I wasn't sure if you if you had form here or not. Mr. Golden, you ready? Okay. Being 6 o'clock, do we have a motion to open our meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? I uh Good evening everyone. the uh meeting of the finance committee. It is
Tuesday, April 29, 2025. This is going to be a meet a hearing with our school department and we're going to allow them to open up their meeting as well. Uh school committee, could I have a motion to open up the meeting? So we'll second. All in favor? I. This meeting is being
uh video and audio recorded. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you. Well, thank you for coming tonight everyone. Um, this is, you know, our annual big meeting that we that we typically have. Um, we don't have a full complement of our board of selectment, but we have our chairman, Mr. Hinckley,
here uh, tonight um, to have qu ask any questions and chime in, you know, town administrator, Mr. Jamie Kelly. Um, so we're going to get right into it. Patrick, what I'd like to maybe do first is maybe have you highlight like
additions, subtractions, any like things that you feel are, you know, really relevant to your budget. So maybe just like an an overview. Sure. Um, so just for the record, you know, we discussed having a presentation tonight. Yeah. It wasn't pertinent because everyone has the opportunity to do that. Um, but
ultimately, um, you know, it's sort of a similar story that we've been preaching in the past. Uh, chapter 70 funding is just not enough to sustain sustain our budget and support the town. Um, they're at the same time, you know, that aid minimally increases. They expect the
town's portion to grow um, significantly. I think it's 4 and a.5% versus the 1 2% that they're increasing for us this year. Um, and ultimately we've gone through um and cut as much as we can. Supplies are down. Contracted services
um remain generally down or or flat. Um and it's the same narrative. We're stuck in fixed costs. Salaries tied to, you know, our collective bargaining agreements and administration. uh transportation, yellow bus contract increases and special tuitions have uh
really hurt us. Um as well as the transportation associated with those, you know, to transport one student out of district costs, you know, anywhere to 60,000 70 something,000. Um and then the tuitions are in the same ballpark. So you can do
up to 100 $140,000 a student um that's out of district. Um so those are costs there. the staffing pattern remained um to the extent where we're suggesting to add a subsparate uh FTE which is a
special ed teacher that would be in a substantially separate classroom to deal with um significantly uh uh yeah thank you needs um students that otherwise would need to go out of district. So, by adding, you know,
$79,000 for that teacher and $54,000 for that van, we're saving that $100,000 per student that would otherwise push them out of district. Um, so that is a a new ask. Um, but otherwise, yeah, I mean, we
can get into it more as you guys nitpick, you know, specific topics, but we feel like we we've done our best. You know, there's been hot topics in the past that we've gone through the budget and we've cut. Um the supply lines are remaining flat again or decreasing. It's
the contracted services and the uh the contracts, the salaries that are hurting the most. Um I don't know if anyone else wants to chime in on anything there, but there it's not an exciting budget year for us. We're not doing anything crazy. There's
nothing new. there's no crazy initiatives or coming off of ESSER or anything like that. Um I think it's important to point out last year we balanced the budget through um the special ed stabilization in prepaid tuitions. Um if if we factored those in
again, you know, we knew we were setting ourselves up a little bit last year. We factored those up factored those in again, we'd only be looking at a 2% increase this year, 2.3% increase. So, um again, not a lot has changed last year. We've actually decreased the many
many uh line items. It's just a factor. We don't have that onetime funding to help support the budget. So your overall increase the number is 753. Correct. Correct. And of that
753,000 are due to additions to that subsearate classroom and transportation. Before before the fincom starts asking questions, Mr. Kelly, do you want to give any kind of overview of where we're at right now um town
townwide? uh townwide. Uh as you all know, I've been saying we have an increase in revenue of about $520,000 give or take cuz it's an
estimate. uh Old Colony in its wisdom uh sent us a uh budget which was increased by 347,482.
uh give you an idea. We still haven't finished with town budget yet, but for general government 1,629 decrease from last year. Public
safety total increase 43,373. Public works 58,446 increase. And that includes over $100,000
increase in our what we owe the city of New Bedford for our water. Human services 49,000 dollar decrease. Culture and recreation 600
are 6,112, which is what we need to keep the library certified. Debt and interest went down slightly, 4,000 and change. Joint benefit accounts which are
pensions, insurance, uh Medicare, etc. for both town and schools went up 150,000. Total
increase for the town with the joint account increase of $150,000. The total increase is $22,000 and that includes $100,000 for water from New Bedford we have no control
over. Yep. So, so the entire town was able to come up with their budget of only an increase realistically of roughly $100,000 over Ly. If we factor out New Bedford, if you factor out New Bedford and you factor out the joint
accounts, Mhm. we cut We are 50,000 less than last year. Yep. For the entire account. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. If I if I can add a couple other things
just that I left out of the there. Um, so again, we're looking level service. I I just had to say that out loud. And then other offsets that we've tried to do that we've implemented to try to be creative this year is we're going to use um the school rental fund, the revolving
account to fund uh our part-time custodian. We're using the preschool tuition fund to fund two preschool pair of professionals. Um none of those that hasn't been done in the past. And then again, you know, our food service fund is fully funded. We don't allocate any of those costs to our our operating
budget. So um you know, we're exploring and getting creative as as we can to um without kind of dehabilitating those reserve funds, if you will, which I think is important. Um Mr. Mr. Chair,
we have to go to town meeting with a balanced budget. Correct. We will not know final figures as far as the revenue estimates because if we're lucky because the state
will not be done with their determinations of local aid till the end of May. We have to go to print the beginning of man for town meeting. So we have to come up with our
best estimates as far as revenue and we will be look we're looking at it daily to to see if we can find out and
see even a minor trend for increase of revenue. So, we're looking at a $753,000 increase, which is more than what the town is getting. So, what do you want us to do? The money isn't there. So, where do
we go from here? You know, if we're talking about Oh, so sorry. That's okay. Just I just want to finish my thought. So if we're talking about level services, then let's think about what level services would have been a few years ago for the town, the residents.
What is level services at that point? The town has not added anyone that I can think of. We even try to maybe a halftime librarian for the children's room, I think, is the only one that comes to mind. So, we can't even go level services from
a few years ago and see where we can cut because that that didn't happen. We know the school is added. So, I don't know what you want us to do with regards to how we're going to balance this budget. Do you have a particular number? Yeah, we talked about
a particular Well, the thing is Paula, we know that 700 is just not feasible because that's more than what the town gets, right? I think we would have appreciated if there was at least at least a little bit more attempt as to giving us something that is even something that we can work
with because 700,000 even though we've we've received um word that it's different numbers all the time, you know. But 700 isn't even in the same zip code. It's not even in the same district. You know that. But did you hear what Patrick said that we would be
at 2% had we not prepaid the tuitions? Like we have to keep that in mind because we're going to be But the dollar is the dollar, right? The forget percentages. This is what we have for money and that is it. And if we're thinking about that, okay, where do we
go from here? Like we're just trying to figure out a realistic plan to move forward. If we're talking about level services, we're doing the same thing on the town side. Let's go back a couple of years. Are we still doing the same thing on the town side? Yes. We can go back, I don't
know how many years, but here's where we're at now. We're talking cuts of people. That's where we're at. But but we've never added we can't cut and keep level services from 5 years ago. Okay. Like let's put it all on the table. The
town has not added. I I Okay. And we and we cannot continue this this trend of continuing to spend. So I hear what you're saying like um and you know, not that I don't want to say they're comparable, right? We I don't think any of us want to see public services
decrease, right? I think we can all nod our heads to that. But the fact of the matter is, you know, we have a thousand kids in our buildings every day with 140 employees, right? Sometimes I don't know. I'm going to assume, right, that I've been over at town hall. Sometimes there's no one
there. Sometimes there's a few people there daily. We know we're going to get a thousand students and 150 kids, you know, I mean 150 employees. We have to provide services for those students%. And then on top of that, you know, we can't control the rates that they're setting for transportation, special ed.
