##VIDEO ID:3bose2g1sEA## I here oh it's 7:02 there they are might we thought you might sit on the side because we've had um the audio is on top of the um TV and with had complaints um so it's 7:02 pm on Wednesday January 29th and I will call the manesta finance committee meeting order um this meeting is being recorded um I have with me in the room from the finance committee Peter Andy and myself Sarah M we also have like better Ste better steel the to administrator um we have from the the school district umen and Michelle correct okay and from the school committee could you just give us the name Erica Spencer Erica Spencer from the school committee and also joining us tonight as visitors are um Jody Harris and Ben but from the ess6 finance Comm so our first item on the agenda is to discuss the fiscal year 26 and just as Regional School District operating and capital preliminary budgets um I believe that everyone received the copy of the report that was presented on January 21st okay so if you had that we have't updated en thanks to enrollment page there were two pages on enrollment one that showed this year's snapshot and then a history history page and the history page was incorrect and we took a deep dive into it Sy yeah well we had updated over the past couple of years we had updated the the sheet before it that shows um in District school choice out of District very specific numbers then T's in the bottom corner what the resident enrollment is in Fus we had never updated formulas or the layout and history sheet to match up with it so we weren't carrying didn't have columns to account for all the different categories that were showing at the previous page so we started digging into it we updated all of the numbers and added a couple of colums the columns that we added for the sped tuition in because that does impact our head count um for the Department of Education and also the spent out of District which are resident students which are in your enrollment calculation for abortion that don't show in the desie head C because desie records and publishes students who are in seats in our schools so that's residents school choice in tuition in but we also report separately is counted for it's counted for the um the calculation of division of expenses um one students or 18 students did that are in out of District that's what this represents um so what you'll see is so it's showing 9% we really had a 2% decrease this year across the board so it is slowing down a little bit so now the numbers add up one of my questions that the numbers were different on the two pages we had found was that bottom the bottom row wasn't the the October one report it was actually the resident okay yeah good I up everything okay I like to proceed could you perhaps start with giving us just an overview of changes you made this year it seems to me that might have been some personal changes or something and if you could just give us um an overview of that um and maybe a little overview of the school choice situation what else do people want to hear as much as we there's any conclusions that we can draw at this point given them the years of decline development that we have to is there any sort of a pattern emerging do we kind of are there comps that also help us understand that and then of course I guess the main event that we'll get into is just our um you know we've been battling the last few years which is this you know being able to support an ongoing robust program that uh my take from year year is that in general the voters seem to be interested in having that um but yet there's you know there's obvious pressures that that kind of work against that so um as much as we can sort of I guess qualitatively speak to where we think we are I think our Cuts probably speak to where we are yeah so I'd like that yeah one more thing which is school education is changing the role of technology in this how big part it plays in the budget changes if at all I'm not sure I have a keen idea of this but I had some sense that that playing a different and growing role that may have a staff implication I'm not sure but I'd appreciate some comments on that also one thing that jumped out at me was the um the decrease in the building maintenance budget I was concerned wondered what's what's driving on and I just want to remind people that when you're speaking the microphone is at the top of the TV and we need to project because we have been receiving complaints that people can't that the audio is difficult to hear okay and starting next week 1623 Studios will be here so we'll have microphones all around we just couldn't get it for today I have hearing so I would love if try to use our teacher um I guess working very much as a and I always work for just she's the numbers person so she she can speak to a lot of the technical pieces and I'll do probably more of the qualitative components I would say our headline this year really isn't enrollment our headline this year is Healthcare um because our en is starting to level off in Plateau so you know if you look at the the numbers we had if you go back to the spike we had Year big year of 7% then a 4% and we reversed in the same way we had an exit you know a reduction of 7% and then 4% and now some twos so it is leveling up we have um the msba did the enrollment study for ess6 elementary but it's a districtwide study on enrollment so that's where we're drawing the conclusion and starting to the chart that's showing us that it's going to flatten out over time it's not predicting any other rapid decreases um additionally I think we've been we've been making quiet Cuts I would say since um postco in terms of the reduction of teachers through attrition when people retired at the elementary school we didn't F positions um if we did end up having to use that um full-time equivalent teaching position it was typically to serve a um special education need that emerged which required us to hire a TA or two Tas um to meet EP aligations so headline this year is really the uncertainty of how hot healthare is going to come in high how high it's going to come in really dictates the challenge that we're going to have so um the after some discussions with the school committee we did the proposed budget not calling it recommended because we really feel like we shouldn't be re it's not a recommendation for growth and going forward um it really is our best proposal right now to try to manage the situation that we have so with Health Care somewhere between 10 and 25% renewal we don't really know where it's going to land we're hoping have weet we um designed the proposed budget to Cap Health Care at a 10% increase and then create like a chart of scenarios of how much money we would need for every point that it comes in above that should it come above that I think we're expecting 15% is the best case scenario so headline is Healthcare and the proposed budget attempts to manage the health care increase and the Personnel cost increase which is coming in around 5% um by taking a stand and making some we're making Personnel allocation reallocation so we're removing two positions from the high school which is now experiencing the decline where we're starting to see a slow increase at Memorial and some concern around growing class size and reallocating one position to Memorial School and one position to be shared between the Middle High School um for World Language to start to try to build back that program so it would be a reduction at the high school but flat on teaching Personnel districtwide we are planning for and have proposed a reduction um Joan Mayo is retiring I'm not smiling because she's retiring I'm smiling because she's really such a wonderful um asset to our community and when you think of the work that she's done at the middle school it's really incredible and she's going to be a great loss for us she's a wonderful educator um I given so much to the district but in her retirement we're going to I'm opposing you take the opportunity to calling it test out pilot try out going um back to a single principal model at the Middle High School the game plan for next year would not be to change anything in the instructional setup so it will be a middle school with a middle school Bean with a middle school philosophy and the same battery of courses schedule and set that has this year um and the high school would remain exactly the same the change would be um who the who the overarching supervisor is for both be in both schools so on paper the student body numbers shouldn't it should work um it's a service reduction because W be able to do things exactly the same and I would assume that people at the middle school are going to feel whether perception or reality some some adjustment phe until we figure out how to do this best so our goal would be to study next year um we're not set up for that model so what are the other supports we're going to need around the principal to make sure she can be successful and her Deans be successful um in the process so how can we utilize the ab in a different way or partment things like that yeah going back to health insurance for a sec sure is that driven by both the number of people enrolled in it as well as the cost of it or is one dominant or is it both elements it's not so much heads it's and I'm going to let Michelle jump in on this because she's more expert than I am but it's both the the trend as the foundation and then our utilization in terms of types of cases not necessarily heads and the the enrollment piece is playing a very small piece of it um we are having an increased enrollment for example our district when we were formed in the year 2000 we didn't have any retirees at the time so every time we have a retiree that we replace we then have two bodies that may have a health insurance plan so we are seeing a creeping up of that over time it's every year it's it's a couple more enrollments um but over you know few years it becomes a collective and how do you ensure who do you ensure with your health insurance right now how does that work right now we are through Harvard pilgram Healthcare we have an insurance broker um prior to that I believe we were at the Maya program which is what the towns are and right now we are talking to Maya to see if we can get a better rate you went away from Maya now are possibly considering returning correct was there a particular reason that took you away I can speak Italian is Maya I think yes we were pretty aggressive I would say from 2010 to 2015 by actively bidding business almost every other year to try to get the best R Poss um we were successful in that but you know we have high years and low years uh when we made when we renegotiated um through our contract negotiations to create the opep trust uh we redesigned uh Healthcare offering collaboratively with the Union at the time at that point we settled into T because was able to um meet the plan design specifications that we had and once we landed with tubs we went on a really pretty good stable run for them um we did have a year very similar to this it was the year right after the override so it must have been 2017 where we had a 23 or 24% spike in healthcare followed by a 177% ex year um we were off the override we had replenished our reserves so we