order please like to bring the meeting to order so uh the uh boorder of selectman is uh we have a quarum so uh we will uh open our meeting um this is a uh a joint it's a a meeting of the board of Selectmen which is why I'm doing the talking uh but it's a joint meeting with the finance committee for the purposes of um uh I guess final preparation for the budget which will really be debated at to meeting um uh uh in the in the end so um what the agenda tonight will be um we're going to have our Town Administrator just go through the town budget first uh and including the uh capital capital issues and and all of those uh questions from the finance committee obviously or whatever U they think is important to it um after that uh we will go to the school board budget um the school administration is here uh and we'll have a discussion about that uh we will take I will take questions from the audience or statements from the audience and just ask you to um keep it um informational or if there are questions that need to be addressed that you think we haven't addressed uh because the real purpose of this is so that the particularly the finance committee can have as much information as possible before they make their final decisions which would be probably Monday okay uh I guess we've opened this meeting we need to open their meeting yeah I moov to open the uh Halifax finance committee meeting um at 6:32 p.m. all right so I'll turn it over to the Town Administrator for a budget overview oh right we're being recorded someon I keep forgetting that uh thank you Mr Bruno Bruno so I want to go through and provide a brief presentation on just the budget process this year for the town of Halifax um the timeline and how we've gotten here today for the board and also for the public so they know where we are so we started our budget process a little bit earlier this year one of the uh some of the feedback that I heard from the finance committee and the community as a whole was it felt like we were rushed as we got through the budget process that we would get to you know March April and it was just rushing so we started uh we issued our budget memo to departments October 26th uh the operational guidelines were approved by the board of selectman in the finance committee uh those were due by all departments on December 15 15 and then January 2024 we began our budget review meetings we had department heads in to present their budgets with uh myself Our Town accountant and the finance commit finance committee liaison in February the finance committee held meetings to have uh the large departments in and review those budgets and then here we are in March April uh the finance committee is voting their recommendations to present a balanced budget to town meeting our fiscal year 2025 operating budget guidelines really had four uh main principles we asked departments to provide level service budgets uh to only provide increases for wages and to maintain their existing service levels we also asked them to present a second budget which demonstrated a 10% budget reduction and if they were to allocate those that 10% reduction where they would do that and what the impact would be on the community we asked them to provide us with data and metrics to demonstrate what what impact their budget has on Services uh and then we also ask for fiscal year 24 accomplishments and fiscal year 2025 goals to give you an idea of the budget that we're working with uh these are our Revenue estimates for fiscal year 2025 we're able to raise another $561,500 based on the governor's budget uh so total increased revenue from fiscal 24 of $86,400 per over the prior Year's Levy and then you add in new growth so you can see in fiscal 21 we had almost $250,000 in New Growth fiscal 22 we were uh around 175 fiscal 23 we were around 50 last year we were in the 140s range and we're only estimating $882,000 of New Growth this year so I met with our assessor uh last week and number that she uh told me to utilize was 82,000 so that's a significant impact on the community we're seeing this decline uh which results in a revenue decline our fiscal year 2025 budgets we received a total request of 30, 510,000 1833 that represented a a two little over $2.1 million increase over fiscal 24 which was a 7.53% increase and of that was uh a little over 2 million was in general fund increases the rest was from our Enterprise funds uh particularly our water department and our Solid Waste uh in the budget that our Administration has recommended the total is 29,40 6,240 this represents uh $1.05 million increase over fiscal 24 3.64% uh of that you can see the 1, 16,8 167 is general fund increases and I also want to note that um based on the the budget constraints that we've been in myself and our town account in Sandy Nolan have gone in and and recommended reductions in our general government budgets of over $165,000 already um and then the other thing I just wanted to mention was you know uh there's been a lot of information or misinformation that you know this these budget issues are being driven by wage increases so the wage increases for all general fund Department ments so take out our Enterprise funds and take out the schools um is $163,700 so you know looking at a $30 million budget that's not a huge that's not a huge portion I also wanted to just put together this visual so you can see on the left is our uh makeup of the fiscal 24 adjusted budget and the percentage of each um of the categories so you have education at 52% Public Works which is our water Highway Solid Waste at 9% Human Service serves Health and Human Services at 2% culture and recreation at 2% our debt services at 2% our fixed cost is at 13 General government six Public Safety 14 um in the administrative recommended budget you can see those percentages are pretty much all the same with the education at 52 and so on and so forth and the last thing I just wanted to note was some of the notable changes in the budget this year um and the drivers of some of our increases our fixed costs um our pension assessment which we have no control over is a 9% increase $154,200 that is what our pension assessment is our health insurance is a 10.5% increase $15,856 40 in our accessor assessor expense uh we previously funded our some operating cost of the Assessor's budget out of free cash that's not a good practice because it's an annual cost so that's now in their budget we've Consolidated our office machines lineup item um so postage is all basically under one account so you'll see that $23,500 reallocation there uh an increase of a little over 20 $21,000 in it expense primarily driven by increased software licenses also we're implementing several efficiencies such as all nine licensing and permitting there is a cost that comes with that um and then the education as voted by the current School committees represents a $676,000 provide kind of that as a background of this is this is the process that we've followed and this is how we've gotten to the where we are um in the budget process I'll turn it over to Todd and folks have whatever thoughts questions um oh not that's yeah no I mean I think that was a great summary I mean I don't really have much more to add you know just um you know stting the obvious as just folks you know see in the pie chart there that 65% of the budget is consumed by the school in our f operating uh within that 35% margin to to run the town services and such so so it is a challenge uh we certainly have a canful this year um which we'll get into the school budget in a moment but um but yeah no I think we've definitely made some improvements in the overall process and the timeline um I think it collectively needs to be a further Improvement um so we're not you know having these meetings at the 12th hour uh because we do need to print the warrant uh next week so um we really up against the1 here to to uh make our final decisions and uh you know did everything printed for the uh for the town meeting so uh I don't know if there's anything else folks wanted to add on the the committee one of the things I will note um so we have projected out our cost we've been pretty uh proactive with the town side of operations we've been trying to work with the schools myself and our town accountant have met regularly monthly with the school um admin team that's been beneficial uh and really uh tacking this head on so so what we did is we anticipated what we could um absorb from the school department and our cost of Education we provided that number early on in you know how that was allocated we knew there would be some reallocation with the new Regional agreement and some of the items that were U being done differently so our main concern really was this is what our total what we can afford total cost between the Silver Lake assessment um in elementary school cost so we asked them to do their best to reach that number um in what the Silver Lake assessment was voted there was a deficit of a little over $700,000 we related that information to the elementary school and the administration uh the administration did an excellent job of putting together uh proposed cuts of that 700,000 to meet what the town could afford the school committee met on Monday and they approved $500,000 in Cuts so that does leave us at a $200,000 deficit uh where we need to decide how we're going to make up that deficit and so I you know I think probably a good point to turn it over to the schools to provide kind of an explanation of the budget and what's changed and how we got here let me see if anybody on the board has any questions first that was a pretty pretty good synopsis um the school committee there sorry about this thank you I'm not necessarily a hold the microphone type of person sorry um my name is Sarah hickey I'm the Director of Finance and operations for the Silver Lake Regional School District I began in this position at the end of November the Halifax budget was the first budget that I created as soon as I was done that I started the Silver Lake budget as soon as I was done that I did the Kingston budget then The Plimpton budget and then it was February and I put together the assessments and sat down and looked at the big picture and the amount of increase in the total cost of Education was uh substantial and so with February and all of March we spent looking through every single line in all four of the entities budgets looking for what uh might have been a mistake I spent months honestly looking for a $4 million mistake somewhere I would have been professionally embarrassed but relieved had I found it was never found we had substantial increases in uh in a lot of areas so the um one of the things that I did this year because the Silver Lake and Halifax budgets changed dramatically was I put together what was what I refer to as the total cost of Education I felt that that was necessary because there were certain uh requirements for Silver Lake and Halifax that were given to us by the Department of Elementary and secondary education before I started working here but essentially Silver Lake is um is not an elementary school district so the prek program which had been running out of Silver Lake had to formally formally become a Silver Lake program The outof District tuitions that were being paid by Halifax for in FY 24 the out of district tuitions for prek through grade 12 plus were all Halifax costs and that's not appropriate that students should be paid for by the school that their peers attend so the a student in seventh grade that has an outof District placement should be paid by Silver Lake not by Halifax and so there was a considerable amount of shift shifting of where expenses went which is why the total cost of Education I felt was important um the other thing that we were mandated from I don't know if that's the right word but from the Department of Elementary and secondary education was to stop the practice of using outof District tuitions uh to fund students from Halifax attending uh substantially separate classrooms in Kingston or in substantially separate classrooms in uh the middle school or the high school so this was a case of employees that were hired by Silver Lake that were potentially working in Kingston um and they were being paid out of a revolving account that was being build to the out of District's tuition line in Halifax so with the um at the request the we were told by desie it needed to be done um all of this has been untangled and I think that part of the confusion with the fy2 budget is that that these increases are being attributed to the structural changes and that is not necessarily the case the we are seeing substantial increases in contractual services in the cost of Transportation privatized transportation for special ed students uh tuitions uh health insurance the cost of supplies and so what we presented was a level service budget and it was a substantial increase I don't know if you have questions do you want me to be very specific with things how would you like me to see so we have um essentially a $200,000 deficit that's what we're dealing with ultimately right we have to figure out how to answer it okay so the answer could be uh that the school budget is reduced by 200,000 