##VIDEO ID:JMiqJzzurnk## e e e e e e e e e e after all right good evening all right is this can people hear [Music] me test you guys hear me yes no I'm get uh HW cam I'm getting nose that people say they cannot hear me there it goes better comes okay can everyone hear me now okay uh good evening um I call to I what what we're going to do is um we have several different boards here um I'm going to go around and have every board that has a quorum um call to order and then we'll get the meeting started work for everyone okay um so have a quum excuse me we don't have a quorum do you anticipate a quorum I sure do um do you want us to wait a couple minutes will not be here what Ben andaren will not be here tonight I do not know about okay is that okay for you Peter actually don't really need a excuse me just go ahead I can't hear you okay all right um at this point I called to order the uh meeting of the Hamilton vom Regional school committee at 6:35 p.m um let's go this way to wenom I'm sorry Hamilton excuse me Hamilton Hamilton select does not have a quum okay Hamilton fincom Hamilton fincom does have a quorum there are three of us present all right and can you call your meeting to order I'll call the meeting to order thank you you uh whenham fincom yeah wam fincom we have a quum you can start at 635 great um and I will be happy when uh if if uh if and when new members arrive we can call those meetings to order um as needed um so first off on our agenda this evening we will have a period of public comment um can everyone in the the members of the public can you all hear me okay much um good um so um as you all know this is a sort of an unusual meeting this is the condle board meeting it's not our typical uh meeting um various boards and committees in town do their public comment in different ways um this evening we're going to do it um I'm going to explain how we're going to do it this evening and I understand that that might be different than the way that you might experience other boards and committees but it's the way that we're going to handle public comment this evening okay um so we're going to do it here at the beginning of the meeting and um if people have public comment what I'm going to ask is that you um approach the podium when when we begin you approach the podium you'll be offered three minutes um to offer your comments um I do ask that before you start speaking that you give your name um and please spell your name so that uh your last name so that we can get it correct in the minutes um we will time the three minutes and we will ask you to stop at the end of three minutes um I also just want to make everyone aware that this meeting this quintuple board meeting we have um it's a bus business meeting of the boards it's a meeting that's held in public for transparency so that you have the opportunity to see the meeting um but it's not a public hearing it's a meeting in which the boards are going to get some presentations and the boards are going to have the opportunity to ask questions so the public comment is going to be at the beginning and after the public comment period is over I'm going to ask you to sit down and you are absolutely welcome to stay and watch the rest of the meeting okay um did I get everything in there um I oh I didn't I didn't say this meeting is being recorded this meeting is being recorded um and live streamed on HW cam um uh Amy would you be willing to be our timer sure okay um so at this point if anyone in from the public would like to offer a public comment I'd ask you to approach the podium good evening uh Steven mcarter 18 Cunningham Drive MCW i t r uh the comments going to be about the uh Cutler School building project uh I've seen the numbers over the summer I've seen the lot um majority of the orders in Hamilton I can't can't speak for wiom uh don't want the Consolidated School uh districtwide grades one through five but the numbers are perplexing uh the last select board meeting finance department told us what was advertised in the survey was 70 million we might get 50 million I have the numbers and the notes from the executive board from the state and it appears that that basing all this on 117 million which is the building cost that's what we'll get reimbursed on so there's 50 million dollar of we don't know what that is adds up to project costs so the citizens really want to know you know what's going on and the differential $50 million you can build that's what it costs to build the Manchester by the Sea Elementary School and the biggest part of it is the last sentence and it says you totally intend to put it on the flattest area of the Cutler lot it's all ledge over there that's an underground screen the town does know that we have no idea why you would be doing put $150 million School the size of this project for the residents it's the size of the high school I have a plan here to put a $66 million school on that lot if the citizens the parents and what's good for the children want that thank you thank you good evening hello my name is Peter fer live in Hamilton the last name is f i s h r um at the last opportunity to speak I asked for the ability to Compare costs of rehabilitating the three schools instead of consol consolidating them and um Mr Tracy kindly approached me and gave me the opportunity to give a call to help me find those uh costs posted the estimates posted on the website um I did not call Mr Tracy I did look for those costs didn't find them I would like to see them posted with the names of the contractors who uh quoted on rehabilitating the schools as a an alternative to consolidating and so we can do comparison shopping I would also recommend that we vote very soon instead of waiting much longer uh as towns as communities so that we can uh stem the flow of cost cost for surveys that are ignored by the officials of the towns thank you thank you other other public comment at this time okay thank you um so at this time we're going to close the opportunity for public comment um and [Music] uh going before the arit okay all right next we're gonna Mr Tracy's gonna approach the screen I do know that um some of the members of the public wanted to be sure that they would could see the screen and I it's a challenging room um I if you want to take the opportunity to to move so that you can see the screen um please feel free to move around the room so that you can see um I do want to make sure that board members can see I do this without my glasses good evening everyone um thank you for the opportunity we wanted to give all of the uh boards in town the opportunity to see progress to date on the ele school project um really just an overview just like we are doing with our budgets this evening it's a kind of first glance overview but we wanted to make sure everybody has had an opportunity to see uh what's taking place in the schematic design phase um we'll talk a little bit about where we've been where we're going and how the process works from this point on um so we'll do a little project overview some talk about community outreach uh review the schedule that uh has been laid out for us by msba do a little site plan overview so show show you some of the building uh concept designs and then talk a little bit about the change in msba reimbursement which has been fairly substantial since we began the process talk about next steps and then um adjourn uh that section of the meeting uh so I'd like to introduce the project team members that are here um from jcj the architectural firm we have Doug Roberts Alicia katano Peter Morgan Emily sneki Rebecca Brown James no no James tonight oh there he is James Emanuel sorry uh and then from PMA we have uh Kevin Nigro and Nick Massie uh they are the owners project managers managers working on the project uh along with the district some of the project goals are related to uh really The Guiding principles that we came up with many months ago back in the visioning sessions we had five visiting sessions uh that helped uh bring 50 or 60 people together to talk about what it looked like what it meant what type of education uh needed how education needed to change and some of the issues that uh we looked at is how to really uh build something that would meet the needs of uh as many kids as possible across the district um really opening up the opportunity for communities to use the the space and to be part of the space uh also for intergenerational learning um throughout the the building especially with the the younger kids and then uh develop uh more opportunities for peer connections with the way the building is designed creting a sense of belonging integrating play Within and throughout the building and then excuse me giving Kids Choice and agency was part of those conversations and helping kids to be able to decide um on different directions they would like to take as they uh work through the school during the school day and then bringing the outside in and the inside out and really trying to help uh make some connections to the building uh and things like uh dashboards that kids can look at that you know measure energy consumption or air flow so that they can uh do something of their stem work related to something that may be happening within the building and then really having flexible space so what when where and why uh what we learned through Co is education doesn't necessarily have to happen within the four walls of the classroom and this gives us the opportunity to look differently um and design around um other spaces other than uh the the four walls of the classroom Nick Nick Massie will'll talk about community outreach thank you Mr Tracy how you doing folks my name is Dick Massie I am part of the owners project management team uh for this process uh jumping into some community outreach uh what we've done is uh the project team and the district has spent a lot of time and effort to um make sure that we're getting out to the community in several different aspects uh we've been at your ski and skate sale uh we've met the mothers group we have been to school committee workshops we have been to the winter Boutique um and um we've held a number of meetings that we're open to the public um one of the main goals for community outreach is to make sure that the community um is updated with the most up to-day information for the project and the most accurate information for the project some upcoming community outreach we have uh we are here tonight at the quintuple board meeting um on the 7eventh we will be uh back at your holiday Boutique at the winr school which I am personally a big fan of um and the 10th we will uh we plan to have a