##VIDEO ID:iQH5aJ-YuoE## welcome everyone to the December 11th 2024 Finance subcommittee of the Brookline school committee um before we begin I'm just going to um make one quick remark about um sort of everything that we'll be talking about today and just give a little bit of a blank blanket remark um which is just that there are some unsubstantiated allegations that have been made um and and um I think that it is fair to ask if they will be investigated but I would ask that everyone who's participating today in this meeting um not to take them as fact until such time as they are substantiated there are still allegations at this point so with that said um I'm going to move right into the substance of the meeting and the first item on the agenda is the minutes of sorry whatever month it is no November something November thank you um can I get a motion for approval so moved thanks s a second yes okay Carolyn how do you vote Yes Sarah yes Val yes and I vote Yes um next item on the agenda um there is no Grant applications for approval so the next one is acceptance of Grants and we have I'm trying to find it I think one one Grant grant for 17,000 that um has been made to Brookline adult and Community Education from the mass cultural Council um and so that is a General Grant that um is unrestricted for the use of the of Base um and so can I get a motion for approval I'll move it okay any second I'll second okay any questions comments do they tend to get that [Music] um does mass cultural council is that every other year I'm not sure but if I recall correctly this is a new oh good yeah a new thing and I don't know if it'll be recurring um but I believe I saw in my email that it was not a not a sort of standard one um uh Carolyn had you vote Yes Sarah yes Val yes and I vote Yes next item on the agenda is um the uh acceptance of gifts there is a Anonymous gift for $25 to Brookline High School and the queer Student Union thank you to the donor um can I get a motion for acceptance I'll move that okay do I have a second yes I'll second okay Val how do you vote Yes Sarah yes Carolyn yes and I vote Yes okay next item on the agenda is um review of position control report um before we take a look at that I just want to flag for people that um we're going to remove the chief of strategic initiatives from the conversation for tonight the um position is still going through some modifications it's in draft mode and there's some questions that staff are still looking to get answers for so we will um we can talk about the position control report but let's park that cont ation until it's ready for a full discussion um so with that said Betsy do you mind pulling up the position control report sure one one minute thank you Sarah um when I see a classroom teacher on this does that mean that they're coming in midye and we're dividing a class in the month of December um Susan's here so I'll let her answer your question and where are you looking at just so I'm clear I don't see a classroom teacher in December so I'm confused oh grade four teacher at Hayes that's September or August if you look at the date the yeah okay so where I see it's the last column it's sort of most recent earliest is that something we're proving to happen in August or is that something that was added in August we already looked at that that was from last August okay I see now the that final column and so it's funny because I opened this today and I was very surprised to see things that I thought we had T talked about before and I didn't understand that part thank you yeah sure [Music] um that's question mark yes go ahead I'm just unclear on what the difference between the director of winr P what what that restructuring is Susan are you able to there you are I can't hear you you're not on mute oh now maybe if you get really close how about now yes thank you okay um so previously there was a position titled program coordinator winthrip house that was high school only and when the school committee uh approved adding winthrip house at the middle school level then um there was uh a negotiation that took place to eliminate the program coordinator Dash winr house from the beu um contract and to make this a director position that now reports to OSS and this is right this is the person that's covering both programs got it thanks you're welcome can I ask a follow follow up on that that was done like months and months ago I remember it's Sarah Paulo right she was introduced to us even in the fall so can do you do you have any is there any background you can provide on why it's showing up now as opposed to that's earlier point so this report is constructed based on what comes to me and what month not necessarily when an action's taken so the paperwork to eliminate that and move it from the high school position um over to a district position um was done in dece you know for this December report I didn't have it previously I see so so in other words when this was approved I believe it was in early J July was prior to my return and um uh the position control that was set up was set up for the coordinator position at the high school and so it needed to be changed so that's I'm just saying it was it was a timing issue not that it was not uh implemented when agreed upon I see catching up on paperwork okay um but has the pay been going according to the previously agreed upon rate I don't know what the uh there's a net cost difference here that's I'm just wondering is okay okay um are there other questions on position control report for now uh I think I'm going to ask because it's um Sarah's question makes me sort of look at this and new um and sort of be cognizant of that we've got August September October November December so if we're seeing this is it fair to assume that these positions are up and running I guess is my word and and and or that they're requested does that they're up and running okay and can I ask a follow-up question on that though when you say up and running you mean do you mean budgeted or do you mean filled like Phil no I know that's why I'm asking what Susan meant because I think you were differentiating between budget and fil and I wasn't sure if Susan was right uh budget was what I was if if the positions up and running and budgeted that's what I was referring to and I'm sorry but because I'm sure we went over this last time but so when we look at like the November where there are four tbds um that's just sort of like we'll have to reconcile that at some point there's thank you for asking that um it's a great question so as you know from the last meeting um we have a salary deficit that we've identified and there was some reconciliation that had not been completed for the idea Grant which I'm going to speak to in a little bit oh okay um and so all of it's kind of related um in order to be able to reconcile out the salaries I have to be able to reconcile out the grants because if something's being charged to a grant then that's one thing if it's being not charged to a grant then budget right and so we're still um okay trying to go through that process thank you thank you if there's no more questions I think that's a good transition point to go to the update on fy2 if that works for you too Susan um it does but I did my slide deck oh the other way around report sorry so uh do you think we can start in the middle or should we just or should we no no I can um we can go I I don't have yeah no why don't you go ahead and do your thing in order um you're going to do it and let me just preface this by saying because um we are going through the we we decided to defer the conversation on base and beep um there was a lot that's going on in the 26 and 25 budget and we wanted to make sure we had enough um time to focus on these um big bigger issues and because of the big conversations about 26 and 25 um some of the loops weren't closed with some of the folks feeding information on the fees so we'll park the fees conversation for now for 26 we'll look at the status of 26 and then 25 and that that will be the bulk of the rest of