good evening and welcome try that again it's not good tonight's starting lineup yeah good evening welcome to this uh Thursday March 21st 2024 meeting of the finance committee I'd like to call this meeting to order tonight we'll be following the published and posted agenda we are in a dual format so we are both available in zoom and in person first item on the agenda this evening is approval of minutes we have minutes from March 14th anyone had a chance to review them yes yes do I have a motion um go ahead Sam you're good at it um I move to uh approve the uh finance committee minutes from uh last week's meeting 14th the 14th of March I second it any discussion all those in favor I I I all right next before we move into our next agenda item I'd like to welcome a new member of our finance committee El McDonald thank you and welcome uh you're appointed just this week correct yes all right well welcome to the group we'll try not to be too hard on you and uh throw too much information at you I have a lot of reading to do all right moving right along in the agenda uh we have a review of the fisc Year 25 budget for the CHC Public School District with us this evening we have uh superintendent Jay Lang uh we have the business manager John Johnson Collins and members of the actually I don't is she here this evening yes she Donna's here Donna's here I I was Joan I I was asking J's here no okay all right and members of the uh school committee good evening you a look at my book with me he sent me a bunch of things uh good evening finance committee members um thank you for having us again to uh to review our uh budget for this coming fiscal year fiscal uh 25 um I did reply when we got the meeting link um and I attached a copy of the link that just brings you to the fiscal 25 budget as way of process uh We've kept this pretty consistent uh year-over-year so uh at the uh first meeting in February the first school committe meeting February I typically present the uh superintendent recommended budget um with different programs and services uh that we have planned for the coming school year um we then take a couple weeks to review the uh budget and then at the last meeting in February the school committee members go uh Page by Page through the budget and ask um questions about our spending and how it aligns to our strategic plan and um ultimately the school committee voted to um adopt the budget that I had recommended at that meeting um and that's what's here uh before you this evening so uh just as a way of um process for you again we've kept the format similar uh year-over-year so our budget is uh set in the beginning we have a narrative that talks about our programs and services and how we compare against other comparable districts we then on page um 10 of our budget have what we call our summary level totals uh so this is the um kind of calculation page that has all the different um Desy function code Pages feed up to it we have our SEF salary book and then we have a number of appendices that just have information to talk a little bit about our budget and programming I did have an opportunity earlier uh in the week to meet with um Dave and Cathy uh the finance committee reps to the school department and review our budget in detail um I certainly can go as deep as you would like or I could provide uh more kind of high level um action for you it's at your your discretion um just you know do you want me to kind of go real high level and then if you have questions we can go deeper or how would you like me to proceed I think typically we've gone on a high level review because we've had the opportunity to look at the budg ourselves and because quite frankly budg land autonomy um we don't like to throw that out there well I do right um so high level for you so if you happen to be following along if you wanted to pop to page seven of the budget um the budget is crafted in general with uh the school department strategic plan in mind we had spent um a considerable amount of time putting together a five-year plan that details our um academic priorities oural priorities Staffing and human capital priorities facilities um so our budget really does align to those priorities in the district the school committee when they have the regular meetings talk about the different priority areas and again how our financing um supports those um worked closely with the um town the town's been a great partner with us in uh providing a quality education to our students um the bottom line uh recommendation of this budget and again happy to answer any individual um questions you may have um aligns with uh Tom manager Cohen's recommendation of funding to the uh school department at 73 million $880,000 and on page seven at the bottom uh these are again just some bullets to kind of give some highlights of the budget but one of the things that we are fortunate uh going into next year we're going into the third and final year of our contracts at the uh school department so um all of our employee contracts both collective bargaining agreements and individual contracts are in place it makes our budgeting um a little easier because we know exactly what the salary schedules are going to be when we're doing our um staff salary book we uh typically have been um fortunate when we're doing our replacement of Staff we have a very stable Workforce um of about the 375 teachers we have in the district uh we have nine retirements this year uh we don't have a lot of turnover so we really um attract and I think retain a great um great Workforce in our schools um it makes the hiring process um easier for us it's hiring teachers is very difficult at this time um but you know when you look at districts uh around us hiring nine is opposed to hiring you know 25 or 50 is certainly uh significant I credit our Workforce for that we've traditionally found that budgeting uh the replacement because there's always a little bit of a savings from a u typically a top step teacher being replaced by a new teacher um averaging a master step three um which actually for us this year is went over $70,000 so that's $71,000 which is a a pretty attractive salary for a new individual coming in um we've been able to budget to that so we've included that in the budget again because our contracts have settled um the next page eight just kind of provides some higher level detail of some additional um Staffing and services that we're incorporating in primarily two areas um so we have two different priority areas in our budget one related to special education services and a lot of work the district is doing to try to close the achievement gap of our special education students and our general education students so you will see that we have added um a number of special education um teaching positions and uh support positions within our District all of those position um positions and services are tied to individual students education plans um so the students have gone through a review process they've gone through the whole I process uh teams have recommended um certain levels of service for students um and we really do need to staff the district accordingly uh to that I'm also proud of the work that the district has done to really develop a lot of what we call IND District programs so we really have been Well Servicing uh the students in chelsford in our schools um a lot that may present present with um different uh learning abilities and disabilities we've been able to actually add some programming uh to over the last number of years and really keep those kids in District and have them be again a part of our community which we're uh proud of doing so you will see again a number of uh special education um support positions one uh we do have a program we did the Middle School realignment this year we fully implemented that so now all of our Middle School uh students in grades five and six attend Parker middle school and then they move on to McCarthy Middle School for grades seven and 8 we um traditionally have a Continuum of programming in the district K through 12 and it just so happened when we did the realignment this past year that because of the um age of the students and the grades that they were in we didn't have um a need for an ASD program and autism program at Parker Middle School we have one actually now at bayam and Harrington and they both very well subscribed um in the district and we happen to have a cohort moving up to fifth grade for next year so we do need to add that complimentary program grades five and six we already have it in grades seven and 8 and at the high school uh but this one year when we did the realignment we just didn't have uh fifth and sixth grade students that needed that so we do have the additional ASD programming uh built into that and again as I mentioned just a number of um special education positions to help support the IEPs our ratios for services and um I think again the community be well served by um by implementing that a second priority area for us around academics is really trying to put an effort into our uh elementary mathematics program um we implemented a new literacy program in the district uh about four years ago uh going into year five at the elementary level and uh we're really excited to see our literacy and reading scores uh improveed that's again been a tremendous amount of work of our teachers really getting up to speed with the program and the training the professional development um and we've noticed as we were doing our strategic planning our math schools just aren't quite where we'd like them to be particularly at the the younger grade level so one of the things that we want to do is Implement a um kind of a mathema coaching model at the elementary school level um so this budget does include um two mathematics kind of intervention Specialists to specifically be working with our teaching staff so a lot of times we have to kind of weigh the the pros and cons of uh kind of pulling our teachers out of the classroom to go attend professional development and training and things like that but that is time that they then spend away from their kids that we like them to be instructing um by having these two coaches kind of split among the Four elementary schools these will be the experts to go out and kind of get all the uh training and whatnot then bring it back into the classrooms provide the PD directly with the teachers um do a lot of coaching and actual uh kind of co- teing with the teachers and uh that's going to help us with our mathematics focus at the elementary level we're hoping um so that uh is also included in the budget aside from that um I do have a couple of bullets uh you know things that haven't changed we've actually found our uh day-to-day sub rates for both teachers and Paras and uh clerical support staff um are very competitive with our Mac Valley colleagues um one neighboring uh City happened to use a lot of their Essa funds and they really increased their rates that just know that area compare with uh next year they're coming back down to more normal rates so I think we're actually number one or two when it comes to rates in that area so again we