or the town budget's reduced by 200,000 or some combination of the two right and finance committee hasn't had enough time yet to digest that I seeum yeah I mean we just learned this uh probably like 15 minutes ago so in fact you know not all the committee has heard that either so just hearing it now for the first time so I just heard it 15 minutes ago myself but um you know the the major problem here I think and uh you know I'd like to open it up to folks if they have any questions or comments I guess but um you know we've already proactively address the budget right like the whole goal as Cody laid out is part of the um you know the bu budget process for this year we we proactively uh requested two budgets right so a level service funded budget and then a 10% uh reduction so I think we we've really slimmed down the budget to its Bare Bones um to go any further would I think have a material impact on the town and so I think the town citizens will you know uh will need to make that decision I guess we want to like you know go that route you know from a finance committee it's not something we recommend uh to do so um you know we'll need to take a vote I guess at the end of the day here um to decide how we want to move forward but um you know there was some ideas kicked around about you know further like pulling some additional money out in some areas uh like cutting back you know some sick incentives and things like that and you know scaling back opep but I think doing those uh additional haircuts are going to really uh jeopardize our overall play situation which I think is I definitely would not advise uh to proceed down that rout um so I think at the end of the day I think we're we're stuck at the 20,000 20,000 boy uh but I'd like to if anybody has any uh questions or comments for the school committee or I just have I have one question um so if if I understand it correctly from based on the the meeting from Monday I think it was Monday um there was a there was an additional $120,000 in cuts that was really undetermined and undetermined as to where that was coming from from how how confident are we that that $200,000 number is in fact a $200,000 number knowing that there's still $120,000 that is unaccounted for in terms of cuts on the school side so they have line item autonomy with the school budget so we vote a figure and then how they work that figure is up to the the administration okay so as long as the bottom line figure um is what the town can afford you know how they distribute those cuts is really up to them as a as a committee Administration did you question what the specific areas were no no no I just I just wanted to make sure that we were confident as as a groups here that the the $200,000 wasn't back to $200,000 I don't want to vote on something today and have't come back to be hire so just for you guys Jill and maybe you guys can help me out so a substantial jump this year and we mentioned that it's the untangling with desie do we foresee this being a a one-time substantial jump as part I guess my question is part of this large jump because we had to untangle things with them or do you see this being as a a standard procedure going forward I guess as far as budgeting goes there are some increases because of the untangling some efficiencies that cannot be realized when you go from stru being structured as if you were a regional district to operating independently ly sometimes for example um when you create a a program in another school you need more staff or you need additional staff as opposed to having one program within a district so there's some of that I again the restructuring changed the buckets of money and where they were located but the increases were because in addition to that you also had the the increases due to inflation so we had line items that were um increasing regardless it had nothing to do with the structure uh health insurance has nothing to do with the structure um well I can't say this health insurance had nothing to do with the structure because you had more people moving into the Silver Lake budget um with with with that particular piece um but part of this issue is inflation and and the costs that that all schools are experiencing and some of it has to do with increased cost in special education Transportation so regardless of whether or not we were had to create this new structure we were going to realize some of those increases it has to do with the cost of out of District uh special education tuition which again is some of these outo District programs are are able to increase their uh tuitions by 14 18% over the last two years and what's happening is that that that's not happening in our schools we're not we're seeing that same kind of increase in terms of support for uh our our state funding or federal funding and in and in talking with different folks this is not just a Halifax problem I'm hearing is there any move maybe with superintendents across the Commonwealth to to to make our case to the state that our costs are far outpacing what we're getting from them that we can try to fix this situation so one of the things that they have done is they the the mass Association of school superintendents as well as masc and I believe MTA as well has participated is working to help educate um the the state about the impact of certain things being underfunded or man unfunded mandates which we have been talking about for many years um there was a letter that I believe I sent out to your the Town Administrator um that kind of talks about the fiscal cliff um that I think is is helpful again each school district has their own unique increases and and issues that they're facing depending upon the needs of their students with the the composition but it it is a Statewide issue I hope that helps to clarify no it does I just I just hope that it it it reaches the ears that it needs to reach and that we're not going through this whole thing again next year she's not allowed to use the green one I'm not I can't does this work okay the other concern we have for next year is as Sarah mentioned that now that like a seventh grader that's in and out of District program that used to belong to Halifax meant that we would get the circuit breaker money in Halifax but now that's going to be going to Silver Lake's budget and we're not going to see similar circuit money circuit breaker money next year which is a huge concern for our budget next year just to have full transparency that's for special ed yeah that's for special ed which yes I just said I just want can we just talk about the special it a little bit I guess further I guess one of the things I see on the line item budget um is a drastic in increase in uh special education teaching as well as the AIDS is like $425,000 increase so just trying to understand is that so has the the number of special education students directly risen that's then warranted additional staff or like what's what what's the background of this going so that increase in those lines you'll see increases in the instructional lines and in the aid so the teaching lines and the AIDS lines those are due to uh the Ida the individuals with disability educational act there is a grant that the town receives called the 240 Grant and the current special ed director has elected and I support her 100% in this to move that money to pay for tuitions instead of Staff it it actually cuts down significantly on the paperwork of the grant to um to take a $200,000 Grant amount and pay it out in three payments to a school instead of paying it out in 26 paychecks to 14 people okay so so just to be clear there's no increase in special education teaching or Aids as far as additional ads to staff one of the things I explained to the teachers unions yesterday was if they walk around the building the the staff that are in the building now are going to be the staff that are in the building the the the what's happening is the AIDS that are be currently being paid out of that Grant fund will be Halifax employees next year the tuitions in the amount of what those employees would be paid next year are allocated to be paid out of the grant okay all right that's helpful thank you for that and then my second question is just in relation to the transportation which has uh come up in past years and you know kind of gotten out of control I think back in phally year 23 I think it was uh and then so Jim and I actually the committee had spent a significant amount of time kind of going through the fine details in there we kind of hit a roadblock on um you know some of the assessment but what we found interestingly was that about 80% of that cost was actually uh local so it was to Kingston within Kingston and not to like Rolph and and other uh surrounding towns so my question is is have we done any work to see how we can potentially reduce those transportation cost uh whether it's being creative and how we manage that or looking at other service providers which I I totally understand is probably limited uh you know suppliers that uh offer that service but uh you know if you can speak to that I guess trans there is sort of a perfect storm for transportation that started with the pandemic and during the pandemic the bus companies were told you could only put 11 students on a 72 passenger bus and um on a 7D vehicle that would normally carry eight students and a monitor and a driver you could only put two students and we're required by law to transport students that require specialized Transportation so those mini buses or minivans that were transporting students you could no longer put six students you could no longer put three students in them and and all of a sudden these Transportation companies for the same trip so um and then the other perfect storm is there was a wonderful woman that lived here in Halifax that ran a transportation company that did the bulk of the transportation for the Silverlake Regional School District the minivan transportation and she retired I spent time on the phone with her trying to talk her out of retiring because she was not I'm going to use the word price gouging but she wasn't take advantage of the situation um but she closed up shop towards the you spring of 2021 and so the cost of Transportation has has skyrocketed which you've made reference to so one of the things that the special education director is working on is Examining The Roots um and consolidating Roots whenever POS possible one of the things that I'm working on is specifically the transportation to the Silver Lake preschool uh there are there are students that are riding in minivans that could go on a 21 passenger bus and so I have a meeting with first student tomorrow to talk about what are the possibilities for us for providing that ty not every student that attends the preschool has an education plan that requires specialized Transportation we're not going to send a 71 passenger bus to pick pick up the kids of Halifax and bring them to the integrated preschool in Kingston but a 20 passenger bus could pick up eight kids instead of sending eight minivans or so it's something that we're in talks about so transportation is very difficult and and we keep joking myself and my school business manager friends when we retire we're going to buy a bunch of minivans and make mill ions of dollars and but it's sad that that's a joke sure yeah can I ask S does that go up to bid does that process go out to bid or how does how does that work so um special ed and related services are exempt from 30b okay and so with for example with homeless Transportation uh we're required to get three quotes and go if you can find three quotes that's my other question solicit I believe the language in the law is Sol licit three quotes whether you actually get three is is a surprise sometimes that's what I was wondering if we're if we're not getting we're not getting vids from enough companies to make things competitive at all well it it's it's not competitive yeah so um but also again uh related services for special ed are exempt from 30b gotcha thank so just to follow up on that point when is the last time is this something that we do annually in regards the transportation do we try to get new new quotes each year or do we just kind of renew with what we have on board already are we talking about regular Ed Transportation or special ed Transportation um special ed Transportation I'm not 100% sure I started in November okay so um every every year a child's plan is reviewed and as part of that so will the transportation accommodations and to the best of their ability they try to secure Transportation um and they they look for um multiple opportunities or quotes there are there have been certain points where there have only been certain vendors that have have been available to to pick up students and bring them to certain programs whether it be in District or out of district and some of those costs are pretty high and what about standard Transportation uh we are currently in year four of a fiveyear bid um that did a contract with first student that went out to Bid And there are two option years at the end of the contract what I will tell you is the increases that are built into this contract are very