##VIDEO ID:nB9R1T9_TaE## ready when you are page how are you John I say hi okay how's the summer all right am I on hello hello I can't I can't tell test one two I haven't even hello oh there we are okay uh good evening uh call to order the meeting of the Hamilton whenham Regional school committee on September 5th 2024 at 7 p.m. um we'll Begin by inviting you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance plge ALG to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay um first up on the agenda are citizens comments it does not look like we have anyone in the room who wants to make a comment do we have anyone on Zoom we do not okay nobody on Zoom hello um all right uh so seeing no comments I will officially close citizens comments at 7:01 we are flying along okay uh Amy would you please read a portion of the school committee protocols yes as elected members of the Hamilton mham Regional school committee we including the superintendent accept to the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible to that end we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business number two the superintendent and the school committee represent the needs and interests of all students in the district and place the students interests above all others in the their decisions while remaining within the limitations of a voter approved budget thank you um next up we have the consent agenda does anyone have any items that they would like to hold from the consent agenda no no okay um I cannot remember now who is our who's making our motions this evening oh our VI I can is it you make a motion um I move that we accept the consent agenda as presented second second by Jen Carr um all those in favor and that is unanimous of the five members present and the motion passes um all right um the next item uh is to appoint a school physician um I am going to uh just a make a disclosure and I'm going to recuse myself so um the um proposed um School physician who is our current School physician Michael Yun um and my husband are uh Partners uh physician Partners together and so I am going to um in the interest of full disclosure and um to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest I am going to recuse myself and I'm going to turn this motion over to Amy and I'm actually going to leave the room be back okay um so I think we need a motion the motion would be to appoint Michael Yun MD as a school physician is that the motion District district physician okay I move that we appoint Dr Michael Yun MD as the district physician second second by Jen uh is there any discussion I just want to not Ju Just For One we have to do it just people yes good reminder yes something we do every year time um just a informational question um what is the role it's a really good question it's a great question it because it's one of those things like oh I didn't know we had a physician on stuff but actually the uh District physician is a really a Consulting basis so the best example I can use because it happened during my time is like whooping cough the lead nurse would call Dr Yun Say Okay what are the protocols what do we do how do you know this is what's happening and then he kind of gives us Direction and advice uh can also sign off on medical orders so go back to co when we were doing uh Co shots in in the facility test the testing I mean in the fac and covid vaccines um he would be the person to sign off on that so thank you yeah and um am I correct in saying that it's a requirement right from the state yeah is state law to have a medical consultant awesome any other discussion no okay are we ready to vote all in favor okay it's unanimous of the one two three four of us voting and it passes thank youone get Dana that's a long walk okay um next up on the new business is the um vote on the um School the uh food service worker um contract agreement uh Eric thank you um this was an an assignment that was given to Mr Leon and I uh in back in the spring to meet with the Food Service workers who had requested to unionize um we met with them and built a brand new contract from scratch worked with um the asky group who also represents our custodial staff so was it was actually fairly straightforward everybody kind of knew the ropes of how things should be set up so this is the final agreement uh that was hashed out and um essentially it gives them a lot of things that were kind of not in writing in writing some of the protections that should be there um even even things like conditions of employment weather what to do in weather what do you do if you know if it's lunchtime and X Y and Z happens um how do you file grievance so all those things now are put into paper and and memorialized uh total cost of this group contract for this year is is about 27,000 for the for the whole school year okay okay um so first we need a motion to start us off I move that we accept I move that we what's the verb ratify ratify I move that we ratify the agreement as proposed keep it simple is there a second second second by Amy um does anyone have any questions questions um and uh Is there further discussion this was the negotiations committee worked on this uh so actually we uh delegated or um uh Eric and Vinnie to do the negotiations on our behalf okay so they did the work right we did the custodians and the food service workers same ask me group one had a contract we just cleaned up and another one we needed to build this the Food Service one we need to build from scratch so yeah it looks great I haven't heard any negative about it so no and and I I do want to just add it's a lot of work like that um to create a new contract is a lot of work so yeah much appreciated you guys got that done in a in a very timely um all right any other questions discussion all right uh looks like like we are ready to vote um so all those in favor and that is unanimous of the five members present and the motion passes congratulations Susan you made it just in we to get up early all right bye bye coming um next up we have um some information about the uh Hamilton wam volunteer Fair um so the League of Women Voters this is the second time that they've run um a volunteer fair and we participated in the last one um uh Amy and I actually sat at the last one and had a um table there um as I know you all know but if anyone else in the world is watching this like we are in fact volunteer board um which is why the league asked us to participate as long as well as some other boards in town um and um I mean it was a busy place last year and it was a good opportunity to talk with members of the public about what we do and it was also I felt I mean this is just me personally but I really felt like it was um you know the people that are coming in our community to a volunteer Fair are really interesting people who are are looking to get involved and looking to get themselves really educated on a whole number of different topics and so it was an interesting group um I just for full disclosure they asked me if we wanted to participate and I already said yes but I need to bring it to you all and make sure we could certainly go ahead and say no if we don't want to participate um I so I guess I'm looking for consensus about whether people want to in general want the want the committee to participate second of all we're looking to see whether who would like to actually man