You know, I'd love to say, hey, instead of a yellow bus, we are all at the same point where we got No, I understand. But not everybody's got a cup, but at the same time, we've done that at the town side. At the same time, what have you cut? At the same time, the landscape from CO has changed things significantly. We have students with
mental health supports that we need to Let's go back to CO though, right? Because Pete, hold on. Three years ago, we sat here. Pete, Pete, hold on. Do you Did you want to finish? You have anything else? Oh, I There'll be more. No, I want I want all Hold on. I want all the questions to go through me. I
don't want us talking over to each other tonight. Pete, go ahead. You done, sir? Yeah. Go ahead. Thank you. Sorry, Mike. You know, three years ago, we sat here and we talked about your budget and we talked
about how it was not sustainable moving forward. We talked about how through CO you guys were using CO money to add staff. You can shake your head, know all you want. Since 2019, and I'm is okay to
steal your numbers. Since 2019, you've added just under a million dollars worth of staff. Since 2019, your student enrollment is down 8%. Okay? So, in the last five, five and
a half years, you've added a million dollars worth of staff dealing with 92% of your your students. But we didn't spend CO funding on additional staff. We sat here and we talked about your budget. Your budget was based on getting this fixed amount
from the state which was inflated with COVID money and we sat here and it's it's recorded Patrick you can sit back and watch it no I think there's just before you but we sat here and we talked about the staff was in this room we had the combo
and we talked about how this money wasn't going to be available forever and you guys were banking on the fact that you know what we'll cross that bridge when it comes to to it and we put you to the task and said, "When it does happen, what are you going to do?" And the answer you guys gave us was, "Well,
we're going to have to make cuts." We haven't seen any cuts yet. We keep seeing an increase in, okay, you've got your contractual increases, but when we start looking at some of these positions that you're adding, the
positions that you're adding here aren't always just teachers, they're support staff. And when you start looking at the rest of the town and the departments that are there, there are no support staff. Cuts mean closing
departments for you. Cuts means, oh, you know what? We're going to have to get rid of a curriculum director where most places that's the vice president's job to begin with anyway. Curriculum director alone, what was that? 110 110,000 something like that. Well, we've got two
118,000. The academic coaches, two professional staff under curriculum directly. There's two professional salaries under curriculum directly. Okay. The academic coaches. So what's the 100,000 in the Hold on a second. Let me just finish
everything. Okay. So when we sit here and we talk about cuts and you say, "Well, we need this for the students. We need this and that." At the end of the day, when we factor in your benefits that are on the town budget and the retirement which is on the town budget, the school department accounts for over
2/3 of the overall town budget. And every year you guys keep coming back and asking for more. Last year it was an exorbitant amount when we were we were floored with it and we all pushed back and said, "No, we can't do it. It just can't be done." And you went back and
you raided your stabilization funds. Now you're coming back here asking your original ask was for another $1.4 million and now we've cut it in half to 700,000 which is still the biggest increase you've ever had. And we're looking at again you're down 8% in your
enrollment. How do we justify that to the rest of the town when we can't hire police officers where we had to actually cut three of them that were scheduled to start last year? When we can't fund and keep our fire department? when we can't even get people in our public government because
we can't afford to pay the position that's out there. Do we have a new town administrator coming on board? No. Are we having to share other positions with other towns so that we can try and make ends meet and have somebody come in here? Yes. Do we see any bend from you
guys at all? No. What I see is the hubris that you brought to the last town meeting about we've been asking you now for a year and a half, what's your backup plan? come with us with a different option. Since then, you have never given us a different option. When
we put you to the the test a month ago, everything that you gave us hinged on an addition to what Train was doing. I kept my mouth shut. It it you can shake your head and know all you want. We've got the email. What does that project have? Why don't we stay focused on this topic tonight? We're talking about the amount
of money that the school department has and the fact that you guys haven't budgeted. How about we take the temperature down a little bit? Hold on. Then just keep on talking. Hey, I don't want to talk about No, I'm not talking about the train project. I'm talking about the attitude of the school
department that you guys can get whatever you want because you're the school department. We don't have the money. There's no attitude here. We are trying to come to a solution that works for everybody. There's one person in the room who's getting a little emotional and carried away. So, let's get back on
topic. All right. So, I just want to get back to Hang on Eric. the um Patrick there's there's two positions listed under professional I think I think we need clarification salaries for
instructional coaches and then there's the curriculum director separate yes so there's two instructional coaches that's not someone called it the curriculum director yes there is a curriculum director and there's two instructional coaches let me give you like line items
so that way maybe it's it's okay so I'm I'm agreeing to No so there's two instructional coaches and then there's two professional salaries under the curriculum directors. Yeah, the the what I'm looking at and maybe that's what I need clarification on. Okay. Okay.
Curriculum directors supervisory professional salary line item. So desi codes is the same instructor 5100010. It's $118,000 for fiscal year 26. You're referring to the director of special
education and the curriculum director. Are they both under that? Are they both underuretail though? If you're looking at the detail tab, right, there's a curriculum director that's got their base salary line and then their longevity line. So, there's the two. I'm just Yeah, when you're looking at
school, so the curriculum director is curriculum director and and special director. They both fall under the same curriculum. So, that's organiz Okay, that's that was my confusion because I did see two siders and I didn't understand that. And then just if I can
make a comment too, I I hear what your committee is saying. We all hear what you're saying. What's happening in Kusha isn't unique to a Kusha. And I know Mr. Kelly can allude to all the towns that are struggling townside, schoolside funding. You know, most towns twothirds of their budget are the schools. It's
not anything we're doing. It's it's operating a town, right? And we we are part of that. what you know I think we're we're struggling with is not again you know we we we've received the revenue numbers we know they're conservatively estimated as best
practice calls for and you know we've had questions about why do we close out 1.5 million to free cash year over year over year and I don't think we've ever gotten a fair answer on that or where those estimates fluctuate that you know it's missing so bad that you know we're
not saying state use stabilization to fund our budget, use, you know, reserves to fund our budget. But where is that money that if it was estimated closer that we'd be able to put that into a budget now and school side? And then if this is going to be
the reoccurring problem, it's not necessarily an expense problem, right? It's a revenue problem. We have no growth year-over-year. We rely heavily on the state. So when are we going to flip the script and say, you know, maybe the school does have to come down, but how are we going to improve things so
that two, three, four, 5 years down the road, there is opportunity in the town and there isn't just closed buildings everywhere. And and that's a that's a future problem, right? It's a problem. It's a last year problem. No, no, but but that's not something that's going to solve Sure. That's not something we're
going to solve today. That's going to help this year's budget that we're trying to resolve, right? Like that's that's a you know where's there it's a master plan committee problem right now. Right. So that's that's that's outside of our
that's above my pay grade. Okay. So that's not something that we're going to solve today for this budget. We need to solve this budget. But how far away are we from solving it? Cuz I I understand if we solve this year's budget right next year we know chapter 78 and state
aid isn't going to improve. But we know our contractual obligations are going to go up. So next year it's still going to be, hey, maybe we cut 10 this year. Next year it's going to be cut 10 again and again and again until we can get this revenue in town on both sides again. But Pat but Patrick, I go back to that is
not something we're going to solve that's going to solve this budget. We have to fix this budget. But to properly plan to run a business, you don't look at just this year. We need to know what next year and next year and next year look like. So we can say I say that all the time. I've said that all the time. We've got short-term and long term.
Right now, that's a long-term goal that we need the board of selectmen to help advise on that. What we're tasked to do here today is to try and figure out how to balance the budget for the and and not gut the school, but not gut the rest
of the town. So, okay, cuz I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out is we go back to how are we going to solve this problem? If we go back to level funded, right, the level services, excuse me, level services, we can go
back. I don't know how long and we have not added on the town side. We haven't you like I don't know where we can cut on the town side, especially when you've got increases that Mr. Kelly has
talked about, okay, that the town has to absorb, okay, including insurance, which is always like the news around everyone's neck in transportation. It's a noose around our neck. I totally understand. But how do we how do we
accomplish this, right? We need to figure out how to work together and because the town doesn't have it and I understand we need master plan. We need a long-term solution. Nobody disagrees with that. So, but that doesn't solve the problem for next year. I agree. We
are here to solve next year's budget, right? And and I also look to to Mr. Henley and the board of selectman to say like when are we going to have a real conversation about long-term planning because this problem has existed for several years. Just Mr. Chairman, if I may. Yes. Just apparent on the comments
you made earlier at past meetings about all this information is publicly available. I have to work off of what the master plan committee is proposing. That's massive zoning changes cuz right now you can't open a business right there. You have to apply for a special
permit. So all future revenue to increase business in this town is limited to certain things such as what's our business zoning? They're in the process of reszoning or putting together a plan for reszoning. If you break it down, even if you opened a industrial
park in the Kushnet tomorrow with a hund00 million worth of property, it's only going to add $350,000 to the bottom line. That's going to temporarily solve something. And you see, well, it's $100 million worth of property. We're collecting property taxes. We're not getting tax on their materials. We're
not getting taxes on any of their revenue streams. Certain specific things can do that and open up the conversation about marijuana growth. Yes, you can add special taxes to that. This is all stuff that involves highle state legislature including multiple town meeting votes.
