##VIDEO ID:fP8bGXusq2U## okay we're recording welcome to the February 5th 2025 Finance subcommittee of the Brookline school committee um we will start with the first item on the agenda which is the approval of the January 15th 20125 Finance subcommittee minutes um can I get a motion for approval so moved thank you second I'll second okay Carolyn how do you vote Yes s yes and I vote Yes um next item on the agenda is the um approval of Grant applications which we have none um the one after that is acceptance of Grants which we have one um and the you can see on the screen that Betsy pulled up it is the FY 2025 um whoa got small all of a sudden sorry Ida Grant oh let me he a better one one second okay thank you so the idea Grant which is for 2, 339,000 is it 946 yes $946 um and I'm going to turn it over to Dr gillery to um introduce the idea discussion thank you and good evening everyone um I'm going to recommend favorable action on the fy2 idea Grant um this is one that uh is a large entitlement grant that we have through um through the federal government through Desi um as well and uh it's one that's very much needed for many of the services that our students um are are deserving of um what I'm going to ask Dr given to walk us through will be um um recommended um certainly the approval of the grant but then there are recommendations um or feedback that the working group has been uh the cross departmental working group has been going through um to give some suggestions on uh modifications that we may need to make to the grant um in order to uh number one get greater return on some aspects of circuit breaker but then also um charge some items to the Grant and knowing that then we need to make um anything that's not covered by the grant will then have to be covered by the operating uh aspect of it as well and so Dr given I'll pass the mic over to her to walk us through the fine details of such thank you Susan sure Betsy if you can roll up to the next document there so I'll start off with the first orienting you the First Column is uh how the idea Grant was presented in the FY 25 spending plan um as part of the budget deliberation process the school committee um uh voted to uh launch the middle school winthrip house um with an understanding that the winr house teachers would be funded through the idea Grant so that was added um Midstream through the process and then ultimately the budget was approved by the school committee um with uh the spending plan as you see it here at the time um I believe uh and rightly so that um uh there'd be more grant money coming from the federal government and lo and behold uh in the end it was less than uh what we received in the current year so in the First Column again um you know about this time last year late winter early spring when we went through the process the First Column represents um what was included in the spending plan at that time when the grant was written um and the documentation that is included in the packet um here uh tonight um writes the Grant in a in a different way um and so the second column or the middle column represents how the grant was written and as you can see um funding for some essential staff uh for the student services uh uh Department were not included when the GL Grant was written and so this has caused an awful lot of um uh strain uh financially on the on the school district and so uh in early January Dr gillery um move forward with um a cross departmental working group so that so that uh we could look at this Grant and you know our deficit and try to come up with recommendations for what would be the best way to leverage some of these um grants that we have uh um and sort through you know what were essential Services as we move forward through the year and what kinds of things might we be able to um hold off on um until a future time and place so the the third colum then represents um uh the recommendation for um how how the grant uh would be modified from the submission in order to maximize um the use of this grant for this year and then moving forward uh from there so I can walk through the various um line items if that's helpful um I think it would be if you don't mind yes nope not at all so the idea is that um you know there's a desire to obviously fund as many of the original teachers that were included in the grant as possible so that was one of the you know kind of guiding factors um as we contemplated uh you know how to modify the grant um as I've mentioned um we know that the school committee had approved the win thrope house um and uh and it at the time of the budget um adoption it was there was three professional staff members that were included in that uh so that's what the three represents in in the uh um account titling and then uh comma one means a pair of professional um was added for the winthrip house and so uh the 32888 3 represents the total cost of the three teachers and the pair that were actually hired for the winrep house when this the conversation took place during the budget process uh the estimate was 246,000 or 250,000 we rounded um up when we were having the dialogue about about that the grant was written for um 191,000 but the actual cost um based on the staff that were hired is 328 so that's why the recommendation is 328 because it matches the staff that were hired for the middle school winr house um there were no new teachers um uh included in the original budget for um for the for the grant um the submission included three new teachers none of those teachers have been hired and there is no proposals um or documents that have come before me suggesting that we add any teachers this year so um as a result of that um you know there you know the recommendation of the group is to to not um add teachers if if that's not um and then therefore we can fund teachers that were already in the grant uh pair professionals likewise were not included in the original Grant and other than one up um on the line where it says winrep house um it would be zeroing out um that portion again freeing up money to go back to um fund uh some