our conversation today is the 26 forecast and the 25 update thank you Susan go ahead and sorry I'm gonna jump in super quick and Betsy and Susan will these slides show up in the meeting materials later they will okay thank you yeah I just got them a couple minutes ago so I apologize we'll get them to no problem just thank you yeah and we can do the the 25 first it's on slide eight Betsy if you want to go there I can just give the update on that that's that's not a problem [Music] um and then we can go because I really want to step through the 26 and I want everyone to have the opportunity to really ask questions so that I hope we walk away with um you know a you know Common understanding of of what it means and where the numbers are coming from so let's let's get this piece out of the way and I can answer questions about it but if you remember can you change the view to to presenter view we're seeing speaker view right now y yeah thanks sorry let me just um I think it was on the same screen you're on under the display settings if you go back to the presentation mode do you see it Mariah am I missing it I don't usually use click on from current slide and then and then where let's see if it works now and if it doesn't you go up to this presentation display settings click on that top thing up there I have someone here helping me one sec okay the display settings it's right there sorry uh so it's just right here this is that it or is that still the same it's still the same presenter view but if you click on display settings that black in the black bar at the top no where you were right where you were in the presentation mode so I'm seeing something a little different than you so I Okay click see where in the Middle where it says monitors see how you have used presenter view click checked there uncheck that and hopefully oh not that one to the right to the right yeah that un check that and then do it it should work too excellent there we go thank you thank you Mar thank you for the tutorial Mariah sorry it's just hard to read it's a lot of data to not be able to see big it is it is um so I I always like to start with something that you might find familiar um in order to kind of ground us a little bit and so at the um the last um table that was in the uh financial report that was presented at the last meeting was the one and this is this just simply summarized all of the cost centers into salary and expense and so I thought I would just kind of bring us back to that um on the salaries um as we talked about last time we have a salary deficit of 1 Point basically uh little south of $1.2 million identified and and to remind you a component of that was this extra compensation piece and that made up about 750,000 of that and then the balance of that um is attributed to um holding on to some salary money um for unfilled positions and as we go through the year we will then release some of the salary money because the positions will go unfilled and we call that breakage okay so I believe that the breakage piece will resolve itself and we'll have a better sense of that at the next quarterly report because as we move through the year we don't have to keep holding salaries for positions for the remainder of the year if that makes sense so just to to bring us back to that there were a couple of items that uh were kind of followup and one uh we had mentioned was that the IED the Ida Grant which is the federal government's contribution to um our uh special education um students uh had not been reconciled so the Grant had been submitted and uh we hadn't received the detail to be able to tie it out to the FY 25 spending plan um and you know before uh the financial team releases the grant you know we go through and make sure that everything's in order that's our that's their job and um and we we didn't have the detail that we needed in order to finish that reconciliation hold on one second sorry about that um so uh We've you know been um at work uh trying to move through the reconciliation and one of the things that we learned was that the there was some um difficulties um in the fy2 for idea Grant meaning that there was more money allocated in expense to it than we have in grant money so uh we received an uh a note from desie also saying that that 369,000 needed to be set aside and spent for uh to address the disproportionality um uh kind of finding from uh a couple I think two year two fiscal years back um and as we went through and started looking at the expenses um we did not have we hadn't um expended the 369,000 so we've been working with them in fact Diane and I were on a phone call with uh the osss office manager and desie today kind of going through okay uh how do we um how do we address what their needs are and what does it mean for Grant modifications I say all of this uh because uh whatever once we get that reconciled off for 24 whatever um uh whatever expenses are no longer applicable to that then that has to come back into the oper operating budget so it's kind of a um a Reconciliation that is now Crossing two years and uh we haven't completed the work uh the FY 25 grant was submitted um with different and new expenses that were not considered during the fy2 budget process and so uh staff that were allocated to the grant when we went through the budget process um will now need to be shifted back to the general fund or the grant will need to be Rewritten to comport with the um approved spending plan um for 25 and so that work has not been completed but in the end whatever uh expenses um are above and beyond what we have in the 24 and 25 grant will then need to be moved into the oper operating budget and that could be uh an additional one to $1.5 million I don't have the final numbers on that we will have to work through that and so what I'm recommending because disproportionality really um uh is addressed through programming uh to generally speaking all students um uh that also targets interventions um that will address uh and uh improve um the outcomes for our identified population so uh so what I'm recommending is that uh two members of the OSS team two members of OTL and two members of oaf convene um and go through each Grant um make sure that we are clear about What expenses apply uh so that we can make sure that we're we're conforming in 25 and also in service to 26 as we're preparing that because again if if historical salaries that have been charged to a grant are no longer going to be charged to a grant then it has to move over the operating budget and so until that reconciliation done and completed can't really give you a final number there so that's really where we're at with um that funding for extra compensation can I ask a question on I was gonna say go ahead I think Val's question on that go ahead Val yeah so I I'm unclear about the budgetary impact or if there even is one be because the Ida Grant doesn't fund anywhere near what we spend on um special education I'm just trying to wrap my head around whether there is an actual budget increase or decrease depending upon how that reconciliation goes or whether it's just an accounting exercise that will be cumbersome that we need to go through but won't really change our bottom line picture right are we just moving people from Grant to non-grant who are with us anyway or is there some is there some real budgetary um impact to having classified things differently that's a great question and so in this case if if if in fact what we were doing is saying these 10 staff members are moving off the Grant and these 10 staff members are moving on the grant then it would be budget neutral but that's not the situation so let me give you an example the summer school program cost $712,000 there was only uh a little over $500,000 budgeted and so the difference between that going to have to be funded either through the grant or through the operating budget and so when we get the reconciliation done there will be expenses that bleed back into the operating budget I just can't tell you until the reconciliation is done exactly what