were able to kind of bage our way out of that but it was very similar to the position we were in now in that um it kind of came through a lot of High um what they call them large loss cases cases what's markedly different than in now is that we were in a very strong financial position there's a lot of tools to use to manage through it where right now we're at the end of like a 10year cycle of the override where we are barely getting getting by year to year making our 2 and a half and 3 and a half% attempts so we're we don't have reserves just to throw at healthare F we going to use at least 500,000 reserves just to try to get it to five and a half% growth rate this year so the reserves reported I I don't know what your Reser what what's the amount in your reserve each St um there should be back okay the very back lastage close the very last page okay thank you and I'll just finish up and then we can just kind of do Q&A um we're gonna do the administrative reor at the Middle High School we're also looking to reorganize um Facilities Management um not do away with oversight Michelle is technically the overseer of all operations in facil and we have a maintenance supervisor and a custodial head um so we're going to look at our existing administrative positions and see if we can rework will we have to provide that project management middle space I would say seeing as we have reps from both towns in the room tonight I see that area as a real opportunity if we wanted to team together to see if we can look at a very different model um of Maintenance and facility support throughout the region I think that's a that might be a place where so we could find some joint savings or if not savings um joint benefit in kind of coming up with a different structure with other districts with two towns in the school like could we share the service right now we contract out for snow if we are Georgetown geown DPW comes in and does sways in sidewalk so is there some place there um where we can look to work together and another idea um that I've had that I'll float here um and it's really out of it's out of my hands to to initiate it would be do you want to look to another Community like Rockport to look at forming some type of a supervisory Union um that would be something along the the tri count model where they have three separate school districts but they have one supervisory or central office that oversees them all I don't wouldn't recommend necessarily that particular model they have three different contracts but you could start there and I know rock is also have has a lot of challenges so if that's something um that the boards are all interested in pursuing be happy to kind of work through some ideas with you on that it's something we could research and look at whether it's something you'd like to do or's even any savings in it I don't so that that's uh trying to take advantage of some administrating Cal but notation I mean you could I mean you need to you would need to study it right I mean you could you know if I'm spitballing you could definitely keep two independent school districts and just share oversight of student services and special education your superintendency maybe your business office I think you would need some different layers to make it work so whether it's cost effective in the long run or just a reshuffling of the deck chairs I don't know but that's one thought um that I've had potentially looking at other INF rests refreshment school choice oh school choice no go ahead and no so we can certainly go through the reserves um the last page of the budget does give an overview of where we are or where we think we are currently um we have our Enz or or what you guys term free cash into the Department of Revenue to be certified um estimated that at 1.4 million just over 1.4 million um our FY 26 budget proposal uses 500,000 of that and um we're just guessing our replenishment might be about 200,000 for next year um so the ending balance this year would be about 900,000 if we only use the 500 and then we'd replenish it with about another $200,000 and it depends what we use the following year um stabilization fund we have 1.5 million in there right now primarily that is the funding the actual reimbursement from the turf fields we spent the money um out of school choice for the replacement of the two turfs and when we were re reimbursed by um Manchester as well as ess6 we put the money back in well we couldn't put it into the general funds we couldn't put it back into school choice so we transferred into stabilization that's where primarily most this balance came from that is pretty much earmarked for all of our capital projects we certainly have a very long list of capital projects um that could easily use up that 1.5 million and more I do want to mention that the feasibility study will also our share of feasibility study for Essex will come out of this pot um so that's already ear Mark for $500,000 and then lastly the last section is our OPB trust um we're very fortunate to have an opep trust right now of 5.8 million um two years projection hopefully we will have uh opep Trust of 8.5 million if all goes well so those are really our three pots of money that we we consider trust even though we really can't touch oped for anything other than retire health insurance costs and where is the the school choice piece because that was a sore point because it wasn't being spent so which buckets that in it's not in a bucket anymore because we're not carrying a balance in there so we're using this towards the operating great budget um we use it towards our school choice costs plus our health insurance costs okay so that's where we utilize that do you do you have a a Target your GE for what your reserves what you want as Opera do we certainly a lot of I that because we've had those discussions the last few years so we have just um I believe final now or is it second read it's final it's final we just passed a policy at school committee level um targeting our reserves 8% of our operating budget so we are right at that Mark right now so between the 1.4 million and the 1.5 in St that matches our were ask 10 when you were at 10 10 but right now and there's a slide not in this not in the budget book but that we put in the overview that you know just looks at what's the trajectory on IND if we were to try to at least hold it hold it steady but probably it looks like the pattern will be we'll need at least 150,000 executive year to try to keep this percentage it is that gives us to about 28 29 if everything breaks the the right way yeah and you had asked the quality question yeah I think we're in the gray Zone on quality I don't feel like we're providing level Services because you know even though we're trying to find the silver lining and the things that we're doing and and we're going to try to create some positive outcomes the Catalyst for doing it is really just to try to meet a particular number so with this next move of Staff out of the high school it doesn't collapse the program but it's we're getting in like we'll reduce it by another 13 sections by moving out those heads which means that's 13 fewer opportunities for the students to get the schedule that they need or want um to pursue their pathway so we're we're hitting at the point of we're seeing an opportunity loss but if we're going down another two heads at the high school it's going to start to it will start to have a quality impact on what we're going to G to off with because then you're going to start to get into some course choices around you know Civic Action Project versus an AP course or um you know uh Facing History course versus the 911 course and the answer might be financially we're not going to be able to afford those things anymore but it won't be at the same quality you know the quality of instruction will be there but the breath of opportunity meet and I think that becomes a community question as to whether or not they feel it's at the same level of um service quality that they have had before I think we're feeling that at the memorial school I think we're at a point where one of the grade levels it is too high we do need to add a teacher but we're also in that funny space where you add the teacher and then it feels just a little too low like you know it's too high but then it feels too low so it's very much there's there's no formula right now to say hey the number say we have to do it it's very much a a perception which is better a little too high in a in a bit of savings or or lower in quality higher quality experience for kids so that's a little bit of the struggle around you know what is level services and and is it really meaning expectations I think I can point to um things like the librarian the return of Elementary World Language and I I've been very open We Want to Build a Better program before language and the same with the library and we're working on building most programs but I seen no fin Pathway to making two direct ads positions to our budget so opportunities are being closed down um I would say there's a few more depending on how deep we would have to cut this year um we're going to start to get to some significant and obvious reductions in surface and opportunity good choice so we're trying we had talked last year about not exceeding 100 students we have built in an additional 20 this year which would put our 76 96 minus um anyone who's graduating we open up the 20 seats if we have an actual 18 materializes it's a solid year you find that when we offer at the secondary kids are become greater self Advocates and me with the parents to put them in so you don't always or they or they're choosing between options so we have had in a couple of occasions build the 20 but then by the time we open down a cou we don't usually seek to do a second round for just a head or two so that's where we are there so I that's that's another opportunity closing right because if we don't want to go above 100 um that's going to Flatline too we've been able to bump that up a little bit every year that helps helps to defay the cost of assessment in the percentage growth each year but that's going to Flat Line too so oh in the early years of the district SO2 we this start at 08 but if you go back to like the 2001 to 2008 at one point you carrying between 150 and 160 in school choice students into the district I mean that was a significant income stream as may recall I'm not a fan of school choice and I'm not I'm not advocating that but I just I think it is an interesting look to see when you were about 1100 1200 resident students there were a significant number of school choices that was definitely giv you boost but I have two concerns regarding school choice I know you always say it fills in empty seats but the number is so high I mean this current year it's 6 and a half% of the total student population adding 20 more it's going to be higher um with that higher percentage it seems to me that if we didn't have school choice we would have some savings and when we're only getting 5,000 from the state and Manchester based on this proposed budget will be paying over 30,000 a student that 25,000 Delta I would think if you didn't have school choice your budget would cut at least a portion of that and our assessments