of the teachers that were um no longer funded under the current submission and then under summer school um in the original uh budget proposal just to clarify Susan you skipped secretary was that just intentional no okay no it's it's it's tired um no secretary um has been on the grant um for for far back as I can um see or I've looked and so we would continue to support that um expense uh being allocated out to the Grant and then Summer School uh the original was 450 the grant was then written for 518 but the cost of the uh extended uh school year program is 750 and so the recommendation is to include the full cost of the esy program here um for a couple of reasons one it makes it really visible um one of the challenges that um we have seen over time is that um costs of programs are are split up into different buckets and then sometimes uh it gets lost in the shuffle and so we want to make sure when this the new uh deputy comes on board that they they can have full View and sight of what the um um School uh the esy program costs and where it's funded from also um there is no um mtrs contribution to summer program because it's considered additional comp not base comp and so there wouldn't be any um additional costs associated with uh benefits under the grant uh proportionate share um this is the private schools are um get a portion uh in Brookline get a portion of the grant allocation and that's called um proportionate share and so this number um obviously uh is fixed and needs to be set aside for our private school um uh schools in the community and then uh the originally we had um allocated out 363 ,8 42 for contracted service so we would um remain at that uh dollar amount and then uh out of District tuitions were included in the submission however if we pay for out of District tuitions um from the grant then um those expenses are not eligible for circuit breaker reimbursement and so um uh it's our recommendation of the group not to include those here so that we can take advantage of the um reimbursement through circuit breaker uh either way we're going to have to pay uh whatever tuitions are but at least this way we'd get some money um coming back to us in the in the following year um the professional development dues and membership uh that pays for the mtss multi-tiered systems of support so that initiative that has been funded through this grant for the last couple of years um was included in the original plan and remains intact and uh you know it's it's a contract that we're actively working with um um uh I can't think of the organization off the top of my head but we're actively working with them uh to implement the mtss model here um under supplies uh there was no money originally allocated um under under this submission um from OSS it included a new program called um gold books uh that is an IEP um a program that enables uh staff to write IEP goals um that I think conform to the new um IEP um model that was implemented this year and um it also includes money for the online um credit recovery at the high school um edu something EDU do you remember the name of that um well see on uity Edgenuity thank you um and so those two contracts are are are currently uh in place even though one is new um the other one has been um in place for a couple of years and so we would recommend uh moving forward with that expenditure the mtrs is um a percentage of the teacher salary um line and so that's uh the 9% contribution there and then um under other expense that included um a couple of other um memberships and um uh smaller contracts but those contracts have not my understanding from uh the group is that those contracts have not been um uh executed um and so um reducing that line to zero to again maximize the amount of money available on the teacher line um is so that's kind of how this recommendation was was put together so if you adopt um or approve the grant tonight you know the hope is that you would approve it um with um an understanding that the recommended uh Grant budget allocation would uh be submitted uh through the budget modification process um in gems so that that's where the recommendation came from and those were the reasons why um behind the recommendation that was made thank you Susan for the details questions from the subcommittee go ahead Sarah um will you remind me what the model is with this is this um a program where students are in and out throughout the year and do you have if you don't have exact numbers of attendance do you have sort of like a ballpark figure of how many kids are most are are often in the program um are you referring to win house yes sorry win through house yeah okay I um I can't answer that question I don't know um Dr gillery do you know what the enrollment over at winr house is I believe it's three students right now two or three if I if I recall I know I met two of the students um but I think there may be a third one that's helpful thank thank you sorry go ahead Caroline two or three stud I must have missed this is at the middle school winr program oh oh oh oh oh sorry I'm sorry my daughter was texting me from Target do you have another question Carolyn I see your hand is up yes I do is Sarah are you all set I have a few just quick clarification Susan thank you for this clear information um summer program is what we call esy yes okay and um is this the total funding for esy and I know there was some discussion last year I recall about um sort of parity of pay in this program so I'm wondering whether these numbers recommend are recommending pay for the teachers and administrators at the same level or whether this is any change um great question um so the cost of the summer program it and it's just for the esy component and this is for salaries I don't know um what additional supplies and materials um if any um need to be purchased specific for that that we don't already have on hand so I I I don't have a an answer for non-salary expenses um maybe Diane has some insight on that but um the 750 is based on um the uh the current um rates that uh the school committee approved last