that number will be so that's an example but I guess my would wouldn't then that mean that a cost that we thought was going to be in the operating budget was I I guess I'll need I'll just hold off until we see the numbers of the reconciliation but just the idea amount is so small compared to what we spend on special ed that I it's hard for me to understand that we would be overspent between all of our buckets but may isn't isn't it the case though that for example and maybe Val this it let's say that again this will depend on the examples but um OSS thought 10 staff members were going there and oaf thought a different 10 staff members were going there and so possibly the total could be whatever I think we heard 1.2 or 1.5 or whatever the amount is and then of that essentially all of it it was almost like double counted B yeah and so it could be well it's not a huge number in our overall amount it could significantly increase our salary deficit for this year am I accurately representing Susan sort of that's an example and as right as one example and your esy example is another example of either overspending on the grant or double um or people thinking it different people were funded Helen your hand is up yeah so rather than going back and forth on this when will we know when will this group get together that I see as being recommended here to go over it and um be able to come will they be able to come back to us next month with the reconciliation is that the plan yes it is okay we just can't do it in a vacuum you you it it requires you know uh conversation you need to all the different parties need to be at the table I get it can I ask a follow-up question to Susan the recommendation that you offered a couple of minutes ago also goes retroactively through fy20 for FY 24 so are you anticipating possible changes in the um in FY 24 or is this more like a forensic just to see if there's other things we should be watching out for for 25 and 26 yeah so the grants run a different fiscal year than our operating budget and so the fy2 24 Grant actually can remain open until September of 25 so some of I see okay so you'd be on like a no cost extension period for the grants or something like that yeah so it's just that there's in two different um the grant year is different than our our fiscal year and so we won't be having to go back and modifying anything related to our FY 24 operating budget it's just between all the buckets to Val's point to be between all of the buckets that we have there has to be sufficient money allocated for all of the expenses that we're going to inur incur and that's what uh and and right now we know that we we're short 1 point6 million you know one 1 million $160,000 short already we got to figure out how we're going to close that and then there's this piece of reconciliation work that needs to be done that will influence how we close it and what the final um amount is that needs to be uh adjusted so okay and next month you'll have you you hope to have that information okay that yeah that's uh with with this team together uh we'll have we'll be able to address the desie issues we'll have Clarity around what's where and what we can fund through the various mechanisms and then that will then present what uh might might bleed over into the operating uh accounts but I I can't tell you until that works done so I don't want to uh but I also wanted to flag it because I don't want you to be surprised if if we get to January and the numbers different I just because then people will say well you said two months ago that it was this and and when I see something I like to uh uh share it with you um since I was giving you an update on the budget I figured it was important to do that thank you Stephen um thanks hi Suson I I just didn't understand the the bottom line answer to Val's question was the answer that we don't yet know if it's budget neutral I don't believe from everything that I've seen so far that it is budget neutral okay and the the extent of the impact won't be determined until after you've convened that group to assess it to assess it and make the adjustments necessary so that we have Clarity okay thank you um thank you okay Susan sorry to interrupt go ahead okay is any other questions about that okay so now if we can go back up and I'm gonna I'm really gonna take a did we interrupt you I feel like we interrupted you on the extra comp I think we interrupted before you talked about that sorry sorry all right um so on the extra extra comp funding what we're doing is we're examining the use of one-time special Revenue funds um to be able to pay for the unfunded expenses that's a one-year thing right these expenses are part of our programming and we'll need to be funded next year and so what that means is that what we're we're doing is taking onetime Revenue to fund a recurring cost which then creates what we call a structural deficit meaning that next year we're going to have to fund it in in full um and so some of the like Helen and I had met and gone over some of the uh private grants because they they've been sitting on our books for a while so they have an understanding of what um we might be able to use an example of that is the craft fund um that we've we have about 68,000 in was um was uh gifted to us for the calculus project and we didn't fund the calculus project in our base budget for 25 so we'll be able to marry that expense with that similarly um the overage that we had identified in the um athletic uh program we should be able to use the balance in their revolving fund to cover that so we're going through the process of identifying um what private grants and revolving funds that we can use to be able to help uh mitigate or eliminate that that portion of the deficit so we haven't finished that work yet either but you know kind that's that's the direction we're going in to cover that because there isn't with a revenue with a a salary deficit there really isn't money uh this early in the year to be able to Target um uh you know transferring from one area to another so that's that's our strategy there any questions so that's to um Whittle away at the 7 50,000 that's within the $1.57 million salary deficit correct okay yes thank you any other questions before we move ahead okay all right so we'll start at the top so this is very hot off the press and um the town presented the financial plan at the select board meeting yesterday and uh so we all kind of saw this at the same time um and I took some excerpts from that that I thought would be um really uh germine to to the school um and thought I would um try to help explain some of the numbers that were uh discussed at that meeting so first I want to start with the Town School split so is everybody familiar with this town School split or should I do a little primer on that any I think it would be helpful if you gave a 40,000 foot two minute overview on that okay great so the way the Town School split works and this is like very high level is that um a revenue estimate is developed by the town and it's a gross revenue number and then subtracted out of that are certain what they call non-departmental fixed costs so oftentimes you'll hear it referred to as costs above the line so that would include like benefits and some policy pieces that the the community has um adopted so they those things are funded first um they're subtracted off this gross revenue number to come up with a net revenue number so the net revenue number is is the revenue number that is below the line then this revenue is that's the one that's labeled available for Town School right that's the net revenue you're referring to okay thank you okay and then using their formula they um they determine what percentage goes to the town and what percentage goes to the school and uh the allocate that net number so if you look at the little box down below you see town and then you see school and you see in fy2 there's 136 m847 618 that is our appropriation for this year so you'll see that number in our financial reports that's that's the