the pledge of allegiance and Christie do you want to start us off this evening to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for its one nation
indivisibley and justice for all our next item is the approval of minutes for February 12th 2025 is there a motion motion made is there a second perfect motion made and second any
discussion seeing none all those in favor um thank you for checking we do not have any public input this evening just before this meeting we had our student recognitions from RCS we had Eden Hubard and Aubrey Hermes from aces we had Cameron Lopes and Brody Roshi we
had from ARMS Gabriella Rousell and Lily Lichenberger um from the high school we had Emily King and Abigail Strunk and our Subway Scholar athletes this evening were Carly Chase and Sonia Aoyo congratulations to you all next we have our student representative here this evening thank
you so much i have the March highlights for the at high school the student council put on a student versus staff basketball game on Wednesday March 12th 23 staff members from across the district and 28 students from the high school participated in the
fun competitive community night student council also raised about $800 from this event on March 7th Emily King and Ethan O'Kee competed in the original the regional science fair at WPI emily
King's al algae pumpkin bioplastic a sustainable alternative to conventional plastics qualified for the state science fair ethan O' Noiki's project extraction hive did not qualify but is able to be directly entered into the state science
fair as one of our two slots from the athal high school on Wednesday the 18th 26 juniors attended the 22nd annual junior symposium at Mount Wusa Community College at the symposium juniors were able to gain information on applying to
colleges and assessing financial accessing financial aid lastly the literacy club is getting a newspaper running again at the high school okay thank you so much for coming excellent next we have the unfinished
business and we do not have anything listed there this evening under new business we have a vote to accept the collaborative agreement which is in your packet um if you've had an opportunity to review it if not please do so now otherwise we will look for a motion to accept the collaborative agreement as
presented motion made and seconded are there any discussions seeing none all those in favor thank you so much uh moving down in your packets you'll see under the communications we have the district enrollment and we'd
like to Is Dan here this evening are you going to fill in for Dan is Anthony gonna fill in i I believe we were actually discussing whether or not we were going to continue to have the presentation format of the technology update okay um do you want to move uh
maybe I will thank you i I kind of put that to the committee whether or not the the technology update will be provided in your package monthly um however the tech the the our tech consultants that
oversee the company that oversee the works of the district they're happy to speak to it on a monthly basis however I don't know if that's what the committee would prefer or if they would prefer to just have it in advance and have it in their in their package and then ask
questions um so I'm not sure um is there is there any motion to be made to have a verbal presentation every month or is just a written presentation okay for now anybody have a thought it's okay
everybody agree to written's okay and in the packet and if we have questions somebody would be here to answer yeah yeah what I'll do is I'll make sure that there's a rep here to answer any questions um during that section but then they won't have to come up and present i see Anthony in the back very
disappointed but he was he was eager to come up and present but we'll we'll let you stay there for now thanks awesome thank you okay excellent um so moving down uh we have the financial statement and approval of accounts the first thing we have um is with Nancy so turn it
over so the first thing I have is um requesting a vote from the school committee so under article 23 of the ATA contract it is stipulated that uh as of July 1st 2025 that the committee will
cover 70% of health insurance plan costs with employees being responsible for 30% however the language does not specifically address retirees so in order to implement this change for
retirees a vote is um required by the school committee um because we have to notify them within 60 days prior of this change so is there a motion to include the retirees in the healthcare
contribution rates of 7030 going forward motion made motion made and seconded is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor any abstensions perfect and we're on to excess and deficiency thank you yep so excess and
deficiency was certified um as of July 1st 2024 it came in at $515,281 $515,281 just to be clear I do want the committee to understand as well that the that total number for END includes the 400
right so we deducted $450,000 from END to put into the budget for this year to ensure when we were worried about where things stood financially we did put that $450,000 into the budget for this year
so it it would have been around that 900,000 mark but we put it into the budget that being said I at this point we're not really sure how much of it we will end up using for the budget so I don't want to say that it will roll
right back into END but there is a chance that some of that will continue to go back down for next year's certification and then the audit report so in your packet you'll find the fiscal year 23 financial audit that's been completed um
it did not identify any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses um and it's been filed and I filed it with the federal audit clearing house which is required um unless any does anyone have any
questions okay yep so we will be having our public hearing on April 16th but what we thought we would do is kind of not kind of review it with you as to where we stand at this point in time um and this