the table um if you guys do want to do and then sort of my third point is I do see this as an opportunity to provide accurate public education and information um about our um various things that are going on in the district including um the new school so it's an offer and and I guess and athletic just to provide clear accurate information um so I don't know I don't know if there's I don't know if we need a motion there I think maybe there's time just for questions first does anyone have any questions and then we can think about yep and is it yes it is on September 21st it's a Saturday and it's during the day it's during the day I don't know 10 to one right I'm looking at your screen last year it was last year was in the evening which yes it was during the week I think last year like random Wednesday or so it's kind of nice it's Saturday and I think it's going to be outside this year yeah which is cool um all right any other questions yeah I think I could I could probably do it I mean if we have interest in participating yes well like I said there two things there's a general are we wanting to participate and then the second is who wants to actually go yeah I will for sure like have a soccer game but I mean I feel like I come later I am available but I would love it if other people would love to go yeah with me or instead of me I could I could do some of the time I have to be somewhere at noon so 10 to 10 to 1 10 to so if you want to split a shift if that's I think if we have a game it's Pro I mean who knows when the game is should we just figure out later or do you want to talk later cuz yeah I don't know when the soccer games are but I could definitely do it I think as long as if the committee agrees that we're comfortable with any member of the committee going then we could certainly password situation schedule later offline yeah you have thoughts whether you're available I I don't have anything on my schedule that day so okay so that might work for you nightm okay so that's good so Trent is available that day and you're so we've got some people um we do want to make sure we don't um we can't have a quorum so right um we would be ideal to have at least two and maybe it sounds like what would be nice is maybe we have some people coming in and out that might be a great way to do it do you want to just figure it out the three of us scheduling is always okay so we could if we agree to that then we could schedule after okay what do we need to bring or do we need to just talk about that offline or um that's a good question Eric I um I'm hoping you might have some visuals that we could bring of course what happened last year do we have a table brand new ones that we have coming in I think Tuesday they had a table marked for us they just have a table and then I think last year we brought an easel and I think we put the goals up and we had okay cool I can't remember we did have something that we like some papers that we had so but this year I think we'll have probably more visuals about the projects I think um we're getting new ones actually next week for the the elementary school project and then we have the ones for the field project we can also get new ones done between now and then that maybe have this year's goals so you're talking to talking to those goals as well so we can do that um okay uh Julia you think you're ready to make a motion just to oh I vote I move that the school committee participates in the Hamilton 1 and volunteer Fair second second by Amy kumberg any further discussion okay all those in favor all right and is unanimous of the five members present um and I will go ahead um and send an email to just see and I'll send it to the two members that we have that are missing as well and then we can just come up with a schedule about who's going to be there um um okay um next um this is something that I put on the agenda um because I wanted to so when at our most recent meeting we only had four members of the committee here um there were just four of us here and we had the um food service worker agreement that was on the on the agenda and at that meeting when we went to go and vote one of the members said you know I have a concern about whether this might need to have a two-thirds Vote or not and um I did not know the answer and I also didn't have a quick and easy way to determine whether that was and I when I reflected on it so we it was okay it was something we could wait on and we brought it today just to be safe the answer is we didn't need the two-thirds but I did um I did think it was a really valid concern and it's not something that I I so anyway I'm just telling you that because what I'm bringing forward is what I wished that I had at that time was a cheat sheet basically of like what are all the things that now I have the cheat sheet of what the sort of Roberts rules are what you need a two-thirds majority but we have in our own policies some things that we have decided as a committee as a district that would require a you know different level a majority um and so I guess what I'm asking is and I is does anyone on the policy does the policy committee or any member of the colcy committee is the committee willing to task them with creating such a document which would require a policy review I can't imagine it wouldn't take I mean it would take some time but not not EXT policy is new or newish yes yeah but we could definitely handle that I think so I guess what I'm and so who's who's on who's three the three of you um so I guess what I'm looking for would be to see whether this committee would like to task policy with doing that work because it would require you guys to have a meeting and make something and create something I think so do we need a motion if You' make a motion then we can discuss I move that the school committee task the policy subcommittee with creating a cheat sheet policy review of vote requirements second second by Amy kumber um is there further discussion no I think that'd be really a great thing to have actually yeah I it was something that I um just sitting in this seat I felt badly that I didn't know the answer because it was a really legitimate question that it was actually David pedo that asked and it was a legitimate question and I felt badly that I didn't know the answer and it I would have liked to have been able to just say give me is it a number above a certain amount is it number below a certain amount is it a contract is it this is it that correct exactly um I would like to know that too and um it would have just been helpful and when I went back to look at it myself I was able to find things that are um again like that follow Robert's Rules but I wasn't able to find like I was like in order to find out about our own for for example I believe that our policy is like if we're going to extend past 10:30 p.m. I actually think we have to have a two3 majority well we just created that the committee that's not something that the masc is is going to be able to pull up us so right okay um did we vote no no okay um all right anybody else have any questions all right uh all those in favor that is five in favor and uh and the motion passes of the five members present okay okay okay uh Eric this is to you new voting members of the Cutler building committee thank you the um reason for this recommendation is that we had two people last in the last year