number that was approved at town meeting for schools the number next to it is what they're uh telling us is the amount of money or Revenue that's available to support our expenses next year so what they're telling us is that revenue on the school side is going is going to be allocated 2,779 844 so that's what they're saying we have to balance off to so I'm going to stop there for a minute and see if everybody followed me or if anybody has any questions about that because I'm going to refer back to some of these numbers throughout this next couple of slides is everybody clear so there's I have one question on I always forget this every year and I ask the same question on the are that does that include our cost too for health and benefits or is that only Town SI it includes all all benefit costs school and town great thanks okay yeah any other questions okay so what they're telling us at this point is that the revenue estimate is 139 627 462 so I'm going to give you a preview of what I'm going to cover in a slide down below when you went for the override this number was higher so I'm going to park that thought right now and I'm going to come back to it in a little bit and I'm going to show you what when you went through your override process what you what you were anticipating you would have for a budget okay because the number that you were anticipating is higher than this number and it was also higher last year than what we actually re received and this is important because it when they talk about the school the gap for the school is $6 million you need to understand what's driving that okay and I want to walk you through how that $6 million breaks out because it's not breaking out just solely by our expenses being dramatically different we're not $6 million more in spending part of the $6 million issue is because the revenues are lower and I'm going to I'm going to walk you through the components of that as I understand them okay so if we're all good here we'll go on to the next slide so this is the next slide they presented so you can see that they're showing that the expenditure growth in the school site is $8.8 million so wanted you to know where that number comes from so when Melissa puts together her projection she does the revenue and then she does the expense and she asks everyone to give I call it a thumbnail thumbnail estimate it's a really high level estimate it's not based on um the the uh U um complete um dollar to dollar tying out of a of of the budget for next year in fact budgets are being turned in this week on the school side so we don't even have our budget built for 26 yet so how how does this number come about we take that 136 milon 847 609 that was allocated to us for this year and uh if we say our costs are increasing by 5% the increase would be 6,842 380 so why you say 5% so there's a couple of things that uh make that a reasonable number one is that historically um this is the placeholder that has been used right from all of my predecessors according to Melissa they've always done their estimate based on 5% that's not good enough for me what everybody else does doesn't you know I have to I have to have something a little more solid for myself um and so when I look at um breathing costs of contract typically your step and Colin movement in a school district will run you maybe 3% and then if I say okay in addition to 3% we've settled most contracts please note that asme contracts so are so are nonbu contracts are open this year um but we still let's say are estimate that they'll go up 2% right so that equals five so I think that five is not unreasonable um it could be six it could be four and a half you know when we get all said and done and I will tell you what that number is when when we actually build the budget what percent our salaries have increased and what the components of that are but I don't have that yet so that's the 5% so if we add the 5% increase to the budget we have this year it comes to 43,6 189 989 and then this is a PL all of these are placeholders if our structural deficit moving into next year is $2 million which it it could it could very well be um the estimated expense for next year because we have to pay for those costs that are unfunded this year would be 145 68 6899 189 so if you take this number here the 145 and you subtract it from the 136 it gives you 8.84 to this is where Melissa's getting her number of 8.8 our expenses increasing 8.8 it's nothing more scientific than that any other any questions about that because I want you to know when these are online and people are looking at it where does that number come from my my question is um can you just explain the source of the $2 million structural deficit number is that like the 750 and stiens and some other things and if so what are the other things yeah it's the other things I just talked about right so when I'm looking at what our exposure is from the grants I'm and I'm being very I'm being conservative on this I'm saying an additional 1.2 uh is reasonable at this point based on what I've the work I've done and what I can see right now could be higher could be lower just like the 5% could be higher could be lower but that's so it's the 750 in stiens plus the 1.2 of the grant exact okay of of multiple grants like okay yeah not one Grant but Susan this is the year in the be contract if I recall that there's an extra 1% on the last day of this fiscal year fiscal year 26 is that some other percent so that 5% could be an underestimate I'm not sure I'm asking if if you looked at the contract recently if that's um I I get it and will when we roll the um Staffing plan okay we'll review that okay and if that's true then I'll call that out as well thanks Susan do yes do uh do the other um do the other uh bars in this graph have similar percentage expenditure growth ratios I don't know because this isn't my slide this is Melissa's and I don't know what's behind her number I just wanted you the school department to and school committee and anybody on here to understand where where our number came from I guess I'm wondering how this is being received does this look like the school budget growth is outstripping the growth of other parts of the town or does it look like it's growing in parallel with our with uh with the this the Town School split I don't you could calculate it off the previous slide yeah if wanted to okay and my I asked the same question in my head and it looked like at least on the school in town ours was increasing slightly more than the town but um but there's just more investigation you'd need to do okay be sure yeah again this was presented yesterday at about noon time so you know I'm trying to give you the high level uh bits and pieces of uh data that I think you might be asked and I'm hoping that this will help you to maybe be able to answer it or at least have something to refer to okay any other questions on this slide or how we got to the 8.8 and I'm not saying that's what it's coming in at I'm just saying this is this is the estimate and this is where the estimate came from so it's really important for everyone to not take the 8.8 as as the final word this makes a lot of sense thank you yeah thanks okay next slide so now I'm going to go back up to above the line expenses can we go actually back two slides so I can Orient everybody again go back to the towns that one there okay so again we have gross revenue which is the top line then we have this non-departmental fixed costs and this included in this are the benefit costs and one of the reasons why there's less Revenue available on the net number that gets split between the town and the and and the school is because there is um some significant increases in the above the-line expenses and a huge driver in this is benefits so I want to walk you through what was shared with us yesterday about um what's happening on the benefit side and I may not be able to answer all the questions but I do want to at least walk you through so you understand what's happening in this middle section here right the