should be uh competitive on on that front um we did Implement um six years ago at this point a 101 computer initiative at our school so that all of our students because again we actually were fortunate to have done this going into Co we didn't know Co was going to happen but uh by actually doing the the leg work and having our um curriculum begin to be digitized and having our kids be familiar with using online resources and learning opportunities um that really did position us well when uh Co hit uh so we're at the point now we're on a four-year recycle but all of our incoming fifth and then all of our incoming ninth grade students are issued a district laptop and they then keep that for the four years and they they turn it over but that's been great also so that we know everyone has the same technology they all have the same access to the uh to the technology um and uh again that's that's proven well so um overall those are really just the two priority areas for us where you will see a little bit of a extra investment in the budget for this coming year primarily special education and then again that little push at the elementary school for uh for math but um one of the things as you read through the budget I'm sure you notice we we've good good feedback on uh we'll make little notes on the individual budget Pages if something kind of jumps up or if we think someone's going to have a question about something we try to head it off ahead of time in the document and include those notes but um everything as we've done before is consistent um you have a staff salary book that feeds up to the main budget book so you can actually look at your FTE and you can look at your costs uh and then in the end we have several appendices um one I know we've been talking about and we're going to continue to talk about with regard to um schools and enrollment um we definitely have an enrollment increase not only happening now but our projection and the school committee is going to hear a report at their meeting next Tuesday from NASDAQ they've come back in to do a more detailed demographic enrollment study for us over the next 10 years because we're going to need that help with the msba application uh but we are projected to increase by about 800 students over the next 10 years so that is significant and uh we really do not have the space within the district to uh to really accomplish what we need to do uh with that constraint um you do have another appendic at the end of the book that is all about grants and revolving funds and and whatnot uh again just in full transparency to to put that out there um I'm very happy with the budget that we put together this year that the school committee reviewed and uh ultimately supported and approved um happy to have met with Dave and Cathy to review it more in detail um but happy to answer any questions you have here this evening and then uh ultimately look forward to presenting in April I think it's a good um continued uh expansion of our programming um I think it's in line with the um Town's and schools ability to um to fund and um really again appreciate your support and happy to answer any questions you may have thank you any questions I just want to say we appreciate your time sitting with us and also the layout of the budget is you know excellent to be able to find out details and it's available to anybody who wants to um look online it is it excuse me it is posted to our website so right off the front page and then in the business uh I think it's um business and finance U page itself we have all the historical budgets so if you go in you can get the uh the full the full detail Jay we're uh starting the msba pro process right now uh when when when do you envision having uh more detailed meetings coming up it's funny that you ask uh next Thursday evening we're actually going to host so the school committee has been talking regularly about this and there's been a lot of work that's been happening behind the scenes we've been doing updates to uh to the school committee meetings so people that watch those have a sense of what's happening but um you we have heard from uh some people who may not be quite as tied to the schools they may not have kids anymore or uh might be new of the community they're starting to inquire about the project so uh the school committee and I will be hosting a uh public forum and informational session a week from today actually the 28th at McCarthy Middle School in the auditorium um I'm going to do a Soup To Nuts run through of kind of how we got to where we are um the current phase that we're in with the msba is called eligibility um that's a 9-month program that's officially going to start on April 1 and then will'll conclude right at the end of the calendar year um we would hope to then move into feasibility and uh that is about a year and a half to potentially two-year process so I'm going to lay out the whole timeline talk about the need for the program talk again about how this uh ties into the long 10-year uh plan for the district with regard to enrollment and talk about a number of different options that the community will look at um when we actually get into eligibility and feasibility a little bit uh further this fall and and summer we are going to tape the meeting uh Chums for Tel media is going to record it for anyone that doesn't uh attend and um I will send a um link because one of our first steps is likely going to be to go to town meeting in April to try to um get support for the feasibility phase which technically won't kick in until uh the fall so even if approved it wouldn't be um expended AB bonded until that particular time but um I want to make sure that all the town meeting reps really know about this process because it is in-depth so um after we have the session and we have the link to the to the meeting they're going to get an individual um email uh invite for me but I'll also fold out a copy of the uh the video just so that they can watch ahead of time going into the town meeting uh the video to kind of get the background on our district website we also have a new page we created just to track progress on this particular uh project so if you go to the district website it I believe it's called um msba Parker middle school project but it's right on the front page and that has all the documents associated with this um so we're really hoping by pushing that um our communications director is periodically putting out little stories about what this will mean for our community um but I I do think it's going to actually be helpful at the information session next week to to talk about this to answer questions but again to have that recording so that we can play that and um really kind of make sure that no one hasn't an excuse to say that they didn't know what was happening um that they understand uh um the the project the process that we're going to be going through because it is a long process we definitely want to have uh Community input through this process and that really is inherently built into um the eligibility and the feasibility stage um so there's going to be a lot of dialogue a lot of um room for people to come and talk and talk about what they'd like to see not only building wise but program wise you know what kind of uh programmatic spaces do we need to consider when we're talking about building a new school you know in the 21st century our schools are very solid buildings you know the town has done a very good job of maintaining the buildings we haven't built a new school in over 50 years so so I'm really hoping the town will come around and support this um I want to make sure everyone has the information that they need a lot of time and effort has gone into this but I think we've positioned us El well uh to be able to talk to the community about this and again show the need not only because of the facilities but we have an enrollment um matter that we really do need to address over the coming years thank you for answering that we will be here next week so I'm glad to hear that'll be emailed out and and recorded and available um and any information you'd like us to include to help you in starting that process we can certainly include links to that kind of information in that in the finance committee book as part of the fact that we're giving you're giving a present under article one I believe um certainly appropriate place to put those links to provide that information to people great no I very much appreciate it so please send that to us make we'll make sure it's included we'll do all right any other questions thank you for an excellent review the other day no I had a lot of fun you know it's it's nice to just be able to sit back and kind of you know go through the budget and and talk about individual um programs and the services and why we do them so no you and Cathy were super and uh asked really good questions and I hope I had good for you but it's always nice to talk about what we're doing thank you great all right well thank you very much and Donna thank you for attending as well you you vot moving along we have uh I I've had a request um to take one of the uh presentations out of order uh to to other other time constraints the uh Health Department budget I would need a vote to take that out of order and but I would also need a motion to do that as well i' make a motion to take the health department out of order I'm a second second all those in favor I all right this evening we have a presentation of the health department budget with us this evening we have sir Roa our health director and the assistant director Don Greenwood good good evening everybody for those who don't know me I'm Su Rosa the health director and Donna is our assistant director she's handing out information on what we're going to talk about um although I for most of you you know that I've um just returned to work after thank you um significant time away um so during budget time Donna and I did do the budget together but then we had to make some changes and she's done a phenomenal job so I am actually going to let her talk about our budget good evening and first I want to say thank you for Sue for coming back and uh it's great to have her back and being uh doing so great all right so good evening thank you all for your time tonight uh first I want to thank Anita for her time the other day with Sue and I uh we enjoyed your your company and conversations um as you know we're actually lucky enough to have received our per funds um from the select board and we were able to hire an additional health inspector at the time and a human services associate under those Arbor funds it made a huge difference it was a huge Focus that we had on some goals that we wanted to accomplish and we were able to accomplish those so I want to tell you a little bit about them and then we go into the budget because you got to see salary jump in there and I want to kind of discuss through that piece of it so the salary jump that you see is 141,142 and I'm sure you saw that and said what's kind of this all about so when we had the additional health inspector under the arbor funds we were able ble to