So to solve today's problem is probably going to take 5 years, 6 years. We've actively been working on it and it's all on various videos that you can watch on a Kushner cable through the master plan committee. You can watch all the board of selectment meetings and actually sit down and see what we're trying. We're
constantly trying to cut expenses and increase revenue. Right now we have excise tax and we have property tax. There's not much else we can deal with right now. We almost got eviscerated at town meeting last year for adding a restaurant tax, a meals tax because we're just not trying
to burden the taxpayers to the point where they have to move out. We have to do things progressively and we have to do it slowly because we have an aging population here that honestly can't afford the taxes they pay now. So we can't just dump things on them. We have to do things strategically and we have
been and it's all on video. We've had multiple discussions about it. We've had conversations and candid about it. There's only certain things we can do immediately and it's definitely not going to get solved in one or two years.
There's massive zoning changes in order to bring business into this town that all has to get approved by the voters at town meeting because if the voters at town meeting show up and say I don't want the business village district to go all the way down middle road and Main Street and they say no, we're back to
square one. So we can't rush it. We can't force it. We can only suggest it and provide the best information possible. SH question. When you're planning for next fiscal year, are you going up to your full 2 and 1/2 levy?
Mr. Kelly, I'm pretty sure we always go to the full 2 and 12 lecture. Are we close? Uh 120,000 is the cushion. 120,000. Is that the full going up to the max? No, that's it's uh
We are short of the max 120,000 but if you remember last fall town meeting we used almost 50,000 of that to balance various things and uh take care of some
uh past bills. Okay, that's the cushion to go in to the fall. So chef resolution. Yeah, sorry you finished. No second question new growth figure is that's remain static
for how many years? Uh yeah the price of housing uh and value of housing has increased. It has gone it has gone well new growth is gone down. Uh it
was 2022 it was approximately 450,000. FY23 325,000 FY24 FY25 FY26 we estimate at 200,000 and we
haven't hit that estimate in all the years. there is really no real new growth. That speaks to the probably the the national economy for the last several years that's that's affecting the
growth. Uh Mr. Sharon, just so everyone here understands, we try to maximize local receipts, but local receipts are only 10% of our revenue. 2/3 of our revenue come from
the tax levy. If you have no new growth, then you're restricted to 2 and 12%. If you're giving collective bargaining raises above
2%. You're going beyond your limit. If uh state aid is 25% of your revenue, the
state goes up a half a percent to 1 and a half% a year in state aid. They're the ones who aren't keeping pace. Uh you're not going to solve your
revenue problem in the next 5 years to be able to affect these budgets and this revenue. unless you have someone build a
casino or uh multiple hotels or something like that. And I don't see that coming down the pike and I don't need a crystal ball to predict
that. This is last year we told you we were rolling quarters to try to balance a budget. This year we're rolling pennies,
Mr. Chairperson. Yes. Um, so I don't want to speak for our committee, but so we hear it. Revenues a problem and it's going to be for five more years. Expenses are a problem. Now, in one of the exhibits from our presentation, right, we're talking a
$753,000 increase out of this our special education costs and salaries are a $781,000 increase in our budget. Everything else has been down. So, I I again, not speaking for everyone, but that's my fear, right? We know it's people at this point. It's a question of
how many. And then now we have four more years, five more years to worry about that next year. these fixed costs in in salaries in special education and transportation we know are up. We can't control the market. We know they're getting more than 3% each year. I I mean
we can control that to some extent through collective bargaining, but all these other contracted services. So, so we're going to fill classrooms with 30 kids next year and then we going to have we're going to have to make layoffs the year after and we're going to fill it with 35 kids. It's just going to get
worse and worse and worse. We can't sustain it for 5 years just in each of the schools. Approximately 500 each. 500 each. Just to keep the math simple. Sorry, I'm going to be specific. How many of each? 489 at the middle school
and 52 at the elementary. I get I have it somewhere. I just I'll get it to you exactly. This is where I'm going, right? Because a couple years ago we talked about the third nurse and Dr. Dr. Bailey, you said that it was a state requirement that if you have more than 500, is it a state
requirement or recommendation? No, it's a requirement if you have more than 500 kids. Correct. But it's not a add an extra full-time employee if you have one more student over. So, we have 517.
And then, so I will point out with the nurse, we actually save money because when So, we have three nurses total for two schools. when another nurse is out. We used to go through I think it was called cultured care, but it the the cost for substitute nursing was
ridiculous. Now we float that other nurse over just for the day or whatever. We're able to do that a little bit better. But how if it's two nurses, how often are they called? I I I don't know their attendance off the top of my head that this would be that you need to bring in a Well, the
thing is like we have field trips. We have field trips that nurses have to go on. So like if a nurse goes on a field trip because a child has medical needs, another nurse needs to stay back at the school. Isn't that when you get the the temporary nurse? And I know one of the
nurses that subs a lot there too. So like that's when you I mean we have had to get it but it's less Dr. I'm just trying to figure out a way like how we can reduce the cost and I totally agree the kids deserve the best that we can give them. Okay. But what can we cut and
still maintain adequate care for the kids? That to me is something that is there something that we could do there. How much digging have we done to really see are we better off with filling in that person? Because I know one time you talked about the fact that well they're
the sub like they fill in when somebody calls out. How many time are these two people calling out where we need a third person to sub for them? I think there's another problem. You have to have a second nurse. That's the bottom line. A second. We're talking about in one building in one building. Two nurses in
the elementary school at all times. Okay. And it is I can you just show me where the requirement is from the state? We said that last year. I don't remember that part. So, I'm sorry. Yeah. Like I feel like we have a lot of the same conversations every year, right? But we have the same conversations because
nothing seems to be changing because they're fixed costs and those are requirements. So, we can't change that. Okay. But there there are things that we need to do. What are we going to cut? Like I totally agree. We are at the point where we need to cut. What is
going to be cut? We can't s we can't support a $700,000 increase. That's what this isn't that what this conversation is about. So go ahead. Yeah. I was just gonna say what can be supported. I mean it's no secret I tune into all the meetings, right? I
know our counterparts increases. I know, you know, they had debt come off the books. They rolled into operating budget this year. Why them and not us type questions that I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get in the middle of that, but um what what is this bottom line figure? How much are we willing to,
you know, go up in our conservative estimates? How much are we willing to to use other resources? What's the what's the bottom line for us to to figure out? because we we understand, you know, as a committee and as administrators the best operations for the district, right? So,
we don't want to sit here and discuss, hey, we you you your committee recommends that we cut this person or that person. We know what we need cuz we're there every day and we deal with the needs every day. So, if we get a number and can back into that number, that that's a better option and point of
discussion than, hey, I don't like that supply that you have. Hey, I don't like that contracted service. say, "I don't like that person." But respectfully, you know, we're we run the school district, right? Yeah. I'll give you Hold on. I'll give you an example. Um, so we had Old
Colony come in uh last week. So, their budget, um, not including their health insurance cost, cuz they carry their own health insurance in their budget, was up 1.19%. not including the health insurance that
car that takes them closer to four. But with that $500,000 that was debt last year that they rolled into the operating budget. So that 1.9 is not remotely close to accurate. I'll agree to that. Okay. So now they're four is actually
seven eight and it's still and there are 500 kids. We're a thousand. We're in town, you know. Okay. So the other the other thing I wanted to get into besides that was there there seems to be some redundancy with instructional coaching
in the in the budget. So you got the two you got the two instructional coaches, right? So one's at 93k, the other one's 91k. Put the benefits in there. That's $200,000 to the top. But I also saw throughout the budget that there are
stipens for teachers to off to provide instructional coaching. So that seems redundant to me. That's how that's how it's worded um throughout the budget. So when I saw that I was like and we have supposedly we have a
seasoned teaching staff, correct? 67% of our teachers are top seven top level something along those lines. So I just don't know why we need to spend $200,000 on two individuals
um to coach teachers. So So part of that right is hey we can't afford curriculum in this town either right? So those costs have decreased significantly because we're obtaining new open-source free curriculum. Well, guess what? That
means the teaching model's changing and someone's got to teach that change to the teachers so that they can implement it seamlessly. Even seasoned teachers, that's the curriculum director. No, no, the curriculum director is one position and can't be in every classroom
doing professional development. I mean, isn't that isn't that one of those professional development days? Like I guess I mean, Dr. Bailey, you got to re So I don't know how many people from the school committee were around. I think Mad, you may have been when the super
when the sorry when the vice principles were discussed. Okay. The vice principles were added to the budget to be the curriculum coordinators. That's why they were they were added in. Freetown Lakeville uses their assistant
superintendent. They have a much larger school system as the curriculum coordinator. Okay. We have two vice principles and we have a curriculum coordinator. Every time we we are said, hey, this is what the person's going to do. We need this person because of X. They get in the budget, then all of a
sudden they can't do that job. You need more bodies. You need more bodies. You need more bodies. This is part of our struggle. Yeah. And I don't think I was here for that super the principal thing. But what I can also say is, you know, my understanding is if you go back several years is the curriculum in this town was
a complete and utter disaster. Right. So, we have to get to a solution, but we have to get to a place where we are still providing an an appropriate level of education in this town because it's my opinion that if we think we have problems now, if we are not providing a