above the line expenses so if you can go back to benefits okay so and before we do go and and look at this closer I also want to say I had asked Melissa when the override um analysis was done what was the assumption that was made for benefits and she said that they had um the Assumption was a 6% increase in health insurance in the current year FY 25 the costs went up by 10% not six and next year they're estimating they're going to go up 12% so 12% is twice what they expected and it's compounded on a higher um cost for this year okay so um that's really important uh to knowe so these are the items and I'm not going to read it line by line or anything uh like that but at least it shows you what is in what's considered benefit costs above the line so I'm going to give you a minute to just look at that because you didn't get to see this in advance so I just give you a minute to to look that over and process that Susan can I ask one question about that it looks like on the opb's line that they've reduced the OPB obligation by 250,000 for the current year is that did they mention that was that discussed at all because it goes from 5.43 for the current year down to one 5.18 then back up to 5.43 um I don't a lot was covered okay and I don't remember a lot of time spent on that um but it's certainly something we can ask about okay thank you so what I'm what what I'll do is kind of draw your attention down to the bottom where it says the two dollar signs and change and uh and so it's increasing um by $3.6 million which represents a 4.1% increase overall in those lines again the biggest driver according to Melissa is this group health insurance and you can see that going from 38 million to 42 and a half million is pretty significant right any I'm sorry know that I can answer any questions on this but uh I'll I'll give it the old College try if you have a question this is for the town side or for the school side or for both both So when you say it goes up four and a half million that's for everybody yes so we're getting about 60% of that on our books well it's taken off the top so we have gross revenue and then these all these expenses are are lopped off the top before we get a split yeah but it does affect the amount of money that we have available in the split it's just taken out before the split calculation for the split can you Can you estimate the the real impact on our side of The Ledger I guess the best estimate would be the 60% right if you just going by numbers but I I I'd have to to really know what is School versus what is Town I'd have to have Melissa uh go through and analyze um for every employee that we have that's on health insurance versus every town employee she can do it I know she has the data but I don't have that I don't have access to that data I'm not looking for precision I just want to make sure I have the right ballpark yeah okay thank you Susan either either way even if the town there were way even if there was way more Town employees taking health insurance than the school department it's not necessarily relevant in that the the the cost of benefits globally is subtracted before we get any revenue or the Town departments get any Revenue right I get it I'm just trying to make sure I understand the extent to which this is a driver of the the newly projected deficit it is and I'm gonna I'm no no I know I definitely know that it is I'm just just ging in my head how much of it it is so thanks yes I I think I'm gonna get there okay think I'm gonna get us there okay any any uh okay so why don't we go to the next slide which then kind of gives some context to this and you can just read this I can't answer a question about it but this is this is the information that was shared about those major account categories that are going up it looks the note here on opb's is confusing because it doesn't match with what's on the slide that's not a question for you I'm just saying it doesn't match yeah and I I can't I can't speak to it okay so we'll just go on to the next one I again I'm just providing the information um certainly they can uh we can ask these questions right now I'm going to shift gears for a minute to get to the question I think Stephen was asking um in order to get there I wanted to start with what assumptions were made and what did we anticipate we get for funding this year and so I'm going to I'm going to uh point you to the fy2 column and if you look at the the last number there you see 13711 490 so the schools were expecting to have that amount of money available to them to pay for our costs this year we know that we didn't get that much money so the assumptions that were made during the override um caused the amount of money to available to us in the current year to be less now let's look at 26 what we thought we were going to have available to us was 142,5 163 if you go to the next slide I'm going to share with you again what those numbers came in at so remember this 42 663 we all see that our budget when I showed you what my thumbnail estimate was and where that number came from was 145 the difference in the expenses is $3 million okay so our expenses are3 million dollar higher than what they thought they were going to be when the override uh uh budget was was was calculated okay so that's and we know $2 million of that is that structural deficit I've been talking about all right and some of that is expanded some other expanded programming and I I'm not going to get into the details of of that yet because Diane and I are still analyzing information our essential question is what is driving our costs to be higher than what we anti ipated back then that's the essential question we're asking and we're still um analyzing uh data to be able to try to answer that for you but we don't have that for tonight okay so now we're going to go on so that's the expenditure deficit we're going to call that the expenditure deficit as we go into 26 is 3 million now I'm going to talk about what I'm calling a revenue deficit in other words we anticipated we would have available based on the projections provided during the over ride process 142 mil 663 what the town is telling us now is that we only have they only have 139 million 627 so we have $3 million less in Revenue available to us it's really important to understand that because it's not about school department spending in that's created the $6 million it is a factor but it's not the whole Factor um and so I a question on that Susan sure um so on the override revenue is it that is it all that above line or is there also some piece of this either in total that we're not getting on the tax side or in terms of the split that we're not getting that we anticipated on override piece I'm just trying to understand the the override tax piece a little bit better and whether there's something more than just the above the line at play yeah um it's a great question and it's not one that I can answer I would I would have to get more information from Melissa in order to answer that but what I can say um is that a Big Driver of the reason why this $3 million variance is showing up on the revenue side is because uh of the benefits piece it could also be that revenues are not coming in at what they had expected and I don't know what all the assumptions were because it wasn't here uh at the time but uh when I ask the question Melissa attributes the majority of this deficit from these uh significant increases in benefits both in 25 and in 26 that were far higher than what they were using as uh in their assumptions I think the other thing that we did not attribute but that hit us last year and obviously is carrying forward is the increased utilities attribution that was a million dollars last year but that same modification I think carries forward Susan as well is that is that am I correct in that to your understanding yeah I it does it does have an impact it had an imp on the current year it shouldn't have it on on 26 like we should it's carrying forward if we had a lower Revenue last year then there's an increase it's still it's