is our presentation that we plan to pre present on April 16th but keep in mind that there there could be fluctuations and there could be changes between now and then but this is where we stand as of this point in time so where I'm going to start the
presentation is I'm going to pick up from when I presented to you in January what I presented to you was what the leadership requested for new above level requests so of those
requests unfortunately 1.4 million of them didn't make it into the budget for fiscal year 26 so what I briefly did is kind of broke out for you what didn't make it into the budget of what I presented to you back in January um and
that's what this breaks out for you here um I'll break it out for you quickly so you got staff Chromebooks and interactive displays didn't make it into the budget several positions that were requested didn't make it into the budget
um dean of students at ARMS and ACES school counselor at ARMS assistant principal um assistant pupil service director uh Spanish teacher at ARMS uh behavioral
support position and then there was a foundations curriculum that included four um additional paras for that curriculum in particular and just as a side note that doesn't include four additional paras
for the I a grant that's totally separate i think there was some confusion about that so I just wanted to clarify and some miscellaneous office supplies and then BCBA didn't make it in floater nurse nurse leader high jump
mats for athletics and an extra late bus um originally the budget was built with two late buses but we only currently use one late bus so we took one out a a majority of the preventative maintenance um for facil for facilities was taken
out and we lowered electricity by looking at it and forecasting it out and out of district tuitions we actually had change with um one of our students so that was able to be decreased so then I wanted to show you what we did
keep in the budget um and so I this slide shows you by school what we kept in the budget one thing to also keep in mind that when I say we kept in the budget this could also have some of these items are being paid from the DESI
one-time funds so it's a mix of both so for Royalston Community School um Lexia is a add-on to the reading intervention software platform um bridges or Eureka we currently have Eureka we're piloting
bridges um one one or the other will happen it's a new request if the district goes with bridges for Athal Community Elementary School same thing lexia and the bridges are the Eureka
um Athl High School pottery wheels supplies for extracurricular activities we have our knee visit that will have additional cost and for athletics um uniforms and shoulder pads
pupil services we kept in the half um FTE contracted translator and for instructional technologies PC for administrators and administrator support and for the business office the software for onboarding and time and
attend attendance to get it automated this gives you an overview of all the categories of the fiscal year 26 budget so the full budget amount is $ 37,933,16 i broke it out by the function code
here key budget drivers these are the main things as to what is increasing our budget transportation is a significant factor it's increasing for special education transportation and for foster
care transportation it's increasing significantly has had a huge effect on our budget special education alone is increased significantly for speech and language occupational therapy paraprofessionals
have increased FTEES med therapy services for salaries we did have the additional elementary school dean that was added at the end of last year for ACES and RCS um miscellaneous duties and
stipens and summer school programs that weren't in the fiscal year 25 budget or an incurrence in fiscal year 25 but will be for 26 and then you have your increases for your contracted ATA increases at 2 and a
half% with and then additional lane changes and you have your non-union increases our health insurance is a huge factor our health insurance has increased by 19.9% and then along with that is the
shift of a 7030 participation structure um to help mitigate the rising cost for employees we are exploring different alternative plan options so we're not looking to get rid of any plans so we'll
always we'll be offering the same plan with that large increase but then we plan on bringing in a higher deductible option that will decrease the monthly rate for the employees we're still working at working it out with our
insurance providers um but that's the direction we're going at this point in time to hopefully be able to help with that cost one of the things that Matt and I really wanted to cover and go over is the grouping under the Student Opportunity
Act so this slide shows you how the grouping is calculated and what grouping the the school has been in since fiscal year 22 so for fiscal year 22 and 23 we were in group 10 in 24 and 25 we moved
to group 11 and now for 26 we moved back to group 10 so to be in group 11 you need to be at a 70% and we are at a 69.01% that comes out to be 17
families so by moving from 11 to 10 we're incurring a a loss of 956,647 to be clear Nancy and I have been communicating with both um Senator Kmerford and Representative Whips we've been in touch with the Department of Ed
again we are reviewing their numbers we're reviewing our processes and we are hopeful we might be able to see some some movement um the odds on us getting
back to group 11 totally are they they're not non-existent but they're slim i I'm not going to lie to the committee nancy and I were a little hopeful this morning and we we do have I won't say there's no chance at all right
but as I said to Nancy she was very hopeful this morning because we did identify discrepancies between the sheet that they sent us and our records however last year we went through this and every person we send them they come