actually um inspect all of our restaurant and retail facilities that are supposed to be inspected twice a year by the state guidelines and what we in high-risk restaurants the recommendation is three so we were able to accomplish that what is a high-risk restaurant a high-risk restaurant is one that when we go to them um they have violations maybe a couple times in a row and so we then determine they're a high risk we need to continue to go to them at least three times and whenever there's a violation we go back and follow up anyway so we have 177 food establishment restaurants that we have to inspect um so literally last year we did over 350 inspections in total for just food establishment places so many of them get two or three just because it's a followup but high-risk restaurants are ones that from our past two years have been ones that needed followup inspections so that's how we determine it and as they change and get better it can shift on what that looks like so there's it is it multiple categories or just you're good or and or high-risk is there well yeah high-risk restaurants will be the ones that are food born illness okay violations so there's literally and it's you can look at any of our inspections a state inspection form the front page is all food born illness the second page is um expected retail establishment um standards that they need to meet so any one that is a food born illness violation um is an issue in itself and we go back and reinspect that we do have finds um assigned to each of those violations in town um and we kind of go through through that we're at at the point that we only have three this past year that ended up being high risk going into this coming fiscal year thank you you're welcome um so like I said with that this was the first year we were able to meet the state requirements of two inspection per year three for the high-risk ones that we have determined um that are there so and then as you know the inspectors also do um nuisance complaints housing complaints um complaints across the board the beaches and all that type of thing so with that we were able to accomplish every goal every complaint was um adhered to within 48 Hours based on that so that was under the health inspector so when you look at the Human Services associate social worker we were able to come up with a lot of programs that were around mental health as you know it's a epic epidemic in the country for mental health issues um in your folders that I had given you I also put in there the uh PowerPoint that I had presented at the select board meeting which was the update on all of the arbor funds money that we used and what we did with those so if you take a look as I had mentioned about the inspectional services you'll see that on the first couple of pages on what we were able to kind of overcome and be able to make sure that we don't have anyone getting ill um in our town um there were additional 232 inspections which included animal inspections pool inspections summer camps uh tanning salons U body art this year with there being a um a housing at the Best Western we had to do over 150 inspections there too um 85 complaints which resulted in 106 um inspections we created a um food safety class so that we were able to teach all of these restaurants some of the violations that they were having it was a free class they could come to and have any of their new employees go I won't go in all the detail I know this is kind of the overview of why we're requesting that the health inspector uh continues and becomes part of the staff so that we can continue to meet all those standards and as you kind of go through what we can talk to about what we were able to do with the associate that's under the um Human Services the arba funds for that position will continue through December uh 2024 so for 6 months we still have another Arbor funds for that till December at this point um we're looking for the additional six months for that person to become full part of the staff so that we can continue all these programs so you can peek through that we were able to come up with there's so many more programs that we've been establishing with this Human Services associate that we have she becomes a licensed social worker graduates actually in April and then needs to take her test and then will be a full-blown social worker a lot of these programs that we've had that she is leading and holding and creating for us we've needed to get grant funding to be able to pay for those uh social workers to come and attend with her with being able to keep her on our staff we will not have to continue to go after grant funding and what happens once you get a grant funding you're not going to get another Grant to continue that same program so we have support groups already started for adults under anxiety and depression that's been ongoing great program that's going on we have one starting this month at McCarthy middle school that's going to be an after school program for children we just had our event last Tuesday uh that was teaching tween to cope with worry Stress and Anxiety and we had Parents coming up to us asking could we start that same program that was starting in McCarthy at Parker um so hopefully yes we'll be able to continue doing that um as long as we're able to keep this human servicesocial worker um on our uh employee staff any questions on salaries can I just add absolutely that position is a position that we share with the police department so we Marissa Works in our department she works a couple days a week at the police department and we have a lot of um cases in town that we do share with partnership yeah what that what that's actually been able to help us do is you know we have our inspectional services that we get called from the police department to go do a if it's a hoarding case when they get called on a medical and then we go out we get called and now we have a hoarding case and now it's an inspectional piece of it right and quite frankly right now we had eight that were under an order that couldn't go back to their homes we've been able to get that two uh two have been able to go back home and there's six that still can't and the way we've been able to do that is being able to have the mental health services which is this Human Service associate working with that person getting them all the services that they need through the hoarding um ages span all of those different things because it's a mental health illness when it comes to hoarding so being able to have inspectional services and having that Human Services associate together we're being able to pull that together help the people stay in their homes so there just that's just one example of can I can I ask a quick question about that so they can't stay in the home because it's a danger to themselves or is it affecting their neighbors as well it's a danger to themselves so any of the ones that we've gotten called to um and been able to go and work with the police and the fire department it's the ones we're working with now it's such unsanitary conditions and hoarding conditions that it is not safe for that person to stay in their home and but to the point that it hasn't affected the neighborhood like the it's been internal yeah it's been internal we haven't had any that have um affected the neighborhoods and if someone can't stay in their house where do they go that's what our Human Services Associates helps them with right okay so and we have a program with the Best Western right now that between us and the police department if we have an emergency situation that we need to house somebody we have so many nights that they give us free that we can put them there until we can get them into another program so there was one um one lady that I won't go into too much detail with it but literally the house was in a reverse mortgage situation and she it wasn't under her name we have her in housing at the best Weston and literally with in four weeks we have her in um with the housing department and she's got an Department that she's moving into April 1st oh so we can get things to turn around pretty quickly for some some it takes a little bit longer um if they want to go back into their home it takes a little bit longer because it's got to be a cleanout and all of those if it's others that are looking to sell their property we can get them into housing a little bit faster depends on the situation they're all different yeah well thank you for taking care of people yes any other question we've never had this many in all the years I've worked in churg the last two years we've had more um places that we've had to condemn and it's you know I attribute it to the Fallout of Co the loneliness um the mental health impact um and we also do teach a class it's a 15we class on how to declutter and we've had a good um uptake for that class as well yeah that's in his PowerPoint too if you take a look at it so we try to prevent so we have these things that we find out that we're dealing with and we try to come up with programs that prevent that issue which is what Sue was talking about we've got all these cases how can we help prevent it so that when they get to a point that they need medical services because of and it's mostly elderly get to that point so we can help them anything else on the salary part of it no okay all right so on the expense part um just a little bit of um an increase here for vehicle maintenance we're requesting an increase of just $400 the second um car that we do use was a car pool for the town it's being moved into the health department so we just need a slight increase on that one we're decreasing the gas line by $1,000 because we have electric car um and then in the mosquito we want to increase it $1,000 that's because of the cost of the lava side and all of that and the helicopter to have that sprayed and then uh an increase in mileage of $400 and that's because of the programs that we run we're offsite running those programs so really what you're looking at is in the expense line a total of $800 increase okay any questions you still had a category for newspaper advertisement yeah actually we do that like a viable option anymore I don't well actually it's coming up on us now yes so we were going to decrease that a little bit um but we actually anytime that we have a reg a specific regulations that we need to update we do have to put it into the newspaper um at least twice prior and it's going to be two weeks before that hearing and um we do need to use that it's still a legal requirement and that's why it's there yeah and yes there are less options to do it and unfortunately that means that also it's more expensive to do it because there's less options to do it so right we'll be putting an in within the next we will be putting one in for the okay it's a legal requirement it's a legal requirement it's statutory you have to provide notice that's the notice that the the common wealth requires and it's it's it's it's still yeah legal advertisement is one of the the main I would say advertisement uh money makers for papers at this point probably only keeping them alive yeah I just but that's why yeah great question though right yeah anything else no I think that is all set Donna thank you very much for all your work and Sue it's great to see you back app thank you thank you so much thank you [Music] all right moving along uh next on our agenda we have a review of the fiscal year 25 budget for the fire department with us this evening is uh Chief G Ryan MH on nicely I've got a big tough on I know you are I know you are thank you well I ski my spot so I was told I didn't have to present [Laughter] so thank you thank you so much thank you I see you got my presentation set up good evening everybody Mr chairman and my liaison thank you board members welcome to the new member hope everybody's well next slide please so uh look at our current state uh for fiscal 25 we currently have 60 uniform members I say 60 we had one vacant position due to retirement in December um currently we have two members that are going through through the mass fire academy they are scheduled to graduate in May and in fiscal 25 we will seek to restore all those positions for fisal 25 I'm proposing a budget of 7, 51,9 44 on the Personnel side a budget of 6, 82344 or 8.95% increase that increase reflects the labor agreement that we settled on back in June on the expense side a budget of 678 900 or probably the equivalent of the health department budget in its entirety um that's a 3.85% increase if you remember last year the increase was a little larger but the main drivers remain the same vehicle Maintenance Building Maintenance Fire Equipment repairs those three categories are driving that expense line item so an overall budget increase of 8. 