year for the program there is a little escalation here from the current year cost simply because when the rates were approved at a perdum rate next year's perdum rate is higher um perdum is of course attached to the CBA and so any increase in the CBA then gets reflected in the pum rates um for summer school so it is um higher a little higher for um next year for that reason but it's based on the rates um that were approved last year okay by the school committee thanks I have a couple more of this nature on the mtss um is that is this the total the that the district is spending on mtss or is there another funding source for mtss and also I'd love to just quick just like what what is is this PD when you say this is funding mtss and I can't what was the line yeah sorry was it contracted service yes it's so it's for a contract with a new teachers Center okay and they're the the organization that we partner with um on this initiative so isn't it under the pdds and membership Susan yes and I don't know why it's recorded there but that's it's pdds and memberships so this is for PD and membership with new teacher Center who are providing PD and to to on mtss and is this the only are we also pulling money from any other place for new teacher Center um that's a great question I I I don't know that I know the answer to that however um I'm not aware of like another here here she could answer oh goody jod can chime in she'll know the answer to that because I thought we had something else with new teacher Center but I don't know if it's active anymore I don't either um lonus do you have the answer no but I was about to call Jody okay well why don't we put a pin in that one and come back to it when Jody's available oh okay um and then the secretary that is a secretary for [Music] um for administering this grant for a department it is the secretary that works with the um director of special education at the high school okay and that's a full-time position it is okay and then I also just wanted to clarify proportionate share this is not you're saying this is not having to do with our outof district students but we pay can you explain that a little bit more what that is sure proportionate share um so the Federal grant um all of our federal grants um are are allocated to each community and within the community you have um some private schools um and those private schools are entitled to a portion of your Grant so they call it proportionate share so it's their propor share our grant like Bieber Country Day School I don't know which um maybe Diane might but private schools that are no nothing to do with our outof district placements for no within special education no literally and there's no that's we're just that's an obligation no getting obligation that's right okay and there are specific schools I just don't know them off the top of my head I'd have to look back in the records too and then I hate to sound a little but I just want to understand this completely um supplies so again this is a grant and I'm guessing I mean is so is that supplies for OSS as a cost center as a as an office it is for two online um services and one of those Services is um go g a book which um is an online tool for writing IEP goals and the other service um online tool is for this edu what you call it Ed edu uity oh good uity I was gonna say that thought got that wrong so so it's for those two online tools okay sorry you might have said that before thank you thank you V Carolyn thanks um Jody yeah why don't you go ahead and answer the question jod which was about whether we have other contracts with new teacher Center Beyond mtss right now right now our only contract is with mtss um it's for mtss which we're using our literacy program as a Cornerstone for so they're also the work does carry over into the launch of our new K to 5 literacy program than and my my question actually was whether the 155 394 shown here is the totality of what we are paying new teacher Center or whether we are contracted with them for more money than that that's coming some from someplace else that's the um total sum of the contract with them thank you you're welcome hi um sorry Susan I joined from an elevator and then lost service for a while I just want to understand the teacher salary the first line budget versus uh the submission and why those are so why there's such a large discrepancy who are those it looks like 12 on my phone what positions did those folks hold that you budgeted but I guess OSS didn't submit for and is there a legal reason why they didn't or I I I don't have any explanation for um why they weren't included um in the submission but U they are special education teachers and it's the same teachers that were on the Grant in FY 24 but our regular special ed education teachers who we have year-over-year yes I think that's not permissible but I will leave that to somebody else okay thank you it it is and it's it's quite typical to use the same teachers year in and year out on your recurring grants Val any more questions or is your hand now going down I'm going assume that hand is going down Susan um could you explain to us the now that this is the recommendation that we're being asked to consider what the impact is on the operating budget as a result yeah so what we move off of all the grants um and that's so what's um what we can you know fy2 24 is fully spent as as well so the operating budget would be picking up 1, 12637 181 how do we how do we like is that visible here how do you come to that number based on what's shown on this um chart is it visible it's not no it it isn't visible there in that um what was budgeted um isn't necessarily um the amount of money that we wind up paying so if some in other words if somebody moves a step or a column mid year then they would be paid at a higher amount so in this in the Staffing plan um you know the salaries uh might vary from what the budget is which is true no matter um what fund you're looking at but when I look at the total cost of the summer school program um that was charged to the 24 Grant but there's not