sort of buried in the in our base from last year right yeah or buried in the lack of Base from last year okay yeah and so and and so last year when we were making adjustments you know part of it was that our expense was higher same as this year right our expenses are coming in higher than what was anticipated during the override um projection process and likewise on the revenue side some assumptions um that were made um have not come to fruition so it's a combination of both and I think a public really needs to understand that um and this this plays out on the town side too um so they're getting less Revenue allocated to the town and that's putting pressure on the town side but I'm not here to speak to their side I just want to make sure that you understand how it rolls out and impacts us but it does affect uh the town side as well because obviously if these expenses are taking above the line and we have less overall Revenue than available to split then um they're short as well um and so if you look through the rest of their presentation I think it's online now it's quite lengthy um um they do get into um you know sanitation and what's happening there and some of the drivers of their uh costs that are that that are coming in higher than anticipated and the impact of the lower Revenue estimate as well is that clear as mud any questions yeah hi Jesse here is it the town Revenue estimate is before the Town School split this is all all everything together before the schools yes so so the the net revenue is what is split yeah so they're they yeah all right so Town revenue is is is everything the town correct before anything goes to the schools we're saying they're estimating $3 million less money coming in wherever the doesn't really matter where the sources are just that's what they're saying that's what they're saying I mean this this yeah yep thank you and and they did a really nice job on their slides you can go in and see what are like local receipts and what the assumptions are there and you know they actually gave some historical information on the local receipts so you can see uh where they've landed um over the last I think they gave three or four years worth of actual data and then they also uh projected out and gave their assumptions there I thought they did a PR pretty nice job of that um if you have time but I didn't want to I didn't want to lose this by getting into a whole bunch of other things that may or may not um be important to understand without understanding this first okay so that is uh you guys are uh awesome I thought it might take longer so either either my explaining is good or I've got you so confused now that you don't know what to ask I've got a question so um is it accurate to say that we're going to have a better or I guess what the what's the timeline from this point forward um in terms of revisions to Rue estimates which are typically show up at some point from the town and your refinements of um actual budgets yeah that's that's a great question so um as I said uh budgets were due to us um Monday we're still uh missing some uh from some budget managers so we're actively uh trying to work with them to get those complete uh once those are complete and then I roll the Staffing roster so I would say you know we're hoping by Christmas time that we have a good strong draft of FY 26 um and then internally we will begin to discuss uh the implications we'll begin actually that conversation with principals and directors and and our administrative team on Monday afternoon so um on the towns and then you know of course we're going to be giving you we can give you an update at uh the meeting in January so we have a meeting finance committee meeting on the on the 15th so we'll definitely give you an update then on our side on where we're at what things are looking like and then I'll be able to give you a more refined number hi Rita um on the town side I know can I ask just one followup on that um I was trying to pull up our calendar like we had there was a thumbnail there was a thumbnail presentation going a full school committee at some point and then the full budget book in early February I'm just trying to remember the dates because that's when you're starting but I guess I'm wondering when we're when we're going to have a little bit more refinement yeah I I'll give you a thumbnail um that will be based on um the roll up of our budget I will give you that on the 15th that's what I'm saying um the 15th of sorry January okay thank you yep and yes and that thumbnail is different than this thumbnail though it is okay it's more detailed yes okay and it will be based like be able to say here's some of the real drivers on our side I'll I'll say this is the impact of uh uh stepping column and contracts you know so I'll be able to tell you how much of our increase is attributed to that I'll be so I'll be able to to to give it to you in bigger bucket in in um more buckets than you see here but it will be based on actual data for the FY 26 not just an estimate that I'm making okay on our on our tracker we had January 23rd because I think it's going to the full school committee and not just the um Finance subcommittee so it even gives you an additional eight days or whatever that math is I'm sure I will talk about it on the 15th either way I imagine okay um sorry is it Stephen or H Ste finish with the timeline oh yeah sorry sorry so that's on our side um the next Milestone really in terms of um refining numbers is uh when that when the governor presents uh her budget right and so that is uh typically given um before the end of January and since we don't have a change in leadership uh at the state level then um she's required to have a budget presented which is uh referred to as house one um by the end of uh January and so whatever estimates Melissa is using on the Reven side we will have a number to plug in because we'll have the governor's number right now she's level funding state aid so whatever is put forward in house one will then uh be reflected in in an uh revised estimate in addition to that I want to make note that there was conversation on the uh at the meeting yesterday about um making some adjustments to to some of my understanding is and certainly Melissa correct me if I didn't if I didn't understand it uh but I do believe I did that they were talking about some of the policies that um Drive what uh goes above the line so there's two parts to it there's certain policies where they set aside a certain amount of money in order to achieve a goal it could be to fund your OPB expense it could be because you want to have a certain Target reserves of some sort it could be that you have CIP that uh in capital projects that you're trying to um have a recurring funding so it could be a variety of things I could go back and look but I'm not haven't been here long enough to to know it by heart but there what there did talk about yesterday was you know what if instead of um uh appropriating uh I'm saying $7 million we appropriate $5 million uh next year um and then get back back on track in out years which would then free up $2 million to be available to support um expenses you know I think there's a little bit of an appetite for that because last year and this year um the revenue numbers aren't you know uh that everybody relied upon when making choices and decisions for the override haven't materialized and so I it's very prudent for them to begin to have those conversations um they did say that they wanted to take it up um at upcoming uh select board meetings but I don't know when they'll docket it so we we should probably keep our eye on that moving forward because again any any adjustments to the expense side or any change to the revenue side that's above that line will be favorable um for all of us so that's that's their timeline and process as I understand thanks Stephen and then Helen after Stephen okay thanks I have two questions um I'm afraid they might might be a little dumb so I apologize in advance so Susan on an on an early slide you had