favorable it's not I was surprised and happy when I learned I wasn't going out to bid for Big Bus Transportation anytime soon this is hatch had something you're good I'm good GRE I just want to kind of uh make one footnote regarding special education and a lot of our fiscal cliff issues have sort of developed from special education um our director of special education Dr panesi is going to review the entire program to make sure that we are not over servicing any students we will never under service a student but there may be um circumstances that we are are over servicing and that's not fair to the community so she is going to scrub through the program and see if there are places that we can gain savings and not underservice any student by any means so I just want to let you know we're we're very sensitized to this and um she is going to do a a flower review of the program can I ask you uh so obviously the the the big question here is this $200,000 do you have uh anyone from the school department have um anything you can let us or the finance committee know as to what that $200,000 assuming it it it wasn't we had to cut the school budget by that amount what what that's going to amount to I know you don't you have you can do whatever you want once you get the number but if you would give maybe everyone here some idea as to what we're talking about in terms of uh another $200,000 reduction in the school budget sure pres I I don't don't mean to uh make this too precise but I think I do think it's important that the budget people particularly the finance committee uh understands uh what your thinking is in terms of uh a smaller budget than what you have already come up with so um in terms of proposed reductions the administrative team proposed um a number of tiers for the school committee to consider and um they ended up um reducing it by 500,000 so in the presentation um it's called proposed reductions at HS the second to the last slide got it keep Cody a second here everyone I just think it's important that we discuss the hard back to be honest I can't see the screen at all from here I apologize no I have I have the paper um so on the bottom of the second to last page with the proposed reductions at Halifax Elementary School the school committee had tasked us in our February meeting to um to to make three tiers of cuts one would be 300 ,000 one would be 500 put us up to 500,000 and then the last would put us up to the full 700 believe 4,000 is what was required for us to meet the requirements by the T the threshold set by the town and so the uh School administration excuse me the school administration and Central Administration worked diligently and came up with these uh proposed Cuts so the tier one proposed Cuts total $313,000 uh was a one-time offset from the building utilization fund that is a revolving account that facility rentals go into principal bodri recommended reducing the supply line called teaching in custodial by 101,000 proposed reducing the bus runs from 10 buses a day to eight buses a day which would save $74,000 reducing two support staff which would save $58,000 and reducing one the FTE on there stands for full-time equivalent so one full-time equivalent custodian to half time and that would save $27,000 that was the total of the tier one proposed Cuts tier 2 proposed cuts was to reduce the assistant principal from 260 days of work a year to 204 days that would save $99,000 to reduce 2.4 FTE from the Halifax Teachers Association the principal recommended reducing a position of a behaviorist at 1.0 an instrumental teacher at 04 and a reading specialist at 1.0 there was an addition suggestion for reducing two uh support staff for an additional $58,000 and in the main office reduce uh one of the full-time AIDS to8 which would save $6,000 that um tier two cuts total $241,000 and tier one and tier two together was $554,000 the tier three cut cut um would cut 1.9 full-time equivalent so that would be one classroom teacher five specialist teachers moving them from fulltime to 9/10 time and moving an interventionist from 1.0 to6 and then transitioning the remainder of the point4 uh of that salary into the title one Grant so that's actually only a cut of 1.9 FTE and not the interventionist that's transitioning money to a different source and that was Savings of $150,000 which would bring the total Cuts up to $74,000 this is what was proposed by the principal so you've got as far as tier one and tier two in the current F reduction or no we voted to eliminate all of tier one like to we voted to do the tier one proposed cuts and then in tier two um we we voted specifically to reduce the assistant principal to 204 days and the main office reduction to 08 and um which got us from the 313 and then we also did the math interventionist in tiered three to move the payment to which brought us up to about 380,000 and cuts and then um I said we have to do more so then at that point because we really couldn't decide what to cut because it was a hard decision and we were had been there for three hours at that point and um I we proposed just to have you know to vote a budget that was 500,000 less to try our best to meet the requests and there were some fundamental differences in theories and how to achieve the cuts as well so there was a lot of discussion about that anybody from the finance committee have any comments questions about any of that uh I mean I guess just to add I guess Ser is aware too like these numbers don't reflect the impact to the town as far as uh unemployment costs and such when you make these C so make folks aware that as well so it's not that we will take the savings to the town and we'll be there'll be in net number uh but anybody have any questions from the committee comment on the board no it it may be beneficial um I know I was at the meeting on Monday but what the how you came to that 500,000 would be helpful I think for the finance committee and the board of Suman to understand because you know we had proposed the 704 in order to be able to absorb it into our budget and you guys did vote the five um so it would just be helpful on how you how you how you determined five um well obviously it's a voting board and so and as a board we had different differing opinions on how to achieve the cuts and uh so there was just a lot of debate and um so some people wanted to leave us at about you know at the tier one plus the few extras from tier 2 and tier three and I said the town asked us to do 600 to remove 680,000 from our budget and I don't feel like we you know we need to do a little bit we need to um cut more and so like I said we had been there for quite a long time and that was pretty much I mean as the chair I pretty much knew that was about where the board was going to vote to cut and that um we weren't going to be able to get additional cuts that night so okay um so I know wezy has something he wants to say and then we'll open it up to questions oh I'm sorry I thought we all so I I think I know the answer to this but I'll ask you ask it anyways what what were the concerns with the the cuts that you did not make um from the budget what what caused you not to make those cuts was it primarily a student to to teacher ratio how did you reach that um well we were concerned about removing so much support staff from the school and I mean I can only speak for myself as far as what I was thinking really you know the vote is the vote but um for me I I I was concerned that the cuts we were making were going to remove support and then that we're going to have to make additional Cuts next year and um the fundamental debate essentially was should we reduce some of the class some of the grades to have what would still be considered what the principal told me was acceptable class size of 23 students or less and um which I felt like more matched our declining enrollment over time so that was really what the debate was about how to accomplish it and so and I mean it's a hard decision it's a horrible decision to make your it's people's lives their jobs I mean it's it's hard to go through all this again honestly but um it's um so there was that discussion so from my viewpoint I was extremely anxious about cutting additional support staff when I'm afraid of what's going to have to happen next year and um you know if we're if if we do end up having to reduce any grades with classroom teachers will they have the support they need and so that's where I'm coming from person person L but also just um you know it was it was so hard to get to that point and you just kind of can tell when a room is somewhat done so we took the vote and you know did the best we could with trying to do cuts we didn't want to do it all for a school we love and thinking of our kids so it's it's a lot of it has to do with the uncertainty with what the future holds sorry A lot of it has to do with what the future holds that uncertainty I definitely and that it was a really really difficult process making these decisions because none of them there weren't cuts that I mean I guess like you know the 100,000 in supplies I was like well that's easy right but there weren't many that you know you're just like oh yeah you know sure I mean it's a really hard decision and a tough position to be in anybody else over here I quick so Cody just to clarify I know we're saying 500,000 in Cuts but we still have 120,00 kind of un untagged I guess at this point depending on whether that's a staff reduction or not what is the town looking at ballpark as far as unemployment payment goes that we have to Sock away to to make sure we can cover that what's so I know we're looking at a $200,000 Gap but when we factor in our unemployment that the town has going to pick up what are we looking at then uh we always budget conservatively to make sure we can uh cover costs if they're on the higher end so in in doing some estimations uh we anticipate about $100,000 in unemployment cost so so so it's essentially for the town it's not a $200,000 Gap it's a $300,000 uh the no yes and no so uh how we would fund the unemployment would be different than how we would fund the annual operating budget okay so unemployment we would cover Through onetime uh funding free cash okay so we we had about $100,000 more than we expected in free cash so we will be able to cover the unemployment cost okay so it it doesn't create an issue there um but if you're looking at Big Picture yeah that the it isn't a full reduction right because it is resulting in additional cost to us can I ask a question if any of our staff that we have unfortunately already had to cut were to get a new job then we would not incur those unemployment costs is that correct so we're just planning for worst case scenario basically yeah we have to we have yeah no no that makes sense I'm just asking though that the obligation if they were to get a different job would not be there so I think that's a question okay all right anybody else from the board board all right uh mrzy have comment question could you just um because everything's recorded I should said this in the beginning you're going to address this please uh tell us your name so that it's on the on the the whole thing uh good evening everybody my name is Steven ruisi um I teach at the elementary school I've been in the town now employed for 25 years and I stand here tonight just to talk to you as a teacher I'm not representing um the HDA the union the union um made their stance at our school committee meeting on uh Monday night with the displeasures and the realities of the budget process this year but again and I've listened to a lot of the insight to this point um it's starting to become clearer but in the end how did we get here how did we not see how is there not some type of help I feel very fortunate at least that the $200,000 difference between Monday night's 500 um budget that was all the cuts to put into the budget were accepted in that the finance committee seems willing to at least explore sending the $200,000 to the town or looking for other lines in the item to maybe um reconcile that other $200,000 but I'm here to tell you level service we need level service it's going to take another $250,000 to get down to level service based on the tiered cuts that were um showing up on the screen custodian instrumental band um potential cuts to the Specialists which really haven't been announced yet par professionals maybe four the principal um 204 day cut back to n okay level service should be the goal I know it's a lot to ask but again a couple of the questions I'm going to have is again how did we get here how did we not you know I mean special education is always the mystery every year been around this long enough to know you hold your breath you wait to see what's coming back in but in the end it's not the first time we've been through this so just a couple comments and questions for the for the Committees tonight I would assume more the finance committee 74,000 that's what the school was asked to cut out of a $7.4 million budget okay 10% that's outrageous that's unrealistic to really provide the Crown Jewel of the town the education system to maintain its its leverage and its uh quality of Education it's unrealistic okay