um leave their positions who were both on the the school building committee um so this is a really a straight swap out so the the expectation from msba is that that that the um building principle will be on the committee um our new uh building uh uh principal at the Cutler Jennifer hunt um would be added in and then our new maintenance uh director of facility maintenance and operations Curtis Whitman would be swapped out for for um Tom giri who was here last year so these are just direct swap outs of positions that are expected to be on the committee so the motion is to accept the two new members so that was actually that was actually going to be my question too is is are is that what you're looking for do we know whether you're looking for a motion to accept or are we just are you just informing us no I'm because of what occurred earlier it should be a motion to accept the addition the motion should probably be to accept the addition of Curtis whitean and Jennifer hunt to the school building committee effective immediately it would go to the next meeting basically okay okay I move that the school committee vote to add Curtis Whitman and Jennifer hunt Curtis Whitman the new director of Maintenance facilities and operations and Jennifer hunt the new principal of Cutler elementary school to the Cutler School building committee as voting members second second by J Carr um all right is there are there further questions or discussion please oh do we also have to vote to remove Tom Gary and the other principal they remove themselves that that was a question yeah that was a question I asked the msba we because they've left their positions we have 20 days to notify them the msba of the change and basically we send them the same exact roster with the new names they review it and then say whether they accept it or not so they're technically not on the committee until they're accepted by the msba which is in this case it's just positions that were already there TR sure um I think I know the answer to the question but I have to ask it um are either of our two new members Town residents yes okay excellent the reason that I ask is because when I go to the school building committee faq's page um and it'll if I give it a second um the fourth FAQ is how many people in the school building committee and how many of them reside in Hamilton WAM and what criteria were used to select them um there's several answers to those questions but the linked School building committee roster doesn't actually indicate who's a town resident okay it lists and it's a little confusing because for folks that work in town it lists their work address yeah so it might be perceived as if they are Town residents and so my recommendation would be to have a indication yeah we could do that um and then my you know further recommendation would be um if the number is less than 50% that you might consider whether or not it's meaningful to open up a call for community members yeah which is actually part two of this after the vote that was the question I was going to ask next excellent well I I you know stepped on it sorry it's all right no worries no um so those are just my comments yeah okay um all right uh do you have anything else we ready to vote okay um all those in favor that is uh unanimous of the five members present and the motion passes um Eric did you have more to say about that just yeah just I just want to get some clarification on how to proceed with I have at least one if not two people who have already reached out and said gez I like to be on the committee um I have some fears of how big does the commit get which is also makes it a little bit unwieldy but as Tren had said trying to find some more local people who live in Hamilton or winham to be part of the committee is a good idea so is this a good way for for me to bring people forward as a recommendation or would it be something something where community members request of the committee to be part of the building committee I have a question what does msba recommend or require they leave it up to us okay yeah y i just I've been a involved in projects where you have like a design by committee makes things hard so I just think keeping it manageable in size is important yeah the the expectation for knowledge is a big deal for the msba like they need to be in the trades they need to have an understanding of like like one of the first people that comes to mind she's an architect the parent who's an architect so super helpful to have that knowledge to know if things are you know really doing and happening the way that they're that our Architects may be saying they are so um so they really do expect people to submit a resume with and that's how we did it the first time submit your resume show us how what you have for the skill set in design or engineering or um architecture so there are some parameters it's just the the the actual process is left to the committee to determine so that's why I want to clarify it so if you would rather have people apply directly to the committee or put something out from the committee say we have three openings and from this committee or the school building from the school school committee are there gaps currently that was gonna be my question because if there aren't if there aren't gaps then I think we would not probably open it but if there are like Trent was saying gaps maybe from people living in a certain Community um or if there are gaps in expertise that we might need then we might look at it but I think I don't know if there aren't gaps I don't know if I would open it up personally has the point that we were we talked about last time we this was on the table trying to make sure that we have enough residents on there making this decision about you know $150 million essentially so yeah I think I think that's a that in itself is a reason to say okay let's get some more people so and you could set that parameter 50% have to be people who live in town but I guess I to Julia's question I guess I don't know right right now are there in other words through have there there these positions that we just voted on today are specific positions like whoever is in that position should be on the yeah whoever's the the principal whoever's the facilities director which is a little bit different than what we're talking about so are there gaps I guess my question is are there gaps because people who were have left the committee or their I I think that the the idea of a gap is actually a misreading of the msba statute no I understand that that like there are certain positions like these that are required or whatever but then we created a committee a committee was created and I guess that you're correct that's not the right way to put it but since the Inception are there spaces that people have left that are now you're looking to fill is that rather than expanding the size of the committee from inception that's what I'm right and one of the example we had a contract attorney who left so we you know we had a contract attorney which was actually really good to have but that person left the committee so that you know that position was never filled I I guess maybe I'm saying the same thing that Julia was saying is I'm not really looking to make a bigger committee than there was initially if through attri or whatever things have left and we now feel like there are