would be lower um and then my second question is the IND District special ed yeah how does that impact I'm assuming we have a lottery and we can't look to see if they're special ad we can't keep out the ones eligible school choice yeah yeah correct yeah um so it looks like there's currently three oh I don't know what it is school choice that are placed out outside of the district no I know those towns pay for it's the school choice that are in the IND District special at what pressure does that have on the budget so on the chart you've got in District you've got sped tuition in and sped tuition in is a separate program aside from school choice those are direct agreements with another municipality to have a student attend one of our specialized programs and pay a per puple tuition which is usually an excess of um the average they pay so if it's a so if they come into let's call it C the Earl program the one that's the language based classroom um if they're in that program they pay kind of one8 the expense of running that course and we build them directly for that so this this is um a collaborative informal collaborative of the region that has been working very hard to share information about available programs in District which are less expensive and private placements so we'll work with all of our neighbors um to share information and provide an opportunity um for another District to seek an out placement for their student in a public school setting so that's that is completely what type of money do we get reimbursed for that we don't the town the sending Town pays us just as as if we were a private school so they may be paying us a $25,000 or $288,000 tuition to have a student you know you de with fls we reserve the right like if we were to have an explosion of need we can renegotiate that contract and seek another person for that student so that that's a pretty unique setup and that's completely aside from school choice within school choice we do get students who need um supports I would say them a what we' when we've done looks at it the percentage representations in each of our different needs classes aren't any different than the general population so you might have um I would say the majority of students just as in our general population are moderate which means they may see or have liaison support So liaison has a case load of 15 to 20 students that they check in with May provide some extra tutoring and then if they need if it emerges that they would need um specialized program like I'll use ear again or our sale program maybe need ta supports we direct Bill the state for any additional Services provided above that 5,000 so we get a higher level of so you don't we're not absorbing the cost of students who may need a little more we get direct directly reimbursed dollar for dollar so we do not absorb any additional costs there okay which is very good ask a question may you just P him up what you said you know on page 19 it talks about I think a total of roughly 200 students in District getting some sort of special education and the totals student population 1190 called 1200 essentially means that about one out of every six students is getting some type of special education that goes back to your question really Sarah we have 76 or 100 is the cap you know one out of six um you know is that are those costs going down would you say over time or are they going up I mean special education yeah special education in general because if this one out of six is a trend um if the price per the cost per goes up it's this is a line that's going to keep expanding it's going to be something to think about not that you to do much about it but if you have choices how many choice right and indicators are students are coming in with increased needs and we're going to see a spike in autism identif speak up sure um in talking with our student services director she is anticipating um a significant spike in odm Spectrum students at the uh preeg G Early Childhood er um range and we should anticipate those numbers and Associated Services going up in the next New Years so that will take either direct investment dollars so new Staffing or the repurposing of existing Staffing to cut in one place to serve in another what's that based on that that prediction uh General Trends and are we responsible for doing Early Childhood findes so once they turn what is it two years and nine months we supposed to start um kind of surveying the community and seeing what need is out there and start providing Services early on she's also very you know we have networks we have colleagues and other districts that are experiencing this so it's kind of the general Trend especially state level and some localized idation one thing we were just talking about this afternoon on our school committee Finance sub commmittee was that there was that $145,000 shift so we've had a um really since open Memorial whool we've really been able to reorganize the model of prek and have a lot more peer Pals coming in so we've had prek to service those students at a young age who need special education services otherwise you're putting them in an out of District placement out of the gate and we um we enhance the program by inviting P Pals to come in because prek isn't required we've been charging people to so it's a fairly significant tuition but far less than if you were playing private PRK um those tuitions have for the past couple of years really allowed us to offset the cost of providing those special education services but we've had to add this year because of the increase of need that we've seen and the addition of staff is now outpacing the revenue that's coming in so we've had to absorb $145,000 prepay costs the F budget this year for next year so that's kind of an example of it's been a straight lineup I think um Alison Collins our team has done a tremendous job of building IND District capacity to create cost avoidance because it's expensive in District and it's twice as or three times as expensive buing out of District um so we're going to have to build more but we resources we're going to have to rob peter for p pa we're going to build it so we're kind of coming to a head because if we're starting to see creeping class size we know class size increase typically leads to higher level of identification and special education or out of District placements potentially um so class size will go up we may have to bump up class size in General Ed to support special ed if we don't have another income stream so the whole thing is going to kind of in a couple of years it should really it will really come to if we don't have if we don't figure something out it's kind of a vicious cycle higher than want classroom that more and in I'll fully admit that among parent communities sometimes it's the perception of the service support that their child is able to get in a class of 28 versus 22 but the special ed evaluation is kicked off by parent request so sometime so there's a resource drain just to go through the process of identification when there's fear that the student isn't getting in enough me their needs met um and those are all real imately and their real their real concerns and we have an obligation and in this day and age people will rightfully so go out and seek their own diagnosis so it can lead to a lot of meetings it can lead to Legal costs as you try to B it you know special ed does a tremendous job of trying to balance their first responsibility which is providing the student with what they need but also being mindful that they're managing resources in fact pay your dollars um because that's how we fund it so I think we have the potential to to really kind of the wall within two years within two years within two years and I think it's completely dependent right now on where those Healthcare numbers come in if we get a retrieve and we're closer to 10 than 25 two years maybe stretches to three years that's if we can figure out how to fund this year I mean the deeper we go into reserves each year to kind of keep it afloat I think the shorter um the shorter run rate we have because they'll dry up faster maybe getting over my skis you're absolutely correct the special education y postgraduate yeah I think that's the 20 age 23 or something 22 22 and who pays for that state doesn't reimburse it I figure you know for what it's worth um we have a really active uh noral Round Table of superintendents and we are actively lobing for a relook at two two and a half no surprise but also chapter 766 I mean those are both you know early 80s late 70s early 80s Concepts that haven't been relooked at since then um particularly the special education one I joke women could not have their own credit card when they crafted that legislation so the world has changed quite a bit needs have changed quite a bit and it's just not it's not keeping Pace in every District's afortable on that one we all have the same story we all have the same struggle that to manage the mandated costs requires either an ever increasing line of Revenue or a shifting of revenue from the General Ed side to the special ed side you're always kind of playing that te the good news is it appears so far and for the that there is no impact to Federal funding that was kind of a roller coaster was that you know where that goes we don't know I would say the one I that would keep me up at night would be the special education Federal funding under Ida that's about $500,000 so that would be a big a big hit that we would have to figure out what to do we won't be the only ones I'm assuming the state would try to help but a lot of their money May dry up too Oh I thought I read recently that a budget is looking for more reimbursement to the schools State we've had that discussion too over the years typically the the money from the state flows to the highest need districts um we don't we don't land on that list so inundated with immigrants what else can help you sorry the education uh the technology piece I think that's a really interesting question and we're trying no not GNA lie we're trying to figure that out the financial hit we're taking on technology is more on in kind of um the tools we must have to run the district right like the the website the student information system and the inflation associated with just the subscription costs on the AI front and how do you teach in this technology landscape I think that's something we're trying to walk through together I know school committee is interested in it our teachers are are kind of trying to make meaning um we've done some two parent workshops around it this year um so I think the cost of changing our educational model isn't ever really a huge price tag that's really more the labor intensive work of trying to get those of us who were trained in 1992 to figure out how to teach in you know 2025 so that's really kind of the PB front and PB typically isn't a a real budget breaker it's something that we do get some grant money from the state there's usually if initiative comes out they don't necessarily give you a line item for it but they will always put some initial grant money out there for training so think for us it's really trudging through the process of being meaningful about our process of learning and not