47% that maintains our existing Staffing levels at 63.5 61 uniform members and two and a half staff and if you have any questions please ask next slide is our organizational chart uh we have four groups or units as we call them each managed by a company officer with 13 firefighters assigned to each unit we have two officers in the fire prevention office one in training and of course the important administrative support staff that keeps the department running and one mechanic that Main maintains our Fleet so my thanks to all the hard work that they do to keep this department running uh next slide please can I just ask a quick question about Staffing um just the the given the size of our community and you know is this the is the Staffing you know comparative to other communities or like it adequate Staffing for the size of our community I guess so we are serving on a committee and we'll have a update to the U Town Meeting in April but we are looking at that so we're looking at comparable communities that's been brought in how Chum Compares so that all that's been looking at so I don't want to take away from that okay but that is but is but it is a component of that so I'm not trying to avoid your question okay no that's that's great I'll pay attention then okay so before leave a little bit of a surprise but the committee's been meeting for over two years and so um so this is a look at we have five stations that are strategically positioned for optimal response times this is a look at a typical Staffing configuration so on the fire headquarters we typically will have one C with two firefighters up north at engine two we would have three assigned engine three is the West station with two over an engine four to East we would have two firefighters and engine five down South we will have two that leaves a typical Staffing configuration of a captain and 11 firefighters next slide please taking a look at our St um station locations this past December we celebrated the 9th anniversary of our fire headquarters next door also in the same month of December same day by the way we celebrated the two-year Mark of our new building at Engine 2 so very happy with that engine three over at Old Westford Road was built in 1970 Engine 4 is 47 years old and engine 5 is our now our oldest Station built in 1966 and again that's something that that fire station study committee is also looking at it's not just Staffing but it's also stations what's going on with engine uh the one on uh Princeton Street it looked like there was scaffolding or there was some sort of construction going on yeah we were adding on to the building we're going to increase the height of the building oh no only k no we have a u so it's a no it's well known we have a uh a vire issue with the building we actually met the manager was there today so um that sighting on that building because of the issue we have with that will actually be coming down we were actually looking at options to replace it it was just a defect in the brick veneer building for some reason it didn't work if you remember back in 2017 when we did the schools they had brick vire no problem with that kids are throwing balls against it the bricks have hold up fine for this whatever the product the product that we used here just did not work so we are working with the vendor to address this issue is that under warranty it's under it's being addressed yet under warranty yes thank you that's all he's really caring about yes we go cut through the chase I guess there we go I should have known that's yes okay thank you Mr manager so um next slide please so for 202 2023 saw an overall increase in our responses we average 530 calls a month this is a breakdown for each month as you can see no November was our busiest month with 588 calls however the busiest single day was that storm that rolled through back in September September 8th SW through the state we had 53 calls in that day that's everything from trees down wires down um alarm activations very busy day so we do have spikes like that next slide please this chart shows five years of data however 2023 again we had an increase in calls we responded to 6,364 responses represents a 5.3% increase since last year of that we had a 7.5% increase in our medical responses notable increases in motor vehicle accidents and public assistance calls if you go down on the bottom of the chart Mutual Aid calls we actually settle back to the norm last year we saw a spike in our mutual Aid responses at 44 we last year we had 21 can I ask about the accidents I mean that seems to be a huge Spike it's a big spike it's a jump we're and and I think it's it's Chums fored but we reflect the state they just had a report on it Statewide you seeing more uh accidents out on the roads I think as people start the the communities businesses are opening up um I know some people still working hybrid but we're seeing more vehicle traffic out on the roads is it 495 that's it's 495 North it's it's route three but most of our volume is actually Ruth three North for yes I did see something on the news about being accidents happening in the state across the board it just seems like people forgot to how to drive and they all come back or something or never knew how to yes so back in Co we had fewer vehicles on the road but we had more serious accidents MH now we got more volume out there but we're seeing the accents go up so okay next slide please so this is a breakout of individual engine companies so it's been pretty consistent over the years coming out of the fire headquarters uh that's engine one that's the latter the rescue they responded to over 2500 calls last year engine two had over 1,600 calls engine three had 1,362 Fall by engine four with just over th000 responses and then engine five at 937 this is a lot of data right understand but it represents over 20 years of fire data this is stuff that we sent to the state it looks at different categories of fire whether it's a structure fire equipment stove fire uh motor vehicle fire 20 years of data if you look at the past 10 years we averaged about 27 incidents if you look over the past five we averaged about 12 structure fires um per year you that the fire right total is the dollar loss so that totals all the fires whether it's a vehicle equipment or structure fire next slide please as noted um we saw an increase in Medicals we had 7.5% increase in Medicals we responded uh an average of 347 per month and you can see the November December we saw a spike in medical responses next slide please typical headline that some of us may have seen back in November decm into January emergency rooms were getting crushed this is something that the medical medical director in Ms Fields are looking at um but one thing that they're focusing is we talked about mental illness we're looking at the age as well according to new Mass Don hu Institute Massachusetts has shifted towards an older population we're currently the 17th oldest population in the country in 2020 14% of our Mass residents were 65 and older our most common patient is female age 65 that is the average age for 2050 it's expected to spike to 27% of our residents will be 65 and older next slide please this is a look at data reflecting the Aging issue in the town of chord as we compare to our neighbors in dra in tburg in tsoro in Bara so my thanks to Dr Caitlyn Coyle from UMass Boston we work with her she compiled this data her and her team so they do a good job we go to the next slide Dr Cole and her team broke it down to 2010 2020 in a projection to 2030 as you can see consistently shalford has been older not only than middle sex County but also older than the state aging has led to a notable increase in our Rems responses we take a look back 10 years from 2012 to 2022 we had a 3% overall increase in our calls but we had a 30% increase in Medicals going back 20 years going back to 2002 we had a 31% 31% increase in our overall responses a 96% increase in Medicals this is something that the EMS industry is looking at and also our like our medical director at L General and its impact on Services next please um taking a look at our permanent activity uh last year we issued over 1,700 permits brought in about 40 over $45,000 in fees we offer permits over 25 different categories from fire protection systems tank installation tank removals open burning um flammable combustible storage um if you see on that chart in red of note the smoke carbon monoxide Home Inspections when you sell your home the fire department is required by state law to go in and make sure that you have compliant smoke carbon monoxide detectors with a 25% decrease last year Statewide there was over a 22% 22% decrease in home sales that's reflective of the whether it's inflation high prices low inventory um place would you repeat that number for Chum again it went what was the percentage what happened to so for us yeah for the inspections we had a 25% decrease in our inspections Statewide according to the warrant group there was over a 22% decrease in home sales drops it's the lowest since 2011 but so it's relatively close to the state average then exactly it reflects the state average so slightly slightly larger but not much yeah right so we're being told or industrywide the information that we received if if the inflation rates do kind of recede a little bit and also there's the recent Real Estate Commission settlement that's out there the thought that's being put out there that it may lower home prices so that may reflect