quality education for our residents and their kids, they're going to think about where should I raise my kids and it's probably not going to be in a cushion. We're going to have bigger problems. So, we want to get a solution, but we got to do it in a way that works for everybody. I think they made a point of can we can we get a number out that we think we
could live with and could we let the the professional educators try to work through it to come up to see if we can meet it instead of nitpicking job by job. All right. I'm not nitpicking just I'm just using that as an example of if I'm if I'm in your
shoes and I had to cut something I wouldn't want to cut like a history teacher, an English teacher, a math teacher. Um it would be it would be something like that that is paid a lot of money. That's where I would look. Um if I if I had to make they'll look Mr. Bush. I I think right and I'm not
telling you where to do it. It's your be very hesitant about cutting teachers as well. We've had tons of conversations about these coaches. We understand them at first. Now we have a better understanding of what of what they do. Um and I think there's always the natural inclination is to say look so
the teacher that's touching the kids every day makes the most impact probably true but there is also indirect impacts that coaches can make but you know it's a matter of we looking at things and and I get the whole level services but we're not at a point where we can
provide like those level services. I think that's all we're asking for is we need to go back and and review it and I think Mr. to Kelly, do you have some a number before I get to that? And I really don't. It would be pulling something out of the air. And
but as a number of you know, in two months I retire and Patrick is going to another
district. I want to say that I've enjoyed working with him. I think he and I work very well together and I think he's very skilled at what he does. He and I and other folks over the
last couple of years to use my trit expression have pulled a number of rabbits out of our ass. The problem is you're not in the position
to look at the budget and go through this exercise cuz we're really spinning wheels here. You've got to sit there and say, "All right, it's not level service
that we're worried about." you start at level funding and then if there's anything at all above level funding from the previous year and I think there might be years coming up
especially with the state that there will be less than level funding and so I don't have a crystal ball but knowing the state wants
to not give 200 plus towns adequate funding uh in both chapter 70, chapter 90 and unrestricted local aid. You've got to
start at level funding and see if there's anything you can add to it above and beyond. Once you get beyond your fixed cost, you're always going to have an increase in insurance. You're always
going to have an increase in pension costs. You're always going to have Medicare on the uh as an arithmetic function of your total
salaries. That's the problem. You're all you're trying to keep level service and you've got to start at level funding and see if you can add anything to it. Well, part part of the problem is it
has to be run almost more like a private sector business where and you can attest to this Sue. Depending on how your business does that year, you might not get raises. It might be flatlined. But we have to adhere to
unionmandated contractual increases of what 3 4% and administrative levels. So I'm going to just use this as an example. So from FY22 through FY26
um technology director average increase per year 8.3%. Um AES assistant principal average increase 4.3% curriculum director 4.67% business manager 5.86%
superintendent 6.36% average increase in salary per year. So those are those are your top paying positions too. So when we look at that we look at again union mandated increases. the union's got to get more
in line uh and realistic sometimes because taxpayers can't afford it um like they used to. Um we have a an irresponsible state government that is this is why we're all in this position where we are right now because of
wasteful spending uh by governor and whoever's beneath her on I mean I could go down this road all night but I'm not going to. And it's affecting our local aid and I've said it time and time
again. And this is and then it puts us in this position where we're fighting for every last dollar and and this is and and this is where we're at. But it's it's not sustainable. Everybody everybody knows
that. Um I just want to make one comment because and I totally appreciate what what you're saying. The fact though is that this isn't a private enterprise, right? So when you say, "Hey, we should operate it like it isn't." It is. It isn't. But you have to kind of take that
into consideration though. Listen, I I what I do for a living is design compensation structures. What what we pay people. Okay. So I get it and I will say the committee has always taken a principled approach when
we make decisions around compensation, right? What's the budget? What's the market? So when you say, "Hey, this one got a 4% and 8% or whatever." What the story doesn't tell is what's the market paying for those positions and are we making those increases to be competitive because what we can't have and don't
want is a revolving door especially at the leadership level because what happens when you have a revolving door in the leadership position? Do you think that not having continuity and consistency impacts education? It does. It's a competitive labor market. So we
can't just say hey we won't pay cuz we won't keep people. It doesn't mean we have to pay the highest and it doesn't mean we have to do that in every position, but we have to make decisions to try to make sure that we've got continuity and that we're being competitive. That's the same exact problem that the town is facing. We
can't do that to the police chief or the fire chief. Where's Nick? I mean, why don't we have the town account because of compensation? Because of compensation. And yes, but I will say one thing. So, we're going to lose all our administrators because of compensation.
Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. There's only one thing that matters and this Yes, it's not private industry. There's one thing that matters and that's the taxpayers's ability to pay.
And if they don't have the ability to pay, then you've got to ratchet down where you're going and you might have to provide lesser service. But that's where it is. With all due respect, Mr. Kelly, we asked you
for a number. We still haven't given us uh I'd say 100 to 125,000 increase. And I'm looking because of the money that uh OC is going to charge us in an
assessment, which I think is unreasonable. Uh and the fact that the town is looking at a $200,000 increase on its side where
you're factoring in 150,000 as from fixed costs like insurance, pension, etc. So the town's increase is 50,000. I think that's generous. She said, "How many people how
many positions are we not filling in on the town side?" [Music] Uh, FTE. Yeah. Right now, five, but a number of them are
part-time or we're cutting full-time to part-time. Have our residents been educated on those vacancies and cuts? No. Because what I'm getting to, right, is we can talk about level funded, but we're all working for the residents
to your point, right? What if they value the services that the school provides? Should they not have the vote to say, you know, we support that budget when the the uncomfortable topic is when does this town let the residents speak and we
look at a proposition 2 and a half override? I mean, if they want I just bear with me for a second. I'm I'm not saying it's the answer, but if they want those two policemen that you know are going to be cut, if they want that fire station open and they're willing to pay their taxes for that, if they want our
schools to be level services and they're willing to pay those taxes for that, when are we going to present that opportunity to our residents? They just voted down by%. I'm talking about services, public service. I get it, but just useful. They just voted by a 75%
margin at the ballot box and you saw it and that was only adding $70 per year to their property taxes. And a lot of that what I heard was, you know, lack of communication, lack of education on the project, you know, not not necessarily a belief in the way it was procured. You know what? It wasn't all that. It's it
basically comes down to what people can afford. And did they tell you that? Did the voters tell you people are being they told you at the ballot box? But if we took a year to explain to them all the services they're going to lose out on if we don't do something now. Are they going to say actually we can afford
a little bit more? Or are they going to say, you know what, no, I I don't want those services anyway. So fine, I'll vote no. But when do we leave it up to them? When again, we're on a fiveyear plan here of a fiveyear plan of no growth and cutting expenses. When do we when do we look at that? because the
state again isn't changing. So the only opportunity is an override or we're not going to bring any new revenue in between now and the next five years and we're going to continue to cut on the town side and the school side. 88% of our tax revenue is is solely from
residential. We have very limited industrial and commercial. That's not going to change immediately as our chair uh select select board chair said, Mr. Hinckley. Um but but they're working on it. Uh but it's not going to happen overnight. So
what we can control is what we spend and but we're decimating services left and right, town and school. That's what we're being asked to do. But the bottom line is what the taxpayer can afford. But but so I'm in a situation in the town I live in. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to draw
necessarily parallel comparisons, but houses are going up left and right because there's a significant deficit in town and taxes are about to go up thousands of dollars a year. People are moving out because they don't want to support it or they go to the ballot and voting no because there is an override on the table. It's been communicated for
eight plus months. They've summarized every step of the way, but they're presenting the opportunity to the residents and if it gets through, guess what? Yeah, people are going to leave, but people are going to move in that value those services and those the product that's being provided. We can't just say we can't just put blinders on
for 5 years. We can't do it. You're not going to have fire department. Suppose we do go with an override that now becomes, correct me if I'm wrong, but does now become our basis for the following year. Where do we go with that? How many people in this town how
many residents in this town do not have children in the school system? It's a good question. There's a lot. Do you have any sense or you follow I'm not one time social media but there is a big
concern about overt taxes in this town and people are complaining that they are overt tax are you referring to an override on the operational budget or on a debt exclusion? Oh operational budget. Oh yeah, that's but but listen, we're all here. Once you once you go down that
road, we're going to be forced to do it every single year or expected to do. It's going to become a base following year. I understand how it works, but 5 years and you know what and this is why the first time uh we've never done this on the finance committee be before. I
called our two elected state reps that represent the town of Kushner before us for a hearing so they could hear our level of frustration and we gave it to them. if anybody watched that meeting and they didn't like it, but that's too bad cuz they had to hear it because