without the help of the Civil Lake assessment okay we're not going to be able to really make it get through these Cuts without losing programs and staff I thank the committee so far originally was going to say it's imperative for us to reconsider that other 200,000 I I think I'm hearing you correctly that you will consider looking for the 200,000 somewhere else whether it's on the town Floor Town floor at meeting or looking at the budget line items from the other departments I've also been told that the town policy is never uh was never to hold the elementary school budget accountable for all the increased cost for special education looking at this budget it looks like the finance committee has asked the the school to cover all of the increased costs with no help at all is that the town's policy still today that's a question so we made a well I think um just to be clear um the finance committee first of all is an advisory committee they have really no authority to do anything other than make recommendations so um that is uh decided by town meeting as you know um and and so what we're trying to do tonight uh really is to uh allow to get the discussion out now because we'll have it eventually anyway and we know we have to address this uh this issue so we're trying to get as much input from everyone information from you from everyone as to how this might affect or what you know what the issues are um we could really go down the rabbit hole trying to figure out why special education every year is is difficult as it always is um but what that's what we're tonight's really that what that meeting is and so what I we have to keep in mind again the finance committee's doing a really good job and they're they're all volunteers everybody's a volunteer you know they're all trying to do the best we can for the town uh and they uh their job is to make a suggestion or a recommendation to town meeting with as much information as possible so that's what we're trying to do here so whe whether there's a policy or not about how special education is funded or not isn't really going to uh effect uh how they make their decision they're going to make their decision based on the information that we get in in this forum I respect your response but I still think it's a fair question oh it is that you know it's it's the largest number I can remember coming back to the elementary school budget that we were to pick up the costs the planning that g goes into it I don't know if it's from the school end of it when we restructure I believe desie only makes recommendations it's local control whether you decide to go through their um suggestions or recommendations to do special education a different way but ultimately you know here we are it's an enormous amount of money typically it sounds like past practice was to you know support the school with special education costs increased costs um from outside the school budget to help at least and it sounds like there might be a little bit of help to tonight with the $200,000 from 500 to 680 or 704 whatever the number is thank you I appreciate that um but another question I had to was and again I'm not trying to BL you know aim blame but here we are the reality is I mean I might be standing here losing you know five figures of my salary because this is maybe poor planning or maybe there's a priority of spending in the town that wasn't enough or there wasn't enough Vision that this might happen I don't know I don't have the answers for that um my question is I have two more what has been the planning in the foresight to have emergency funds ready for the increases and special education costs it seems like again it happens every year do we have a an emergency fund the American Rescue plan funds that expired I believe this this this fiscal year were there any you know any money left available put aside to help the town when we Face these kind of incurrent costs that just appear yeah we we can't utilize our Prof fing for operational cost that would create a fiscal cliff it's not eligible to utilize that yeah um you know we have a stabilization fund it's not recommended to dip into that but the the we've done a lot of planning uh we've done you know we've created Financial forecasting we've created regular meetings with the administration team to try to catch these things as they come up um and you know unfortunately none of us could have could have seen an 11 11% increase in education cost coming you know we look at Trends the trend is a little over 3 % over the past 10 years so certainly that may vary right based on special education a couple percent but not not to 11% we couldn't have I go back to thank you for that information I go back to that is the town budget school budget being asked to cover all of the incurred cost for special education increases no we've already cut uh over almost over $200,000 of town request to try to alleviate that so of the 74,000 that we have been at or the school has been asked to cut is that predominantly made up of increased special education costs yeah all right so that was one question and then the next question I have is just based on the town spending on the education over the last few years so Chapter 70 funds have increased we pointed that out on the the pie chart earlier um but overall the investment the town has made in education has slightly decreased about 1 and A2 to 1.8% in the fiscal year 23 to 24 so there's been a priority of not investing enough and I would probably again I don't know the numbers off the top 1.8% 1.5% of of spending might be the difference for us to be level service and that's that's the goal custodians already been cut the school needs the custodians they're working on beer bones par professionals specialist programs there'll be programs cut because we're not going to be there the full whole time that where they to do our job um you know the principles everybody's working hard so I'm just I'm not saying that you know Cuts aren't inevitable but Personnel is something that I don't think we want to touch education is the crown jewel in the town I don't know what the ramifications of this are going to be if you know the school committee has to cut Personnel it's it remains to be seen it would be a shame that if every effort wasn't made to see if we're already already asking for 200,000 plus some unemployment possibly why not go to 430 to get the full full level service I lied I have a third question have all the other departments in town been given a level service budget that's been approved there's been no to go to town meeting nothing has been approved by the finance committee at this point and I can tell you a lot of departments are are less than level service at this point we recommended cut to but nothing's in stone but they've been asked the finance Comm hasn't voted anything we haven't voted anything and it's been the policy for as long as I've been part of this so for several years the the uh Department have been running and Bare Bones and cutting back uh every little you know dime they can save so it's uh it's been quite the challenge you know we're landlock town as you well aware uh you know 80 over 80% of our income is based on uh you know real estate taxes so uh you know you know have no business real business Revenue so it's a real challenge so um you know everybody here I speak on behalf of the committee like we're in favor of the schools we would be more than willing to recommend um you know increases if we could but the reality is is we're U you know constrained financially so we need to make some tough decisions if we don't cut in the school then it's going to have to somewhere be cut or potential layoffs uh in the town services and then that impacts the town as a whole as well like I said we're operating off of 35% margin um and revenue which is difficult um you know if we had proved the full increase then that would have been reduced to 30 70% of the budget the town's budget would have been made up by the school and uh the fixed costs like I mentioned before so so it's a real challenge there's no easy uh you know I definitely appreciate all your comments um you know but there's no easy decision to be made here so we do have our work cutle to decide how to just one final comment thank you for those words but again the 1.5 % difference in total spending and education with increased Chapter 70 fun funding coming in I mean again if we hold the priority line of at least holding the percentage I think that the the numbers could yield a huge impact on again achieving level service which again 200 I'm thinking from $230,000 more dollars that's that would achieve it but thank you very much thank you do I have any other uh questions or comments yes sir uh my name is Gordon laws I uh live at 33 Highland I am the vice chair of the Silver Lake uh Regional School District uh school committee I hope Paul that's okay if I jump up and say a few things um I I wanted to kind of distill a few things that I I I think might have might not have been totally clear in the um sort of back and forth and my colleagues can correct me if I get in any of these wrong but um the the restructuring um is a definite legal issue it's not a recommendation it's a requirement had to be done it also doesn't have all that much to do with the uh what the increases um are in fact the redistribution um based on census actually somewhat benefits Halifax and somewhat hurts Kingston um so that gets lost in the shuffle gets lost in the discussion because of how much everything went up um Sarah indicated that there that the original budget that she brought in was about it was up by like 13.5% um and um 1549 that's that's what it started with originally and then it came back to 13 and A2 and then and and so forth so what was behind that what what what are the big things that were behind that um the first big issue behind that was the level of State funding it did not go up in the percentage expectation and that is a Statewide issue you can go look in articles in the Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger and other things like that school districts all around us are facing exactly that kind of issue um the magnitude sort of varies and it differs but it's a huge problem um we are actually fortunate that the president of the Massachusetts associ iation of school committee School committees is on the silver lit committee and so he gets like he he's in with all the you know like legislate and so he's in lobbying about this issue and expressing um how serious it is and how serious it is to um the schools so that's the first and the biggest issue the second issue is special education it did absolutely go up and it went up in terms of inflationary pressures so the state authorized um increases to special education transportation to the tune of about 15% um so Provider Services and everything like that went way up the volume of services that we are having to offer right now also went up the number of kids that we have going into IEPs and out of District placements both went up both in the town and in the school district now I say that because some of the questions were what were the cuts that were sort of undecided and uh over it Halifax and some of the debate was around what is the most optimal thing to do for the general population and special education so you had on the table and in in a really I mean this is dark stuff to have to debate with um do we cut interventionists whose Specialties to try to level up reading levels math levels to try to help cut down on behavioral issues so the kids stay in classes and that sort of thing and try to keep them from tipping into needing extra interventions and extra services or do we cut classroom teachers and we have varying levels of classroom sizes in the elementary school ranging from a low of about 17 to a high of about 23 24 maybe it's 25 or 26 in the sixth grades and so that's what a ton of the debate was about is what was sort of the most optimal model that would help us to if not roll back some of what we're spending in the special education at least hold kind of where we are the committee the whole group that they didn't really get settled on what was sort of the best model of that they wound up voting a number the administration still has to figure out which of about you know $120,000 um that was not kind of in a specific tier is going to come out of that and so there is still some kind of discussion um that the Administration has to settle on on what's the best thing to do about that and then then if you go further for that or that additional $200,000 um you know sort of the debate of what that is is do you trade classroom teachers or Specialists so that's really what it comes down to if I understood correctly and if I you know looked at everything correctly so when when you're debating if you're saying to yourself we're going to tell the schools you have to take the $200,000 down essentially what you're saying to the schools is while we take no position you must decide between interventionists and classroom teachers or a little bit of a mixure of both anything that did I get any of that wrong okay well that's helpful but again this is the purpose of this meeting tonight is so