things that are missing or that could be filled and filled as much as possible with residents that seems like a general good yeah the the only other question I would have is there are two towns uh is there a desire to create some kind of equity of voting membership in terms of like would that be part of the the criteria if we had you know five residents from one town and four from the other and two applying for the same position would we give it to the one that had less representation and that could just be an internal you know vetting process but something that I think that town representation is really important here I would for me I would leave it up to the committee and and Eric's recommendation because I just feel like I look I Look to that committee to really you know to really understand what's going on and what who they're compromised I don't know where everyone on that committee personally I don't I mean I think it's a good I I certainly think it's a good that what you just described to me seems like the ideal yeah in like if that were the scenario I'd be so happy that we had more than one person vying for the position and they like and then I think that is the right in reality I suspect we may be fortunate if we get someone in the positions but yes I think that for me that is the ideal that we would have some balance between the two towns some representation from both towns I mean I do think that is the ideal I suspect I mean Eric you can speak to that but I suspect it difficult to get yeah because you're looking for such right um Point expertise like you're really looking for Architects Engineers uh design people um contract experts you know just people that can help with the complexities if you will of yeah so what would it look like I mean Julia kind of just said like that and I don't want to put words in your mouth Julia but it sounded like Julia was saying she'd be looking for a recommendation to like that looked similar to what you sent us just now um would that obviously this is a very different situation because these two people were just hired and that's who they fill those roles but um would that be the kind of thing it would go to the building committee first and then we get a recommendation or it would just run through you or how would it happen one way we could do it is to use my weekly and some of the Town limited Town resources for communicating and I would say we're looking to add some people to the committee these are the parameters we're looking for submit you know a letter interest and your resume and then um I would probably connect with the people talk with them talk with them about the commitment it is a really sizable commitment and some people back out once they realize that we're meeting once sometimes twice a month um and then do the same thing bring the recommendation here to say okay I have a recommendation of these three people or one person or two people to add to the building committee and then you'd Vote or not that would be the simp more simple way to do it more complex way is to run it through the committee and have people applying to the committee and then somebody on the committee is doing the kind of vetting if you will it's an important question I mean I so um yeah so I think that does everyone see that I mean there's two sort of different rots there one is a recommendation and one is us um in looking back at the original document it looks like there were originally 20 slots on the committee MH and we're now at 17 so that would seem to suggest that if we're going to use that as The Benchmark which I think is good sense um only problem with that is that it's no I don't see a problem with that no I retract the statement there is no problem no problem yeah yeah you could set a Target to keep it at 20 yeah could set you could say all right you know no more than 20 or you could say 25 but when you get up that big it becomes comes a little bit huge that's a huge I mean I don't I don't know that we I mean we can but seems like the discussion didn't seem to me and I speak up there was there didn't appear to be appetite to make the committee larger it just appeared to make it um okay um so I think to we can still discuss but Julia I think ideally you'd make a motion one way or the other about one of the two kind of things that Eric is proposing and we could discuss um I'm not sure specifically what he's proposing I need do I need a number well it it sounded like he and it sounded like there were kind of two proposed options one is that uh School building committee members will be a recommended by the superintendent to this committee approved okay uh candidates for school building committee will apply to the school committee so it's two motions no one motion typically since we make a motion okay this is the motion that I like and you can decide whether or not you like it um I move that the school committee task the superintendent with vetting and recommending members to the school committee as a whole for the Cutler building committee second sense does that sense second by J car okay um so um welcome um so we are discussing the way that we are going to moving forward um if uh new members of the building committee need to be um appointed um okay so the motion on the table is that the procedure would look very similar to the way it did this evening which is super intendant would um provide a memo or whatever information that we had and provide a recommendation um all right is there questions discussion my strong recommendation is that 50% plus one of the committee should be made up by Town residents so would that um I'm wondering if that just in terms of this motion would that be that you're that one that that's your information for the superintendent that that's your recommendation but secondly would it be part of the information you'd like includeed is their place of residence well it's uh I I don't think that their um their address should be listed here their town of residence town of residence I think would be really important um and then beyond that right now I just don't know I don't know what the numbers are uh so it's difficult for me to you know say like does would that involve making the committee larger than 17 people or not or is it already there that's just my my recommendation and I think that we don't have that information right now so it could be something that is addressed when we do have that information and I don't think that the motion that Julia made really speaks at all to the number of people on the committee it really just speaks about the procedure so it could be that you you could ask the the superintendent let know what the percentage currently is of people that are so that we have that information next time yeah because I think that if you know if it's 10% then that's not going to be a achievable goal without making gargantuan changes if it's 60% then it's achieved right um and so I think that that's additional information would be needed before I would consider making a motion to that effect but I think that it's as a guiding principle my recommendation that I would make for what the school building committee would bring as their recommendation would you would they need to be voting members or non- voting members because we're probably at that threshold if you include everybody right because we have a couple members of