making knee-jerk reactions but not taking so long to hend up behind but in terms of financial impact I would say low but I don't know if you want to speak to where we are seeing some increased cost yes so we are seeing some increased cost for technology more on the administrative side um for example our financial software has just about doubled in cost um it is now a cloud-based program um B basically our vendor kept threatening you can't get any upgrades until you moved to the cloud-based version um so to try to keep up with technology that's that's what the municipal Market seems to do um everywhere I've been so we upgraded to the cloudbased version um that was a $12,000 increase in one year so we've done that um we are moving away from the hard Network server in District and most of our programs are now cloud-based our our network files are complet cloud-based I me I can work anywhere that I have an internet connection um which is great but the costs seem to be more on the software side rather than replacing a server shifting a little bit is something shift or the settings and Hardware does compensate we will see the savings and Hardware but we were taking the hardware costs primarily from our reserves so it's not necessarily a cost that was built into the operating budget it was like a onetime server upgrade cost every 10 years or so right how is the classroom changing classroom I mean that's where that's my question particularly I know it's in process so please I I expect an inprocess answer but what's going on in this because I think it holds quite a bit of opportunity cost whatever and I just wonder where we are thinking about that as particularly with the financial impact that you foresee can foresee can you help me here at all help me understand I'm not sure told is AI or computers playing an Ever greater role in the teaching function in the classroom you don't want them to I think they're assisted to teachers in developing lessons and they're a challenge for teachers in how to teach thinking when there is a active competitor to needing to think so I think you're seeing we're actually seeing a shi back for if you think about the phone conversation a greater need for human presence and human connection between teacher and student than ever before um I think we will be up against a line of thinking where can't you just replace some of the people with some of the teachers right I heard of schools where they they have someone that oversees kids using technology so you strip down to like un and I don't think that's the model we're being asked to pursue I I see it's actually I'm seeing and hearing from the parent community desire for us to manage more closely the amount of screen time kids have and minimize it so I don't think it's going to be a replacement or an efficiency that will allow us to reduce staff it could be for us if we can get people back to wanting to in engage in the online learning opportunity I think Co soured a lot of people on that um it could help us with breath of opportunity for kids but I don't foresee in the next I think I think education will be different I think it will actually lean more heavily into the human life CL that's going that might be an idea where it looks like from your side of the table and it may be a split there may be a whole Cadre of people that go more into the heavy Tech and Tech driven environment and there may be a set that go so I I'm predicting we're going to be in the human driven environment um we'll see and the only other thing I see in our list to address was the decrease in the building maintenance budget and primarily the only increase I mean the decrease there is $100,000 which is represents the restructure and the Staffing that we've proposed in the most recent budget so we are not cutting any Services other than that one um restructuring of the staff member so how many custodians do you have now how many be our custodial staff is contracted um yes it's all in the service I know we have one head custodian every day we have one custodian that is an employee a district employee and then the rest are a bunch of night custodians to the school now that roof is about 20 years old is there a plan to replace that in the next 10 years orever yes the um middle school high school campus we are constantly in discussions and plans about starting to replace some of the the systems in the roof there just because of the age we want to stay on top of it is a great building it looks great we want to maintain that we want to maintain the functionality of it no leaks yeah to me saying this 2034 is the half l Of The Bu right so that we are anticipating needing a significant investment at that time to take care of things that are on your mind but the good news is um feasibility study is underway or about two weeks away from um uh Hing identifying an OPM finalist so that's hopefully going to move on schedule which would us to then begin thinking and talking about how tackle the bigger so you think technology I see that as being a huge piece for the 2034 um Benchmark I can anticipate whatever we have for infrastructure now in technology we've been making obviously adjustments to where we can but that will likely significant overall think you're going to need to look at going need to look seriously at some type of not air conditioning per se but some type of um Air Management because that upstairs is so hot and we're getting more and more hot days usually we were able to have one or two crazy days the beginning or end year but we're getting into months of it being uncomfortable ask what's the driver behind the increase in the athletic Student Activities line it's 19.6% up just was wondering what the Yeah I mean the percentage is certainly looks high it's not a huge dollar amount but um primarily that is just an increase in um cost of living adjustments for the stiens there the coaching um we also have athletic officials are going up and that is a rate that we do not set it's set by I don't I'm not sure if it's the mass or local Athletic Association so that rate is increasing for our athletic officials and then the largest increase in the athletic line is our athletic trainer Services um this year we had to go out for a new athletic trainer and um we got the services of Mass General briam and that cost doubled so unfortunately that's our significant increase of about $5,000 and what are those Services athletic trainer for all of our athletic teams so we have to have a trainer on site for any of our home games so that's just a person yes okay not MediCal Services a coach can't be trained as a trainer I don't believe so it's a whole thing to deal with athletic injur it's not like a personal trainer service it's not like that health and safety on site with the medical bag if some transport then what then I'm sorry a little lost what is it that it's not that it is it's health and safety so um there in case there's an medical emergency if students hurt on the field they need a transport to the hospital with someone to ride with them and then concussion protocol followup um and then if you are hurt kind of U reab itation so more like the physical therapy piece it's not it's not personal training services to en your atic ability that's done by the school not by the the students personal health insurance corre you have to provide train yes we have have no but I mean all like the rehabilitation and stuff absolutely private insurance no private insurance would cover but it's saying a student has an injury and they need their ankle taped before a game then the trainer would take care of taping it right that this is definitely but it's not for for practice if they're there and there's an incident during practice yes but we don't cover practices typically okay but it is a full-time position um I wouldn't say it's full-time because it's really only after school hours but it's a contracted position it's not employ all yes unfortunately the cost dou our s is a fabulous what the cost devil I think that's another piece we talked a little bit about it when we presented the budget school committee we have tried to hold things flat for so long this is kind this is the year that the years of inflation are actually going to be catching up with us and there's a lot of adjustments to just our our annual fees and contracts that are representative here I know the um the line of transation I know that's always been issued but it's gone down and I guess point question is what does it include and how did you bring it down and does that include special ed Transportation yes I believe you're looking at the special ed Transportation because our general Ed is not going down it's going up about P three just on all categories operating expenses okay it's probably a combin to number that so overall our special ed transportation is going down um there's a couple of factors first we have a little bit less out of District students so therefore our out of our transportation requirements are decreasing slightly we also just um entered into a partnership or potential partnership with area Northshore school districts to try to um share buses and whatnot for special education Transportation I've seen this in other parts of the state um one of my previous districts actually did this and now through our collaborative school they are putting a joint effort to get so anticipating a 5% reduction there um and overall we think we're going to see about a $100,000 reduction due to the ridership needs so while those rates are going up we think we're going to be able to decrease that line a little bit and our regular Ed transportation is going up about 7% and are we doing the minimum required under the state law for the local yes students yes exact see ask we do we do offer um additional transportation for fee for students about you know outside of that minimum range we did consolidate a bus last year so it's going up even with the reduction they don't seem very full to me is that a trend you've been seeing since Co or just more people driving themselves and getting themselves to school rather than relying on Ro Transportation I we talked about that for years and how to motivate people to take advantage of I was just looking at school Street Pleasant Street intersection and it's a giveaway it exist and we have looked at the um writers ship numbers on the the school the buses from Memorial Elementary and part of the issue is we could combine the two buses there but the the length of the ride to school and from school does not coincide because we share our buses first they do the middle school high school run and then they do the memorial run so they would start it would be difficult in the morning to get both of them but then in the afternoon the Memorial Elementary students would be on for more than an hour going home so not sure if that ride gets longer yes ride gets much longer we love to consolidate because of the heads it's it's the length of the ride of that particular school one place we're trying to where we've invested to save is um the acquisition of the band for for small um group activities and sports so just recently um I want to say two weeks ago we acquired a lease it's a short-term 9month lease of two activity Vans they're just like your Council on Aging