neighborhood in a Butters meeting at the school and um on the 22nd of January uh we will have our community Forum number four reason for the community Forum uh number four being over the year is we are waiting for the estimates uh the updated estimates to come in uh to be able to make the conversation and the information being presented more productive project timeline here uh this is a high level project timeline really what shows coming up um in 2025 the two big highlights here are uh the Hamilton one residents town meeting on April 5th uh where there'll be a vote for this project and on the ballot on April 10th to highlight uh just some some some dates down the road as well construction would be sure no no EXC no excuse me please sit down please sit down you are not recognized please sit down hold on just hold on just one second please just let me speak for one second so the reason that I went through that explanation at the beginning of the meeting was to be clear that this is an opportunity for the people who are on the board to ask questions okay I understand but these people that are here right this are we good I CH be thank you thank you this next slide I'm going to hand over to jcj good evening everyone I'm Alicia katano your project manager from jcj architecture and our team is really excited to be here for a few moments tonight to give you an overview on the progress to date and all the hard work that's been done with the district and the school building committee uh regarding the schematic design for your new elementary school for all your Young Learners from grades one through five in both Hamilton and winham and the foundation of this design is the educational program that we heard superintendent Tracy speak about so eloquently and it's really really important that everyone here tonight understands that what we're showing you is a snapshot in time design is a process that evolves as we go through the project and throughout we're going to continue to make sure that we're aligning both your educational plan with your budget throughout the process so as um we're going to start with an overview by James our landscape architect then move into an exterior discussion with um Peter uh one of our designers followed up by some images of what the new school um could look like U by Emily so thank you hello good evening I'm James Emanuel landscape architect with the project team and uh the slide you have before you is the um what would call proba the overview of the existing conditions of the site and uh just to get everyone oriented the the the building is the white um the white object located to the east side of the site and you can see the access the current access Loops for for bus and also for uh cars as they come off of Asbury Street the Green Space to the West Northwest of the site uh consisting of the Open Fields we've got some topography on the site as well too we are at a low point of about elevation 62 and a high point up to Elevation 90 so that's about a 28 foot grade change over the entirety of the site sloping from a low end by Woodland up to the high end uh towards the back corner of the site and we've got a number of utilities uh as you can see on your on your package and in the slide here uh that enter the site from Asbury Street uh among these being the septic system and and uh all the other electric and water and typical utilities so as we go into the proposed site plan um we've really worked hard to come up with a plan that's efficient plan that's safe functional uh and and inspiring in some ways too so um with the efficiency we're looking at the sighting of the building so you can see the uh location of the building in the area that was formerly the Green Space now you can see kind of in the red dash line the existing the footprint of the existing building so you see the relationship of those two and that's important uh so that we can see how the building relates on site to where it is now the efficiency of this comes in the phasing we can build that building while keeping the other building online uh we have the Loop Drive that goes around the building now uh where where uh it allows for Access for public safety for emergency access and vehicles and it also allows us to preserve some of the safe the septic system system um to keep the existing building online as well for the safety and design uh we did coordinate in meetings with First Responders as well as extensive coordinations with our Traffic Engineers to find out the best points of access and eress from Asbury Street onto the site as well as the loop uh for the cars the vehicles and the loop for the uh for the bus Which you'll see in the yellow line right there so that's the the bus access Loop and the blue line is the car vehicle access Loop we've got a Park parking lot and in the Loop Road for Car drop off um one of the main goals was to keep cars off of aspbury Street and we've got a long Loop Road that allows for us to do that allows for queuing uh during pickup and drop off times we've also have accessible routes to Playing Fields accessible routes to uh to the play spaces to the basketball playgrounds all those kinds of things and a nice route throughout the site as well too uh keeping that within the parameters of ADA compliance and we're also aiming to preserve the natural buffers that exist around the property the trees uh and the the natural topography as well too so the site is really designed um with the low point at the West remaining kind of where it is and the building designed to integrate with the existing topography so we're trying to be sensitive to that as well as using um some of the artifacts and some of the materials that are existing in the site that we're bringing some of what's there into the new building to maintain the schools a bit of the school's identity so that's the overview of the site plan and I can turn to Peter to talk about the um architecture evening everybody um Peter Morgan with jcj architecture uh just going to talk a little bit about the concept behind this building and how we're organizing it on the site uh one of the most important uh sort of features of this project and goals for the district and the design team is to create a building that uh an elementary school that will provide equity for all the students in the district I know Alicia talked about grades one to five they're all going to matriculate through this program so it's really uh providing the same educational opportunities for all the students that are in Hamilton and wenam as they come up through those grades uh really important for us so that grade reconfiguration allows that to happen on this on this property uh we're talking about a 7 up to 740 students students in the building um so really important to us is creating a uh sense OFA of ownership of those spaces and we're we're designing this around the concept of learning neighborhoods where each neighborhood in those yellow uh blocks in this scheme are essentially smaller zones where the kids really spend most of their time during the day uh so if you're in grade one you would have that one learning neighborhood that you're associated with most of the day uh so that they have a sense of belonging and identity and ownership of those spaces that's really important to design the the building around that concept so those learning neighborhoods are really sort of feeding into and and um controlled or or collected by that yellow band that is what we're calling color Boulevard it's a essentially a circulation spine that uh those learning neighborhoods sort of feed into um and uh connect to the community spaces as well so we have nice segregation between the learning neighborhoods and the community spaces so you can use this after hours we're going to get into that when we look at the floor plans a bit um another thing that's happening um in these learning neighborhoods is we're integrating special education programming so special education is not in their own Wing down some Corridor by themselves they're actually embedded into the program um and we think that's definitely important for us to um get that program sort of integrated into the everyday life of all the students in the in the building see next slide so we're going to drop down and look a little bit more in detail at the floor plans um I'm going to try to use my point pointer from this angle I don't know how well it's going to work though uh so James talked about the site and how you sort of come to the building where the main entrances are we have a main um let me try to do this here so the main entrance from the plaza side is right here directly adjacent to the main entrance and those purple spaces uh are the administrative offices and nurse's office so that's right at the entrance there's a uh a transaction window for security there's a controlled vestibule so people can't get into the building without being buzzed in um directly across from that main entrance uh is that that gray zone is the circulation spine that's Cutler boulevards that's the thing that sort of um brings all the people through the building this main circulation area so within a Stones Throw This entry we have uh all the community zones the the gymnasium that gymnatorium the cafeteria the music spaces there's the media centers directly across the entrance as well as a shared conference room so there's a lot of uh sort of public functions right near the front door of this of this project just to left of the main entrance that's the first classroom neighborhood and we talked a little bit about the classroom neighborhood each classroom neighborhood is essentially academic core academic classrooms special ed programs and also teacher teacher support spaces um and Emily's going to talk a little bit more about breakout areas and how we're going to activate those those places and and really serve the students and the particular needs the way we teach kids these days so if we go to the right of the main entrance past the administrative offices there's a stairway that gets us up to the second level there's also an elevator for Ada accessibility so we're going to the second level now the second level is comprised of three more uh learning neighborhoods um there's also the St classrooms in yellow uh let's see right there so all the specials like there's kind of a steam Hub at the center of the building where we have Arts music Science and Technology uh and and those are access access from those neighborhoods sort of equidistant so students have about the same travel distances from their individual neighborhoods also on this floor we have some special ed program