up with a reason why they can't count and down to the point where some of the arguments were kids were recorded by other districts that were you know they they were claimed by other districts and Desi had said "Well the paperwork came
in this way so they're staying claimed by this district and we can't give you you know credit for the the student." And we were like we this isn't making sense we're going to have those conversations again because there are already a number of students that they
told us were claimed in other districts that we have on our attendance rosters so we'll argue that argument we're going to review our homeless and um foster families through our portal and make sure that our counts aligned with their
count and we are continuing to try to do supplemental lowinccome calculation forms that we would have to submit to the to the state but it I wouldn't say anything above a 10% chance right now but there is some
sorry it's just Thank you but the budget is prepared accordingly this time and and we're going into it knowing where we stand so if we get it we'll go back to page one yep the next slide shows you a
comparison of the town assessments versus where the assessments were last year and to where they are this year so I broke it out by categories your first category is your required min minimum contributions that you know automatically are applied so for the
town of Athol that increased by 5.35% $215,996 and for the town of Royalston increased 7.47% $50,652 then you have your debt expense which is the bond that we have from 2021
so that actually went down for Athol by 4.39% and then for Royalston it went up by 11% in $777 and then lastly is our transportation expense um so for the
town of Athl it's lowered by $3,400 and the same for the town of Royalston i do want to just point out as you turn to page eight in your package you'll see that another um summary of the town support and state funding
totals in this you can see what their actual numbers were in the Athol and Royalston assessments for FY25 and you can see the actual amount of the of the change and essentially um
so at the last column you can see the ch the dollar change so you can see for Athol the dollar change in their assessment is $25,32 and for Royalston it's
47,954 i want to refer back to page seven and make sure that the community and the committee understand clearly that the increases that we gave the towns do are aligned almost entirely
just with their minimum local contribution increases so you can see that Athl's entire local contribution went up 215,996 their debt dropped by
7,527 but their total assessment still went up less than the difference only $25,000 so I I do want to be clear this took a lot of work on behalf of the district and we do always want to come
into the budget season making our numbers palatable for the communities but I will say we did absorb some other expenses like the only place that we could lower the town costs are in transportation because they really pay
nothing above minimum local contribution and I will I I can't pretend that our transportation costs aren't going up next year nancy just mentioned they are a driver so as we are not able to continue to send our transportation
costs to the towns because we're trying to keep their increases at a at a reasonable level which I respect and understand just know we're still paying more for transportation and that doesn't come from anywhere else so those are some of the things that we may have to
start either cutting down in other areas because we're putting that money toward transportation but again it's all in an effort to work with the communities and I just want them to understand that this school committee and this district do their
very best to make sure that our budget is aligned with what they can do so thank you for that Nancy so the this page shows the other revenue sources that help contribute
towards the budget which are mainly are revolving um I won't go through each one unless you have questions what it does is it breaks out for you what was put into the budget for 25 what we're projecting to put into
the budget for 26 and the difference i highlighted some yellow and some white so the differences are what's in yellow is what's actually built into the general fund and what is yellow is
what is outside of the general fund um and it just has to do with the totals of how you you vote the budget um couple other key points I wanted to we have on here is the supplemental reserve is just listed on here so you know the balance
we're not using it for fiscal year 26 budget um but it's for $465,751 and then we are hopeful to roll over some grants for fiscal year 25 for $400,000 to put towards next year's budget and then we have END quite low on
here we have it for 50,000 um and school choice we have quite low on here too we currently have it at $221,170 um if there are fluctuations with expenses between now and April 16th of when you vote those will probably be
the two buckets where we'll have to hit um to increase them to kind of keep us where we need to land um unless we're able to figure something else out but those are the two areas that will probably most likely change between now and April 16th and and I would just like
to add it's obviously noted that there's a significant decrease in the use of these funds these two big buckets remember are our nonrecurring revenues so we have this school choice bank but why did we lower
it from 500,000 this year to 200,000 next year we're hoping we don't spend the 500,000 this year and we don't want to be spending our school choice money to run our operating budget because if we get into the pattern of that it won't
sustain staff nor will END so we are trying to just put those in and lower the numbers that are coming from those sources and that is the presentation and then the rest of the the next slide is just the timeline so
the timeline is on April 16th you vote and actually on that same day the House Ways and Means vote on the governor's budget um you won't hear by the time you guys vote it usually takes late in the next day um but then we'll have more of