the fincom who are uh residents the a couple members of uh the different town boards right um but the fincom members are non voting members right I'm a town resident so if when you get into all of that plus the excuse me um the you know couple of other just local that aren't elected officials that made up on the board I I'll bet we're probably pretty close to that 50% threshold uh if not over it anyway that that gray area would be those two non voting members or one or two non non- voting members yeah I I my just personal feeling is that you would want the you would want the majority of people who are making the decision and to I would Define that as voting members yeah to be Town residents um not because other folks can't make as good of a decision but because I think that it creates um the engagement with such a large process um within the community um that is needed yeah I'm just trying to think of now just trying to think what the room eight of eight I was going to say Eric's over here calcula two new members we just voted on that puts that at 17 I'm on the list twice um and there are eight out of that whole group that are towns people so you're looking at eight versus nine yeah so if you add two people you're at you're at you're so what I'm % plus so it sounds like if we were to achieve in in those three potential spaces if we were to achieve Town members just need two then that would be yeah You' only get over that threshold that sounds very achievable yeah I mean two two slots and that would put the committee at I think 19 total okay yeah um but I still like the process yeah well so and just to be clear this is actually a very good conversation but we're actually a little bit outside corners of the motion I think here um which is okay I think but um but to bring it back that clearly the motion really was only about that what the process is for and not who they are right exactly and not how many there were either um does anyone have any questions or discussion about the process that was offered in the motion okay um so the motion is that the um if the motion were to pass superintendent would bring us a memo with recommend um new members when he fills when he has an opportunity to fill those spots and we would vote to approve okay any other questions we're ready to vote yep go ahead just saying can we incorporate TR as a friendly amendment to that to say what with with an eye towards having a 50% plus one towns Town members Town residents Trent how do you feel about adding that as a friendly Amendment I'd like to make a friendly Amendment I just throwing the suggestion that's a good idea so what was the original motion the original motion was a bunch of like word salad but it it was really it was it was the I moved that the school committee tasked the superintendent with vetting and recommending bringing to the full school committee recommendations for any new members for the Cutler building committee it's called the Cutler building committee on the agenda so I'm just going to call it that you need to you don't need to repeat all that you can just make you can just add yours on um so my friendly amendment is that the um School building committee um uh Endeavors to achieve a 50% plus one um majority of town residents on the of V voting members on the school building committee second well no you so if you like that you can just yes okay um so is everyone clear on what we're voting on yes but can we discuss the friendly I just want to make sure that um if for whatever reason if we don't get a volunteer that creates those numbers that we don't we're not going to say like stop the presses you know what I mean I think I actually think I felt like Trent did a really good job using the word endeavors exactly so I think that was really important because yes if it turns out that no one volunteers no one that volunteers what you're saying we don't want to be handcuffed right exactly don't get it because it's kind of not up to us if we don't get but we still have the in other words we still get to approve so that this committee could still say right yeah yeah Jen uh Amy covered my concern all right any further questions or discussion looks like we're ready to vote okay all those in favor and that is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes um Eric do you feel like you have what you need from us on that excent thank you um um yeah okay knock myself off here um Switcheroo next up we have Vinnie feel like we should have a walk up song for oh I I know Leone's music you were all waiting to see the screen saver oh I know is it still the wedding picture or is it baby is it the wedding picture what it's I think it's still Lorenzo now Lorenzo would be mad if he changed it yes he'd be so mad he's watching you mean is a new baby so what's the name of the new baby I think I misses Fresca oh my goodness okay it's coming oh okay we only saw him for a half second yeah hold on I can get him back maybe not I oh it took ago maybe after he'll pop back up well thank you guys for uh joining us tonight okay nothing's working hold on uh so tonight we are here to review our year end financials for fy4 as of June 30th 2024 and then to vote on the final year end uh budget transfer request but before we get into that I just want to remind everyone what we are here for not only for the children today but of tomorrow this is Franchesca and Marie born on August 11th I August 11th that's my daughter she's a like me yeah 6 lbs is her brother feeding her it didn't work out as good as that picture looks that lasted about two seconds but I was able to get one quick picture in there and then he kind of pushed her off of her so beautiful yeah she's doing good okay so to get into more of the boring stuff I guess um so this fiscal year uh pretty much ended uh where I try to aim to end the fiscal year uh for those of you who have listened to previous uh budget presentations I've made I really try to aim to end the year between 2 and 3% if you look where we ended FY 24 we were around $1.1 million which is roughly 2.77% so kind of on that higher end of where I like to end uh but still approximately in the middle uh this is the normal chart everyone sees broken down by School uh or sitec loation uh overall of that $1.1 million we did have approximately 760,000 left over in payroll uh and 382,000 left over in non-payroll items this is the same chart uh just in Desi category which Regional School districts are required to um vote in their budget just one item to point out the only Desi category that we ended a year in a deficit was our operations maintenance where we ended the year with approximately 357,000 in a deficit um so like most of my presentations when you go through it I've broken out each school by desie category and like all of them I am very detailed in that breakout there are literally an $100 item that I might have listed we might have had one employee at one school that worked three more hours they're included in that breakout I'm not going to go into every line item like I usually do in the exhibit tonight there is um a summary and there it it is also within the presentation so I'm not going to go through line by line I'm really just going to focus on the three highs the three lows and then kind of hone in on our operations and maintenance just to talk a little bit about why that ended the year in a deficit