that the uh uh people that are charged with um uh trying to put together a sensible budget uh for the town BAS Bas on in I mean it's pretty straightforward you got this much to work with you got this many requests that that kind of comment is very helpful at least that uh allows the advisory people to uh to give it consideration so that's helpful does anyone else have any comments yes sir come on up front um hi thank you for listening to my to me tonight my name is Scott how I'm a sixth grade teacher at Halifax Elementary it's my 12th year I've probably been working at Halifax for 13 or 14 though um other than a classroom teacher um I just wanted to talk about some of the the places that maybe could be cut because I recognize there are things that have to be cut obviously with a a budget of this magnitude that's out of um out of balance um you know I I appreciated what Mr law said I think classroom teachers are like the absolute last place you should be looking to cut we're talking about interventionists who are not trained with college education to to do what teachers have to be able to do we're talking about highly qualified teachers versus other people but I think that neither one of those necessarily needs to be the first cuts um I would ask the the finance committee and the school committee to look at other places to cut the budget and I think there is a place to look and I think it's upper Administration in central office I want you to ask central office how many jobs have been created in the last few years that were not there before how much that cost Halifax and why those jobs are needed the last thing that we should be getting rid of is teachers in front of students we need to we need to help these students we need to be there for them they're so important this is why I went into this career is because I love kids and I want to see the kids get the services they need I don't want to see classrooms of 26 or 27 students I know it happens sometimes it's very difficult to get to every kid imagine being a teacher and you want to help a child to be a better writer but you can't get to them literally because there's too many kids in the classroom and you can't get to every kid so I ask you to look at upper Administration first central office and figure out where those jobs have come from if they're needed thank you for your time tonight thank you uh just go ahead sure we run wa if you please have a seat so what I what I don't want to have is uh I don't want to talk back back and forth no I don't I just wanted to make a yeah so you have and and let me have Mrs hack say what she's going to say just make a point for clarity just just want to be clear to folks as as well as the finance committee doesn't uh specify what needs to be cut we're just uh approving a dollar figure so as far as you know where the actual number comes from whether it's staff AIDS wherever supplies that's all uh you know at the autonomy of the school committee so I just want to make that clear we're not deciding to to make any cuts to any employees or Staffing and definitely for all the teachers in the room we certainly appreciate and plugge your uh your work we understand uh in society it's definitely an underappreciated uh position and so um you know we thank you for all you do and we certainly don't want to see anybody to be cut so want make that clear thank you to I just want to um State a little something about central office I've been on school committees now for probably 17 18 years now when I first started we had two assistant superintendents we're down to one when I I first started we had an assistant to the director of financial services we never replaced that when Christine Healy moved up to replace John Tuffy education has gotten more challenging reporting has gotten more challenging the breath and scope of what central office must uh carry day to day has gotten more burdensome and has grown exponentially over the years um our Auditors for a second year in a row have noted in their management letter back to the school committee that our accounting department is underst staffed this year they they highlighted it to us as a very serious concern and we don't have the funds to staff any further in that department so I just want to give you a sense for central office is not overstaffed they a very lean team that tries to do the best they can with the assets they have okay thank you um just to Echo what uh what Todd said is that school committee uh I mean the school budget to the town to us voters when we get to town meeting is just one number so we say yes or no and then if it's yes they do what they want with it if it's no they still do what they want with it we can't we we we can recomend the reason I asked the question earlier and I'm glad that you brought it up was just so that the uh advisory people the finance committee uh have the opportunity to at least know what the uh potential impact could be of a change in the number that's that's important to us but as far as how it's administered that's entirely up to the uh the school board so do anyone else have any comments for us or questions uh okay one thing one thing that may be worth mentioning is so obviously we're at about a $200,000 deficit right now um and I guess it's more of a question to the school committee or Administration so we've we we've budgeted or in the budget of $156,500 for vocational education in um transportation I believe we only have one student who utilizes this I think we pay about $28,000 um in tuition and then maybe another 15 or 20 in transportation so would it be reasonable you know to try to reduce that that to 100,000 reduce 100,000 from there and then our deficits only 100,000 and then there's no further impact on Services just throwing it out there that that's been considered an option opportunity um I apologize that for the past few months every time we've talked about this we've talked about how students have until April 1st to make a decision whether they're going to be attending there were a number of applicants um and I've been hopping pretty much every single day I did get to bed before midnight the past two nights though um so yes that is a place where we do anticipate we're going to be making cuts and I apologize that only thinking about it now that's okay do we know how many students we have at the current or we're still I can find out that'd be great okay uh you have any other comments one student I'm sorry I believe so we April deadine it's been one for the past couple years so yes cuz we did receive a uh like an invoice basically from uh the north school there that stated there was just one uh student so I I pretty sure that that's accurate figure what I'm checking on is that um for the vocational schools we did have a family that reached out they are moving to Halifax the child attends sore vocational okay program for the El we are required to pay for sore vocational because Silver Lake doesn't have an electrical program I'm just going to pull up the spreadsheet from the super the assistant superintendent's office and just go through the confirmed numbers I don't know if they're actually in there yet but that is something that I do need to look at okay very enough give you an estimate sure shortly thank you hi Karen fav 66 clad Bosworth um my question is do we know what the cost is per student right now per student per pupil expenditures are always calculated two years afterwards so the um School business manager in every school in September puts together what's called an end of year report the end of year report is submitted to the Department of Elementary and secondary education and then it has to be audited and the audits are due at the end of March and so then in July the Department of Education will take the October one enrollments and divide the amount paid uh paid in a school district by the October one enrollments to calculate the per pup expenditure so if you go to the Department of educ tion website you will see that they have the 2022 enrollment numbers because even though the deadline to get your audit in is March 31st there's a lot of places that don't actually get it in on time and so it's really around July so so basically we're running two years behind on the cost of a student when we're trying to figure out the budgets and correct me if I'm wrong but Co I'm I know personally has had a huge impact on the students that need extra Services right IEPs that that is the increase that we're seeing that we weren't ready for and now these children are suffering and we want to take away those resources from these children to not fund that but we'll fund other things and to me I I just I just can't see that because we're looking we're failing our students we really are at this Point these kids are not going to be able to go up to the junior high and be able to meet expectations and that's sad and when they get to the junior high if you have to cut from there same difference our high school we're really not serving our children and we need to find a way to do it thank you okay thank you um any other comments or questions for this night I can I respond um our test scores don't indicate that at the elementary school I mean I know there are children receiving Services which is absolutely necessary and we want to provide everything we can but um I wouldn't say I mean just as an opinion I wouldn't say our schools are failing our children at this point at all because Massachusetts has the best schools in the nation and we have incredible curriculum incredible teachers we talk about their test scores at school committee meetings all the time we're keeping an eye on it all the time and and um it's just but it's also a year behind no it's not a year behind the the te the scores we talk about in are current they were done like a month ago the stars and Dibbles testing we do that I I don't do it sorry you but what we are reported on at the school committee we pay a lot of attention to how the students are doing and ask all the time how student achievement is at the school and not just achievement but also how are things go going with behaviors how is discipline going because we want the school to be a wonderful place for our children and I I I do feel our teachers do a tremendous job I'm not saying teachers don't do a great job I think they do a remarkable okay Karen Karen I don't want to debate if it's you know that that's what we're trying to do is get as much information so we did we got your points I think we've got points from there too so all right does anyone else have any comments for finance committee or anything about this budget coming up all right joh I just I just have one question I I think at some point there were conversations um at the administration level about um uh wage freezes for where we are right now versus going increases for next year is that true or no at the administration level everybody that came up at the Silva Lake meeting um it was uh met with uh mild um acceptance levels with a lot of questions and maybe some renegotiation suggestions wanted um unofficially and it it wasn't a vote by the school committee we asked them to to look at that at Monday's meeting we're probably going to announce that we're not moving forward with that there wasn't a enough um appetite and um it would have been difficult to apply fairly so that's not going to be a place where we're going to see any relief have we have we tried to have additional conversations about that or was the only ask the initial ask we only asked um if it could be looked at we have not had any more conversations around it officially as a uh committee okay so um I I assume you're not going to vote tonight we're going to take this up on Monday um we there certainly needs to be further discussion on the budget as a whole but if you want to let the school go if everyone you want to go back into the budget now we need to definitely go back into the budget okay we're going to we're going to um switch gears then we're going to talk about the so the from the assistant superintendent's office show that the one student from Halifax in a vocational program is continuing in the program and there is that one person moving in um so we budgeted five there will be two attending and that is a savings of $93,900 that's helpful so all right thank you okay so uh we're going to uh leave the school department now uh we're just going to talk now about the rest of the warrant um so uh just few folks walk actually John before we do that actually I'd like to give the school an opportunity just to uh because they put in for a um for a full-time um school officer school resource officer so we haven't receiv they put for part time it currently is part time right want no that's continue to keep it part time okay so what was the 78 that's the that's the total amount with Plimpton paying part of it so we pay 2/3 then plon so that the the school resource officer warrant article will be on the April 9th school committee um so the clear the ask is there just to keep it as a parttime not to increase it to a fulltime because I think there was some Mis I believe the recommendation is going to be to keep it as a part-time but I where the school committee