sufficient money to pay for all of that and I look at the combination of things that were pushed off of this grant between the two Ida grants um uh the difference between what was budgeted and the amount of money um that we will now need to uh pay is that 1.2 63 um 781 and um how much was the um how much is has been charged to the 24 grant that is that is there is not funds for to the 24 Grant how much has the 24 Grant overcharged right now um once we clean out any um EX of the expenses that were from 25 that were parked in there um until the this grant was approved once we clean that out it was overspent by about 150,000 okay so there's like a little over a million here that's being impacted plus the 150,000 from last year and what does the so now what does that bring our or maybe I'm jumping ahead to the Q2 report so tell me if this question is too soon but what does this $1.2 million bring the deficit for this year too on the salary side so this is just salaries um is 2,230,000 are there other any other questions from the subcommittee on the proposal in front of us that the superintendent is recommending for the 20 um the fiscal year 25 idea Grant I do just want to clarify and forgive me because this is the first time around with this so this has just come to us I think what Susan is saying is that some of this is going to backfill 2024 and no this is all being applied to 2025 okay thank you okay I'm going to make a motion for acceptance of the um recommended revisions to the 25 idea Grant do I have a second I will second it okay Val how do you vote stain Carolyn yes Sarah yes and I vote Yes as well thank you very much now we will proceed to the next item on the agenda which I have now lost I think it's position control report or no it's acceptance of Grants I mean I'm sorry gifts apologies um thank you Betsy so the next item on the agenda is acceptance of gifts we have four gifts in front of us the first is from um yamir is it SL and Julie green for $1,000 for winther p the second is from C Community Foundation for the Whipple fund $31,500 um the third is from an anonymous donor for $25 for the queer student union and the fourth is from Elizabeth Cook for $50 for the outstanding speaker um series um so thank you to our donors for these gifts um and the Whipple fund of course has um quite an extensive history as well these are all wonderful gifts thank you can I get a motion for acceptance I'll move it I have a second all second Sarah how do you vote Yes Carolyn yes B yes and I vote Yes as well thank you um next item is the position control report which is minuscule sorry Betsy can you make that like a thousand times bigger um so the report that we have um I think the the newest update is can you make it a smidge um small so we can see the columns on the right thank you um so you can see um there are three for January that are OSS um updates um and the other note I want to make is the chief of strategic initiatives is paused for the moment as you can see there's a note there as well um anything else Susan that you want to particularly draw our attention to before I open it up to questions for from the committee from the subcommittee sure one of the things that um is a little different is that in the fund type uh where before we said funding source TBD uh again some of the work of of the working group is um to pay for uh some of the cost overruns in the current year budget through special Revenue fund balances and so I just made note here that these um where we would be targeting uh funding for these also when putting together the um second quarter report uh these positions and funding for them was included or rolled up into the total salary cost again it's not fully funded at this point but this this was our thinking and I wanted to um share with you um that information um can I ask a question which I didn't get to ask in November which was is that um it appears that a computer science teacher at the high school has been eliminated for two of the par professional positions could you speak to that or was it a computer science feature at Lincoln I'm just I'm confused about at Linn and then it says edte which edte is like not computer science necessarily yeah so what was eliminated it was I guess uh the common term we use is Ed Tech specialist educational technology specialist but in the teachers contract they they fall under this titling of computer science teacher so when I use uh uh in in the funding source I'm I'm referring to what it's called in the teachers contract as opposed to what our common uh terminology is can I jump in here for a second Mariah because I because somebody was actually talking to me about this maybe a month or so ago at school committee we had a wonderful presentation from rle about their book club or book presentations and that was presented to us by that edtech person and all of that work that she did with the students with their books and presenting what they were doing do you remember Sarah you were commenting on it that's the position that Jenny Murphy yeah eliminated at Lincoln so they do not have that person right now last year we had a long discussion in the budget and we ultimately decided to retain the edtech um FTE if I'm recalling correctly lonus could you comment on the elimination of edtech at Lincoln and I thought maybe I'm recalling maybe I'm Mis recalling but I thought each one of them was assigned at two schools don't they aren't they 05 at um two schools they're 4.0 edtech or am I misremembering or no maybe the proposal was to go from 8 to four and have them be split I can't remember okay so can you explain um so from what I understand um from this position is that it has been open for uh the majority of the year and so the principal's recommendation at this point uh given the students need there was to leverage that funding to um get a um a much needed par professional support for that uh particular student I believe that's what transpired there can I make a comment about that which is that I guess I'll call in myself which is that I'm confused about that because