in additional but time will tell time will tell correct so you know what is interesting if the school enrollment is going to go up by 800 then you'd think that the population of the town is the age of the population is going to go down because you know you're not having kids at 55 and 57 who knows at a certain point Kathy there will be have there'll have to be a shift yeah uh when that happens how it happens I'm it's anybody's guess yeah we have housing going over you Mass we have other housing going other places a lot of that's Apartments if it comes in the form of Apartments it's as as people come into the town that way and then move into it's it's a big question because there's a lot of factors that play into it um but eventually you will see that tip it's just a matter of when yeah I just yeah I yeah I agree I just think it's kind of interesting uh okay next slide please this is a look at our uh staff uh vehicle staff inventory um a few notable additions we had a new mechanics vehicle that arrived in December that is the GMC 2500 um for the mechanic uh most notably and you can see in the picture is the our first all electric Ford F-150 Lightning truck that is actually at the Forum being charged um but my thanks to the manager for his flexibility we actually had a contract signed um for a hybrid version and just would not materialize over a year just could not get that vehicle so my thanks to the manager for his flexibility and allowing us to Pivot to get this vehicle it's been very good so far and last slide please look at that our apparatus inventory um this chart reflects the rescue that we received last year thanks to Opera funds thanks to the town of chumford um this also shows in red the new engine that we just received in January equipment is being mounted on it training is taking place and then next month for before town meeting we have another Capital item for another engine that we will be going before the voter ISS for before town meeting um but I caution you we've been told by the vendors that it is 36 to over 42 months before we will see delivery of that vehicle and that is driven by the emission standards they have you know they're trying to come up with the new um diesel engine and that doesn't just impact as it impacts DPW anybody that has U Trucking large diesel engines that is the challenge that we all face and chief so with that you are you seeing uh increases in the the need to keep maintenance on vehicles that would normally be retired sooner or put into Reserve sooner I think that's that correlation is correct I think you'll see a spike because we have to keep those Vehicles typically we would get a vehicle within a year um if we got approval um get the contract typically within the a we would see that engine now we have to keep that existing engine in place longer so yes any questions good review thank youc actually I'm sorry I do have one um with the Aging in the earlier presentation about the hoarding since that is starting to dub tail y um are you sometimes the is the fire department sometimes the place that goes uh P of Health ERS help we work with them we actually sit with them on the hoarding committee we have a member one of our captains is assigned to that hoarding committee so it is really a collaborative effort so at a typical hoarding event it's police it's fire it's EMS it's the Board of Health it's the building inspector there's a lot of town resources that are committed to that type of incident and it's and I don't to touch on it's very timec consuming too very timec consuming for placing a person into um housing even temporarily in addressing the issue on our end so that is what I think we all face Public Safety health building do you have any plans to have anything to explain um I've had Hoarders in my family so I know intimately they're thinking and they always always think that it's fine what's your problem and I'm like it's not fine and if you're found this way they're going to make you leave the house right and it's trying to get that out there that you guys if there's only a little tiny path you guys can't do your job it is very difficult because and for the health department and particularly if it's a life safety issue we typically get in the house it's a little different from the health department because they usually have to get permission from the homeowner right we've kind of been able to navigate with that because of people that are on that Coalition um they're PA counsels they're very good at what they do they're very effective and they communicate their concerns very well and typically that gets byy in that gets them in the house so uh we've had luck with that Coalition so so but we you given the age in Coalition with was mentioned earlier by the Board of Health this is this hoarding problem they said it's going up and po population is going up up so this is the whole thing is going going to go up it is I mean it's it's the age where I mean people love this community yeah and you know and unfortunately some you know people they some people even though we get the message out there they just don't ask for the help that's available to them sometimes until it's too late um so the Health Department's done a great job Public Safety the building department the town it's really this Coalition has really done a very good job trying trying to really get the message out that there's help available out there to connect with these people and I've seen I've been in the houses and and it's uh you you've experienced it it's very difficult so you have to have the right touch to you know persuade these people to you know seek temporary accommodations while we get the help that they need but the help is there and you've you've you've had the homepage notifications gone out for those type of meetings you've had the public the on the CH toown website seen those I would recommend that anyone wants to keep a breast of information from the town sign up for the notifications get those push notifications on your phone so you know about these events that are happening not just for this but for other things that are happening throughout the town absolutely a lot of help all there thank you thank you thank you Chief thank you everybody thank you thank you very much I tell you does does a great job next turn our agenda this evening we have review of the fiscal year 25 budget for the N zoba Valley Technical School District and with us this evening we have the super superintendent uh Denise pigeon with her is a business manager Michelle Shepard and they're also members of from our town of the uh Thea Valley Technical School District uh school committee thank you thanks for the invitation to be here tonight thank you um Michelle is passing out two handouts it's a copy of the PowerPoint presentation um and also a copy of our full budget book that's also on our website okay um and in addition there are numerous other financial documents um related to the school district that you can find on our website under documents um I I know some of this presentation will be a repeat of what you heard um at the tri board meeting but again I just want to say um that it's a real pleasure to have the opportunity to participate in that tri board meeting so that we can all be working together um as we plan each budget cycle um you can you can advance to the next slide um again as you know nishek is a Regional Vocational Technical School District and we have eight um member towns and chelsford has been with us since the beginning and we thank you for that um it is continues to be our largest sending Town um we have uh three representatives to the school committee as you know and in alternate i' just like to um point out um that recently Lawrence McDonald has has stepped up and is a member of our budget and finance subcommittee um which is a subcommittee of our school committee next slide um before we talk about the I'd like to just share um a little bit about what we do and our purpose so again as you know we provide um high quality chapter 74 Vocational Technical education um and the students participate in um one of 18 different technical programs which we cluster into career clusters and to just let you know um where the students of chelsford are participating at NCH um 40% of your students um or our students from chelsford are enrolled in construction and transportation programs 33% in programs related to health and services and 27% in Arts and Technology programs um I always like to share post high school placement for us this is one of the most important accountability factors that we look at um in whether or not students are successful postgraduation um we've always had traditionally High positive placement rates it's important to note um that they did change um the the way in which the follow-up study is collected in 2021 which we actually um believe is why you see a slight shift in the way the numbers are are um coming out um that was the first time we collected it six months and it was also you know as we were heading out of the pandemic but the numbers are Are Climbing back up um enrollment enrollment is one of the biggest factors that there is in the change in assessment um and uh the trends has has been continuing for a couple of years so our total enrollment has been increasing um but the interesting fact here is that the district enrollment has been um increasing at at a very fast pace so we have um much greater interest from our member district towns um than ever before so we're receiving U many applications and this will be the third year in a row that our freshman class will be made up of completely District students and there is no room for school choice um it's my U belief that this will be basically the last year um next year we'll probably have two about two school choice students in the building and when they graduate we we will be fully um District district students um we also think we might hit 800 next year which would be the highest since the 1980s that's also Your Capacity isn't it um we've had back in the 80s the highest enrollment that I was able to find was actually in the 850s um yeah much higher than that is is not really going to fit um in our current um in our current capacity we can talk about that too um just a fact I always like to share look back at the 10year history so um chelsford enrollment has been climbing um you you did climb again this past year with 218 students um but your highest enrollment was in 1976 with 3113 students yes Kath can I ask a question sure so um you have only so many spots uh students Supply yes uh and then they're chosen mhm uh so this is going to be kind of a weird question but okay so there's 750 spots and when people apply is there any consideration given into what percentag is from each town or like these 700 students are evaluated individually regardless of where they live yes that's a that's a really good question um we do not have quotas in our regional agreement um so the the application process each student is is um is is ranked based on the selective criteria in town is not a consideration in our regional agreement that's a good question it has