projected the deficit at 8 point something million and on the last slide it was 6 point something million with the split being uh half due to uh Revenue coming in at under expectations and half being on our side what was can you remind me what the difference between those two projected deficits can you remember what the difference is I can we are getting more Revenue than we did for this year so we're just not getting enough new Revenue which is creating the revenue deficit so when you take the 8.8 million um the difference between the 8.8 million and the Six Million is the new Revenue we are going to receive because the 8.8 is the increase year-over-year on budget it's not the net deficit okay oh I see I see okay thank you and then the second question is since half of the projected deficit is the result of um as the result of um our side how much of this was known in advance of these meetings I I understand that we couldn't have projected Health Care uh health care cost increases um and I understand that we couldn't have projected uh Revenue shortfalls in the towns side but how much of any of this were we aware of prior to the meetings that just ended um guess I'm not I'm not sure how to answer that question um the information that I've shared with you about having you know the deficit in this year I did share at the last meeting so I think that was on our radar some of the other elements that I talked about tonight with the grants and and having to reconcile that out is information that's you know like kind of hot off the press and it's in real time time as I'm learning it I'm sharing it um so in terms of our structural deficit there's a piece of that but some of the work that we're Diana and I are doing is to try to answer that question about what is causing um this this what do we attribute this $3 million to don't have an exact answer to the question yet but we will share our learning over the next um several weeks with you at the next meeting but I don't have answers to all the questions I can talk about things um as I see them and that's what I'm doing but on the town side I don't I don't know you know not on the town side I I mean on on the school side yeah it makes sense to me that we wouldn't have known anything coming on the town side I guess I I I guess I didn't even realize coming into this meeting that the schools side projected deficit would be as steep as it is so I guess what I what what's not clear to me is what why we didn't anticipate it prior to now I'm not sure what we learned recently that contributed to this this projection does that make sense yeah I'm not I'm just I guess I'm not really sure how to answer the question this question to me feels a little bit premature because Stephen I think you're you're carrying the um sort of the very rough calculations that are the 5% increase and assuming that there that this number is further along than it is so% increase is really the rough number that the town provided for us rather than us generating our own no Susan Susan used the 5% increase and so I think that um and then the one number that Susan did add to that is the $2 million that is the 750 we've been talking I don't can't remember if you've been at some of these meetings but we've certainly been talking about it um and I think and I think I reported I think I reported on it in our q1 meeting and then the 1.2 million which was just today so there's the $2 million of that anyway I guess my point is that I think that it's maybe a little bit early to ask for attribution and um figuring out of everything except for maybe the 2 million which has been articulated okay it may just be that I'm late to understanding this it's I mean it's all new too like there's the only thing that we've really talked about before was the 750 that was part of the $1.1 million deficit we were carrying in the q1 report that as Susan said she thought some of it would melt because of the positions going unfilled and some of it um they were looking into how to figure out which we heard a little bit more about today so yeah so I think um that's my impression I don't Susan does that bring with does that comport with okay I see okay thank you Mar I appreciate that sure sure um that's why I was saying earlier too I just I don't want people I don't want the huge headline to be $8.8 million deficit because I think we're just in such early days still about this is like a warning flag for us but it is not the final number by any means so we need to get get a little bit further down the path on on this um Helen yeah to continue with what you're saying Mariah first of all there's two questions there's a question I have and a statement first question is how much free cash was certified this year they haven't certified it they said that they were pretty close um and I don't know it off the top of my head Helen I could go back to their slides and find it though that would be great to know that if you can the second piece is so the town historically has always uh estimated very conservatively their their revenues uh not the expenditures but the revenues and you would in in past years it would start out at one number and it would our numbers would grow over the course once the governor's budget came out once the health care came in um and so I don't want to be polyana uh in terms of all of this but on the other hand um I think we need to keep that in mind um to know that they do um U budget very conservatively um and just you know for for those who haven't been through the process before it's an important piece to keep in mind so our revenues can go up is what I'm trying to say thank you hopefully our deficits will go down and you we'll have less of a a gap there exactly how much is it for cash Susan did you find that number I just I just went back and looked at the presentation and I don't think that the 24 certification was in there I think they were just talking about I'm not sure I didn't see it Susan ctif has not been certified yet they said that they were behind but I thought that they had they did speak to it um a little bit I just so in years past it's ranged anywhere uh over the last four or five years has ranged from um 8 to 16 million of free cash now that goes into the CIP usually but last year they we funded the CIP quite well for the next few years so I'm wondering how that will work out yeah they have a slide on free cash it's slide number 15 in their presentation but I don't even want to try to interpret well they don't have a number they have a variety of numbers here oh um unreserved fund balance is usually the number that I would be looking at there unreserved fund balance which seems low to me uh so free uh free cash estimate is 23,500 whoa thousand 23, 500,000 that's their estimate on page 15 so just sobody understands how free cash ends up that way if departments or people don't use the monies that were budgeted it goes into free cash and then gets allocated I think the year after is that correct yeah they now we do have a policy to put a certain amount into the CIP but this if it's 23 million that's way over well it's 23 million if you look at their slide I can just I'm sorry that um you can't see this um it's like I said it's page 15 of of the slide deck uh oh we can go back I mean this is just you know we're not going to figure this out night and that's fine but I just I I want people to understand all the different variables that go into getting the the actual budget finished for uh 26 that's very helpful and I do think that that number is ballpark Susan because I had heard 22 million was quoted to me at one point recently yeah but that's really high compared to what we've had in the past really high and and I don't know and that doesn't mean because you have a free cash of 23 million that that's all available because there's set asides and there's reserves of course I mean we have to pay the debt from that we have to pay um you know there's some things that and a certain amount has to go into CIP um Helen I think the free cash is more of an indicator of how much