and the art spaces are at the back there so if we go to the third floor is really the last and final uh classroom neighborhood at that fifth level so we're going to take a look at the exterior um just an idea of how this is starting to look uh the this Mass here is uh the first neighborhood that we looked at that's sort of directly adjacent to the main entry uh and what we're really doing is trying to reference forms that are familiar to kids residential forms agrarian forms like the stables and barns that are around this area so it's really kind of a familiar comfortable uh kind of design and also using materials they're familiar with as well brick brick is on the existing Cutler School uh you can see to the right right there that's the main entrance and uh the St collaps above James also talked a little bit about the site design at the entrance looking to have sort of a natural um organic sort of Plaza with Boulders and and really um using the existing rock out crops as a design feature as well so you can see there's uh the canopy there's a canopy that gives students cover when they're going to and from buses and the main entrance is there next to the main administrative offices and then Emily's going to talk a little bit about the interior design little short good evening everybody I'm Emily Zari with jcj architecture um so we're really excited to share some images of how the interior of the spaces can can transform the learning environment as you know we're creating this new building we're really thinking about what's important to the district what's important to students and staff as they're um entering the building that it's really the first impression when you walk into the school and creating a warm and welcoming environment is really key to um the students entering as well as having the community um because this is a multi-functional type of building it's not only used for school and academics but by the community as well so as you're walking in you have this light filed space you have warm wood tones durable finishes on the floor like tile and and wall tile to um you know give you that that durability for over time um thinking about how the building as a teaching tool as Eric had mentioned into integrating sustainable elements and creating like an energy dashboard with a um yeah this works um you know digital monitor at the entry so it's a something that not only the students can interact with but the community can see how those sustainable elements in the building are really working um it's a great place to introduce graphic imagery as well um things that tie back to the school culture and the community that can be tailored to um to those School elements um here we have that community stair so as you walk in you see that stair that leads you up to the second level but it's also another opportunity for Gathering we have bench seating underneath and this can become another great learning opportunity moving up to the second level this is at the top of the stairs looking back this is looking down at Cutler Boulevard as well as the second floor main Corridor here you have those steam programs with a lot of visibility so now we're putting learning on display kids can see what other students are doing in those programs and get excited about different um robotics or uh video production that's happening in those spaces um we have a lot of natural daylight here you can see from above bringing down coming down so it's a really light filled space and thinking about um even just safety um and Security in the space we have these mesh railings which give you a sense of openness but it's also safe and secure for students who are walking by the O open areas now we're walking in here we have a great opportunity to introduce again some public and Community spaces with the cafeteria and the gymatorium um we have an operable partition between the two spaces that can really open up and create this large open Gathering space part of the idea here is that whether it's during school time for large activities or after school for performances maybe it's an art show or a gathering you can now open those spaces um with that operable partition and be able to flow back and forth it's really a great opportunity for learning um it's an adaptable and flexible space um again Community use um daylight a lot of daylight we keep talking about that it's really important to bring daylight into these School environment spaces so having controlled daylight uh where we can shut that light off with um with Shades um so that you minimize glare during performances Etc and thinking about Acoustics you know sound is very important so you can see we have a lot of acoustic panels and materials that will help mitigate the sound whether you're having gymnasium you know activities um or you're having performance so now moving into the smaller learning communities giving you a sense of what those spaces could look like um we have widened corridors in this area and this this really allows for these spaces to be activated um you you have connections back to the classrooms so lots of visibility teachers Can Have Eyes on the street see what's going on but kids can flow in and out working with other students uh working with par professionals or other teachers um really having a space that they can move in and out this is a the idea is besides the first grade it's a multi-grade opportunity so this is a great place for mentorship thinking about some of the older kids working with some of the younger kids um and really defining those breakout areas in the corridor using different colors and materials really making it fun and playful and exciting and in each learning neighborhood could be a different main color so you create way finding throughout and it's really a very inclusive environment and we're thinking about also com compartmentalizing really compartmentalizing those different learning neighborhoods so the students are really in these spaces primary with with the students that they're working with each day and then just moving into the classrooms we're really thinking about adaptable environment um thinking about how uh we can connect Back To Nature as well so a lot of daylight windows down to the floor so we're bringing the outdoors inside um we know how beneficial that is for students and their their General learning and then connecting back to some small group room we really um um you know the district is thinking about how important neurodiversity and um supporting all different students of different types of learning abilities and so these types of spaces will be really beneficial for um par professionals and staff to do one-on-one or small group work directly connected to the classroom spaces that good evening my name is Kevin Nigro I work for PMA consultants and I'm part of your Hamilton whenham owners project management team and uh if you remember back and I know you don't know the details but to the slide that Nick showed it's okay I don't need that nope thank you um we have completed our milestones and requirements of the two-phase feasibility uh study are PDP and PSR and we received board approval to move into the phase we in now which the msba calls the robust schematic design phase and ultimately the outcome of this phase will be a project scope budget and schedule agreement with the msba and in that agreement it'll outline what the financial participation for the grant from the msba will be this slide represents some good news um it shows that when we started this program just before we got hired the msba was reimbursing community's $432 per square foot of eligible cost towards your project in October as we were in our PSR PDP phase the feasibility the msba bo saw fit to recognize the increased cost of construction in Massachusetts and increase that eligible square foot cost to $65 and I'm pleased to report tonight that at the past August and October msba board meetings they again voted to increase that eligible cost per square foot to $645 per square foot so we'll be uh and we've sent an email to the msba to confirm that our project scope and budget is happening after January 1st 2025 and that we would be eligible for that new rate at $645 per square foot so that represents quite an increase in the grant participation from the msba we will be utilizing this Swiff foot number to populate our total project cost budget worksheet which we'll be reporting on at the next combined meeting as our estimates are currently way thank you very much thank you Governor so some of the next steps we have there there's um an ongoing application approval process uh right now there are two different estimators one hired by jcj and one hired by the owner's project manager they will both do estimates on the project and then come together and compare their estimates they have to be within 1% of each other when all is said and done um so they'll do an in an estimate review uh the Mass Department of Education also has to review our special ed uh report we're finalizing a report right now that has to be submitted to the state uh specifically related to special education and special education spaces and how kids will be integrated into the school building so those will be submitted uh on 1219 and then from there it goes through the msba review and comment with they look at the entire package um the last two pack packages we submitted were more than 1,800 1900 pages long um so there's a lot for them to go through the Department of Education will also review uh and send comments that will come back to the team and we'll work together to R Rectify any comments or issues that may pop up from those two uh groups and then we're going to plan to have another Community Forum in uh January on the 22nd and then um then we start looking at uh construction manager qualifications uh responding to comments from the Department education responding to comments from the msba uh they usually have us submit a report um at the end of their comment period and then we'll work together with the teams to complete that report execute a scope and budget agreement with the state which basically says yes this is what it looks like in in kind of real time if you will the actual cost versus the actual reimbursement which is something I know people are excited to get to we're hoping to get there sooner rather than later and then we get to the town meeting and and um votes that will occur in both towns in April uh so that's really an overview I really want to thank everybody for the opportunity to give the team uh time to present kind of where we're at uh especially where we haven't been able to come