but of course if there's any questions throughout any of the other stuff uh please don't hesitate to kind of stop and ask me but again I'm really just going to focus on the operations and maintenance throughout the uh bulk of the verbal presentation so for the three highs and lows like most budget Cycles the biggest item was our vacancies this really is uh year-over-year our biggest item it's not as big as our prior years I believe it was either fy22 or FY 23 we had a little bit less than a million dollars left over in vacancies this year it is much less but still a good amount of money at 44,000 now this is um districtwide and across all positions it's not broken down by Desi category this is just everyone it includes Administration crossing guards teachers everyone's lumped into that one category excuse me the next one is our tuitions this includes both School uh school choice out and out of District so that students that are attending other public schools in Massachusetts uh or other private special education out of District uh placements that came in at roughly 357,000 the next biggest item is our payroll taxes and insurance uh for FY 24 I was able to negotiate better insurance rates as a result we had a residual balance of approximately $180,000 on the opposite side though we did have uh a few bigger items this year our new ESP contract was initiated in FY 24 this did cost us an additional 136,000 as you know FY 24 was the first year of the Union contract so when we were creating our fy2 24 budget we did not know this and we couldn't anticipate how much that was going to cost uh ultimately it did cost us an additional 136,000 uh in addition we did towards the second half of the fiscal year really try to help out our custodians and maintenance department with the uh departure of our maintenance and Phil facilities director at the time we really tried to focus and give them the tools uh and resources they needed to complete their job so I met with a lot of the custodians and the maintenance and really went through their supply closets and their equipment and try to replace a lot of their aging equipment uh we got every building uh new swing machines which is what they use to strip their floor we also replaced a lot of their floor floor burnishers um and other equipment some of this equ equipment I am not joking was older than me it was older than 40 years old it even had dates on it predating the 70s so a lot of this stuff has really been around for too long so we really worked hard to try to give them uh the equipment they needed uh so they can uh better clean the buildings in addition on the maintenance front we also uh came over a little over on lot of a lot of our contracted services and we tried to complete some additional projects that we didn't uh anticipate and we didn't budget for but because of some of these residual balances in other places we decided to tackle some of these projects while we had the funding and again that's what I'm really going to talk about uh when I go through each of the schools slides so I'll hit on that again in a minute uh last but not least is our budget offsets this includes everything but circuit breaker and transportation because those are handled a little bit differently uh but ending the year we were in a deficit of around 392,000 uh the bulk of this came from our school choice in and our idea Grant coming in a little bit uh less than what we anticipated so you guys are familiar with this setup this is really where I break out each school by location again I'm only going to focus on the maintenance Desi category but please stop me at any point if you have a question about something else on the slide uh but for the buer Elementary School uh honing in on maintenance and operations we did end the year in a deficit of about $55,000 uh during the 24 budget cycle we identified the need for a new PA system in this school uh we uh me along with some of the leadership team uh determined that at the time it would cost us approximately $35,000 to be completely honest we were so far off when I finally met with the company to come in here the quote I received was almost $200,000 so we put that on hold you will most likely see that in a future Capital request is that as a much big uh bigger ticket item so that balance is still sitting there in uh that account as we ended the year last year to offset some of that stuff though we did did do um additional tile abatement in this school we emptied three classrooms uh ripped up all the tile and then replac it with new tile uh over the summer we had a pretty substantial water leak under the front of the building um we had a bore out the side of the foundation a crew came in and actually crawled into the hole and Shovel by shovel uh dug out the dirt under the foundation until we found the leak they fixed the leak and then everything had to be put back together so it was a substantial project for us to get that fixed uh this school is the only School in the district that doesn't have a slop syn so we installed a going to install I'm sorry installed a slop syn for the custodian uh we also replaced all the playground mulch uh out back and did uh preventative maintenance on the boilers uh and last but not least we repainted the fire lanes and crosswalks and parking spaces uh across the building moving on to Cutler uh the biggest thing in terms of the operation and maintenance that we did not anticipate was the gym floor refurnishing now for those of you who might have went into Cutler uh their gym floor was in really bad condition it we had not called in a contractor to redo that floor in a long time because of that many years ago the custodians took it upon themselves to put a coat of wax over the wood floor this is wax you would normally uh use for a tile floor so after a couple years the problem with that is it comes up in sheets when it starts to be removed so if you have a student in gym running and they stop quickly sometimes a chunk of wax will come up when they stop um so we really tried to uh fix that problem this year and we had a company come in and shrip down all of the old wax on the floor and actually put down uh wood finish instead of tile finish uh moving on to the winthrip school we we honestly didn't focus a ton in maintenance and operations at the winthrip school uh we still did do some preventative maintenance for the boilers uh we did repaint the sidewalks in the fire safety lines there and we did add um playground mulch uh to the left side of the building and the um playground apparatuses in the back of the building uh for the miles River Middle School uh for operations and maintenance we did do one big project but per desie regulations because it was so much money it actually gets recorded somewhere else which I'll get to in a moment uh but in terms of at the miles from Middle School uh again we re we repainted all the safety lines uh we put a good amount of money into the into the roof to patch up some holes we also did boiler and compressor uh preventative maintenance and we had an HVAC uh coil uh crash on us that had to uh get replaced in one of the rooftop units uh for the high school it really was a lot of the same as the miles over Middle School the safety lines roof work uh both boiler and compressor preventative maintenance and also um coil uh coils were replaced in two rooftop units at