that's the reality. Because what they're doing up in Boston at the state level is destroying our local communities here with wasteful spending on all this green crap cuz that's what it is. 5 10 years from now, you're going to find out. Oh yeah, we it did it didn't do what it was
supposed to do. Um I I'm just tired of the control that and there's frustration on finance committed by not voting for these people. But there's there's frustration on the finance committee side about all the cuts they're making on the town side. Correct. You guys are frustrated the services losing on the town side. We're not seeing any cuts on
the school side. That that's not the point yet. I understand that. But you're you're you're frustrated with the cuts on the town side. Well, guess what we're going to be looking at next year? Cuts on the town side. the year after. I can say this for five years in a row. The
state isn't fixing the aid right now. Nothing's going to be fixed. When is the finance committee going to say enough's enough? We're not going to cut. We're not going to close that department. We're not going to close this department. And I'm I'm saying finance committee because you're here in front of us. Obviously, it's a bigger discussion. So, something's got to give,
I guess. And and we're not saying we're not willing to cut. We're going to try, right? We try every year. We we find a way. It forgive me, but it isn't try. Like, we have to, right? like imagine next year in the year after I I don't disagree. I don't disagree. But until but but until but to your
point right like I think the residents when they feel it they haven't felt it yet. That's too late. I I don't disagree. So when do we collaborate and say what say we get this budget through and we're all happy with the outcome. When do we sit in our own school committee, finance committee, the board
of select and say what are we doing in 12 months when we're sitting in this room in May again to fix that situation and that's what I think that's what I was asking earlier but it can't be five years but his answer was 5 years but you like think about it the entire
center of this town is entirely open space protected land we have two corridors we don't own South Main Street's trying to shove that down our throat two, which is going to increase operational costs on the town side. We've been fighting it because have to cut people. Exactly. So, fix this
problem, find another problem. So, what is someone going to say though? You know, we need more than x amount of policemen or x amount of firemen. The the town, the residents are going to get frustrated with that. and they're going to say I'm willing to pay the taxes so that we can keep the So when are we going to collaborate to build that plan
to say if we don't do now all these positions not only in 26 that we just cut on town and school side but in 27 aren't going to be there either. And guess what? In 28 it's going to be even less. Let's give them that 5-year picture now. Y and then let them say are you guys going to be okay with this? And
you'll see the people that aren't okay with it go. you'll see the people okay with it stay or we'll present some sort of override or other opportunity and they'll vote and people will go and stay depending on that vote that point Patrick I think at that point we needed to have done whatever we can to cut right that's the only way that's the
only way I'm even going to vote for something like this we need to have at least taken whatever steps because I I've said this before we can I can sit here not I'll pay the increase okay but my neighbor down the street can't when this vendor is $100,000 for an out of
district spe special education placement. We can cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut that cost is only going to go up any out of district we have plenty of out of district students yeah and we have three right now that aren't even built into this budget that are being discussed at the high school level might need out of
district absolutely Mr. Kelly, uh, there's a third option you didn't address, but by all means, the cuts and have people accept the cuts.
You said move out or Yeah. or do that. But the third one is to have people say, "I'm going to live in this town and I'm if we have to cut, then I'm going to cut.
Mr. Chairman, okay, just for some clarification to jump back onto your conversation about contractual increases. I just need some clarification. Anybody an admin at the school is not in a union. Correct. Correct. Just to clarify, just the
teachers are in a union. So, just to put note on that to piggy back on what you said, Mr. ship. And at that point, you have to go back to the idea of instead of a 4% 1% or flatline like, and it sucks. I know I'll be the
first one to say it, but if it's not a cola specifically forced by a union negotiation, we have to look at that, too. That's that's why I stated the only thing we can control is what we spend. Uh, and that's that's that's one area
where it could be controlled. Um, at my job we took pay cuts. Everybody from partners all the way down to associates. We took pay cuts, okay? And it was earmarked and it was like, okay, if everything goes okay, you'll get that money back. And thankfully, everybody
got that money back. But that's what we did because it was either pay cuts or it was a reduction in in headcount and we voted by the way. But that's the thing when the committee looks at where someone is positioned from a pay perspective. We don't just say automatic
increase. Part of what we look at is what is the market where are we at and there could be no increase depending on all with all due respect with this with the market. Could I finish my thought? What was that? Could I finish the thought before you jump in? Go ahead. My point is there's no guarantee that somebody gets a pay increase. The answer
might be they don't get one. It's all part of the analysis. That's my point. And I know there's a market out there. We have to we have to you know look at that somewhat but the time of Christian we can only afford to pay what we can pay regardless of what if Haven's paying somebody madam
poison it um we can pay what we can pay and we have to take that into consider we have to think about taxpayers of course um the people there there's also a point where by the way we are competing with matapo and for haven and other places for talent right so so they
can leave and go there and And if we have a revol sound like our teachers are leaving though because I'm not I'm not talking specifically about teachers. I'm talking about any position could be could be any position. But the point is is like at some point if there's a revolving door don't you think at some point it actually costs you more.
Um question doesn't doesn't change the dollars. We're on layoffs cutbacks. We're selfinsure on workman's comp. you you're going to comply short you're
going to have to lay off three to get the benefit of the layoff for two. Okay. I I remember that formula but I want to you know make people aware that you know it's a three to two type of thing. Have you a line item or you
have to create one if we No, I've got uh unemployment uh it's safety is approximately 30,000. We've gone average 15,000 a
year expenditure, but we can spike year to year as you know cuz I don't see and there's 15,000 of the seasonals. How how many unfilled positions are currently at the schools? Because that's
what we started with. And the only ones that are no goals are obviously accounting, right? We need we need people in finance, right? But I think everything else is kind of a possibility. The strategy last year that it's not that we didn't have cuts, we we didn't fill positions and then we didn't
carry those positions forward. Um, but yes, we have vacancies and positions, but they're teaching. This is just a thought and I could be way off, but I teach in East. We just laid off 50 teachers. 50. It's a huge impact to our community. But um what we
did offer is incentive package packages for those teachers that were almost close to retirement that could get out a couple years earlier. You know, here's $20,000 if you would retire. We we were able to save 24 jobs because we had those teachers that were willing to go
and we've offered solutions like that. They don't want to be entertained. No, it's not. It wasn't not in our contracts, but we've made similar suggestions and and they're getting vetoed before we can even have a conversation with them about them. And that's I guess that's the again the frust having conversations with who who
you who would these combos where there be the town administration the select board we've offered different strategies that you know we're working on right now you offer the opt out from insurance the health insurance that would not be a solution this year
cuz it has to be offered across the board for it to be effectively saying is if we offer an opt out to the schools, which I've had conversations with both of you on it. And I I'm open to any option, but
if we offer it to school employees, we have to offer it to every other union, which means I have to go to collective bargaining with every other union in town and offer it to them as well. But if we can offer it now and negotiate it now and get that expense off the book, at least on the school department, we can't offer it unless the whole town,
that's a law. It's not a law. It's just in the contract negotiations. Anything that we offer the school if it's in particular Mhm. we have to offer any health insurance period we have to offer the same exact package to every single
union. So what's our fear in offering? It's there's no fear. We just have to come together with the project. It wasn't like you mentioned this months ago. We started talking about it again. I sat down with Mr. Kelly the other day. He's brought it up to council. So just because you know you don't hear an
immediate answer doesn't mean we're not working on it. No, that's not We're back where you said they veto it and like I take an affront to that because the only thing you've offered this year that I've noticed was through the emails back and forth about the health insurance thing. Just because there's not an initial response doesn't mean we're not
beatable. We're not but by the time we get that all done, it's two to three years down the road. Even for something that but it sounds like but but that type of thing the school could do that you end up losing the high paid
teachers. They want longevity but they're also the highest paid and and then you you save jobs too because people are wanting balance, right? 67% that are in that threshold like people want like if you're 2 years out right where's that break even point right like at what point do you start losing kind
of effectiveness but 67 6 before you get to that you have to remember if it's teachers who have maxed out that's one thing if it's teachers who haven't maxed out it's where that sweet
spot is between retirement ment money and what you're offering them in an incentive to leave, right? There were there were there were strict criteria about that. You had to be at least 20 years in. So, you would be at top step in in our in my district, but you
wouldn't have maxed out in retirement. No, you Well, depending on age and years of service, 20 years, you're nowhere close, right? Well, yeah. So then it's a question of as a teacher, do I accept a reduced retirement for an
to leave? We had 24 teachers take it and we only laid off two people in my building instead of 11. And so that would mean that they'd either have to get a job in another district or they don't have to work and they're helping us make a living. It's up to them. It's up to
them. If they take it, then it doesn't matter. It's not% But you have to you have to figure that sweet, right? And there is and there's diagrams online. I've already looked at mine. I get 20% if I need any possibility there. That's what I'm thinking. That's what we did.