to every board meeting and do a presentation we thought this would be a good opportunity for us to get the team out see who's who and um see some of the work to date and really want to thank jcj and uh PMA for the work that they've done to date it's uh it is an arduous process we meet constantly uh know each other well and really try to really work through the pieces of the puzzle if you will as they uh connect to to kids in learning so thank you thank you thank you all for that presentation um and for an overview so that our um Town boards can have a you know have an overview of where we are um I would like to give an opportunity if anyone on the boards has uh couple quick questions um certainly yes yeah I'm John McGrath from the Hamilton fincom um over the last several fincom meetings we've actually spent some time looking at the costs um not only of the proposed project but the five options that were uh reviewed by the school building committee so we spent some time going through that we also spent some time looking at some of the recent projects that were approved by the uh the state um and we're GNA continue to do that going forward and I invite uh any you know Sister boards or members to join us if you'd like to um because we'll drill down pretty deeply into this information um if you can't come to a meeting we do record our fincom meetings and you can go on to the our minutes and there's a link in there and you can um listen to what our discussion has been so we're we're spending a fair amount of time um on the numbers um and we want to make that information as available uh as possible last couple of finon meetings we've had some members of the public join us so that information is readily available uh and it's also on our website U as well but the one thing that I've learned is not just about numbers it's about how the project has sort of responded to the concerns of the community and if I go back to the spring there's a large conversation around large school small school so we actually asked um that that topic be addressed and because it's a it's a a valid concern um what I've learned and Peter you can help me out here if I go astray but what I've learned is the neighborhoods there are eight neighborhoods in the building and as the Educators who listen to this uh they talked about how how the neighborhoods create that small school experience um inside this larger facility so the conclusion that I've come to as I've sort of learned about this is financially um the numbers are the numbers but the qualitative value of the neighborhoods inside this larger facility really hit home for me and I urge everybody committee members members of the public to study this neighborhood concept because it really does address the large large school small school concept so that's just learnings that I've come across over the last year and a half and I urge people to um come to our meetings ask a lot of questions and uh and the school building committee meets all the Architects are there the PMA project managers are there so lots of opportunities to learn uh digest and interact so I just wanted to share that out thank you John thank you oh yeah oh yeah you definitely need a mic it's impossible to hear otherwise Jared Ward winham fincom looking on the page that says guiding principle says 740 student Elementary School grades one through five um I was rolling through the enrollment data uh if my math is correct we had in October 24 445 students that fit that category in the school system uh which is a decline from 2023 which was 452 somebody address capacity assumption in the facility um I'm not a demographic expert but you know I don't see a lot of population growth anytime soon in the next decade I'm I'm I'm welcome to be convinced otherwise and a followon question where are the kindergarteners going two great questions thank you the uh population currently of 1 through five across all three buildings remember all three buildings will come together is 64 40-ish right now um so when when you're looking at the elementary population our class sizes range about 130 kids roughly uh some smaller some higher but that's that's about the average uh kindergarten and preschool the plan would be to put them into the buer school in an early childhood or early Elementary School model uh the buer schools already has a lot of the pieces of the puzzle that you need uh classrooms that are close together uh bathrooms that are already sized for the little ones and um kind of the the the easy flow of the L shape of the building so kids aren't really having to go very far to get services like to get to the calf or the library or the nurse's office so so the number is 640 not I correct I didn't add wenom okay thank you you're welcome yeah it's it's that's the one thing some people Miss it's Cutler Winthrop and uh buer 1 through five which is about 645 students uh they would be moved in a new building and then the existing seven kindergarten classrooms and currently there are two uh preschool classrooms sometimes we have three depending on the year uh so those uh nine or 10 rooms would fit perfectly into the the buer building in the in the structure that's it's set up thank you TR oh oh go ahead let's do here and then is the this is dio jakovich one finance committee is the current estimate still out there it's a $150 million project with about 50 million potentially reimbursable is that still the same ballpark that we're operating off of or if things gotten that was the last that yeah that's kind of been the last thing that was ever discussed we'll get an actual number in December once we get the actual estimates and the actual estimates as they apply to the reimbursable costs we'll know the the exact number so that's why we're we're kind of anxious for December to get here too so that we can have those numbers to say to people Here's the final building cost and here's the the reimbursable from the state but it's you know it's it runs um based on particular rooms the reimbursable cost we've had several meetings with the msba um which we looked at our building floor plans and we're able to add a number of rooms into the reimbursable cost because of our specialized uh special ed programs we have several of them housed at the win School uh that are specific to uh certain um ner universities and and it gives us the opportunity to gain classrooms where otherwise they wouldn't have uh reimbursed them so we're we're actually anxious for that number as well so we can get that out to the public hi Trent Honda um Hamilton school committee um I had a question similar to but slightly different than Jared's which um is the the 740 number um it was stated as up to 740 is that the maximum capacity for the proposed building so it's the maximum capacity at the Department of Education student model level of 22 students per per classroom currently at the elementary level we have 20 kids in each of our classrooms so if we were just to move everybody over there uh we still have capacity for about another 65 68 kids depending on how the population changes we have been gaining Elementary population too along the way and one of the Hallmarks of the msba program is they say not only design a building but also um identify places where if you had to down the road 15 years from now uh expand you have to identify those places in the plan so that that gets done as part of the the design process so just to that point the um building as proposed would open in 2028 right correct so if we assume that the growth from 2020 2024 is the same for 2020 to 2028 that would be about an 8 and a half% growth in the elementary school population brings us to 695 students which is 45 off the maximum capacity correct what is the plan for if we need room for 46 students or 146 students yeah so there there are there are currently classrooms within the facility that so in each neighborhood there are seven classrooms uh there are special ed spaces there are uh specialized resource rooms a number of those spaces can be um shifted to be used depending on your population at the time so your special ed population hovers right around in this District right around 18 and a half 19% um so we look at that and look at how that fits the need for rooms so there there are uh classroom spaces you can you you also get larger classroom spaces so you can add um more than 20 or 21 or 22 kids in a classroom which is a is an opportunity in the bigger spaces where in some classrooms we have you know I know of a a kindergart excuse me a Elementary classroom that has 23 kids in it and it's in a small room it's it's tight so um it does give us the opportunity to go beyond the the design limit of 22 per room so just so I'm following and not getting it wrong so right now we are at 20 students per classroom uh in the in the elementary level yeah if you look at the overall averages which will be presented tomorrow night there are uh 20 across the elementary and then the proposed new building we'd move to 22 as the estimated maximum capacity for each the clust that's how it's designed based on the msba structure but we would just basically move the kids we have to that building there's with whatever change we had some classes may be you know 17 some might be 21 so it's like we have now we have some kindergarten classrooms that are 15 and some four I think fourth grades our largest group with 21s and 22s so it depends on the classes going through you'll see waves of uh total numbers like you you currently can see waves of numbers from 135 I think is our largest overall grade level at the elementary and I think you you'll get down uh to I think 117 is our is one of our smallest so you get that shift and that wave so you can you have the flexibility within the building to move groups of kids around so it it makes it helpful so it sounds like 740 then isn't the maximum capacity it's the maximum Capac it's the maximum design under the department uh excuse me the mass uh msba when you when you look at just their numbers they're giving you a number based on 22 students per classroom so do we know what the max I guess what I'm trying to get to is is is there a a a number of students after which we would have to add space to the current building as planned yeah I guess it would depend on on the grade level so as you start looking at grade levels because because of the flexibility of the building you can move grade levels around so you can integrate second third and fourth grade into a neighborhood and use a uh Mentor model for instance so you don't have to have exactly seven of each class like right now one of our classes is only six um