never it has never been okay because I'm thinking if if there's limited spots in the future yes um yes and it's a and it is a new it is honestly it is a new challenge for nishoba Tech we have not um traditionally had long waight lists that's not been um something that we've experienced we have seen an uptick um and and in this year we have more applications than we have seats available um we did go out with admissions um offers the last couple of weeks and and students were notified of first round um and now we're waiting there's a there's a time period where students need to let us know whether or not they plan to attend if they do not plan to attend then that seat is offered to the next person on the list um in a couple of weeks there'll be the second round that will go out and we'll continue with that process so um it that will be a continuation between now and when we walk through the door in September okay so to tag on that question say I'm interested in a particular program that program only has 20 spots as a freshman or whatever the number is um could I then but my academics or whatever I fit the profile I'm a good cand do I get offered a different program or do I just say no you don't we don't have a spot in that another great question so when you apply as a freshman um you are not allowed to apply into a particular program you must explore all 18 programs okay so you're not you're not applying into a particular program once you have entered the school um then you do you do um rank your options to get into your technical program and there's a placement process for that as well um if you're applying as a sophomore um you would still come in and do an explore but you don't explore all 16 you might explore three or four programs and we have had cases where there are certain programs that are full so a student that comes in as a sophomore would not necessarily be able to explore a full program but we don't have that many that are full and later in the presentation I'll talk about some things that we're doing to expand space in those very popular programs so it truly is a Level Playing Field as far as applications are concerned yes okay yes um next slide um again I I know that I always make a big deal about enrollment but it is what drives the assessment so we are up 42 District students overall um town in this year was the town that had the largest increase in enrollment um and chelsford did have an increase of six students chelsford does still continue to be the largest sending Town um this slide is just a comparison slide just to give you an idea this is comparing nishoba Tech to our um um area sending high schools so this is not a district-wide number this is comparing High School to high school um and again there's a lot of information out on the news right now and I always um think it's important to to show the numbers and where they are um nishoba Tech continues to serve um a population that is more than half um considered students with high needs um we've always been um much higher than the state average and our area high school average in in serving students with disabilities um and students low-income students as well um we are starting to see an increase in in um students whose first language is not English and we actually continue to work on recruitment efforts to make sure that all families have access to the information to be able to apply um and to be able to apply and um speak with with those um that speak their native language so that we can make sure that they are accessing all of the information um the next slide again just thinking futuristically when I'm standing here next year in FY 26 um I do anticipate again that I'll be telling you that we have no school choice students in the building um we we know I'm I'm thinking we're probably going to be at 800 students um and again that there could likely be an increase in enrollment of students from chelsford um the information that I shared with you as we were building the budget um at the tri board meeting um continued to be true um in fact at tri board we were well in into our our creation of the budget at that point um our biggest drivers were needs in the special education area um the addition of some additional case managers and moderate disabilities instructors to support our students increasing the support of a board certified behavior analyst and um par Prof professionals that were train that are trained as registered Behavior technicians to support um students on the Spectrum and um other um other special education costs um notably we've had to increase our special Transportation costs um for students that might require specialized transportation to and from school and the rest of our drivers are the things that um all of the all school districts are dealing with um contractual increases increas increases in the cost of taking care of our um aging building um all of our capital projects are coming in higher than we would like um that is hopefully starting to get a bit better but but still not um where we would like it to be next slide um we also take other things into consideration when we build our budget every year um again our building is old it's over 50 years old um we do keep our building in great shape but we do have some work to do as we move into the coming years years we also know that the the formula for the required minimum contribution has been shifting with the student Opportunity Act and you'll see um clearly how that's affecting um the assessment when we get to the last couple of slides we know annually there's a bit of uncertainty with how much um reimbursement we may get for transportation we've been fortunate the past few years but again um when when State revenues when there's issues with State revenues that's an area that we watch carefully um and we want to be really cognizant that we're not too relyant on onetime funds so that from one year to the next we don't cause a major funding issue um with onetime funds or loss of onetime funds we also have been committed for many years to trying to um have some sort of a um a payment to OPB and I know I say this every year but thank you to Paul for serving on our OPB trust um he's been a huge help and huge support um capital projects we have been really busy um we did complete this summer the first phase of our fire suppression system upgrade um it went really well we're um gearing up for phase two the capital expense that you see in the fy2 budget is to do phase two of the fire suppression system which would be the whole um first floor in the front Wing we did replace the elevator which was fantastic um that was about a six to8 week project that we um completed and all went well cosmetology has been a bit on the slow side but it's getting there um we are working on a complete renovation and then um with one of the the large work force skills Capital grants that we received uh last year we're in the second year of implementing that Grant um it was a $2.5 million State Grant to expand our two fastest growing technical program so programs electrical again is one where we were starting to see a weight list and we have a small weight list for electrical right now we're actually working on moving programs over so that we can expand the space and electrical so we can accommodate more students so they can get what they um what they want and what they need need to learn and the next um slide we do see some pretty significant Capital needs in the next 10 years um we have to keep going with that fire suppression project across the building um the good news is every time we've had one of these Workforce skills Capital grants we've also managed to work in upgrading the fire suppression as part of it so Cosmo vet electrical all being taken care of as part of this project um futuristically we're also going to have to have some um turnover with with our van Fleet um doors are an issue all of our exterior doors will need to be replaced at some point and our big ticket um concern right now is is HVAC so all of our HVAC is aging all of it will need to be replaced so we're researching different options whether it would be performance Contracting a potential accelerated roof repair project through msba um or going out for some sort of a bond so we'll be um working towards that plan in the next couple of of years um next slide um I know last year when I was here I I was able to share the exciting news we had just found out that we were the recipients of a $3.75 million Workforce skills Capital Grant um and this grant is allowing us to add 7,000 square ft of educational space we actually break ground in about two weeks um and the foundation will be going in um hoping to be reaching out soon with some information on a groundbreaking ceremony um this will house engineering programming and Robotics and again allow us to do some shifts in the building to be able to make space um when we build the budget we always take a look at Capital stabilization this um budget request does not add to Capital stabilization um we may have to have some expenses out of it for um for the the final touches on this this grant project that's underway um OPB we actually reduced our OPB contribution to 100,000 this year instead of 200,000 in recognition that some of our towns are really um having a difficult time this year um I always like to share per pupil expenditure comparisons these are um area vocational technical schools our cost per pupil continues to be on the low end um and then the next couple of slides are your are your bird's eye view of the budget um the the largest increases again in instruction 2000 in instruction um those are the special education positions um pupil services our transportation contract has been a significant increase along with the special Transportation there's an increase of 25,000 in the capital line that's basic to fund the fire suppression project um phase two and then there's a slight decrease in debt which again we have increased in the capital as an offset there um next slide from a from a visual perspective if you add up instruction and people services and the benefits that are related to those positions again we continue to be um spending you know more than 75% of our budget on Direct supports for students um the revenue for an aobc it comes from two general places non-revenue assessment or funding that comes not direct from the town um we're expecting a slight increase in chapter 78 um a slight increase in transportation reimbursement we're using a little bit less of excess in deficiency this year um I'm sorry a little bit more in excess and deficiency this year um I want to ask a question about that when you had sure so is that the entirety of your not it is not what what is your and and D yeah what was it last year um it is under the 5% and I don't have the exact number in front of me but it's somewhere in the 600 range I'm going to lean over to my business manager who's going to look it up we have about 200,000 that we are not spending from E and and what are you doing with it we we will do nothing with it and it will be the base for e in the following year in FY 27 we would not be