hasn't voted I I can't say for certain okay okay John before before you move on I just I personally want to say thank you to the school committee and to the teaching staff everyone that's been involved with this process I know it's been painstakingly difficult to make some of the decisions that you've had to make and um we would be remissed if we didn't recognize you for those actions so thank you absolutely okay are we ready to go on to the rest of it all right you folks are more than welcome to stay as is everybody else why we take it 3 minute res sure I got to use the bathroom this got you I I see like everything on faceb how than there all right come back session before it gets too late so we'll start we're uh we're now G to pick up on the rest of the uh Town budget um so uh just give us an overview yep I can definitely do that we're back session here we go Walter so um you know at this point really what what we need is direction from the finance committee um on how you want to handle this um and you know in that way there we can work through a plan over the next couple days because Monday is the last possible day for you guys to vote a budget vote everything uh for the warrant the board of selectman are meeting on Tuesday to vote the warrant as a whole and then our plan is literally to send it to print Wednesday to the print shop on Wednesday yeah so uh you my recommendation would be so I mean it was great news that um you know we F the extra 90,000 right so that makes the Divide 110 um you know which we know we've kind of scraped down the budgets to the Bare Bones and you know we we've done that proactively right with the 10% cut off of all the uh the budget request so we already kind of analyzed that and and know we're really down to as bears as we can get um I do think it's fair though for us to try to come a little further um and meet them in the middle would be my recommendation so the Divide is 110 that makes up uh 55 each if you split it down the middle uh I would like to to move that uh we um um come up with an additional 60,000 um and then their their portion would be 50 flat additional cuts um additional 60 I would ask you know Cody to take a look uh he did provide uh previously a few ideas I think there's a few other areas we can kind of probe a little bit just deeper and see if how we can come up with the 60 but I would um recommend that we uh ask C to come up with that recommendation for the additional 60 uh for review and and vote um final vote on on Monday but that would be my that's what I would move I guess that we cover 60 and then then the school picks up the additional 50 request so any comments or folks I think it sounds reasonable I think too I think we can um Sandy and I will work we've proactively been working but I think we can develop a plan for 60,000 that will have no impact on services to our departments which is important there's some strategic ways that we can look at things funding things a little bit differently some of which you see here but um yeah I'm confident that we can do so without cutting any um any departmental budgets where would have an impact on anything that's great good all right that's a start next step Capital plan thought about that so is that what is the finance committee an agreement I just just so I know where it works so maybe should take Sate what we're talking about here again so our divide so so we asked them to come back on what $700,000 in Cuts they had the uh the three TI proposed which is uh in that presentation right so they approved essentially so they didn't actually directly follow that right the numbers slightly off they basically just did line item right so they said okay we'll cut 50, sorry 500,000 that left a divide of 200,000 that we needed to solve for right that was really the objective of of tonight's meeting um you know through discussion we were able to find um additional $90,000 in savings through the uh vocational education that now brings the Divide down to 110,000 so my proposal is that we against you know split that split the 110 110 with them uh not directly even though we take 60% they take a you know uh 50 we take 60,000 they pay 50,000 instead of you know 55 56 whatever just uh just to kind of meet them in the middle I mean we could say 55 but I just you know trying to uh I think in what to were briefly discussing we we can identify 60,000 um without like I said without an impact to any of our departments and so that just the 60,000 is even number yeah just to be just to cut it evenly so so additional so they will have to come up with then so instead of the 500 so their number would then move to 550 and so that's really the basis for it just to even clean numbers if you will um and then we find the additional 60 some of which were kind of laid out in the the email that Cody had some just some thoughts but um you know I think there's a couple other areas we can keep the tires on and um and and maybe um to come up the 60 again with with no impact in having to cut any staff or anything of that nature um so that's that's the proposal I guess so what does the committee think of that any concern that's think that's fair it's reasonable yeah I think that's reasonable to do given the scenario that we can not have to have any great impact on our services I think it's okay yeah it's a good thing I'm I'm for it it's overall a minimal the minimalist impact is the school right being that they they cut the 500 we plan for that so asking them for another 50 versus 200,000 which you know get yeah I'm good with the 60 okay all right so uh would somebody like to make a motion then second second all those in favor I I motion carries 70 so uh so yeah I guess we'll have you a plan in your email tomorrow okay awesome good and then we can deal with that on Monday correct yeah I would say if there's any individual comment concern based on what I'm presenting let me know ahead of time so I can address it and have everything ready for you on Monday because like I said we have to have that budget voted on Mond the only the only thing and we we've all talked about this I mean Jim Jim and Todd spent a ton of time on this process this year and if there are opportunities for us to better this process moving forward specifically as it rates relates to the schools I I think that's something that we really have to try to get behind now um versus waiting to the turn of the fiscal year because we're going to be up against this no matter what anyone thinks we're going to be up this against this again next year oh certainly and um you know we certainly have to be in a better position to deal with it than we were this year M I agree it's one of the things I identified early on here that it was a a concern which is we implemented a new process you know on our end we actually did I thought a nice job on the town's end this year I mean we were really done with our budgets in February we pretty much spent March just waiting to see what the school was going to do yeah and some of it could be having to engage Jesse more often or whatever it is because I I think the school committee I don't think it's it's their fault AB we are where we are but um the state's got to be more proactive with some of this stuff we've got to try to lead that effort as much as we can yeah like we did we've implemented these monthly meetings with the administration um I'm I'm hopeful and confident that that that'll only continue to help this process we just implemented it in the fall so we know we'll be full steam ahead we're going to continue those and um as these things come up right I I've said to them we want to start the fiscal 26 budget literally as soon as the fiscal 25 budget passes so that's the plan can they give us an idea on the IEP head counts for next year that I believe at the committee meeting that we were at at the school a couple of weeks ago somebody said something like 180 new IEPs were incoming which is given what we have now versus an additional 180 which now is becoming money that we that is locked in according to you know the the regulations that we're burdened under so I think that would be a great place to start when you know in July after we get this all squared away because that's going to be the impact yes we only have to find $60,000 as an organization however we're only kicking they can down the road to to U you know to a bigger issue next year yeah definitely I do think part of the challenges I know that sometimes come September they'll that number will increase you know they'll they'll they'll see you know how a child is doing after summer and and you sometimes get that September influx so I know we want to get the numbers as quick as we can we also have to brace for even greater numbers you know in September that's how it goes but I personally want to thank you guys I'm very proud of our finance committee you guys ask great questions you guys do a fantastic job you're all engaged you're all plugged in um and thank you appreciate it thank you okay we need them to vote you guys still going to vote I think you had a motion did you already vote they voted um before we go on I just want to mention with the school budget because we want to be proactive right next year um we are looking at somewhere without any time increases just to the schools we are looking at between a $750,000 to a million doll increase just for just for the schools for next year that's one that's over the 40 million right now which is the 2425 budget for for our for yes for our educate cost of Education based on fiscal 25 additional cost of fiscal 26 based you know just projecting is is somewhere in the range of 750,000 to a million just an education cost we had 800,000 new Revenue this year so that just to give you an idea and that's without any Town increases you know um and a big part of that is again just using a 3% increase on 15 million that's 450,000 but then we're losing that circuit breaker money so somewhere in the range of 3 to 500,000 that is helping to offset our elementary school budget this year is going to go to Silver Lake next year and you typically would say okay that's fine it'll just be a reallocation but they're using onetime funding this year to to offset their budget with the idea that they're going to have that money next year so we're not going to see any relief from that next year uh so we can anticipate at a minimum that's if they just committed a 3% somewhere and depending on what the circuit breaker is somewhere in the range of 750,000 to a million just for the schools next year can I good question um kindergarten we do not have a Halifax their own little kindergarten no we have kindergart we have kindergarten no we have it's pre is it here in h okay he's talking about the prek and that's done how effect that's Regional that's why if we have a kidne cat don't we have a preat I think I think it was a cost it was a cost thing um of running running our own program would have been it would have been more costly than to regionalize to run all three okay I Mak sense okay moving on okay so any other questions on operating budget any questions that the finance committee has that I can operating budget wise that I can address or have get information for Monday well I want to talk about a couple things from Monday night if you can uh for like just topical areas huh for the agenda you mean or no for um what we talked about last this last meeting funding the capit capital we can get you if there's anything on operating budget okaying budget is uh so we reviewed that just as a refresher right everybody was comfortable nothing's changing there will be a slight change being the 60,000 that we just need to pull from so outside of that though is is everybody comfortable with the budget any additional questions or no okay okay I will pull up the capital stuff so yeah next up Frank is the capital so we want to go through the items we didn't cover and then capit may go into I was looking at putting I wouldn't recommend it definitely wouldn't I definitely wouldn't recommend that it's a that would be against our financial policies as well we don't use one time money but we should but the good news we shouldn't have to so but we can can discuss that no we did it last year yes yeah I'm going to pull it up on the screen yeah what's recommended that's so just as a a recap Capital planning committee met um we had a little over $2.1 million in requests for fiscal 25 um Capital planning committee voted you can see here um partially to fund the structural gear for the fire department to fund the fire uh Department mold remediation two new police vehicles 300,000 in road maintenance and then um 500,000 in water treatment plant upgrades and 25,000 for the mini excavator for the water department which both would come out of retained earnings and then the other things the idea was to utilize oura before so I I think one of the and I see Chief wh was here so maybe it be appropriate if you want to mind Chief just to come up and just because a lot of questions were kind of surrounding the the structure of gear right so maybe if you can just hit on the condition of the gear today what we've kind of approved through the capital planning was uh the 12 sets and then