and the other four are seven classrooms so those shifts also give you an extra room to be able to shift around but you could add if if you were at capacity at 35 rooms 22 kids per room you could easily add two more across those 35 rooms but it's never that smooth you don't get exactly the same number of kids in every single grade level showing up so to your mind and this is my last question yeah yeah absolutely yeah the ideal number of students for this is 740 as a Max does that Beyond which does that begin to degrade the student experience in your perspective I don't I don't believe so I think because of the way the building is designed you have the opportunity to make those shifts and you're going to have some classrooms that'll have 21 or 22 and and some classes that'll have 18 or 19 and I think the the reality of some of the the you know growth if you see we're we're in a a a down year right now with our preschool we only have two preschools next year we'll probably have two again the following year we could have three which bumps up our kindergarten so we're we're we're kind of balanced along the way we're not looking for this giant takeoff of of uh an increase in students with with the project but there is there is room for more than 740 it's just the design limit of the state is 740 based on that 22 number because our our original class siiz model if I remember we submitted for 23 um because that was our original class siiz model when we looked at it across the district so the you know the state and our model is is really one student off but that gives you the opportunity to put another 30 plus students in classrooms so we have the advantage of in our district of small class sizes when you look at it right now we have uh an average of 20 across the elementary schools and 19 across the entire School District which is um probably not comparable when you start to look at surrounding districts and and what their class sizes would be compared to us we actually have that's a huge Advantage for us that's helpful thank you Rosie go ahead oh you definitely need a mic it's really hard to hear in this room hi I have a few logistical questions Rosemary Kennedy select board member in Hamilton um first question that I have is it is anticipated that the children will all enter through the main entrance is that correct is not correct no that that is uh one opportunity to come into the building uh there's also a a backside entry which we use uh different models of school entry in each of our buildings depending on where the buses drop off some kids are dropped in playground some kids go from a playground to a gym uh the way this building's designed is you have a front entry where bus students could come in you have a rear entry where car students it's designed to drop off it has a little Row for drop offs uh so the kids can enter right into the gym or the cafeteria space um for breakfast or uh an opportunity to move kids into the gym for rainy days or snowy days as well okay so there's more than one entrance or the school another question I have is um and I'm not thinking of the big picture I'm looking at sort of operational issues when you talk about very young children in a cons Consolidated School how do you plan for a supervision of very young children um you talked about in and out of the classrooms that there are these areas outside in the hallway so I'm wondering what you'll do um to provide that adequate supervision sure currently we use a similar model in in a couple of our schools where kids are in the class in the classrooms and in the hallways so interventions and supports uh occur unfortunately in hallways on stages uh support Personnel working with those kids so you have the classroom teacher who remains with the classroom kids um the beauty of our classroom designs in this building is there are two classrooms side by side with one small room that connects them together that teachers can see um kids working either doing interventions or um you know you could have students that are doing more advanced work where they're grouped up in in various group levels uh so there's opportunities for people to be around all the time we have fairly substantial number of uh our education support professionals that work within our buildings uh kids are often seen by OTS pts uh speech language Pathologists psychologists so they're the beauty of kind of bringing everybody into one space gives us more eyes on on all of our kids okay and so you're anticipating that you'll have very similar staff requirements in this Consolidated School to some extent I think the administrative requirements would change you currently have three principles you would need three principles um but your classroom teachers you basically would move them in their class into that into each classroom uh maintaining the same viability and then finally one other question is you're planning um maintenance on a large new consolidation and the buer school correct clarify that for me mean it's longterm or current well longterm because the buer school will still be in the in um operation for K and prek so in reality you still will be supporting an entire additional schools that's correct that is correct great thank and again that's driven by the the uh Regional agreement where we have to have one school in each of the communities the buer would serve as a single School in the wenam so I'm just I'm just anticipating um maintenance costs for um very expensive state-ofthe-art um infrastructure in the new school and yes we will also have the buer school and I look at that in um in conjunction with the anticipated increases I realize this is preliminary but in both Hamilton and Wenham there is a substantial increase in the district's um requirements just for daytoday uh maintenance and operations of the schools so I'm just looking at those numbers very carefully thank you thank you can I ask question uh sure danovich again you just said something about the regionalization dictates that we have a school in each town limit I guess in a perfect world if that weren't the case would it be more efficient to house all those kids in one school generally it costs you more um the state doesn't cover the cost of preschool programs those those costs are covered 100% by districts so when districts want to say okay we want to move a preschool program in and add um more classrooms then it it becomes an expense that's be that is B on the burden of the the towns 100% with no reimbursement um so the regional agreement in this case we meet we would meet the regional agreement requirements by keeping the bura School in wenom if we combined and Consolidated anywhere else but in one um we we would have to consolidate one School in wenom to be able to keep that model of um one school at least one school in each community so no I get that's the root of my question if that weren't if that weren't a requirement would it be more cost effective to have them in a single building uh possibly I just don't know what the msba would would cover on the on the expense size that's that's the only thing on the increased square footage you're going to put in basically 10 more uh classrooms so it it's really would depend on again the reimbursement along the way sorry then okay then a follow up to her question is there a capital cost coming in the next five years to retrofit buer to make it what it needs to be in order to accommodate the prek andk so one of the things we've been doing along the the kind of recent timeline is doing things like aestus abatement we just completed every classroom this past summer um redoing the gymnasium upgrading that upgrading the sound system we're upgrading the PA system so the things that we need are already in place kind of the essentials if you will um realistically when you're looking at it you could you could move your preschool and your K kids into that building tomorrow and it would function I would however add something like some fencing in the back to contain our little ones that that go out just as we do over at the WIP we have a a fence in area for prek kids just because they uh tend to to like to take off but uh that would really be the the one addition if you were to say let's move in tomorrow uh you could pull it off you have all of the uh Essentials that you need in this building including um bathroom spaces that are very similar to what our our youngest Learners use now at the winr okay thanks I'm Alex rendles on the Hamilton fincom during the design phase of the project was there any opportunity for the community's input on the exterior aesthetic of the building similar to how recently Hamilton did like a community survey for the master plan downtown um with different aesthetic yeah the the Aesthetics went through the building committee all of that process goes through the school building committee um I know the Architects spent quite a bit of time bopping around town taking pictures of things like horse barns and local uh kind of larger buildings to get an idea of how to match some of the scale and one of the things that you know on the Cutler school if you look at is Roman brick which is a longer skinnier brick stack um they they looked at those types of things uh tried to find uh different textures within the community to bring into the the exterior part of the building did the community specifically have input into that only the school building committee okay that's that thank you thank you thank you um right next up on our agenda um are um the budgets um we up first okay um so I I think if um on my agenda I actually have uh Hamilton going first but it sounds like maybe we're yeah gonna go to the school district first okay is that work for everyone okay um while uh is that okay yeah yeah okay good um while Vinnie is getting um set up I just want to take a moment to um just say to the public how much I appreciate um your um willingness to sit and listen and I hope that you feel that the people that are your representatives here ask some good questions um and I encourage you if you have further questions um to about that topic first of all I encourage you to stay and listen to the budget presentation and I encourage if you have further questions these are all people all people here reach out to us we're all willing um to hear from you and to respond to you so thank you for your um willingness to um move through that patiently thank you back there where's Vinnie he dropped his computer and disappeared okay did we decide Hamilton was no no no we' all talk before to change it up a little would you like my joke of the day on the floor back exactly Talk Amongst