I'm just saying it work. Thousands of people are taking early retirement as we speak. I would love to. No problem there. Half of those who are leaving the government are taking Mr. If you went down that road, it wouldn't affect our budget for this
year. Correct. We don't have time to do that. It could on the school side. You'd be able to present that and get right now right now. So that type of incentive you'd be able to the
retirement retirement we could do tomorrow if we come up with a not retirement opt. That's no that's an incentive to leave. But the thing is in in my town, they give us 4 days to make a decision, which is unfair. So I think if you do that, it needs to be like a
longer deadline. You can't give When do we know that the budget has to go to print? Ultimately, that's our timeline. Beginning of May. And here we are. Yeah. The beginning of May. Well, but that's why we threw it together in my town. We do it together with a June town meeting.
No. And you have to have them. You have to have a uh because that includes council review and you have to have uh if you have to have town meeting before June
30th. I guess the fear again is and I'm not suggesting any answer is the right answer. It's that there's 5 years of potentially no growth. Um, no revenue. Question. In our defense, Patrick, for the last since 2022 when I started here, this has been
what we've been saying every year when you come up with the budget. It's not sustainable. We can't do this next year. We can't do this next year. And then the next year comes and we have a bigger road than we did the year before. So my frustration tonight is that hasn't
stopped it. You know what I'm saying? But we got to have instead of just Thank you. I drink too much. Okay. We can't all talk over each other. Thank you. It's annoying. We're looking for solution. I'm saying basically if if we you know if we're
looking to for a plan for a reduction to meet certain goals. Okay. It's late in the day. We may want to we can he disagrees use free cash to which
we've done for years. Okay. But we should have a plan by which we make certain dose. So we we're not reaching the avoiding the the collision course. Mr. Kelly, what's the problem with using preced back over three years in a plan
with R? Mhm. if it's used for operational expenses. Correct. So, so any amount or a certain threshold any amount. So that's not Mr. Hawk. I don't think that's so helpful considering we get a fiveear window of problems to pay
it back. No, I don't agree with that. I don't I can see that that ruling in writing from the stabilization that they're not doubting. I I think at the end of the day, Patrick, do you have the number? You have the number 100 to 125. I want to
make sure and that's that is the number because this is going to impact cuts in people at this point. So 100 to $125,000 means significant cuts on school side personnel.
If I turn around tomorrow like I told you and Patrick and all of a sudden there's a $50,000 windfall into local receipts from some
source then it's a different story. But as of today, uh, with the conservative estimates of local receipts, and Patrick and I have had discussions on that, I mean, I'm at
80%. And I think I'm pushing it. I'd rather be at 75%. But if uh something happens or the Senate comes out with generous figures beforehand
before town meeting, it's a that's the problem with doing revenue estimates before the legislature actually acts. And that's why it's crazy, but you've got a state
in one fiscal year, a federal government on another fiscal year, and no one gets together, and then the state goes to 112 budgeting, and that's even worse. Patrick, is it possible to come up with if we can get to, you know, 200, here's
the budget, if we get get to 150, right? I'm not saying Dr. Bailey, we we execute on something today, right? you're not sending whatever color those slips are to the teachers, right? Like, but if we have a plan to figure out, you know, we
can do 175 or 200, here it is. Yes. Right. Like options. Just out loud. I did rough math. If we're looking at 100 to 125, that's 15 FTEUs. That's more than 10% of our workforce. 15 teachers. It's not realistic. You're looking at
200. It's It's not really It may not be 15 teachers. We're going to have to figure that out. It's 15 FTE. Yeah. Might I offer um a suggestion? I was going through and I know we're not
should be nitpicking, but in my experience, I being an IT manager, I was noticing that um there's a lot of purchases made through CDW, which is um a tech
reseller. So, you got Tech Data, you got connection, you got CDW. CDW is the most expensive one out there by far. I've done several quotes on various equipment over the years and every single time they would come in the
highest. Something to look at just to cut a little bit of cost there. Yeah. And I don't I don't have exact answers on that. We definitely quote out everything. Um the benefit that we get that I know from CDW is they're on OSD state contract. So for state, municipalities, towns, we get a
significant discounted rate there. But you also have protection and there's other providers. Yeah. And we always again when we have to we have to procure it at a certain threshold and get multiple quotes and we have to go with the lowest quote. So um again I don't have the
exact but that's why Patrick I have a question. Uh just so everyone understands, on Friday, the board of selectmen is going
to be discussing this budget for the first time together. I've briefed various select men individually, but I've been they are going to give me direction on where I
should go for this, whether it's on revenue, whether it's on the cuts, whether they want more
cuts from the town side. So that's why this is a uh shifting. It's fluid. Fluid. And what's the deadline for print? Uh push it as far. We're talking fluid numbers.
Beginning of May isn't going to We need a finite date. Uh, I'd say the seventh, but that doesn't mean that I won't sit there at a map
machine or a Xerox machine or any any a print a a print a printing machine from Toys R Us.
to get it out if I have to. I mean, we're all sitting here behind the eightball and the eightball is saying, "I'm
sorry, the future is unclear, but uh you're looking at the first week in May. We have to get it to the printer and have council
approve approved it if we use a professional printer. So that's like a week away, right? Yeah, I know. Yeah, Patrick, we got a meeting Monday.
On the it was librarian media senate directors. It looked like that had increased by 107,000. Um, and it looked like there was a position that was added back. Is that correct? Um, no, no position was added back. We have one librarian at each school. Um, there was turnover I
believe last year in those positions that they were rehired at a higher. It looked like it looked like the base salary of one of the librarians increased by 32,000. Yeah. Again, I think it's just they they came in with a mast's whatever and you know, we
absorbed it in the budget with other cuts that that salary line increase. But we obviously have that's the market value. Well, no, it's it'sual collective bargaining agreement. If they come in with a masters and x amount of experience, they fall into that grid
where we have to pay them that much. That's why I was so does the school does a school have to have librarians? No, we don't have to. It's not mandated by the state. So, what's the what's the total um number on that for the two for
the two librarians? Give me two seconds. The library meeting 160 for fiscal year. Okay. Yeah. 160 isn't 160. So why was it why was one of the positions zero in fiscal year 25?