um essentially aren't we borrowing against next year's budget unless we're not planning on ever replacing that position so don't we need that might be a a Band-Aid which I'm not sure I agree with one way or the other but I can understand if you have no intention or no expectation of filling it this year you might do that for this year but unless you have decided to permanently eliminate edtech at Lincoln um that doesn't seem to be a solution sorry I guess I'm well this decision was made in November that's pretty early in the school year so was this was the was it that the school was asking for Paras that they couldn't otherwise get so they had to just use what they had that's that's the way I understand it Carolyn I I I just do want to make a point of clarification the students on um IEP so those two Paras were requested without a funding source in November the principal made a recommendation just before Christmas to elim this ETF position to fund those two because there was not a previous there wasn't a funding source previously so I just want to clarify but I don't understand that because if it comes out of the student IEP I'm not sure why we're borrowing against a general education position for a student IEP need and I agree with Carolyn that it's relatively early in the year to decide I mean I don't know if it's early in the year but it seems relatively early in the year to decide we not not going to fill the edtech position especially given you know the school committee committed to retaining edtech last year so I guess I would appreciate if we can revisit this decision and not questioning the principal looking to problem solve I understand the need to problem solve but um to me those are two different things that we are borrowing against and I I don't understand that I mean if an IEP need is an IEP need but but removing the edtech teacher does not seem to tie to that mandated service I I'm not all I can offer for um uh Food For Thought is that since the salaries are overspent um just like when non-salary accounts are overspent there's no money available in the OSS budget then the money has to come outside of the OS budget osss budget to pay for it that's why last year if you remember when we had a spending freeze on we had to spend we had to freeze everybody else's spending but we still had to continue to pay for the OSS services and so um that factor uh um I think plays into how are we going to get the Paras there uh when there isn't a funding source within the OSS domain to pay for it and I'm just not sure I hear what you're saying but I'm just not sure why Brian was asked to or principal Deno was asked to look within his own budget to identify the funding source to me this is a district IEP driven need and if a position needed to be freezing I'm not sure why it has to come out of his building Sarah go ahead I'm sorry different points I was about to say the same thing that's been um said there so I I think everything's been covered I just like just want to ask a second time is the word eliminate truly eliminate because next year we'll probably have to assess how many PA professionals we professionals we need and I would hope that Lincoln would be able to have an edte if they're able to hire starting in September and it's not truly eliminate is is that the case lonus I'm sorry Sarah will you ask that question again um so I we we have a couple of big issues here our first issue is that we are going to be adding um par professionals throughout the year and we need to have a little bit of disc like discretion in in figuring out the budgeting for that so I I accept that's completely an issue that has to be addressed given that when we have have a principal make a decision to reallocate the money that could be spent on an edtech person to par professionals I would hope that that doesn't mean that we're eliminating that position I would hope that in the future Lincoln gets to hire for an edtech person and we're going to find somewhere else to um fund the PA of professionals is that the right assumption can I can I almost reframe your question a little bit Sarah I which is I'm going to ask it a little bit differently in the budget next year which we haven't quite seen yet but I know is coming is there a line for an for an edtech specialist at Lincoln and is there also funding for these onetoone prare professionals I would have to look back at their charts Susan where does that how does that roll up um there is no edte position currently in the budget proposal for FY 26 at this time at Lincoln or at all at Lincoln okay I think we probably need to park this conversation for the budget that is coming next week but I will register my concern with that in advance um Carolyn do you have anything to add to to that particular no I have a different question okay go ahead thanks um so just kind of big picture and putting all of our um challenges together so this position control report is is always really helpful and interesting Susan at one of the meetings last week maybe it was the tsp you um use the term soft freeze um so generally speaking whether it might not apply here so separately I'm interested in what that means but in terms of um dealing with our current challenges should we can we what can we expect to see going forward on in terms of new positions is it safe to assume it's would only be Paras that are called for in IEPs I mean we're and not I think you've asked two questions but um maybe it's just the way that I um process uh so I think the first question is um what is a soft freeze what do we mean or I guess I'm asking are we is are we in stating a hiring freeze of some sort I I don't know the the right terms yeah um such that we'll only see Paris here as needed so a couple of things um when uh over the last month I met with all of the special education uh directors um budget managers in general and we've gone through the uh Staffing roster in in great detail for the current year and in preparation for next year um to make sure that we're all clear about what we need um to close the remainder of the year