yourselves just Che what oh you right thanks everyone for joining us tonight I'd like to give a uh special thanks to uh Joe Steve Jeff Wendy uh Eric and all of the school committee members for uh helping us through this budget process and for their future work over the next three months working on it and uh refining the numbers as we move along through the process um just a few items I want to mention this you do have a print out of the presentation uh with you with a few handouts it's about a 16 uh slide deck I will not be going over the whole presentation just a few of the first uh slides but obviously if you have any questions during it please don't hesitate to ask if anyone wants to dive deeper into the numbers uh I would point you to the school committee's agenda for tomorrow night there is a more uh detailed presentation I believe it's uh somewhere between 50 and 60 slides where we dive deeper into the numbers uh we go through school by school line by line uh literally if there was one line item that changed by $30 I broke that out on the school committee agenda's presentation not on tonight so if you want to look deeper into the numbers uh please don't hesitate to look there uh in addition the school committee has not seen this yet uh tomorrow will be the first time they see it due to some scheduling difficulties we had a schedule this meeting ahead of their first initial look at it so some of these numbers uh not only will you be seeing for the first time but they will as well our finance subcommittee has seen them but the full uh committee has has not seen a lot of these numbers uh tonight I'm really going to be focusing on the big overall picture and not diving deep into the numbers uh because we really want you to focus uh on the overall difference from one year to the next and not really dive too deep into the numbers because they're going to change between now and the three months when we uh finally set the budget uh we realized this is going to be a very difficult budget year so we know these numbers are going to be refined so I'm really going to be doing a high level look again only looking at the first few slides of the presentation excuse me so what the district looks at when we first uh go to build our budget is a is a bunch of different things uh in certain order the biggest thing without a doubt is our collective bargaining agreements this is where we go to see things like our Cola adjustments our step increases and our column and Lane changes for any eligible employees next we look at our retirement and staff turnover for some salary savings uh historically how this works works is when a a employee retires or if a turnover happens they're usually a more seasoned employee that kind of Falls deeper in the salary schedule and has um a larger salary than somebody else when they retire or turnover happens we have a tendency to hire in uh a less seasoned employee or someone lower kind of higher up on the salary scale not making as much money so when we build our budget we really look for Sal salary savings uh in these two areas the next big item is our health insurance and enrollment changes uh historically in the past few budget Cycles we've been hit with high premium rate increases uh I do anticipate a high premium rate increase for FY 26 however I was able to negotiate a much lower premium rate increase in FY 25 that we originally budgeted for therefore those savings are being rolled into 26 so for FY 26 there really isn't much in terms of growth for health insurance so that is good news but that is one big ticket item that we always look at every year uh our next biggest thing is our transportation contracts now for FY 26 we do not have a transportation contract in place uh the one we have runs for three years and ends in fy2 historically the first year of our transportation contracts is usually a large larger than normal increase I have built in a projection here but again uh that is just a projection we won't have those final numbers until after the budget is passed in February uh the next big item that we look at is our a of District tuition projections uh historically we always try to be conservative in this area uh we always try to anticipate at least one or two more a of District placements throughout the year uh this is due because of the volatility you can have movein or you can have new out of placements uh these have a tendency to cost a little bit more uh so to cover these costs and to be able to uh Supply the education that the students need we usually are conservative again in this area uh and add in maybe one or two uh additional AO District placements uh the next thing we look at is we meet with all building principles and department heads and go through any new requests they have and also look at the the condition of our buildings and grounds is any of our equipment failing do we need to replace it or do any sort of Maintenance uh during the next budget cycle kind of from a bigger picture perspective we also review our District's enrollment shift and just look at the General State of both our communities what's going on in Hamilton what's going on in Wenham and what's going on with the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District uh to take that into consideration when we go to build our budget for the following years so when I look at this budget um although although there are substantial increases there really isn't much M much new from fy2 to 26 it really is a lot of us rolling the budget forward uh the biggest things we will go over in a minute but overall there really are not that many changes but the biggest difficulties we've seen uh for FY 26 there are two of them uh the first one that we do all the time is our enrollment shift uh this is the popular of how many students reside in Hamilton versus how many students reside in wenom for FY 26 Hamilton student population stayed exactly flat there was no increase or decrease while Venoms increased by 13 students uh so what this ends up causing is $137,000 shifts towards uh wenam and away from Hamilton so saying it in other words if we were to level fund our budget with uh no increase just Roll It Forward from one year to the next wenom would still see an increase of 137,000 wenom would see a decrease for wum that represents a 1.1% increase uh right at right out of the gate so when you're looking at the budget um at the the end result vom's assessment whatever that percentage is 1.1% is directly attributed to the enrollment shift that really is uh out of our hands it just depends on um how many students live in each district uh the second item it is not the second it is without a doubt the biggest difficulty and the biggest item it really is just our enrollment shift is the first thing we look at then we move on to our collective bargaining agreements when we built the fy2 budget we only had one of our five contracts settled uh therefore I didn't know our coal is I didn't know our step increases so for fy2 we built in a 3% in uh 3% Cola increase for all of our contracts uh but if you're remember and you rewind back a year ago uh it's pretty much exactly what's going on today uh in the news was what was going on in Newton and what was going on in wuber to be completely honest I didn't think 3% was enough so I tried to be conservative in other areas of the budget uh in anticipation that we weren't going to uh be able to settle at 3% so what end ultimately ended up with is somewhere between a 3 and 4% uh funds reserved for Cola for fy2 but at this point all of our contracts are settled and the range varies we are anywhere between a 3% and a 19% Cola depending on what group you're in what bar uh I'm sorry what contract you represent what position you have and where you fall within that salary schedule so one person could be receiving a 3% while another person could be receiving a 19% again depending on where you land with that I'm seeing an average of about an 8% increase and stop me at any time if you have course um so that with an 8% increase on average so if you think about that that is double to a little bit more of the cola that we actually built into fy2 and it is over 5 times the amount that we saw in FY 24 fy20 FY 24's Cola was 1.5% uh so that is what is causing uh obviously these large increases for FY 26 so with that we are $1.1 million shy on our fy2 budget which means that 1.1 million has to be made up in the 26 budget so right now we're funding the C is that we didn't Fund in fy2 through the 26 budget but like all of our collective bargaining agreements you then have to factor in your FY 26 Cola so our FY 26 contractual changes amount to another 1.3 million combined that is $2.4 million in our collective bargaining agreements alone if you look at this just in the collective bargaining agreements that represents a 5 .3% increase over our fy2 budget and if you look in that budget document it represents 70% of our overall FY 26 increase that is one item alone is representing 70% of our overall um increase for FY 26 if I add in the next biggest item or the next biggest increase which is our out of district tuitions and our out of District transportations which at the moment we're pro in an increase of over a half a million uh over $500,000 with those two items I've accounted for $33 million and our uh budget tonight is at 3.3 million so with those two items alone I've accounted for 90% of our overall increase for FY 26 which is why I started with they really isn't a lot that's changed this year it really is all related to our Collective bargain agreement ments and trying to fund uh the shortfall from fy2 along with the funding for FY um 26 so we know we have a lot of yep you can ask y I like it when people ask in the middle gives me a second to catch my breath can you just um clarify John can you talk into the mic so everybody can hear you can can you just clarify the outcome of the teachers contract meaning Cola yeah just in just high level so so the point is the school district has negotiated and has it been approved on both sides the district and the I can answer that um okay so um it's actually on the agenda tomorrow night for the school committee um to vote right um it's been ratified by the union the union has ratified it correct as of today so The Optimist in me says the school committee will probably ratify it I mean who knows but I can't speak for the committee but it's U right certainly been recommended by the negotiations subcommittee right so um when we met last week um the point that I made was it sounds like the teachers will be positive and I'm guessing the school committee will be positive of this