the two additional through the other funding but essentially the 12 sets which we plan in directly funding that will be one uh one outfit per um fulltime employee but if you could just kind of explain the larger plan and the larger need for the two sets of uh gear for for your staff I guess would be helpful for the committee sure abely introduce myself M Chief uh so I did put a request in for I believe it was 17 3600 for GE U one of the things that I evaluated as the fire chief when I got into um obviously in uh I looked at a a lot of things including some of the gear that we have in place uh currently today so what I did is you know I looked at individual gear that we had and found some some some pretty significant deficits in the gear that we have so the gear has a shelf life of 10 years and majority of our gear now is right at that limit uh I would say that a good portion probably be 90% of it in the next 3 to four years will be at its limit um I know you're saying you approved 10 sets but when you guys are thinking 10 sets I think totally different because of the fact that some people may have a in their set of gear what I mean by that is their helmet their gloves uh coat boots pants everything else um one of the sets that they have may have and I'm using numbers a coat that's from 2007 but pants that are from 2010 so when you're saying I can outfit 12 people that may not be the case when I go back I might have to look at who has what and what's going toly up is expired now and then one person may have a new coat with old pants and vice versa on the other side so you're say 12 set but that may not be the case um the ultimate goal what I'm trying to do is not to come to you in 10 years and say I need $173,000 what I want trying to do is get on a rotation so that each year we get six sets of gear okay and obviously that would be uh at 6200 6 $336,000 uh compared $73,000 so I'm trying to get six days each year the only way to pretty much reset this and to start over and to get to the position we want to get is to fund full sets of gear for everyone right now and then start that process over this will not give everybody two sets of gear I listened you know I heard some from the meeting the other night that you know why do they need two sets of gear this will not give everybody two sets of gear will some people have two sets of gear for a short period of time yes eventually my goal is to have everyone have two sets of gear okay um and what I mean by that is to start out right now we'll have one set of gear that's compliant someone's gear that's going to expire in two years from now yes they will have a set of gear for two years or two sets of gear excuse me for two years and after that when the gear expires we get rid of that get down to one set of gear the issue that I have with our members having one set of gear we go to a fire and we come back they need to wash that gear that is an S so it's a for a national uh Fire Protection Agency across the board everybody uses the same exact thing okay uh one of the leading causes of five fatalities right now is cancer and they're putting millions and millions of dollars into research and development and everything else so much so that the state has been out to lot of to do free cancer screening on our M it was offered to all the guys anybody that wanted a free cancer screening and they're doing it across Massachusetts to all the fire deps is they've gone so far as say that even some of the studies that are going on right now that they don't want members wearing the Gia in the building what our policy at AO is only in apparat Bay they don't go into officers with their gear on they don't go into uh living qus with the gear on or anything like that just majority of the Departments around now have policies in place that they go to a fire they take that gear up put it in the bag put in noide Department drive back to the station all of that stuff goes into the Washington drives gets cleaned it gets put back into service and it grab a second set of gear now keep this in mind with one set of gear we have a fire they wash their gear we get a next call we have not currently what I'm doing is I have certain sets of gear that are upst yes they are expired but I don't have any other choice at this point so they may grab whatever fits them what comes close to fitting them and utilize that gear to go in the next problem okay so my proposal I I understand is what it cost but the only way to do this is to start off again by getting everybody a set of gear and then working towards obviously a second set of gear in the future by doing the six sets of gear it'll probably take me six years probably seven years by the time it rotates all the way through that everybody will have two sets of gear but I think keeping the cost down and knowing that it's coming each year and being able to predict it will be a lot easier so that's my ultimate goal um we do have individualized gear washes and dryers that only for gear um that specialized for gear the heavy duty machines and everything else use you know specific um detergents and everything like that and the standards is getting worse and worse and worse the studies now are even showing that the L expectancy of the ten is is even being cut down because they want us to wash our GE so much kind of a little bit of a difficult situation in the sense that you want us to wash them but yet every time you wash it you you know complete the protction uh that you have on the Gear Nail so we see the majority of our gear uh right now like I said portion of about apartment would probably be 100% non compliant within three or four years um there are some people that have coats that are in compliancy right now but don't have helmets or boots or anything like that gloves everything is label for 10 years whether it's brand new sitting in the closet and you just pull it out on the nth year and started using it right so the the problem that we have is we doing a live over you know um B scale is okay but compar to surrounding communities will lower than everyone else the insurance is a little bit higher here obviously than everyone else so that we have a lot of turnover a set of gear is custom made to each individual person all right so if I come in my size and get someone else that comes in I leave someone else comes in it's a lot smaller can't utilize that gear all right so it may go back in the closet until I find someone that comes close to fitting him uh the problem with having a set of gear on that's way too big obviously if you wear something that's way too big you're not protected you f it goes in there heat goes in there things like that too small same that uh so having a proper fitting set of gear is essential all right so that's why it request um you know to have all the gear right now uh I did I did put into 28 sets uh you know I did hire three more people but two of them fell through uh so I could probably get away 26 sets I saying 12 sets we had two left over but that still in the long run would create issues because I would have one member with bring your set of gear and we could run into issues with liability in the sense that we offered you a new set of gear we give you a brand new codeable pants so if the protection was there for the new pair of pants I mean the new coat and you got burnt because of your pants be a issue just yeah no it's very helpful Chief thank you very much for uh giving us the background there I guess any questions from anyone I have a question so of the sets of gear that you have what's expiring what is expired account what's expired and what is going to expire and if you have that a breakdown over the next couple years I do have but the majority of the gear like I said is there is is the gear right now that's currently not compant service I'm not I I don't dispute that I'm just trying to understand the numbers I think that right now I probably have like off top of my head Meers that have compant GE that is new so that's 12 that's six sets that are complied no no that's three that's three sets three me that are with with two sets a piece no no nobody has two sets that's a that's a long-term goal okay all right the idea of this being their second set yes it would be until their GE non compant then we throw that away okay that's the way it goes So eventually after the seventh year of getting six sets after this then members with have two sets whole nobody nobody two gear Chief uh thanks for all that you do what what is the standard kind of across other departments do most other departments have two sets of gear that they work off when I left P yeah walking through the door really okay I did that research today they do they all have two sets they all get the machines to wash them yep I was wrong the the issue that we run into is obviously like even if you try you your gig is wet um you know you go any SC now but particular the gases the vapers everything else your gear um they're looking at more so even getting back into the truck with that gear on you get back into the truck you back to the station you wash up you put regular clothes on like this Duty clothes you back into that truck the next call you everything and sitting and everything that was exposing you to begin um and it even goes as far as kids come by the station you sit in the trucks you're exposing them as well so by having two sets of gear we could utilize you know all the techniques on scene to you know right now we have special lights we wipe them down wi your face down wipe your hands down you get a gear you put in a bag you know we can come up with other ways uh to make it safer in the fire service in a lot of towns already out but yes answer question majority of thank you any other questions for the chief while he here okay so the cost of each of the sets of gear is $6,200 so uh the request for the chief was certainly much larger than that because he's you know trying to uh out fit the this company but um what the capital plan had recommended is the 12 set so that's the 7 that makes up the $74,000 there 6200 time 12 um so that's what was recommended from the capital planning committee and then two additional withr yeah through the other funding yeah but from a free cash perspective it's just the 12 for the the 74k um so I guess maybe we should go through a vote on that I guess any other discussion I guess before we take a vote or you may want to go through each of the items first because we only have so much money so if you're going to make changes you need to figure out where you're okay fa I don't think may have to vote toight no no they don't have to but it's just a matter of getting the information out there so if we have more questions we can get the answers okay so the the next it was actually the M yeah I think we're all good well the next one does kind of touch on you on with the mold issue I guess but it's really more Scott mat has been handling that so um thank you for your email um Scott U Todd had mentioned that there was questions on the uh bidding process and proposals so we we legally aren't supposed to go up to bid until we have the funding earmarked or appropriated so we did have not gone out to bid for this Scott has um brought down a few different companies to get proposals so he's gotten either two or three proposals which have come in a little under the 100 and I actually I asked him to increase it to the 100 in case we do vot to bid and it comes in a little bit higher that we're not scrambling for money again so I I think the question Cody that we had on on this particular item was not necessarily whether or not it went out to bid but it was the the research that was done to know the existing conditions did they did they peel back the onion so to speak are they only looking at known concerns that are in existence today or we don't want them to start doing the work and then discover there's more problems and we that 100,000 turns into 200,000 so that that was more our question less the bid they've definitely done some of the research and I think Chief can comment but it's primarily in the bathroom um and they've they've looked at it they anticipate the remediation itself isn't what's going to cost tons of money it's the rebuild of having to put together put the bathroom back together basically yeah so when the company did come in um they did do a full full evaluation of the building itself okay um the key areas that they focused in on were upstairs in one of the U front areas uh in the back on the second story in the back area there uh that was kind of mod there was more damage there and they weren't sure um as far as some of the water damage was going in there causing some of the issues and downstairs in the two as well so like Cody said I think it's not really the remediation B was kind of getting to it remediate put together possible but yes question company Comm in uh did full monitoring air quality monitoring uh and did so we use the certified hygienist to do that uh yes specialized company came in independent company did come in to do and then they wrote a scope of work to get a quote FR yes absolutely so the vendors are quoting off of the C's recommendations for I believe Scott's been handling that