able to use that money unless we revoted the budget okay and and I and I want to applaud these documents they're lovely but I want to bring up a point it's very great that we have the annual budgets budgets voted but there is no actual so I can give that to you I brought it this evening I do have it okay great and it's also posted on our web okay well I'm sorry I wasn't looking on your web but I think that that's an important thing for people to actually see that this is what you budgeted and this is what you actually spent because so I can just share that since I've been superintendent we have always been under 5% on our end I know yeah and we have almost always put 100% of our end back into our budget the last two years we have not um we've been about 200,000 that we are not putting in end um and again concerned with all these capital projects that are going on and if we run into any issues with these capital projects I cannot applaud you enough for your um transparency and willing to Pro provide information it's been very refreshing and wonderful so I don't need to know what those numbers are but if you just give me the document way out we give it to now because I think that's interesting to look at appropriate oh 673 was our total end okay thankk you um next slide so um when when we're talking about Revenue again um 66% of our total assessment is funded Direct by the town assessments um 26% of funding comes direct from the state 4% from Transportation reimbursement and right now it's about 4% between e and d and school choice um that is funded through onetime funds next slide um again the reason why the enrollment is so important is because the enrollment is the first place we begin with with the assessment um and then the percentage of the town in terms of student population the third column that you see up on the screen Town's minimum contribution I know this finance committee you you know this um very well this is not a number that nishoba calculates this is a number that is given to us Direct by the state um the next column is our transportation and capital costs our additional assessment is at 300,000 and then Debt Service um the next slide will show you the year-over-year so this is total all towns you can see we had an increase of 42 District students which led to an increase of 87144 and and our required minimum contribution um again that's driven by the state funding formula you see the increase of transportation and capital again an increase of 25,000 is the capital project the remainder is transportation increases um and then Debt Service is slightly down we have two projects that are on the books that's the major building project between 2003 and 2005 it has a few more years and then it will be complete um we're trying to time that with the HVAC project so that again when we're thinking in terms of debt we'll have debt coming off and potentially debt going on at the same time um in the next slide we'll show you chelsford specific I'm sorry you already moved it that was good thank you um so up six students your um overall student percentage is actually slightly decreased the town's minimum contribution has gone up by $166,900 transportation is slightly up just under 30,000 the additional assessment has actually gone down um and debt has gone down so for a total assessment increase of [Music] $177,300 state funded evening program we're running um 300H hour training programs in partnership with math hire um students adult adult students can take these programs um if they are unemployed or underemployed and they're looking to career change and it is at no cost to the participant and it's fully funded by the state and lastly we do have our public services are open even though cosmetology is under construction they're still in their current space so they are still open we hope that you come and visit okay I'm glad to answer any questions that you have sorry um I wanted to ask about your postgraduate program have you ceased to do that we don't have any space and that's okay well so the program still exist there is just no space okay so probably that's not going to exist in the I see that happening in the current climate Okay thank you why again that's why I think it's really important to share about our CTI programs because although we're not able to service postgraduate students at the current time during the day we are serving adults or or high school graduates at night with these CTI program so it's a nice alternative um can you explain what that is because the reason I ask is um I actually shockingly recommended your graduate program um to somebody and uh then they said oh they not taking students so um that's why the postgraduate program is a program where when there are available seats in a technical program a recent high school graduate from one of our district towns can apply um it's the same application process for the most part um and they would be accepted into the postgrad program so they would integrate in with the high school students so typically it's somebody who's one or two years out of high school um and and you know I think in the time I've been at NCH I mean maybe 20 postgrads it was the highest I had seen it might have even been less I'd have to go back and look um we haven't had postgrads in a couple of years again because we have a wait list for incoming students um so that's how the postgrad program works the the CTI program or the Career and Technical initiative is not a full chapter 74 program so they're not getting you know 900 or 1,000 plus um hours in a technical program they're getting about 300 hours so it's not a full chapter 74 program it's really basic training in a particular industry um and then partnership and support and finding a job placement and we don't have it in all 18 of our programs we only have it in a handful of programs right now that are listed up on the screen and do the students have to pay for that no it is free it is the adults the CTI participants CTI program is funded by the state Direct by the state it's a grant you go through Unemployment oh well I was just asking like no no no so we do write grants for the C CTI and we have to be accepted into the CTI program it fully funds the staff member it fully funds all of the equipment all of the curriculum the textbooks um it funds everything in fact it even helps fund um you know facil facility costs that's great do you have to be unemployed to do that you it's unemployed or underemployed so if it's somebody looking to switch you know switch careers or or um upscale training to a new career they would be qualified as well they would work direct with mass hire if they contact us we can help put them into touch with the folks that would would vet them into the program that sounds great yeah I believe it's because our employment level is so low in Massachusetts that they have to get people who are maybe employed say in retail to up their game because they don't have u i I know from my husband disclosure disclosure my husband is on the school committee um Lawrence said Lawrence McDonald on the finance Nest so I've seen all this um because he's practiced the budget saying for to meeting to me um is that you don't have any juniors in the building in certain Fields because they are uncoop as soon as they can get there true because the employers are like knocking on the door like got a machinist got a machinist got a machinist so that's one one of the reasons why CNC machine operator is part of that because there is such a demand High need so that the state is is very in very and wants to have these places there are specific programs there are only specific programs that they are allowing applications for CTI so not every one of our technical programs is eligible to have an evening CTI program the reason I bring it up is because I um like I said I I suggested the graduate program to somebody have them Reach Out have them email me yeah and um but that's also good to know that there is this other thing that exists for people it's a great sounds like a great I can put them in touch with Miss O Sullivan who runs the program and um they can help this person um get the information they need to to join okay Dr pigeon uh your ability to get grants is impressive I'd like to know who does your grant writing it's a great question so Gabriel and white are curriculum director is the primary grants writer in our school um but she works in collaboration with um anyone that's involved in the particular Grant application so um she's she's an amazing grant writer but she leans on the instructors in the programs because they give her all the background on the on the equipment needs and uh the industry needs and the labor needs um our vocational coordinator also participates um you know truly a team collaborative effort and my favorite part is when possible we invite the students to participate in terms of that very large grant that we received the $3.75 million Grant um the students actually supported us in engineering with doing renderings of a potential building to attach to the um to the application thank you any further questions thank you very much thank you once again for a fantastic presentation [Music] thanks moving right along our agenda we have a review of the fiscal year 25 budget for the veterans agent with us this evening is Vina Jackson our veterans agent good evening and thank you um for having me for our our fiscal year 25 budget um i' just like to to kind of recap what the Veterans office does in um the mission of our office is to provide financial and medical assistance to needy veterans in accordance with um Mass General Law chapter 115 so chapter 115 was actually established after after the Civil War to assist uh veterans in in each Community um uh so they wouldn't it's basically a public assistance program so it would be a little separate from public welfare so every city and town in Massachusetts has a veteran service officer so um in our office we administer the chapter 115 program which again is a short-term temporary public assistance program and the criteria for it the rules for it everything um is established by the state state executive office of veteran services which as of uh a year ago is a cabinet level position so a lot has changed at the state level with with the program but more so with veterans benefits State veterans benefits so the goal of the um of our office has been pretty consistent uh we provide veterans in chelsford uh with assistance not just with um chapter 115 but basically with any uh veterans questions or uh benefits that um they may be eligible for and part of the eligibility criteria for to receive chapter 115 assistance is to apply for any and all federal benefits that you may be eligible for and that's everything so you have to you know we have to make sure that the the veteran is um if they're eligible for VA comp VA Pension uh s Social Security SSI SS di unemployment um employment um whatever they're eligible for so chapter 115 is really just a it's a safety net um so it's some of the other goals uh of the office of course is to um maintain the maximum reimbursement so whatever we pay out