contract that's what I anticipate unlike what's going on in cluster and correct Beverly and that is my understanding and my interpretation yes and and Vinnie we also talked about last year's increase in the school budget was relatively modest at like 1% all right um this year it's at this point is quite a bit higher my view is that it probably will between the two years will average out to I don't know maybe 4% something like that correct our fy2 should have been larger to fund those right so as as I think about it it's it's good to have a memory of okay what transpired last year um last year's increase should have been higher or could have been higher because if we had estimated it more but anyway what I'm trying to do is look over two years as we try to digest this budget but the the good news is the contract has been resolved and that is in fact very good news hopefully the teachers the parents and the taxpayers will be happy um and the quality of the school hopefully will be positively impacted by all that news so that that's sort of how I sort of framed the conversation from last week I don't know if I'm off basis not that's thanks for that update Vinnie y can I just ask can I just make a comment course yep no offense to John's reframing I get it spreading over two years but your comment Vinnie that you know nothing has changed I think just our general sense that the contract negotiation is a foregone conclusion is kind of how you get to the fact that nothing changed but it's a massive change it's a massive increase and to the taxpayers being happy or not a 4% a year increase in the taxpayers taxes leads to people moving out of the town so just want to clarify sure a lot of changes dollars not so much Staffing and programmatic yes um so throughout the rest of the uh presentation that I'm not going to go into detail I do break out our our enrollment shift uh between Hamilton and wam I also break out all of our uh changes in revenues and all of our changes in expenses the last two handouts in the deck uh break out any changing in Staffing for FY 26 uh the request right now uh only goes up uh8 of a position uh and then behind that again is the breakout of all major uh expense categories plus or minus uh 10,000 um that does the detailed part of the uh school committee's budget I mean school district presentation I can answer more questions if you have any I have a sort of old Jason question which is out of District placements have come up the last couple of years do those primarily sit in the elementary middle or high school I can answer it but I just want to take it off so you don't see what I put on myself because it has names on I can answer you just give me one and the follow on to that question was is there some anticipation that should we have a more accommodating Elementary School we would be able to pull out of some of these out placements some of them not all of them some of them are more severe than we could handle okay within our system so some of the the issues like medically Fragile Kids need a nurse they need um assistance on on and off the bus that so those are really high expenses is that we you know and you get one or two kids that may be in that category it's actually easier to put them in a program that can meet all of their needs where we really we struggle to meet the child's needs and has the standard for what it takes to qualify for an outplacement changed and do we expect to see an increase in out placements similar to what Vinnie you're showing now uh just answer your first question there's six in the elementary level and uh sorry 33 in the secondary so it's mostly secondary secondary being six six six through higher because we have to accommodate them Beyond 12th grade right right right okay and this to answer your other question the standard is about the same it doesn't hasn't really change the the values of the neurod diversities are changing dramatically um we're seeing um much more intense and difficult behaviors and issues at at younger grade levels uh which is a little bit alarming but we we kind of seen that coming out of covid and some of that is stuck with some some kids along the way so we're seeing mental health issues um really driving some of that so if you have a mental health issue coupled with uh a learning disability it becomes a frustrating situation for that child to be able to fit in and in you know the round Peg square holes so it's it's hard for kids to to fit that process so in in the the cases that we look at we really try to find the best opportunity for kids to succeed because um ultimately we want all our kids to be here ultimately I'd want every single kid to be in our buildings it's just really not feasible with some of the the needs that they have yeah I just and I know it's not a non-weighted average but I'm just looking at like cost per child which sits somewhere between like 10 and 18 depending on how you pull it it looks like for out placements that cost is like somewhere in the 40s to 50 per kid more 50,000 I believe it's more than that yeah it's more than that and you thought you anti a substantial increase in FY 26 uh for FY 26 our AO District placements is projected to grow I think about 240,000 I believe it's on the last sheet in that handout and out of District transportation is about another 260 I believe at the moment okay still need to be refined go back to last year remember we were fighting with the state over the 14% automatic increase that they I remember that all the a of District placements this year year it's 3.67% a little more realistic but still more than we anticipated it's generally been 2% along the way so we still have to look at that and that's basically a rate that any out of District private group can say yeah we're going to raise right to that rate automatically if you have a kid that's in a $150,000 placement it's automatically going up that 3.7% got all right I just for my own knowledge thank you um Jared W I apologize I'm new with some of this nomenclature um and maybe I'm getting ahead of the game here but I'm looking at the next is offsets and revenues and the next is offsets and revenues without e andb which by the way I don't know what that means but there's some line items here if somebody could translate circuit breaker offset that's a big number yep so circuit breaker offset is directly related to our AO District tuitions the state uh does fund a portion of our Auto District tuitions there's a formula that they use uh to determine how much they're going to reimburse us but that's a state reimbursement for us uh paying for AO District placements thank you uh read chap Chapter 70 base Aid that's the just uh Aid the state gives every Community okay stand okay y um excess and deficiency returned excess and deficiency offset by expenses yeah so the easiest way I can explain that I don't like using this term but it's it's kind of the profit you had at the end of the year it's how much money you left you have left over from the prior year is it sort of like free cash and it's exactly it's your free cash yes correct yep so you you had or you're forecasting a million three of free cash uh it would be about two million it's the combination it's those two it's those two correct so how do you arrive at your free cash estimate as to what you need for uh free cash I ask because we're struggling with that in the when income as to what the appropriate percentage you know is to hold uh so I'm not sure how it works on the town side but for the school district we are not allowed to hold anything over 5% the remainder has to be returned or placed in our budget that's what that 2 million is that's everything over our threshold what what what is your threshold is it is it 5% of our budget uh so round numbers it's about 2 million so the 5% is a discretionary figure uh it's a State Maximum we are not allowed to hold more than that but anything anything below is our disc that is a discretionary figure is that correct anything below that below that which would reflect some presume presumably some utilization requirements you know in in the future in future periods okay thank you y yeah you definitely need one please thank you it'd be helpful to get a sense of um so I see the lineup for school choice about $300,000 or so so just doing some very quick math I might have done it wrong it's about $4,000 per people coming in versus the $50,000 roughly going out um are those numbers right like you kind of walk me through how that process actually works because if we're paying 10 to 20,000 for a one student or Hamilton student coming in it's $4,000 if you go out it's 50 I just don't understand so it's 5,000 to come in uh we receive 5,000 per student from another Community to come to the district uh we do have a bigger than normal 12th grade class that will be graduating out so I lowered it by I believe about uh four students off the top my head so that might be where you're coming up with the 4,000 uh number uh we're just anticipating that a bigger class goes out and a smaller class comes in our school choice is slowly dwindling uh numbers so it's 5,000 for each kid coming in what was the second part of your question I'm sorry well I guess just understanding like what it's 5,000 coming is that just like the number from the state that's the state yep that's a state number that they set uh that they haven't changed in decades we do have school choice out so that's students uh who live in Hamilton Wenham who might attend Beverly Public Schools uh that's an expense within the budget though it's not listed in detail that's the same $5,000 with yes we get charged $5,000 to send a student out they do have a special ed increment so if the student does receive additional Services it might be a little bit more than seven I'm sorry 5,000 but it depends on what services they're receiving uh generally speaking it's five all right thank you and uh I believe Venom is next I had sent uh a thing over to Janelle but I think everybody has a handout as well yep so Jeff sard wam Finance director um we've got a really short presentation here um if you go to the first page we're just going to walk through kind of our issues and challenges for FY 26 uh probably very similar to everybody else uh in the room um you know we're very early in our budget process uh we won't actually meet with departments uh for about a week or so uh so our budget is uh very preliminary at this point it's going to develop over the next six to eight weeks uh and will likely materially change from what you see here tonight uh the biggest issue the town of went is facing is that while you are just