basically um and therefore our sports teams of smaller groups for our golf team our um ski team and so very other gr and like our debate team who student through Student Activities not necessarily an athletic team um it's going to save us money in the long run we did an analysis we're estimating about saving about $15,000 over the year in addition to having the availability of these vehicles because school transportation right now is challenging and getting bus when we need them is quite the challenge if they even show up within 20 minutes of when we needed them and they come with drivers or do you have staff that does so we have it has to be internal staff that drives them um because there's certain insurance requirements so we do we have our coaches or our advisors drive them we make sure they go through driver checks and training and all that so those literally were just employed to weeks ago saw one pulling in this afternoon as we were leaving coming here um so it's great to see them being utilized it's something that made it a little more efficient and a little more savings and the fuel and insurance for that is less than leasing to the buses yes so ex and that's not depend on the teachers own insurance then the schools that no insurance our insurance is through my just added them on to our policy so it's little things like that we're trying to do trying to make an impact and hopefully these will add up and have a little bit of savings here and there but we are we're looking at every opportunity we can this kind of a higher level question is you constructed this budget pretty carefully what what triggers or what things happen here pams this because I ask this every single year what goes south and keeps you up at night what what's are the big things that will potentially other than healthare we know that can break one way or another yeah in terms of this budget the proposed budget I mean obviously Healthcare is a very hard number to to pin down to anything right now hopefully in the next couple weeks we'll have a better idea there it's really the um special ed costs that that bother me and we know they're going up um we could have a movement tomorrow a $200,000 additional cost move in tomorrow um that we wouldn't know about out State I there is there is a mechanism if they move in from within the state that the current District would assume that cost for the next year depending on when they move in during the school year um but if they move in from out of state which I've seen happen recent not here um it can be a significant cost to us or if it's a collaborative movement where collaborative tuitions are typically capped at roughly the $50,000 Mark um we become responsible for that the day they to District so there's a number of um variables that we could see in the enrollment for special needs make it difficult um special the to the the requirements where there's added District you're to Transportation go to a specific location that specializes in something the child needs how is that determination arrived at child team collaborative team that's Alison yeah so Allison um overseas it we have and I think these are critical roles we have Team chairs one at the elementary and one at the Middle High you think about the 200 kids each team roughly has the case Lo of 100 what they do they're the um meeting manager so to speak they're well ver in the law they know the meeting protocols they know how to run through all of the presentation of evidence and ask services so everything has an evaluation process and it's data driven but there are also anotal inputs and um the human factor at the table so the decision about what the services are are based on analysis but also based on inputs from teachers and classrooms and observation so together this group crafts the individual education plan and then that determines what level of service so sometimes it's very simple and everybody's in agreement and other times often times with an out of district there is there's some ention because we the district feels like we can provide the service and the parent has had an experience where it's not really going the way they need it so it can get contentious at times but for the most part I think we have a very professional process and they're very good at the conflict management and we get to resolutions that the best interest of kids but it's nothing it's not something you can truly you can't cost manage it on the business office side in fact designed so that myself like we have to be out of the process we can't put our thumb on the scale about what's in our financial best interest it's always dri students that's the right thing yeah do you do you track like the forecast versus the actual to determine reliability yeah I mean Alison Collins um we've been really fortunate she's been here for quite quite a few years now 13 13 14 years she has a very good sense of students who are in the pipeline students who are struggling with um the services that so she has a sense of who might be emerging for that there are cases that pop out of nowhere as well and I think you ask every year it's special education is the one piece because I feel as an educator committed to making sure these students get what they need but also where as kind of the ultimate business manager knowing what it can do to our budget and how it forc it because we just can't keep adding it just forces all of these tradeoffs that always makes it feel like we're not we're not really do it can make it often look like we're not doing what we're saying that we're doing right we are cutting General Ed staff but we're also adding in all of these other areas so it looks like the zero right so it it creates confusion it creates competition for resources um and I just worry about where they give and I guess I take some comfort in that I know it's not just our district we have something called the C so it's the special education superintendent action committee we're meeting monthly sometimes every other week trying to figure out if there's any way we can pull these things together I think what we're finding is all the good intention keeps bumping up against regulation and the process by which decisions are made right so one of our theories is we really do we have some awesome programming for language based students let us be the Hub send us your language based kids we can't change a kids we can't force a family or tell a family where they're going to get the services it goes back to that process so even if we said we are the NorthShore hub for language based learning that's great but the family has to agree to want to send a child here so it's not it's not an efficiency model it's definitely a needs based model and it was intended to be but that makes it very hard on the financial side special our district are in boarding schools and how many are going over the summer mean like a residential placement how many yeah resident and then how many are going um I think I know but I don't want to guess out loud so can I send you the numbers okay I'm just curious I don't have it on the sheet is it a growing number whatever that number is is it changing a lot um what I can say about our out of our out of District placements tend to be really elevated cases it's a health and safety need um we do have some residential placements most most of our like the traditional profiles we've created cohorts here so by the time you're in an outut of District placement it's typically a significant placement and it's for a pretty extensive need to danger to themselves others um Round the Clock Care physical needs when you get to that level of outplacement we do have circuit breaker which helps to defay the cost so many times strangely the residential placement can be less expensive than a good placement of Transportation because you're getting um some reur the is the circuit breaker a dollar amount spent or is it a is it work on a dollar basis or some service basis it is you know make it simp little the formula is um it three or four times the per people average cost so whatever that threshold is roughly it's $45,000 so anything above $45,000 we can submit for reimbursement the following year but then they reimburse at a particular percentage usually it's 70 to 80% so you'll hear when they're building their budgets in the house and the Senate we're always lobbying for full um funding of C breaker in full funding of Regional Transportation neither of which are typically fully funded ex that urement pretty even across the state or is it done more by areas of need like that percentage does it change for districts that have yeah they basically look at all the claims because the claims the following year the year after they've been incurred or paid by the districts and then they look at them all and they just level It Whatever the allocation is be percentage over the whole yes yes so in the budget they mentioned that there might be new proportionate numbers by the end of the month yes um I actually got an email yesterday from do that the eqv numbers have come out I have not actually had a moment to look at the formula but yes I will be doing that later this week would Beed we've been in meetings all long it's been crazy back to back I my emails have just been building up over the past few days I had a chance to to respond to any of them but the I saw that com I'm like add that to the in the multi-year model is and share yes so we um released with our subcommittee or presented today a multi-year projection mod model um that I will will share with our school committee we haven't even got to that point yet said we've been in meetings all day um it just basically shows you what this year does and you can plug in um if we apply a certain level of reserves what what it will do to the total assessments this year obviously we know what the assessments will be for each Town percentage it changes year to year based on enrollment and population in the eqv um but it will show you overall what the assessment increase would be and what the overall increase is projected to be there relatively conservative numbers I think believe I built in 10% increase in health insurance over the next four years for each of the years um but we've built in on the trajectory what we what we know to be for the most part and that's just it's a telling story about continually needing reserves it's that based off the model we had been using over the years but it set up more closely to what so we're going to get that out and I was Alo if you there aren't any more imediate questions or think of questions um we spoke at school committee last week and then again today at Finance subcommittee about getting a number crunching team together with a couple of representatives from each of the finance committee to maybe look at um what some options are for managing the next few years so kind of taking all of our models and and see does have to be um increased streams is there a way to use reserves um creatively you know what are some potential scenarios so less policy and people who are trying to achieve something and more people who are very interested in spreadsheets and numbers trying to figure out not paper so Anna and Jake would be our reps there so I can just email as a follow maybe we could get