I I can't speak to Scott but I believe that they were Ed what was found and the full reports yeah typically how it works yes right usually yes yeah and we did contact the insurance company to see if this is a claim it's not so we can't get any any relief through our insurance for the remediation what about the putb back no because there isn't a specific uh there wasn't a claim to put in it's because of the mold that the put we'd have to do the putback so our insurance excludes mold most of them do MH most property damage insurance would all right well thanks thanks again chief chief um all right so yeah so let's just take a vote on Monday I guess you folks can digest it there's been a lot of uh stuff going around tonight so it's digestive we can vote on Monday's meeting that takes care of the uh the capital um planning committee recommendations for the capital budget the other two items of discussion or concern that were raised were relation in relation to the Opera funding which is really more of a s decision so I think there was some question question on the uh wood chipper being um utilized through the OPA funding the reason this was my recommendation my plan is to bring it to the bo of selectman this was you may recall this was on the capital plan last year Steve um our Highway surveyor brought it Forward again this year the current chipper is only um you know is in worse shaped than it was previously and I think Steve's concern speaking with him is if it's not replaced this year um either increased significantly increased uh maintenance cost of it or we may not be able to offer some of like the service that we will you know the brush the people can put out their brush and we'll pick it up and things like that so um in order to just get creative in order to try to fund these things the thought was we have that arpo funding left it's there for things like this we need to utilize it so it was a recommendation to try to fund as much as we could through the capital plan in recognition of our limited free cash this year year this year I I think if I'm not mistaken that it he also said that when they do their own tree work uh if we don't have a chipper they have to have new from or somebody else come in and do it so in the long run it's cheaper to run your so so what is the maintenance cost on the chipper this year I'm not sure to is it has it broken has it been in the repair in for a ton of repairs I mean is there a real need I mean my understanding at this point is that the excavator has a chipper attachment with it is that correct the new excavator they got last year no Flail Mower it it it it's like what you see on the side of the road a wood chipper is what you throw a log into I'm aware of what it would chipper is thing I well yeah I I know what my concern is is it's ower it's two different things so there isn't a chipper attachment no it's a it's a Flail Mower so just a a flat deck 70 however many no it's spin the chains and it pushes back rush off the side of the road they drive by and can you cannot stick a log through it right but we're taking $84,000 in arpa money and put it in a wood shipper and we're in a tight budget this year and why can't we move 60,000 of that ARA money up into the police department buy a cruiser with that take 60,000 out of that and put it into free cash is you could what would you want to use that additional free cash for uh 24,000 can go into the structural gear and reduce that free cash that's into into that structural gear by $224,000 and we end up with $84,000 back in free cash so we're already using the 744 is already all free cash for the structural gear can you use ARA for free gear for the for the structural gear you certainly could so yeah I I think that um I got to digest it a little bit myself because I I after hearing CH talk I mean we I remember John asking me a question when I got sworn into this role that what my priorities were in public safety was top of the list um and after hearing Chief talk I I definitely am rethinking how this all looks on paper now so just to be clear though right so it's two separate things that's why I wanted to make the distinction with the arber funds being through the selectman so we as a finance committee um are only approving or recommending or not recommending for that matter the capital plan budget um the AR funding is is totally separate so it's not like you can say we want to move XY and Z because the capital planning committee has already made the recommendation so it's either yes or no yeah for for me the dots are connecting though here so I like I'm looking at the mini excavator right now which is under Capital right and so I know that that's been operating year over- year already it's already in place we're not going out and buying it it's going from Department to Department correct so if you really dissect this I would curious to see what would happen if we took that out what what the conditions are the way that they are now well that's different the mini excavator is they're purchased from uh from the other department yeah but if you remove that from this well that's what I'm saying is it's already been approved it's already been recommended so we're only we're only yeah that's coming from the so water retain so we have two basically you have free cash which is Surplus revenue for the general fund and that you know any of our general uh government departments you would utilize that funding for Capital so Public Safety any Highway whatever it may be and then you have Enterprise funds which primarily in Halifax is your water department and your Solid Waste they have their own um free cash basically which is their retained earnings and so when we fund items for the water department we utilize the water department retained earnings so for instance if you were to pull that 25,000 out you wouldn't be you wouldn't be given an additional 25,000 to allocate somewhere else it just sits in the wall go towards the water department and they have they have a 1.3 or 1.4 million available right now um the free cash which we have allocated about 600,000 here is what we have to play with for the general government stuff got it okay yeah so it's the road maintenance up basically yeah up yeah and so strategically what we the recommendation here you can you can honestly pick the the idea was you could pick what you wanted to fund with ARA or what you wanted to fund with free cash we wanted to try to fund as as much of the requests as we could with the resources that we have of free cash and some of the arpa Mundy we have available um and so that's how this list was developed and as far as the structural gear it was kind of okay you know 28 sets were were requested we don't have the financial ability to do all 28 so let's get at least half this year recognizing that we're going to have to put a significant investment in again next year but half is a good start compared to what we have now so you get 12 through the the uh Capital free cash and then another two sets which we've already uh been approved through the EMR funding so that's how that figure was developed and then the um financial management system that is something we absolutely have to do um so and the thought there was put that through arpa and the wood shipper came about just because it was a previous request um it's something that you know the highway surveyor has has mentioned as a priority I trust our department heads they're skilled in their areas and that's that's the reason why it's on there okay but those two are still still up for you know the board of Cy install to approve those okay Frank can you can you state your recommendation again with that with regards to the wood chip chip well what I was looking at was taking 60,000 of the 84 and moving it up into the um police vehicles and removing 60,000 out of the 120 and putting that back over to free cash and um then it leaves $24,000 that we could use in one of the other line items here that's currently has free cash in it and move that out of there do I'm a little confused Frank yeah it's two separate $24,000 for the wood chipper that's it no I think he's saying not to do the wood not to do the wood do the no so I think what he's suggesting is is to F so it's get rid of the 84 and then you could fund one of the vehicle police vehicles to the oper F which would reduce free cash by 60k so you'd have you'd ultimately have 60,000 in free cash if you did that yeah but there's still 24,000 available on our perunding right but that's under the B select they have control over that we as def fom only are are reviewing and improving the capital so to this is this was presented just for um so you could see the big picture town meeting town meeting doesn't decide arpa so none of the arpa stuff will go there it was just I wanted to show these were all the requests and we're funding these with free cash but we're also going to fund these other ones just not with free cash I'm just going to ask that question so ARA is our decision strictly no one does no committee that over we haven't taken so I can't yeah so I think your feedback is valid like you can certainly give your feedback but we as fincom don't voting yeah those two show up in that warrant no all right so I think that needs to be made clear so the financial man AG system and the so this this is just an internal sheet though this this is an internal sheet that I passed around so everyone can see you all did get copies of the draft warrant that has what is going to be there which does not include these so just a just a question logistically for for the chipper um if that were to not be purchased this year what types of assuming curbside service would be probably the first to go um but would would the device that they have right now in in operation be enough to satisfy their needs as a department for tree triming around town things like that I think it would continue to I mean it's fulfilled the need over the past several years it's just a matter of yeah it becomes more unreliable so if they're out there and anticipated doing work and it it breaks down well now you know that work can be done um or the the unit that Steve was proposing had more capacity one of the things he mentioned was it had some sort of um like winch on it so they could actually you know go in the woods the guys could attach it drag it out rather than them having to manually go in and drag things out and then feed it through the chipper So Pro um programming to the public would be expanded and then just more reliability um and and potential who knows right the machine may run all year and we may not have to fix it but there may be um May not that's that's with anything but as it gets older and it's used more there's certainly more of a chance that it it will need um higher maintenance costs okay more questions any other questions comments concerns no okay so we'll look to just both the capital plan on Monday I guess but want yeah the only other thing um is so you all received a copy of the draft warrant um everything on there is is you know pretty accurate we're tightening up the numbers based on everything here tonight so we'll work on that over the next couple days send out a new draft um the only other article that we have had to add you you heard me reference earlier was the unemployment cost so there is going to be an additional article to transfer $100,000 from free cash to our Unemployment uh budget which may or may not get spent correct depending on how it shakes out no that would stay there that would stay in our unemployment budget so we have 100,000 there going forward it would stay there we would transfer it to that account we it would stay there it's a it's an article so it would stay in that account until it was utilized or if we ever you know were to transfer it back from right why have we never had a line item for unemployment so the way that Halifax has historically done it is through an article through an appropriation in an article um and we do have funding in there now just not enough to absorb the potential cuts that the school may be facing so we have about $33,000 in there now so we want to we want to be on the safe side so allocating another 100 would put us um in a good spot last time we actually had a cut person been a while we had a fraudulent claim come in in the past year that we still waiting to get refunded but we haven't yeah we haven't had to use it that kind of explains why you haven't seen it very often it's a different circumstance no informative any other question okay uh motion to adjourn I guess on so moved second all those in favor say I ious motion tojin the finance committee all those in favor I Echo Jonathan's comments because I I think um one of the worst job ever is person El and you guys are on that too second worst job sometimes is finance committee besides you can't make everybody happy and it's difficult you have to use your best judgment you want to do the best job you can somebody's not going to like so you folks are doing a wonderful job I really like this committee solid Finance commit I think I've seen a long time I think it's wonderful we really do appreciate you bunch of nerds over there great job thanks guys thank you