for the chapter 115 program and and if we follow all the rules which we do and everything is approved which it it is um we will get 75% back yeah so in the budget where it says uh for the line item for veterans benefits um it it'll say one 150,000 but actually we kind of changed it for upcoming fiscal year we went down um to 140,000 because I think that's going to be more reasonable and after talking with the town manager and the finance director that's that to me that is a very reasonable um uh request or very reasonable number and the reason I think that is because the actual numbers of recipients for the 115 program has declined but that's Statewide so the number of veterans and our family members because sometimes we I can help a um a spouse with um an elderly elderly surviving spouse with some medical um payments we can we can pay some uh co-pays Etc um but the actual numbers of eligible veterans have declined and I think it's probably because and it's Statewide it's not just us it's not just us um it's probably because they haven't changed the criteria as far as the dollar amount I mean you have to be very needy to be eligible and to actually get a monetary benefit every month from from us from the town is that a federal um law or is that a state law the Financial requirements no all the chap anything to do with chapter 15 is strictly State it's a it's an agreement between the state and the city and town so the state makes the rules the state sets the um the eligibility everything is the state but the whole idea is in order to get this you have to apply for any federal benefits so it's it's temporary in the sense that if somebody comes on so if I have an unemployed veteran that comes on they have to we have to you know work with mass higher it's required have to do job searches etc etc because the whole idea is this is temporary this is you know unemployment's going to come through or employment's going to come through or your VA comp claim is going to come through so it's strictly state so the state and and and I think since the state has changed to an executive office and things are really changing as far as the administration of it and the way it's going um they just they just haven't yet changed the the actual um eligibility be dollar amount yeah so I mean and they may not I don't know I mean I don't know so um but the important Point through all that was we get 75% back MH so it's it's it's kind of a win-win it is a win-win because you know the uh the veteran or the Community member who really really needs it is going to get it but it's not all um financed by the town MH and that tracks typically a year a year behind so it's it's submitted a year behind correct so for as far as um reimbursement so the way it works is um um okay so currently when I wrote this we currently you know I said we have 15 to 18 active one 15 cases it's it that's about right it's really 15 right now um because I had one come on in January but got them off in February and then one again came on in March so it's but that's like running so the amount um and then it's it is it is adjusted by the cola every year so so for instance the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 which was July August and September 2023 so we paid out an average of 8,500 a month to about 15 a little 15 or so recipients so um so what happens is 75% of that will be reimbursed to the town so the reimbursement runs a year 12 to 14 months behind so um and is paid back on a quarterly basis so our last reimbursement was in October of 2023 for $ 27,0 u58 and that was 75% of the benefits we paid out for July August September 2022 okay so we'll get we'll get something probably this month um for uh the reimbursement for January February March 2023 so it's pretty consistent one year behind and in 75% of what is excuse me what is are you guaranteed 100% reimbursement never the loss is 75% you I understand but of of what you expect to get back so if you're getting back 75% 100% of that 75% 100% of the no you you no no every month we have to submit um uh the uh requests and authorizations in the state um we deal with authorizers and if if they don't if they think that maybe we shouldn't have paid it out or what not they'll deny it but um um I we have a really good relationship with our authorizers and we really they change the rules but we change with them so it we've been really consistent the whole time I've been here we've gotten 75% back good good so it's it's it's unusual they do there there are some cities and towns that um um they don't administer the 115 program the way that the state says to and they don't get it back and they take it off the cherry sheet that that's what they say they take well anyways that's not our problem so we will get it back thank you do a very good job of tracking that you do a great job helping people and and doing well for the town as well yeah thank you so along with so that's the money part of it so that's the so when you look at the budget it's the 150,000 but now we'll go 140 for next fiscal year cuz that but along with the 115 the monthly benefit for those you know 15 or so veterans um we also uh pay for the you know the the flags the Memorial Day flags for our six public cemeteries etc etc we can get 75% back of that too if we pay through here so we do so Dave from the cemetery he autism I pay for them and then also um a funeral uh we have to pay Indigent veterans in the community that that end up being eligible um that's all we don't usually have too many but that's $4,000 so we need we always need a little wig of room in the budget just in case cuz you don't know obviously you don't just don't know we Haven we didn't have one this last year but we had won the prior year so so that's the that's the money part that's the state part but then I just have to tell you that um the office also I do a lot of federal claims which that's where you want that's where the money is that's where the benefits are so um each claim is unique to the veteran or the surviving family member and the updated VA impact snapshot which was actually it's from 2022 because it's Federal you know VA they're a little behind but it shows that it shows how significant the VA Federal benefits are so in 2022 um the amount paid out to 497 veterans and our surviving family members was 8,282 18824 so that's Federal money VA Federal money from claims coming into the community so that's the big part that's where you really want to concentrate M that's the money I mean that's the best benefit and then um uh I don't know how much you want me to um there's a I mean with the 75% I mean in addition okay so in addition to the 115 program and the VA benefits which is kind of key um we work a lot with the um with the state executive office veteran services and they're they're actually kind of going well they're going through like a rebirth or a birth and they have if I think um the last month or so you might have read that there's this whole new initiative with the governor and with the John Santiago who is the new commissioner or the secretary of the eovs about um putting more resources into veterans housing homeless veterans housing so that's kind of a state new Statewide initiative but then also um we work a lot with regional veteran support agencies and organizations um the marac valley we have a marac valley veterans class ative and that's uh we um we work with a lot of different agencies that that will touch into veterans lives um the Northeast um Mass veteran service organizations mvs SOA um age spin um the Bedford VA and the low Vet Center which are two totally separate entities and then of course with the marac valley Vietnam veterans American Legion Post 13 313 um and all the town departments like when Donna was up here um we work with the um Housing Authority police department Board of Health assessors any in the town is extremely supportive extremely supportive of our veteran population and we do thank Town manager for that and all the other department heads I mean they are we we work well together the assessors because another component is um the veterans tax exemption correct so if you have a a veteran with a a service gu disability of10 % to 90% they can get all things if they own an occupy Etc they can get $400 off their real estate tax for the fiscal year and then if you have if you have a veteran in the community with 100% service connected disability you can get a tax exemption but there's several other benefits you can get through the state through the through the Veterans office you just have to kind of let people know about them so and and then of course we work with the senior center and then uh our community Services uh Jen I work with her quite a bit too different um situations so but um the for the money part though that's that's pretty much it's it's it's um it's it's not a lot but it is a lot it is a lot and the the important thing to always remember is we do get 75% back any questions just yay yay thank you for all you do really well well I I appreciate that but I do have to tell you it the town is very supportive and it makes it so much easier for everybody thank you very much thank you all right that is the end of our presentations for this evening uh let's discuss briefly the hearing and Springtime meeting warant article schedule pull that up all right so we've had this presentation this evening next week uh we have the community preservation fund Linda is coming in or are you presenting I've been in email communication with her and I told her we're she was on so okay fair enough um Chief Spence will be here next week to give the police department budget uh overview then we have uh the planning board I know Evan bansi will be here with the MBTA zoning article and uh just finalizing uh if uh m m d will be in for her uh article regarding that same uh issue so with that uh and given the fact that although they are important budgets and important things to talk about I don't imagine them being that long of a period of time to review I think next week we'll be able to vote does anyone disagree I think that's reason a plan for that start at 6:30 yeah start at 6:30 just like we have been I know in the past in and prior to co we used to start at 7:30 so that with the 6:30 start time we've got a little bit more leeway to not go to you know midnight voting um so we'll plan on next week voting and that will give us a little breathing room to get the book together to get the the letter together and to get everything published and ready for the pre-own meeting that's at the senior center uh the week prior to the Wednesday prior to uh town meeting which starts April 30th all right any public comment seeing none from the audience and I'm not seeing anything in the zoom room and there's no press and eventually I might even take that off the agenda it's been a long time since we've had press here long time since anybody's at any press anywhere that's true this press I will make a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn yes I I would like to uh entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor I see you next week thank you Jim thank you