the high school uh we really went around to all five schools and did a lot of boiler preventative maintenance this was in anticipation of the winter coming up uh to try to help us kind of avoid any issues that we normally face uh year of year uh because we don't do a ton of preventative maintenance uh within our boilers but we really tried to do that uh over this summer to kind of help us out next school year because we had that residual balance again stop me if you have any questions on this stuff I am just uh forwarding just to the maintenance category again so this is our district y maintenance category so each school has a maintenance category and then we have a districtwide maintenance category uh the districtwide ended in a deficit of about $78,000 uh we did have a maintenance technician vacancy which saved us roughly 23,000 but savings is a little of a technical work because most of those Services were probably contracted out but in terms of payroll savings we did have2 $33,000 left over because of that vacancy um this is where that other middle school project I talked about if you pull into the front of the middle school and you're looking directly at the main entrance all the windows to the left there's about 120 of them we replaced all not all of them sorry we replaced exactly 100 of the windows these were original windows that were put into the school in the 1990s a lot of the uh gas um gas barrier broke on the glass the gas leaked out the windows fogged up and we lost a lot of our r value uh so a lot of the most of the windows around the entire School need to be replaced uh this is a huge project so we just tried to knock off a chunk of it and got got almost the entirety of the front of the school replaced this does not account for the entire wall of glass in the cafeteria if you're looking at the buildings it's just the ones to the left in addition over last school year we had two windows blow out in the admin building so it wasn't even that big of a windstorm but the wind blew out two of the old windows in the admin building these aren't original buildings I'm sorry original windows to the admin building because that building was built in the 1800s but if I had to take a guess those windows were probably at least 60 years old they were single pane wooden windows um we had all of those replaced cuz it was definitely becoming a safety issue uh you could hear them moving in the wind uh and you could really feel uh the cold air come through in the winter time uh some of the windows uh literally fell on the handicaps uh entryway uh so we really went through and tried to uh we did replace all of them on the second floor so at this point there are no more old single pane wooden windows in the admin building they actually might be in the um basement the little short windows still might be wood I'd have to take a peek but the rest of them have been replaced uh in addition if anyone parked over in the buer parking lot recently we did have it completely ripped up and repaved uh if you drove over it last winter uh you would have noticed it's a complete ice rink from all the potholes collecting the water uh it was again becoming a safety issue at that parking lot probably hasn't been uh redone in over 30 years so we had it completely ripped up and paved uh so it should last us uh probably another good 30 or 40 years hopefully uh that was probably one of the most exciting projects that uh I did over the last half of the school year uh but those are all kind of the major maintenance projects that we kind of all did in the last half of the year uh both Eric myself and we called in a Little Help from uh a retired maintenance director kind of took on uh a lot of these projects after our facilities and maintenance uh director was no longer here uh after February of last year okay so that kind of does it for the uh maintenance projects that I focused on just to kind of bring it all back this is that same desie category again uh just reminding you I'm about to go over the final year end transfer needed to bail out the uh operations and maintenance stack of roughly 300 57,000 excuse me this is that summary I was talking about these are all major items either plus or minus $10,000 I really went through and try to categorize all of those um slides at the beginning of the presentation to kind of put them all into buckets so you could see really what the effect was on our budget overall um looking at this I hope it says to you that these budgets really are unpredictable anything can happen in the8 18 months prior to the year actually ending because if you think about it we start creating this budget in October and it covers Us till not the next June but the June after that it's almost 18 to 22 months after you actually create the budget so it's very difficult to predict what's going to happen you know 20 months from now so a lot of these things are are moving throughout the year and can have really uh big effects on our budget from one year to the next I know there's a better more clearer copy in your exhibit but I just wanted to point it out so in terms of the year end transfer we are asking for two transfers but if you notice at the end it's for both operations and maintenance there is just not enough money in one of the categories to cover the deficit so the first one would be taking $300,000 from our tuition's line moving it to maintenance and operations and then $70,000 from our Administration uh moving it all o to operations and maintenance and this is to bail out the only Desa category uh that entered a year in a deficit this is the transfer motion I will kind of stop and take any questions and bring back up the slide for you if you have any questions thank you Jen um I noticed when we looked at things by summary of activities plus or minus 10,000 we got substantially Less in school choice offsets than we expected is that because we had fewer spaces or because fewer kids wanted to come to Hamilton went it's actually a combination of two things it's fewer kids um wanted to come to Hamilton wam we went through our entire roster of students that applied I think we even started calling families after that to see if they wanted to get accepted so it was a combination of fewer um students wanting to come in and more students actually going out to other school districts so kind of two things happened thank you yep other questions no my I I just have a question about like what do you see as like the general trends that we need to be thinking about going into this year into budget season like what are you seeing in terms of inflation or costs going up and um it's really salaries our salaries yeah yeah the contracts that we've settled and are still discussing will have the biggest ramification on the next budget cycle yeah we're going to see a pretty big swing in the salary lines coming up okay I think that's just important for the public to know because when we see these budgets it looks like all the money is going to Windows and maintenance and operations you know in facilities but I think that's an important Trend that we need to pay attention to yep other questions all right David would you like to make a motion sure um the Hamilton wiam Regional school committee approves the F uh approves the fy2 24 operating expense budget transfers as recommended here in by the assistant superintendent of