wrapping up your contractual uh negotiations we are negotiating with three of our four unions uh police fire and our asme uh DPW and clerical folks uh so that's going to have a big impact on uh our FY 26 budget uh and that's really kind of tough to quantify right now um in terms of the direction for our budget for FY 26 both the select board and the finance and advisoring committee are looking to avoid an operational over for FY 2026 um and we uh in this presentation will only deal with the operating budget uh typically in when our Capital costs are handled with free cash uh so they don't really figure into this part of our equation uh flipping to our our next page uh I'm just going to hit some of the highlights uh of our budget uh for 26 uh you know as we just heard uh from Vinnie uh I think maybe my numberers off just a little bit here from uh it's changed a little since last week but you know the big ticket item for us is a 10 and a half% increase uh to the Hamilton one school budget uh you know along with the the abortion shift to wenom that's going to be about a $1.2 million addition to our budget this year uh historically we have about a 3% increase at Essex Tech so that's a small you know $99,000 adjustment for us or so um we've got a couple of small kind of administrative adjustments that need to be made in our budget um for bud budgets that have been historically underfunded uh it's another 21,000 or so um the library which is joint Library shared with Hamilton uh is one of the few departments who has already submitted their budget to us um and they are up at about 1.6% mainly driven by uh contractual obligations because that Union actually is settled uh and that's about a $177,000 increase to us um just to sort of lay out what we've said to our department they've been instructed to essentially level fund across the board uh they understand that we are likely going to have increases due to the contractual negotiations but they've been told to try and find offsets to those increases as best they can to still end up at a net zero level funded for FY 26 at this point uh the library made a a pretty good faith effort to do that uh and and came in you know under 2% so you know hopefully we can work with them a little bit more but you know generally that's what we're going to be looking for from our departments um joint Recreation uh small increase there same thing uh just sort of underfunded in the past sort of catching up uh for the town much like I'm sure for Hamilton and for the school uh the big ticket items for us pension health insurance and then our general liability we start the year every year assuming those are going to go up about 10% uh typically they come in a little bit under that but to be conservative we start at the higher 10% number that's about a $240,000 increase um and the final sort of bigger ticket item we have is we are on an OPB funding schedule in Wenham uh historically we just increase our OPB contribution by about $10,000 each year um and that will that will you know take place again for FY 26 moving us to 110,000 um generally speaking the last note here uh all of our budgets are targeting level funding uh we have built in sort of a conservative estimate um for Union contracts and some other you know expenses that are going going to increase um for FY 26 but right now it's really more of kind of a reserve placeholder than it is sort of specific numbers attached to budget line items uh the final page you know we just tried to come up with um a onepage quick you know high-end summary here um to show you sort of where we're at and where where our um you know increases are coming so if you look at the Top Line you sort of the Town operating budget uh is going to go up about $560,000 uh roughly 4.8 4.9% increase uh Hamilton W Regional School as we just talked about that's about a you know 1.25 million dollar increase or roughly n 10% for us uh all in um $8,700 for S6 Tech uh small 3% increase there so all in our expenses are you know we're estimating uh are going to go up a little over 1.8 million dollars for the year uh as we walk through this chart you're going to see we're assuming um um you know our amount to Overlay at $200,000 is going to stay static uh for now we're assuming our state aid net of any offsets is going to remain the same for FY 26 um we are looking at approximately $140,000 $150,000 of increased local receipts um which means the net amount uh that that uh we're going to have to raise by taxation is going to have to go up about 1.6 almost $ 1.7 million um add on top of that we've got Levy limit growth uh prop two and a half growth and we also have some excess Levy capacity from the prior year um that uh is going to uh ultimately net to us needing um needing about uh $670,000 there um or increasing about $670,000 there so the end result for us is that as the budget stands right now with you know the information you've given us here tonight we are at about $620,000 over our Levy limit uh for for FY 26 at this point in time uh you know and I would just add you know that that is is likely to change I mean we are in negotiations uh so it's sort of tough to know where those those will go um but um clearly we're going to need to do some work uh and hopefully work with the school uh to to close that Gap because I think most of us around the tables here agree um that you know we don't want an operating override in the same year as a dead exclusion override um you know but certainly on our side of the table I think you know between all of us we can work to get that 620 down to a non non override in wam thank questions for Wam fors so we've just built in a a a fixed cost sort of a um you know is built in there yeah I mean you know much like you last year you know could the 620 become 720 or it could have become 520 probably not 520 but you know it could go higher but yeah I think we feel comfortable we're within Striking Distance at that at that number oh other questions thank you all right Hamilton take it away thank you um much like wam we're in very preliminary stages of our budget formation uh point out that U this meeting is nine days earlier than it was last year so uh we're quite a little bit uh the numbers that you'll see Wendy will go over those in a few minutes for us uh they're very preliminary and um they look like big numbers but I assure you I'm not panicking yet so um we're we understand there's a lot of work to do still um ch uh first page the FY 26 budget remains a work in progress right now um our FY 26 budget goals are a level service budget to deliver all the same services to Hamilton residents as in Prior years uh we are very Loosely projecting uh local revenues of 4,649 442 um and uh we're projecting expenses totaling 45 m392 189 uh I'd make a note here that uh the reeven uh projection does not include any funding uh from free cash or other outside sources so at this point you know the $5 million difference looks like a very big number but um we when we balanced the budget for f25 there were a number of other sources that went into into balancing that and those are not currently included in our U Revenue projection uh I'm going to ask Wendy to kind of go through the the brief expensiv okay so the big picture um looking at um each projected uh Department level increase the big picture is just to note that uh currently with the schools it's you know we're looking between the two schools at 9.4% increase and overall the town is looking at a 3.2% increase so we're hopeful that uh you know we can find some areas within each uh within each department of of the town and also with the school to close that Gap again we're very preliminary we don't even have all the department heads um figures yet so and when looking at um looking at the unclassified we did go down because that that held a um significant amount of our Union contract um Reserve last year so you know we were able to spread that among each department uh but overall we are looking at a $2.9 million change okay so the pi the pie chart always uh speaks volumes to people because it's very clear and easy to uh identify quickly where the spending is and uh as I mentioned the schools you're at 61% of of the overall budget um the unclassified is 6 million at 133% and the unclassified just as a reminder that's your health insurance your pension um and um the um the insurance for for the town your OPB and any kind of transfers to stabilizations to meet the um Reserve limits and then looking at Public Safety you're at uh about 4.5 million or 10% of the budget and um General government is 2.8 million or 6% of the budget Public Works 2.7 6% of the budget and then your uh Recreation and culture which includes your library is 1.2 uh million or 3% and your health and human services is 1% um under just under 500,000 so you know these um our fy2 26 assumptions and concerns we're currently running as I said uh very rough numbers $5 million in the red we don't expect that to stay the case obviously uh we're carrying a 10% increase for insurance and uh pension increases we're assuming a level spend on capital projects but we recognize right now that that may not be possible um we included negotiated contract increases for all of our employees uh we closed all five unions last year in in the current fiscal year so we're we're good for the next two years as far as we know what our our employee cost is going to be um our assumption is no override uh no operational override uh just as whenham said suggested we don't think it would be a good idea to look for an operational override in the same year we were looking for de exclusion and it assumes loss of revenue for a couple of our imas some of our inter Municipal agreements have modified and some of our partners are no longer with us so we always count that and the revenue side of projection so that's showing a loss of revenue for us all right thank you questions for Hamilton okay looks like we might have done it all right um I was gonna I was gonna adjourn the fincom meeting oh excellent why don't we start at this side of the room man go for it I'd like to take a motion to adjourn the finom meeting so moved all right those in favor all right fincom is adjourned all right uh I believe you you're not actually called to order um we'll go over here uh whenham looking for a motion to close the uh wam fincom at uh 8:15 unanimous thank you okay all right and the select board no U do I have a motion i' move a motion we adj our meeting have a second second by Amy kumberg all those in favor and that is unanimous of the members president we are adjourned thank you all very much thank you every