some people together and work that we've been successful doing that over the years like when we who are going to get ready Tom borrow yeah I mean I I think the challenge with this budget is you know Manchester still is now paying over 30,000 student which is almost the same cost a kid to St John's and our Capital needs we've deferred and we in deep trouble with respect to needing to move forward on our Capital needs before our whole blood out that's the capital versus but it's still total expenses no I got you I got you I just think we need to be able to separate from Child there they're all cost to us I get that but they're different drivers yeah but you're still paying over 30,000 to student that's a lot of money I mean it's right and the enrollment keeps going down but the price keeps going up um and you know just seems like there should be I don't solution it seems like there should be some type of solution that you know it's not not evident you know there's a lot of constraints challeng Challen the challenge is going to be meeting places like that where certain portion of people have a a direct vest interest in the school system because they have kids in the system and then there are a lot of other people who want to make sure the town do cart so you know it it could be a Capital School seesaw thing and that's hard that's hard to deal with yeah we've had to do that before that's hard communicate and of course as the enrollment goes down there's fewer appearance in the town smaller portion of the town now is doing for the school system so the concern I have is this kind of this vicious cycle because as the enrollment goes down presumably some of that is because parents are deciding to send to squ and as the roller coast down the case perhaps gets less compelling it's more expensive to maintain the same program of the school in the profile of students we have it just it costs more educate students the needs that they have sure it costs more to educate students today than it did 15 years ago and 20 years ago because the services were required and expected to provide have increased so the scope of the work has increased tremendously from when you found dist so it is I can see the frustration guess what also keeps me up at night more is like when I think out on Horizon I feel more different than you which is the numbers are the numbers and the needs are the needs but where is the where is the money going to come from to maintain it so either is going to have to look very different and what type of different is going to be acceptable and not just create another downward Trend um where does it break at some point it's going to break do do you track um children that do leave the system that don't move out of the towns and and the reasons behind why they leave we we aren't at the point of doing um surveying of what they're doing or why but we do know when we look at the uh reporting that the percentage of students accessing private school is relatively stable since the beginning of time back to the 80s um it's right around the 17 15 177% Mark at the elementary and then it will escalate to the 20 to 25% Mark in the secondary and we will get Spike years for s for sure but I don't think that Trend or that interest level has changed dramatically I would agree that there are cohorts where people are just this the year see higher higher um private school access and other question for you on that um I friend who does counseling work in Brooklyn mentioned offhandedly that that Manchester essics helps with special needs or special headed or something to do with that school is that if you're resident in this town but you send a child to that school do they come to our district for and and what's the rough water magnitude on that I don't know the numbers are relatively small I don't know the exact number but I think that's you know we I would love to bring Allison and we can have a conversation she's so expert in it um especially education is the responsibility of the town right right right so wherever the child lives so the school is basically the agent for coordinating and providing those services so if a student goes to Brookwood or goes to P but they have an we're responsible for maintaining that I didn't know that that's why if a student comes here on school choice but they're found to need it in out of District placement it's the town's responsibility it's we are a social service provider you know we we do the academic piece and we've always excelled at that but over the past 20 years we've become the social service not we Manchester but schools have become a social service hub for young people whether it's psychological support in services like our friends in PE find Healthcare they have clinics um in the school we're picking up kind of the for every reduction in Social Service around mental health and wellness for students um externally we're picking it up in schools so there's no doubt the breath and the set of responsibilities has expanded but two and a half hasn't and people's expectations about what that per pupil expenditure pays for hasn't really and I think we're working at the state level we work at the regional level to try to communicate it but it's a complex bureaucratic government entity and it's not simple to understand so we're we're not making great strides there um but we really are kind of an all around the kid modeling so those General Ed numbers don't like the general teacher to student headcount hasn't changed dramatically since the early 2000s what's changed dramatically is the escalation and build up all the special services whether it's special ed or um intervention in terms of identifying kids who are um lagging and needing remediation those are all things that we have to for report on that didn't exist 15 years ago or 20 years ago great I just one question um so the number of students from Manchester and the number of students from we we understand that do you have a sense of the number of households from each town and where I'm going with this is it this gets back to the communication question which is many households are currently have that document some place but I don't do you mean General household or households with students so another way to think of it is how many know like the 680 kids from Manchester how many of them are coming from the same household you know is it 2.2 or three or 1.5 where I'm going with this is really how many households are currently integ tuned into the school system so you talk about the propos not being recommended the there is a a strong segment out there that would like to see the which is just level Services budget how do you see this playing out over the next month or so my advocacy side is in conflict with my realis side um that's probably a shortcoming because I I know yes I would love the 9% budget I would love to rid ourselves of using reserves have a large correction I think that correction if we pulled out all of the reserve use just agreed the health number is what it is when it finally comes in and plug that in the budget you're probably at a million and a half to2 million doar right all in put back for language put back Librarians I don't the realis doesn't know how we get there given the conversations we've been having over time do I think it's in the best interest of the district long term yes do I think we need to do it all in one shot no I mean I think we have to be realistic about the fact that we are going to have health care costs increasing over the next few years we are going to have increasing special costs likely so there has to be a balancing act between want and need um so in my perfect world we're going all in and we're getting everything and you know maybe we're even investing in a Performing Arts coordinator because we build out that program if you had somebody dedicated to just investing um but I think we have to team together to come up with a reasonable solution that works for all parties and I and I keep coming back to I don't know the mechanism for it happening but my hope long term for the district is there has to be a Reconciliation of the of the kind of differing perspectives on how to build and run the school um we're always going to be advocating for what we think is in the best interest of kids but we can be realists and try to put together the best program based on some of the constraints if that's what it comes to so I I would love to just solve the problem of what do we want the schools to be and the Strategic plan represents what the group I mean we we had really good feedback in over seven or 800 respondents from the community so there was voice from the community that is that still realistic you know so what's the Forum by which we do that I'm just kind of thinking out loud so I think it has to meet in the middle I think the essence Elementary project is is important it needs to happen um but also if we're really talking about not having a path forward financially I think we built into that feasibility study a couple of Alternatives which may not be acceptable to everyone but maybe but financially has to happen that's kind of up that's what's in my head I P P back and forth between you know getting up and just do I just Pound The Fist and say it's got we need to we need2 million and you're it's just part of me knows it's just not going to happen I have um thank you uh I just had a question about the December budget versus the January budget and one of the things that I had noticed is the da count uh that was one thing that actually went up from the December budget which I think was it was like it's gone from like plus4 to plus seven and I was just wondering what the change with the thinking or you know reasoning behind behind yeah that that is actually not an overall Staffing increase that is a shift of um Tas at the pre at the preschool level from the preschool revolving fund that no longer can support them the cost of them um they are addressing special need services not necessarily the students who are paying the tuition um because we have to offer the special education services for your charge um but we were able to absorb that cost within the revolving fund but we identified after we release the December budget that we can no longer so was sort of like budget financing yes for those Pas correct last year and prior yes and we we will have to add Tas in the course of the year so we will project what we think we need but it's a moving Target because the student we're constantly re-evaluating students so the students reevaluated or the student becomes disregulated or having trouble in class or isn't meeting their IEP goals then you might have to reconvene the team and one of the outcomes of the team might be teaching assistant assigned to that student respond thank you I mean oftentimes that need is to prevent an outof District need so we want to service students the best we can within District obviously we can't service all students within District but we try to do our best and those needs but yes often times it's it's adding a to you uh one question about school choice reimbursement so when I go to DLS I see a much higher number coming into the district then we put as a revenue Source in the budget yes so the revenue Source in the budget represents