an idea with our revenue and where we'll stand um and then the Athal Town meeting is Monday June 9th and the Royalston Town meeting is Saturday June 7th and the rest of the slides just go over a brief of district enrollment a
history of the minimum local contributions for the town um I kind of gave a description of the revenue sources if anyone had any questions as to what the sources are used for um in a history of chapter 70
thank you no you're good okay uh moving on we have reports of the committee reports of the chair um don't have anything to report but um and I wanted to say uh quickly thank you
Britney britney's last meeting is with us this evening our full committee meeting thank you for the last three years thank you for being the vice chair thank you for all of the hours that you have put into making everything flow so beautifully during negotiations i cannot I don't know what we're going to do
without you um but we hope we hope that you um you know continue to serve the community in any capacity that you can and you have been extremely valuable to us so thank you so much for all that you did
i I have to jump in well I'm sorry i I am sorry that I interrupted the applause but I do have to jump in and just offer my own gratitude to Britney i can say she since I've come into the district she has been extremely active
in her role in school committee and the amount of time that she has dedicated from herself and her family to put into the policy subcommittee and the negotiations subcommittee they it is innumerable hours that she has spent and
I can say very confidently I don't think that we would have made it through negotiations if it weren't for Britney's organization and recordkeeping and her articulation at the table because all of those skill sets came in tremendously
uh they were invaluable and honestly I probably would have walked away from the table if Britney hadn't been there because she was managing ing all of the documents and the process so again I can't thank you enough Britney for all of the time and work that you've put in
for the district and you will be missed i appreciate that thank you finance I think everything was covered in the budgetation you do have the minutes uh from the January meeting in your packet
we met this evening and just went over some updates things are going as well as we can get through them all awesome thank you negotiations Britney we are still in negotiations superintendent's contract
but things are going well and we are hopefully almost through that process nothing to report um just an update i we've the vision of the graduate focus groups were happening last week and I believe surveys will be
sent out in the upcoming um weeks to kind of wrap it all up so we should have some ideas from that very soon ju just to jump in I believe to Laura's point we are hopeful to get the surveys out by some point next week and and I I'm also
hopeful that I know uh Mr king and I were in AOTV studio today recording a little Bears's Den session on some of what the work is around our vision of a graduate so I'm hopeful to get that uh depending on when it's all edited but
possibly by the end of the week this week that will go out and then as mentioned hopefully the survey will follow shortly um policy you have in your packets the minutes from our January meeting as well as the
policy VEDH for a second read um the minutes for our March meeting will be next month but just to give you all an update we have started the process of working with MASC for all of our policy revisions um we got through section A
last week and so things are moving well although Tracy does tell me that section A is the quickest one so we shouldn't expect to get through a section tonight exactly um but it's a good it's a great start um I think there's a clear process forward um and I think there's been good
conversations so far at the table about all of this process so awesome great and that leads us to committee member committee member referrals lee you want to start us off this evening um the only thing I really had and I like I
said I don't know if it was covered i was unable to get to facilities but I just will there be a plan to place like a line item on the agenda moving forward in the next month or so that says MSBA update or something just to have a recurring Okay
that thanks Britney i just wanted to say a brief thank you to you all um it's been an honor to work with you all over the last three years it's been a pleasure to serve the community in this role and I appreciate all of the nice words that were said but I assure you
you all will be just fine when I'm not here um but just really a heartfelt thanks because it's been a really great experience and I look forward to certainly still staying engaged i still have students in the district and I will absolutely be rooting for you all
you got to say something about go to Wendy's oh okay aces yeah she can she can do it i went at lunch just for you yeah of course march 22nd RCS is hosting the annual
Hall Memorial Scholarship Breakfast starting at 8 a.m chuck was a dedicated member of the community and spent many years as a school committee member join us for pancakes raffles and fun celebrating Chat's memory all proceeds go to the Cet Hall Memorial Scholarship
Fund which supports scholarships for Athal High graduates saturday the 22nd from 8 to 11:00 all right so I will say it um if you haven't eaten yet go to Wendy's tonight for the ASUS PTO fundraiser
awesome Eric awesome okay um we do have a quick meeting for executive session this evening um we will not be coming back open into public session um I'll read this pursuant to MGLC21 A3 to conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with non-UN personnel
or to conduct collective bargaining sessions and contract negotiations with non-UN personnel for the superintendent position requires a roll call vote eric would you start us off yes christy Wayer i Kylie Hall i Tammy Duket i
in this room it should only take a few minutes you're good