funding how much revenue was unallocated in the prior year and it represents a very conservative approach to budgeting when we see those large balances it means that funds weren't allocated because they're available in the future right now they are used for other things but I guess the point is you know are are we starving ourselves at on our operating budget and um creating much larger free cash flows than we had been in Prior years and I think there's a lot of debate about that which we're not going to solve tonight but but certainly it it's helpful for everyone to understand that there are multiple levers that operate on the revenue side and that's one of them that people can consider um we have 15 minutes left I I would like to make sure and Helen if there she goes your hand thank you um I want to check and see other questions that um anyone else has or our colleagues from advisory have other members of school committee um anyone else who's here um before we wrap up um I'm gonna take Carolyn first who's on the subcommittee and then go to Carla thanks um Susan in one of your when you were talking about one of your slides in terms of explaining you know some of what's brought us here you said something about and I'm sorry I don't remember what your words were but the override projections being retrospectively I guess I wonder if you could fill that out a little bit um I mean I I guess my sense was the override asks were and always are set as some you know sort of um guesstimate of what can be useful while also politically feasible and palatable um and I don't know having not been as involved at the time like specifically what if there were specific um sort of buckets that were projected into in terms of how those funds would be used I guess I'm just thinking about sort of the public facing part of this I'm trying to to sort of can you say again I guess what what you said about override projections I guess were you saying that's just basically a piece of how we end up here yeah I would say we end up here because assumptions that were made at the time haven't haven't proven [Music] um to be what our reality is um I don't know how else to say it right okay no that's fine so just yeah in terms of everything yeah yeah and and it falls in two areas one is on that Revenue side yeah some assumptions were you know haven't proven to um in practice have not turned out to to be I don't want to say accurate because it's not fair when you're doing projections right it it sounds so understand I think I understand what you're saying and I'm not sure that you know anybody ever said or thought look override will be the answer to to everything and we'll have we'll have nothing to worry about for three years um I'm not sure so what I can't dig in and what I am digging in on and this was I think to your question I think it's my question I think we all have this question um what is driving that $3 million on the expense side that's more than what we had anticipated during the override that that we hope to to bring color to um because if we don't know the answer to that then we risk repeating right um and we don't need to do that and we need to understand what kinds of things you know um are hanging there and where yeah yeah and I I don't I can't answer that yet this is a you know what I'm seeing this I'm saying okay what's causing that I have the same questions you have um we we're working really hard to be able to try to answer that okay yeah thank you yeah that makes sense thanks thank you um Carla before I call in you can I just ask one follow-up question on that Susan I promise Carla I'll be right to you we had we had deductions in our override plan was one of them supposed to be taken for 26 I can't remember right now um we were taking operating cost reductions you had it up on that slide that 24 25 26 slide yeah I is this one of the years where we were supposed to be taking and I apologize I'm just feeling so crummy that my brain is foggy and I can't find my own copy of those slides right now so um just wondering if that's also an aspect of the 3 million where we're saying oh well where were we why is it over and it's because we had projected making reductions well I'm looking at the slide now yeah and it's showing um does it have a deduction under 26 there's not a line that says deduction can you pull it up real quick just so we can Betsy it's on U oh maybe sorry Carla one sec it should say programmatic adjustment yeah the programmatic adjustment line okay I didn't wasn't sure which line so yeah in 26 it says uh 2.95 million but what was the net from the year before we had one point something million in there from the year before 1.95 so there was another million dollar net so yes so then yes so that tie actually that sort of ties out with 2 million plus the anyway okay thank you for that that's helpful Susan Carla go ahead I'm sorry for the delay no not a problem um just wanted to mention as far as the free cash is concerned that that you all know there's this so-called waterfall and just because there's a lot of free cash doesn't mean it all ends up in the CIP this year for example some is going to end up in the affordable housing trust fund because the balance and the trust fund has gone below 5,000 $5 million and also and Susan I apologize I don't know if you you mentioned that one of the things the select board um is considering is establishing a working group or committee to study expenditures and um revenues and this committee would be made up of a member of the school committee a member of the advisory committee a member of the select board and then somewhere between four and maybe I don't know five six seven community members um the name of the committee doesn't have override in it uh the last committee that Chaz formed didn't have the word override in it either but it was definitely a committee that was um asked to consider an override as this one will be asked to consider so um you can all start thinking about which member of the school committee you'd like uh to be on this uh committee that I imagine is going to be formed sooner rather than later thank you thanks Carla um other comments that people would like to make or questions Ben go ahead if you're talking you're still on mute uh can I be heard yes I hear yes um I'm I'm with with all respect to you Mariah and your preface and to the school committee I'm wondering in regard to your in regard to your prose what when do you expect to have a response to have to the uh um story in the in the in the Brooklyn news kind of things fester and and grow out as you well know and uh they're hard to catch if they if they get out too far have you got I don't mean you personally has the school committee or the school department got a plan for response um I would think I would turn that over to you Dr gillery if you're available to respond I'm not I have to I have to apologize Ben but I have been sick I'm now in my second week of sickness so I am just like not up to date Mar Mariah you never have to apologize I do lonus would you like to respond to Ben sure thing so um the chair of the school committee is certainly working uh with me um as well as uh looking at the claims that were made and as soon as that process runs through um I'm sure there will be some form of a communication that goes out okay I would suggest as a man who did PR from a long time that the sooner the better of course one has to do it well and comprehensively but the sooner is the better in these kinds of things that's all yes thank you Ben sure um okay well with with that I will say Susan thank you so much for this comprehensive update and I know we all wish that it came in and everything was showing lots of revenues and all the expenses being covered but um unfortunately that's not where we're at but we appreciate you walking us through it so completely and looking forward to um updates and refinements um in January and I'm looking forward to those to you thank you so much have a good night everybody do better Mariah thank you I appri some orange jues bye