So what I'm looking at shows zero for the second for the second librarian. Yep. Zero for fiscal year 25. Yeah. That I honestly I think that's an error. We had two librarians last year. So that's might just be a clerical error. I would get
you clarification on that. I don't believe we added a librarian. No. So, going back, I'm not telling you how to how to cut your budget, but going back. So, if you want to spare teachers, just go. This is how I'm I'm sitting in your shoes right now, and I'm facing
budget cuts, but I want to preserve every single teacher I can. I'm I'm still looking at those two coaching positions that cost 200K. Now you got the two librarian positions just on the salary is 160. Then you had benefits. So that's close
to 400k right there. So now you're down to cutting what? 350 or no benefits. Benefits are on the town side. Okay. But you but you're going to not you could potentially not have to
lay off teachers. But may I Yes. Before you do, we did have two librarians last year totaling um $112,000. So, it must be somewhere else. Yeah, it just Yeah, I got I got to check that. I apologize for I I don't want to get into
the argument about who we're going to cut, but just realize that we have the the total view, the balcony view of all of these positions. And I'll just give you an example with coaches. If we didn't have coaches, we would have to pay money for professional development,
which is very costly that they do sometimes. Um, that's just one example. So, why why would you have to pay pay for that? Who would provide professional development or plan it and all of it? Who's so who needs professional development? It's our teachers. It's in
our contract. Our staff. It's in the It's part of the contract. We we our our um education system is constantly changing constantly and we have to keep up with it. We can't say only for like like like young like newer
teachers. No. And Patrick um mentioned this earlier today about the open source free curriculum. The coaches are a huge part of that and they're working with the seasoned teachers with the new teachers. It's not coaches are not just used for new teachers. They're used for
everyone. And I can tell you that in other districts that have this coaches, there's two coaches in a building. There's more. We have one coach in each building right now. Um, and again, these cuts, we'll figure it out. It is going
to impact the quality of education in the town of Kushnet. But we will figure it out. If you tell me that 100 to $125,000 is the number, I I want tonight. Well, see, that's the problem. Like that's why we have a
$750,000 increase because I'm not comfortable cutting people at this point until I have a real figure because these are people's livelihood, people's jobs. We're not we're not delivering that message, right? So you all we're asking is come up with a plan. We're not
saying, "Hey, deliver the pink slips." We're not at that point, Dr. Bailey, right? Like we could have been discussing a different plan. That that's that's what we're asking. Yeah, we can do that. But we're talking about like running out of time. We could have been doing that
already. We have done it. Okay. So, if you've already got the numbers, then why don't we talk about that then? No, we have different scenarios of cuts. It's it's also it's
a collective bargaining issue if they're union positions because you have to give the unions opportunity to bargain the impact of the uh cuts.
So between coming up with the plan and then having uh the administration do what they have to do under the chapter 150E uh takes a little bit of time and I
don't think it's appropriate to for to to specifically put positions right now when they might have to give
union notice for impact bargaining. But uh I think they have as of now and it could change Friday. I think Friday after Friday the selectman might have narrowed it down to exactly what they
want and at that point uh you'll have your target. Thank you. And I I would like to just say that I do agree with that because as a courtesy to the staff, Dr. Chain staff, I would never talk about specific positions in
this forum without notifying the staff first. I don't think that's fair them. No. And I wouldn't ask that. But in a small district, everybody is going to know who like a seventh grade science teacher is. Oh, who's the least senior second grade teacher? or whatever it is, right? And I would never ask for that.
It's like, hey, at this level, we've had to cut number everybody know those those positions that Paula has been working through have not been uh reviewed with the full school committee right so the budget subcommittee took a run at it I think but that's been presented to us
because there's sensitivity and these people's livelihoods and until we knew a number they've worked scenarios we haven't seen it gota correct and and to reiterate I'm not telling you how to how to make the cuts I'm just I'm just thinking outside the box if if you want
preserve teachers. That's all. You know, my level of frustration, and I'll and I've said this many times, is at the state level. And shame on them for putting us in this position right here where we're arguing with each other over education. It's
It's horrible. It's really horrific. I wish actually I wish our two new state reps were here tonight to hear this meeting because this is the one they should have been at. Um I'm I'm planning on calling them before us again next year. Um, but I think I might have them
come to one of these meetings because these are the ones that really hurt people. Um, and it just stinks when you hear that they they voted to approve a bill for $350 million again for migrant shelters. It's like,
hello, what about our own citizens here? I mean, it's just it's so frustrating. You have no idea. And that money is only good until June. So, guess what? They're going to have to approve another bill that the governor is gonna probably put before them and they're going to have to
vote on that again. And again, that's going to hurt that hurts all the communities. At some point, the communities have to stand up and make a stand against this kind of crap. Um, and cuz it's easy for it's easy for the governor to say, "Just put it on the backs of the middle middle class
taxpayers. Make them go for an override. Oh, they started doing it, so apparently they can do it." That's what they're hoping for. If we don't fight and make a stand, nothing's going to change. And I feel I feel for you folks. I I I hate
seeing people have to cut jobs. I really do. Um Mhm. from any from any department in our town. It's it really sucks. To add on to what you're saying, you follow some of the bills that are being filed in the state legislature. One of them is basically dealing with
curriculum and they want to enhance curriculum by legislation rather than the department of education and it doesn't make sense that you know we have a more of a phonics based uh type of curriculum and you know
cuz many but that is very similar in my estimation u what we have now but they're going to probably mandate it to those communities which don't use this type of curriculum that we have. That
turn it doesn't necessarily mean that legislation will cause us to have to hire staff. But if we lose staff in that area, it will be against the legislation. Those communities that don't have it are basically going to be
uh tweaking and getting more, you know, uh type of curriculum developers in in this in this. So my frustration see I'm adding on what you're saying that we're dealing with not only court mandates of you know
formulas of education but also we're dealing with many of the uh the legislation that that keeps coming down that we h we have to uh you know ma maintain nurses for example in schools you know we're dealing with all you know
so it's not like it was 20 years ago there was spending going on. But I just want to add the thing that frustrates me the most with government mandates is yeah, they're going to mandate this stuff, but they're not going to give us the extra local aid to support it. They're going to put it on the taxpayers. That's what
drives me nuts. Well, it's and and Pete, correct me if I'm wrong. You brought this up at a previous meeting with ma the massave budget, right? Can you can you go through those numbers again? What what the governor last year was asking for? Massive. Last year, the
budget was budgeted for $3 billion. Yeah. They spent just over $750 million, leaving more than 2 billion left unspent. This year, the governor's budget included $5 billion for Mass Safe on top of the 2 billion that they hadn't
spent already. And then when she was pushed on it over the electricity rates, said she was going to cut half a billion dollars off of Mass Save, pushing it like some win. But at the same time, there was still a a $1.5 million increase on last year's budget where
twothirds of that budget weren't even used to begin with. So, well, that then that speaks to the bigger problem. It's it's it's the leadership at the top of the state level um just spending money irresponsibly. Just think of that. I think if we had
that those two extra billion dollars in the state budget to to spread out for local aid, whether it's chapter 70, chapter 90, divide it up, we would have extra money and we wouldn't be sitting here right now. Um, this state's a mess.
There's over it's a mess. There's over 200 towns or districts 215. I think it's 28. I thought there was 300 that are minimum. that our minimum half a percent, right? So, so in
summary, just to kind of steer things back 100 to 125,000 increase now, which is about tomorrow 75% over last year and then again just because you know it's not fair to just plan for now for the
next 5 years is there the expectation that we project level funded since we know town again just based on discussion we know Town revenues aren't going to change and they're estimated at X and we can assume
minimum aid for chapter 70 for the next two three years until student opportunity act expires. They reform the formula. I' I'd say you start at level funding and you work up with what you see from the estimates. Just keep I
would suggest keep it in mind on all because all the increases are generally under contracts. So when you're coming up on contracts, try to keep it within colar or thereabouts and and and I think that'll save tremendously in the long
run. Um because that's what the town's got to do. You know, we're not at 5 6% increases for people on the town side. So I think contractually if if you keep it within pair of the
town, I would think that we'll be able to hopefully work with that. No, again that's fair and I don't want to go back in. But again, we can't control that with special education costs or transportation. So that's one piece of the puzzle, if you will. It's the other pieces that I'm more concerned about
that we have one bus company that bids on our contract every year. Until we spend money to buy 11 buses in the town and then hire 11 bus drivers, we're never going to save on the yellow buses. It's going to go up whatever they name every year. Is it even feasible to
consider like the coaching? uh positions to to regionalize, you know, share cuz that's what the town's doing for our community plan. We're regionalizing the planet like share with other towns. Is that something that's there's laws that only allow certain regionalization if we
become a regional school district. There's others that, you know, there there's potential to regionalize bus services without regionalizing as a district. I'm not an expert on that. I don't want to speak anymore to it. We we have a project underway that is looking
at regionalization of I think that tremendously. I mean that's like I said we're doing that on the town side with the with the town planners position and uh unfortunately I think that's what we're up against right now. I I will say that for the town
uh and this is just my professionalism raising its ugly head. uh regionalization can be the solution but you also lose control. Sure. And
that's regional districts can assess you and you have as you see with old colony and you have no control. So Patrick, I think to answer your question, yes, in terms of level
funding, but at the same time, we do have an early barometer when we know what the receipts are going to be, what the expected state aid is going to be. So we knew our rough number months ago. So I would come up with level
funding, but then once we know what we have to work with, then we have our wiggle room for Yeah. If we have if we're in the black, we can work with that. Because truthfully, everybody here wants what's best for the kids, but we also have to look at what's best for the town. I I think we agree on that. Town
and school res I I'll say like I know we disagree on many things probably, but I think this was a healthy uh conversation. I think it's important to have these conversations to be transparent and agree to disagree, but to keep keep working towards a solution that works. Hopefully we can do it a
little earlier next year, get it in the butt before we get up against the wall. I apologize for starting off a little heated, but this is this is tough. This is a very difficult situation and you know, and like I said, um it sucks that we're all put in this position, but
we've been put in this position um by failed leadership at at the state level, and something's got to give with all with all the irresponsible spending. Um, and you know, another thing that the legislature never wants to tackle is is
pension reform. We've talked about this before. Um, you know, the way the current state pension system is, I mean, I believe it was originally set up for um first responders, if I'm if I'm not mistaken, police, fire, um, sounds
right. and then everybody else started jumping on board and it's it's basically right now it's an unfunded it's an underfunded liability at the state level. Um they're hoping that it'll be fully funded I think by
2040 but if they mandate that the local community retirements there's 106 or 107 retirement boards uh in the state in the Commonwealth.
