn't require any vote but we did put that in your package just so you were aware thank you and with that I will entertain a motion to Jour so much second once again Leela with the motion Tor with the second all those in favor I that is unanimous thank you all very much have a wonderful evening