the non-restricted portion and that's what we AB that's what we actually apply to our health insurance offset cost we apply it as an offset and that's proba we consider it a revenue actually my my next version of the budget I'm actually going to show it as a reduction in expenses um because really it's it's being applied to our health insurance cost so it's it's on the expense site um the additional we're probably seeing roughly a million dollars in Revenue that is actually the cost the Delta there is the cost that our special education out of District um school choice students are costing us so the additional is is actually tuition that we are paying to other districts but being being reimbursed from other districts through the school choice program so that so that flows through the state from the yes the uh originating Town back to the state and back to our district to reimburse and then we directly pay the tuition with that so 200,000 250 that's a that's probably a good estimate on what we're paying for at a district or whatnot I believe it's actually higher than that I want to say it's more like 350 okay yes I do have the exact figures that's okay I figured it it was probably a backd door reimbursement but yes anything else J Ben um I will take comments from the public um but I want to caution people this is not a discussion on the school budget itself that will properly occur at the school Department's public hearing next Tuesday next Tuesday but if you have questions similar the type of questions we're asking um I'm happy to let people ask those if if so please raise your hand in Zoom no questions anybody have anything else for magic I guess love to hear I'm sorry I just know have you folks done a quick calculation on what kind of an override this would require for assum obviously lots of asss but out of the gate me our portion of the school budget is um $60,000 more than our total ly bu growth so we're not even there yet we have two contracts to negotiate um we I have a new chief of police that we're replacing we've got one other retirement on the horizon so we haven't even got to that point yet we and I've met and started working on what that might look like but it's not good that's the modeling so I do think it would be helpful if we could try to do that multi-e projection including the S Elementary um and if you know this is this is a hard year but we've got three or four hard years ahead is there a way to map out those multi-year bites and I think it's multi-owner rides to get there including the school obviously that exclusion in Ence that's an override so I I think that would have Merit to try to put together that that fiveyear look yeah I mean we're certainly concentrating on looking out with the all of our town finances including I think that's some of the thinking behind the proposed budget which is it's it's got a little bit of everything in it it's taking some Cuts but trying to do the cuts that aren't everything a student facing to a degree but it's not putting too deeply into the program or moving too many pieces shuffling the deck chairs to try to hit our highest priority needs they came in from the principles um and holding the number I think it's at 54 54 with the 10% it could go over six if we up into 15 or 18% so we're trying to make it a manageable I know none of the numbers are manageable but trying to do a little bit bucket to try to get there but that's what I think the number crunching team could do which is kind of what is the best balance of all of the tools that we have to try to get to something that will carry us through the years but you know and I'm we're always looking for inputs on what we think kind of what you hear from the constituents in terms of what their expectations are and what they're going to bear in terms of us needing to economize for the next few years versus really go For Broke I think that's what we're always trying to how how do you quantify the people the number of people that feel that 9% is the way to go the only way to go what we should G four versus people were not right try to we try to sort it all out and it's it's hard it's hard to you so anything you hear that you think is useful to us is helpful I think we're always driven by a little bit of reality but the goal of putting together with what we have the best possible offering we have so even if we have to cut we're going to try to do it surgically in a way that still creates as much opportunity as possible and I think you know on certain things we've done we certain find that there is a small supposedly small minority that are very outspoken um loal you know we ran into that with the NBTA Zing there was a group that was very much against it but it passed by 74% so you know it makes it very difficult um to figure it out as to how big base they represent think we're we're sort of in a similar situation to last year relative to the the larger impact than messics so nothing's guaranteed in Manchester either you know but but certainly U has to work for both towns the conductor's closer it is because they had a larger drop in enrollment than we did yeah yeah but we haven't seen the eqvvs yet and I don't know which town went up more yeah wasn't that's what I'm assuming yeah we did Fair well yeah it's not going to help us that's what I assume a little unfortunate I think the operating budget is harder to fit in honestly I think that the a new school is going to be easier for us to fit in in our debt schedule with the way things are falling out than the operating budget and I think it's it's a Chicken and the Egg situation I think for Essex because we're still waiting for that new building and I think that that will get I think that gets people over the Hun right it levels the playing field and then well yes because there were two shining new Assets in Manchester we're still living in the PS you were in the boil r with us like it yeah but it's you know it is a reality you know and I think once you get to that point I think you get people you know motivated again and excited again about you know supporting a an operational override or or or whatnot I mean I also agree with Sarah I think that sometimes the school choice thing is just a diminishing return and putting pressure on class size and for the $5,000 that we're getting it's you know look I was on the school committee when we kep the you know hundreds of kids for school choice because the the the model that we were looking at you know we wanted people in seats and it helped the budget situation but I think now it's getting us into trouble and pushing L class sizes and I know we don't take them in when we have L of classes but it still creates more students who need a thre the program and that is to operating class they do they do reimburse us like say we provide ta services to a school choice student we actually get dollar for dooll reimburse even if even if that ta is not specifically for that student if only a partial portion of their time they need that support y we do get that much back I guess as long as you know those if you added like 10 more school choice that caused you to have to hire another teacher an average class size that was unmanageable then it seemed like a bad idea but if you're otherwise at an average plus size of say 20 and choice 22 then why not that's exactly what we we try to do in our very very deliberate placements of what seats we have available only look at class sizes that are very you know on the Lower Side um not quite on the lowest side that have to collapse that into a larg do I recall correctly that we have some control over the the grade yes the grading of the school as well if it were at the lower level so what where what grades are the current expanded crop okay I'm just looking at so let's say we made the collective decision to be school choice I think at the high school right now we have 28 students so that's about $150,000 but it would take I'm sorry we have about 28 we have 28 students so that's about $50,000 but it would take three years to graduate them out and return them forever right they come in you lose them in in small increments so you never lose them in an increment large enough to make a cut in the year it would take three years to make the cut so for three years you're going to have to absorb the loss of Revenue before you can make a cut to offset the loss of Revenue which we just have to plan the exit but it's going to every dollar out of school choice comes off the offset so get passed through back to the towns so it's just we just have to be mindful that if it's a collective decision or a school committee decision to wean off of it that it's going to take few years to to realize I would be interested household number too because I think Mor is right you know when you start to look at it I mean we have 12200 house tax households so if our you know 400 and something students you know come from 200 households it it weighs in on how things will play out with voting although you got to remember that your house your value is tied to the school quality as well so there is indirect yeah effect on every that helps when you move out of town it helps when you downsize doesn't help when you sit where you are St had this discussion but I think to that point you know we we've talked about this before if you look at 12 grades of people in the school system and so three years out three years prior you know you're looking at about an 18year span of people interested you know those coming and those were thankful they have been there and so if you take the total number of families currently in the system and you had another 30 or 40% that's probably that's probably a fairly accurate cohort raw raw ra and outside that it probably takes a little more so that's just broad breast stroke but it rights me too I mean sometimes the overide concept is for something we want to invest in we want let's say we wanted to really dive into like the Performing want override to raise money for a director and theater teacher that's one kind of sell and I think you do need to look at your household and your parents thanks for coming down thank you good to see you is there a line of thought that you know there's kind of the Common Sense override where you have you're in an inflationary period where you have escalating um Personnel costs everyone can see what's happening with unions and the cost of Labor you have escalating healthcare costs very little we can do to manage those down so right now it's those external pieces that are putting pressure down onto the budget you're requiring it to reduce the service to pay the required cost is there a common sense approach where people can see that but this isn't really about building you know building this huge educational program and over investing it's really about being able to cover inflation I don't think so because I think the challenge with the teacher contract is you not you have Cola increases and you have step increases and when you add those together they're much greater than anybody working in Private Industry SE and so that's the challenge um you know Private Industry went for years where increases were way below 2 and a half% but the towns did the two and a half% because of the um Pro two and a half but private