Finance Administration and as presented on the previous slide entitled yearend transfers requested second second by Jen Carr um all right is there can you put it back to the side with the money on itk um are there any further discussion okay looks like we're ready to vote all right um all those in favor that is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes thank you guys and we're going to be starting the 26 budget cycle real soon so thank you Vinnie appreciate it thank you can I say one thing yeah I just want to I just want to thank Vinnie publicly Vinnie has been uh a rockstar and getting things done as you can see all these projects went through him to get done as we said we had somebody helping us out kind of keeping an eye on things but um getting around to meeting with the custodians checking on their equipment um even some some things like annual maintenance that we assumed was occurring that we learned that was not occurring um all of that stuff has now kind of been picked up and and set in place uh with the work of Vinnie and his team so I appreciate that and I wanted to thank him publicly I think it's uh it's an important thing he he was basically running three jobs uh during the Spring he was also filling in for HR at the same time so there was a lot going on a lot of moving pictures thank you very much thank you all right okay um next up committee reports uh Capital Finance um we need to sit down and set up a meeting okay all right uh remind me who else is on Capital Trent and Julia Julia Julia okay um policy um we had a vote earlier so I think you guys need make meeting right now we have stuff to do um do you do so you have not met correct corre so do you have a chair no I thought you were the chair sure I don't know why I thought that I don't think we decided I I guess all I was saying is someone needs to take responsibility for making sure that you guys get it on the schedule that's all um so that you can um so that next time at the next meeting you guys will let us know when you're meeting so that you can get on the task that you've been given um I'm on it excellent um negotiations we are going to have an executive session at the end of this meeting and we will give you all an update there um I'm not sure if you do David you have a secretary report for us I don't I didn't have time okay all right um I will make a note of that and give you a heads up next time okay um to you Eric um thank you uh I just wanted to say this was in my 34 years probably the smoothest School opening um I've experienced we you know we in the past years have been struggling with getting teachers in place getting things purchased getting things delivered things that we ordered in may never show up and I think a lot of those things have been alleviated now and I really uh really give kudos to everybody the staff The Faculty uh came in uh last Monday when we had our opening uh ceremony it was it was there was just a lot of good energy in the room you know we had uh fantastic speech by Julia Campbell to ra ra ra in um but even getting around to the classrooms and watching all the kind of the opening of school things all the routine practicing and all of the you know making sure kids are in the right places has has been really good I mean we are very fortunate uh as I've said in the past our relationships with our kids and our families and our teachers are strong and that uh really makes things a lot easier and as that as you're opening school things kind of fall into place much more uh clearly so it it was a great school opening uh very impressed with our new staff members we've been around and about uh in their classrooms already so that's uh exciting and then um also wanted to just let people know that on August 28th we Dana and I attended and and a bunch of other people 90 people attended the msba uh board meeting and at that meeting we were uh unanimously voted to um move on to schematic design so that's the fourth module uh so we're moving into the schematic design phase which will last through I believe it's December 20th um and that's an exciting part where you start to see the building come to life you'll start to see uh kind of three-dimensional uh designs and drawings and and uh even even now we're working with the uh landscape AR Architects what they have come up with so far has been really cool to deal with some things like traffic and deal with buses and pedestrians and it's it's been really a fun uh and very iterative process we're hoping by the end of um November early December we'll be able to uh come out and really have a solid number for the total cost of the project versus the actual reimbursement from the state so we'll we'll be really tight on those numbers um so I think we'll be able to at that point really let the public know like this is what it's really going to cost uh and we've been kind of floating through that on through this process and kind of like we're not sure yet we're not sure yet so by the time we get to the end you know that early winter spot we'll uh we'll have a good idea and then that will lead us into the spring going into the votes Etc so exciting exciting stuff and then I was very excited Wednesday to take part in my annual book group I had uh 14 high school students a mix of all four grades uh really good conversation we read the book The Martian and uh had some great discussion about the book the movie The comparatives you know the situation that's going on right now with astronauts stuck in space so um it was a great I wish I had hour with them we spend an hour um and I think I forget how many exactly how many books were done I think it was over 30 books were done uh in the staff volunteers to read the book and run the group and work with the kids at the beginning of the year and it's nice for us in in administration who don't directly work with kids every day to be part of that because it it really helps us to stay connected so kids know who we are but also realize that we're part of that educational process so exciting times thank you you have to beat that Dana what was that I said you have to try to beat that now the funny part is I don't think I'm going to say anything at all I don't think I have anything um anybody have any questions for Eric um no I really actually am not I could make something up for my chair's report but I honestly don't think I have anything for you and uh you get to listen to me talk enough already um topic for future meetings oh okay I have one you do I have to go over the um Student Activities accounts okay does that need to be next time uh either the next one or the one after at the latest so yep okay uh anybody else no um okay anybody have anything else otherwise I'm gonna make a motion for the um we are going to move into executive session if okay all right uh I move to adjourn into executive session for purpose number three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the HW Rea where an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares um and not to return to open session do we have a second second second by Amy kumberg it is a roll call vote David yes sent yes same as a yes yes yes yes yes okay um and that is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes and we are adjourned into executive session it's actually two things is the design enrollment from from August 28th mean yeah and then saw