They've mandated that all the local ones or the county ones or whatever are uh fully funded, fully vested and funded by 2040. I don't know if the state is included in
that. It's kind of like the legislature. They exempt themselves from everything. I I I have my doubts that I'm hitting the knock because of spending on other money that's being allocated towards other
town budget paid at any teachers retirement. No, that's that's a teachers retirement separate funds. Yeah. If if you did that, you would this budget would be untenable.
They did that years ago because of that reason. That's just like the for the state when they took over welfare from the communities. When you meet with your legislators, maybe take the state should
take over the the health benefits and pay for pay for that as they do retirement. That would be a big help to communities. As long as that's if even if finance committee and only the school committee was invited, we would suggest
that to them. As long as they don't do it like the assessment for the MBTA. As long as they do it not like they do the assessment for the MBTA. I I would just like to end like this
just uh I think everybody should pay attention as far as what's happening at the state level of government. Um if you have concerns, reach out to our newly elected state reps that represent Natano Krishna um and push them
um to help us more because because we need it. Um pay attention to how what they're voting on and how they vote. um call them out on it. I mean, they're serving us, right? They're supposed to be
anyway. Um but it's just I'm still waiting on them. It's very frustrating to me. You're still waiting for Mr. No. Well, I'll I'll invite them back again next year. And uh but I think like I said, I I think this would this would
be the meeting for at least one of them to show up to so they can see what we what we go through right now. Um you know, it was it was nice. We got to express our our issues uh to them.
I'll be expressed. Uh one of one of the state reps, newly elected state reps and knows exactly what you're all facing because he he was a town manager and
town administrator. He's already became a state rep. Yeah. Well, it's it's a big problem. Massachusetts has become the third most expensive state in the country lives. So this there's a reason behind quality of life is very high too
that's not so you talk about cost quality of life compared with so many other states that are low tax the quality of life of the residents is not as good as here that's why people don't leave Massachusetts there's a lot of pluses
about Massachusetts living and uh and how people would really appreciate they appreciate And they don't mind paying the stats show they don't mind paying the high tax. They don't find millionaires running off. Mr. Hawk, I
disagree with you, Mr. Hawk. You do see millionaires leaving. Yeah, I I totally disagree with Oh, yeah. I saw you something revenue has not decreased. You want to close your exceeding
the billion tax conversation to close now. Can I go back to my conversation? All in favor? We have the old
Hang on. I disagree on that. I bet they don't call from from Yeah. So, you want to do it? Yeah, I can do it. So, the minutes from the meeting on February 12th, 2025 in attendance was
um Dr. Bush, myself, Bill Adams, PEO, Eric Chu, and Kristen Flyn. Motion to accept the minutes. Oh, then the second uh sorry minutes of September 4th,
2024 in attendance was Mr. Bley, myself, Eric, Kristen Flynn, Eric Glenn, and Bob CG. All in favor? I want to get Mr. Mr. Kelly, right?
You know, Mr. Kelly went and We haven't closed that meeting. Sorry. We have to do our budget deliberations. We have to get them done before May 7. Correct. So, we have to say Monday.
Are we going to have numbers? I'd say have a meeting Monday. The problem is Two two people sitting here and not here on Monday. How about Tuesday? I'm in Chicago. I'm going to be tomorrow. How
about next week? I'm gone home. I'm on vacation. And I fly Thursday night. All right. Uh and this this is I'm I'm so like I can
rewarded please. Bring it outside. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How you doing? Good. How are you? Good. I'll call you tomorrow. Yep. Thank you.
And yeah, cuz we got to really figure this out. So when the the board of selecting the meeting Friday maybe we do what we did last year push it back to push one back. We need a meeting town
meeting. We may have to. Can we still do that? He did last year. Yeah, but can we still do it today? When in June did we have it last year? It wasn't the first Monday in June. Second, I think we're doing the same thing. Unless
I mean, so I don't know if we'd have a quorum without It was the 17th of June. Beat me to it. So, it' be up to you guys to uh to to do all to do the deliberations and make your
recommendations. I I would suggest you communicate with the three select and slide annual town meeting and see see what they say. How so how far back can we go? We were
at the 17th last year. June 17th we did last year. June 17th last year. last year was that one town meeting was. So if we go if we look ahead um yeah cuz that would give us that would give us some extra time. That'
give us the two more weeks. I I think we're going to need it. I think we need you guys here cuz right now it's set for the second. It would be the 16th. That's it. Cancel your vacations. I was hoping you guys know we could without you Sue here. But with the both of you,
we're we're regardless. So we're So we're looking at June 16th then as a potential town meeting day. So that'd be two weeks. I'll still be here to the 30th plus. You're not going anywhere.
The legislature used to pull the uh u cord out of the clock and it was 12:00 for sometimes two days. All right. So, next meeting. So, we're not going to have anything to vote on
tomorrow or Thursday or make recommendations on. So, you're going to be selective about sliding the town meeting and that'll give them some time. I'll I'll have that conversation with them. That exactly that'll give them some time and then maybe something good
happens with the at the state level come in and some maybe it's a little bit better than we expect. I look forward to tax. What What are you looking at now then for your next meeting? We would potentially look at it for tomorrow. No,
there's nothing to cover next week. He just said there's nothing to vote on. Yeah. Other minutes. Wednesday, May 14th. Wednesday, May 14th. Just so you know, I cannot be there. I'm in Orlando for work.
Okay. So, I'm just And I I leave on Tuesday, so I could do Monday the 12th and I could possibly do Friday the 16th if you need me for the quorum. But I I don't know if we want to do a meeting on a Friday. What about I'm just throwing out when I'm gone Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights.
All right. So, well, we might have to do it without you. That's just letting you know ahead of time. How about everybody else that's sitting here right now? The 14th. On the 14th. Schedule's a little open. I'll have to chat. I'm good on the 14th. Lisa, you good for that? Um, I think so.
Um, hey, I just can I suggest Phil's not here. Can I suggest Did he go to the Oh, did he tell me he wasn't going to be here tonight? I don't remember. Can I Can I suggest two dates right next to each other just in case? Yeah, I think
we're going to have to. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to go. How about How about May 14th, which is a Wednesday, and the 15th, which is the Thursday. The 15th. I can do the 14th. I cannot. You may not need it for him. Well, but Pete's already not here. Yeah. About
Yeah. The problem is Miss Mr. St. Gene is What about doing that? Well, you got you still got Kristen and you still got Phil. Yeah. Yeah. So, we need we need one of them, right? We probably come up with We're just going to put to be determined. We're not going to set a
date yet until I can get a confirmation from everybody about availability. So, the pencil in dates for this week. No, we're done. you have to talk to the select. So, I'm going to talk to the board of selectment about pushing the town meeting up a little bit further and then I'll communicate with everybody to
see availability for that. Um, basically it's like third the mid mid mid uh May the week of the the 12th through the 16th. If something happens, Mike, and it needs to get moved to the following week, I I'm available every evening after that. It's just that one
week. We could even go that the following week, Jamie. Correct. Well, I've got to find right the I've got to talk to the printer tomorrow and say if we push off town meeting till this date,
when do I have to get it to you? Okay. Do we have a motion to adjurnn our meeting? Motion to second. All in favor? Good night. [Music] Too much. Nice to meet you.