companies don't look at it that way um you know so I think that's the struggle is it's it's it's it's not the teachers pay is not just based on inflation it's escalated and it's in to colleges it's everywhere it's not not Manchester that's negotiation the labor negotiation that's not something we have to play with now no but what I'm saying is you can't argue that you're your expenses are rising due to inflation right that's what I'm saying I I don't think I don't think it's something can s be an in an unfamiliarity with the teaching model for those who aren't close to it so for example at 30,000 fet you say well okay they they have their Summers off and step and this and that then unfortunately I think this whole business of various districts and people out on strike is not helping that dialogue at all right and some people follow it closely and others are very far away and don't so it's an educational process here that sorry it's the Market operating we were luy very lucky settle before our four years is going to be up really quick I can't believe you told me I thought we were good till 29 similar sorry are do neighboring states uh if we know do they have similar arrangement with it's Cola plus column been many years since I worked in New Hampshire but it was the same contract same at the back then I'm assuming it's similar but I don't know that the inflation comment is not so much about the labor cost but rather other stuff but it's the labor cost it's a big chunk of the budget oh absolutely yeah so so I don't think you can you can go out there and say we need an override because of inflation costs when your teacher's contracts are so much more than inflation that's why I don't think it's sellable that's all I'm I got you but but it's they're we're not immune from inflation in school budget Health Healthcare Nots neither NE neither other residents paying the taxes yeah I mean absolutely I'm not not disagreeing with the the comment on on the labor but the the budget is more than the labor and we've we've talked you know for years about you know how 3 3.4% in that range is kind of what we would expect if things are kind of running well have you know big jump s for Budget right but U that's a challenge I think you can can argument that it has been deflation that we're trying to catch up it has impacted those contracts and it has impacted certainly health insurance and energy costs and everything else but I think you can make a St argument that inflation has caused a bigger Gap than normal you supply health insurance to every um Teacher full full-time and part-time so that's a little different than municipality right so that's a it's a legal standard they 19 hours plus a week they qualify the same St 20 hours 20 hours we're 35 hour so you're not paying it to people under that oh okay but how many people work between you know the 20 hour week employes or what's the very few what's the step there few part time hours and then like we have monitors that are just straight hourly they'll come in in the middle of the day to do a recess Duty or a lunch duty hour yeah very okay I just say are you able to find the staff you need when you need it isn't a very geographically neighbor get more our staff are actually like commuting from P 495 of living so it's getting more challenging but we're still considered a great place to work people seem to be enjoying working here so there's good word of mouth but there's just over in terms of people retiring is that accelerating just a fairly steady yeah fairly steady um one two three per year get a surprise here and there if somebody decides to go early and when does a go head for your annual payments where where's your projection there in terms of years yeah I'm not sure specifically when it's it's a good at least 15 20 years old 51 years okay we done with the school thank you very much for coming in it's not quite the expression email for number crunches and if you have ideas suggestions okay sounds good thank you um so the next item on the agenda is the nor sure EG and tex SCH budget do we have a final number from them Greg in this budget or are we still waiting Andrea has a number in here that's higher than last year she's got 250 687 but it's based on a 3% increase so I don't know if that's an exact number of just a place okay so we shouldn't be voting I'm on the Middleton so I don't believe we' seen okay okay so we'll wait on that um you weren't here last week sorry that's all right um so we're still struggling thanks for coming Erica um we're still struggling on our materials M materials yeah um when we were working on the DPW last week San um so I asked Andrea to send me her spreadsheet which I sent out to people wondering if maybe that was better for people but I noticed like it didn't look like any Capital was in I didn't look at it full in depth um so I'm just and I'm going to try to talk to Andre I just hav had time I'll catch up because I'm wondering is if she can keep the spreadsheet updated if maybe we could get that weekly or something and work off of that so ideally it would be [Music] to clear so okay so maybe you can find out if we have access so I know get that all updated but it should be ready so that's why I need to check okay fine okay that would be the best way to okay keep everyone up to date so let me let me see if that's ready to not to pile on bad news health insurance yeah so at the conference that's one of the things that we learn is the range we'll know our exact number in a couple more weeks okay um but we we plugged in 10% yeah and I think it's going to be closer to 15 okay yeah anything else so that would basically add another 75 77,000 we were cou in love them yes I plugged in the school number to the spreadsheet and didn't seem to change things the new school this school didn't seem to change health insurance number and the new school number yeah and um comes in right around 3% for total tax increase oh okay that's with the 4.93 of the school I less was 4.48 oh because yeah again that we change with the portion yes probably will go up a little bit because I think 10% yes definitely but it sounds like the E the valuations for S6 increased more than right those for man which is what I expected based on information I was looking abely that's a 10 year number right you 10 years prices are up okay yeah no it's it's goes a census of population census is every 10 years a population but the eqv it's you have two years at one value and then yeah it's a threeyear average but they only change it every other year yeah a little confusing but yes right okay you have anything else for [Music] us that's where the most subate material should be so okay oh I was going to ask how is there a link to get on there that's what he's he got to check and see whether it's available yeah and then he'll get us a link or Andrew will get us a link yeah it it's been I don't know what the issue was but it hasn't been available for a long time yeah I don't know if they were doing upgrades or were I said no worries it'll just be a you know delay a month in the fall so it's yeah a little frustrated right so going for we would plug in that number for the school the budet well until they vote on a budget yeah no it's better than what we have on the fifth yeah it's a little bit more educ not the fifth the public hearing is on the 5th for next Tuesday whatever day that is fourth fourth that's f um our meeting's on the fifth um and then they have to spend some time revising the budget so I think the I think the budgets are like a week later is it or something like that yeah a week or two later sometimes feary it sounds like they're close on getting their health numbers yes so hopefully those will be in there yeah and then we'll have a better feel for how painful this is going to be than I do think the issue one on choice is a is a strategic one for them I mean you know 5K in Revenue per student is nice to have but if one out of six is requiring special education and that number is Big it's just a statistical well if it's be 8% of your student population that has to impact the overall it's out of District Choice the special gets out of district is okay special costs that happen here for Choice student are absorbed by the host I don't think completely just extra stuff yeah I mean I think she said if they need a TA then it's covered Harrison go ahead and we're kind of finish up do you have something quick very quick yes all of the special education costs for other District students are paid by the sending District thank you okay the special education does not impact the fost school choice but come on yeah thanks that's consistent with her saying this the town is responsible the resident town is responsible so that's consistent through but it just seems to me it's a lot of school choice to it's got to impact the other costs Trigg triggers a new teacher here new teacher there you know that's yeah we talked specifically about that I would say that that problem but it sounds like they're a little B it's only one or two proof well it's going to be more than that if there's going to be 906 Camp is 100 and they've got and they've got 12 grades eight or nine but they don't do they don't do the elementary school it's loaded up in middle and high so you know if you take roughly 600 students and put 100 people and it's like this way if they were choosing to increase the school choice by some amount and it caused them to have to fire teacher that would be really publish and they be shooting themselves no when I looked at it it spread out throughout the grades spread out pretty evenly the challenge you have is if you have for a while they were taking them in the younger grades and the challenges got them the younger grades you got them for 12 years right right and then if you've got an uptick yeah in the you know you have a young family moved in with four kids and now school but they seem to be concentrating it and I think the high school they're looking for kids to fill out some of those AP courses okay did people look at the minutes from January 23 do you have changes she made all the changes that I some of the numbers didn't seem right right for the P it was it's 12 not 1.2 million in the minutes that she said something about the pting 1.2 million and I think it's more like 12 million I didn't back check all the numbers I looked at the text2 is what they're spending just on the so then we want to clarify that so so yeah total cost is going be still tired 16 to 21 million yeah okay let's look at these minutes again andove them next week I didn't have a chance to look at them um our next meeting is Wednesday February 5th for fire yes okay and so we'll be discussing the request for the deputy fire person yes okay and everything else yeah that's that's that's the big big okay because if it would be nice he'll review the schedule good that with you be nice if we can take vote on that operating budget we got to Circle back around DPW okay and then I can find my H fres anyone know what the next then the meeting after that Library yeah okay anybody have anything else nothing else make a motion to aour move to ajour do I have a second seconds he's louder a couple of seconds all in favor okay thank you very much thanks sir by GA thank you good night h