and so these par professionals um are believed by principles and um special educ directors who work with those principles that these are in fact essential so um when we look at the quarterly report on the salary side I've included though that in there we also have released uh money for for uh stiens and or other positions that we we won't be filling for the rest of the year um but uh we have yet to actually Institute a hiring freeze which um based on uh the information I've shared with you tonight I think um you know for any positions that we can um plausibly get through the year without filling um that would be a good strategy to employ to close the gap um on the spending free side that's looking at non-salary items and so what we had asked um and this again came out of our working group um was you know what kinds of things can we do and uh in order to be able to uh make sure that we're providing the programming for all students um for the remainder of the year um uh at least saying as true to our core programming as we can and then um having money available to um shift over to OSS in order to help pay for the deficit that has been acre in those areas and so what we asked is that all staff um submit purchase orders for any of those um services and or supplies that they will need between now and the end of the year um by the 28th of January and Diane um and her team are going through those and processing those it's not available on this report tonight um uh in order to be able to see how much money in the non-salary accounts um will will be um available to help offset some of the deficits that we have um growing this year so soft freies just means that uh you know we're asking people to put all their POS in right now so that we can see if there's an emergency once we see what that is we'll probably set aside a certain amount of that for emergency situations right but then identif how much of it can then be moved over into the OSS office so so that bills can be paid over there okay I guess I don't it does that's helpful separately thanks I guess I it's just not entirely clear to me um like how we are controlling spending if other than um something like Paris associated with an IEP how we could contemplate adding I I I don't know because I don't know but sort of other kinds of new positions and does this if there was something to come up say in in HR like the last couple years there were some new positions hired would those show up here or is this only Google based or where where would sort of central admin or other admin show up would those show up here were you to be contemplating them well this is for new positions that were added after the budget was approved okay so any positions approved in the budget wouldn't show up on this report these are positions that were added after that and then how how therefore are they funded and in order for us to issue a new PCN number there has to be a funding source and so that's okay perfect that helps me understand um and so if there are positions that are funded but open they still might at this point theoretically we are filling positions and again I am I'm to to my mind Paris associated with IEPs or other IEP services are separate and obligatory so so technically open positions are still being filled not not all of them as I was trying to say like we'll give the example of the chief of strategic initiatives yeah that is not moving forward and we aren't currently filling the director of data and information systems because of the situation we find ourselves in okay thanks I don't want to take more time that you've given me a better understanding of of this thank you Susan um back in September there was two pair of professionals there that are saying that they would be funded out of idea given what we've discussed earlier today are those two pair professionals still on idea um no that's part of what would move back off of idea okay at the at the time again we didn't have the grand right the I didn't have any detail on the grant back then I didn't get any detail on the idea Grant until December so um so for our our next report that that funding source will be will be modified okay thank you other questions from the subcommittee on this okay thank you Susan this is really helpful I I just I say that every single month because it gives us some insight into things that are going on that are really helpful to understand um next item on the agenda is or be it Q2 report sorry I'm I'm lost that's right and I think's G to share it directly okay Diane I don't know if you're talking but you're on mute FYI all right can you see the report with the Vans um we can't read it we we can visibly see it but it's way too small for us small all right let's make it bigger I think in the bottom right of your screen there's a plus magnifying glass yeah that big enough or bigger bigger say when keep going maybe a little smaller if you can or at least scooch it over a little bit so it's centered on the screen that's good I think thank you does everyone agree Carolyn Sarah can you see that too and Val okay thank you Diane go ahead Yep this is there is a revision to the end of this that I sent out just as this meeting was starting so I apologize for that what you're seeing on the screen is at the end slightly different um but here we see um this is the second quarter so this was in early January and you see the salary and expenses broken out by the major cost centers so the superintendent and we do not have salary projections by cost center because it wasn't possible to reconciliate to reconcile them at that level of granularity at that time so these are the expenses and where we're projecting so we have the superintendent Administration and finance educational equity and student services and you can see flagging right here this is what we were seeing in December already about the deficit that was happening on the student services side the reason this deficit is as high as it is is because some of the student services expenses reside in the student services office and other student services expenses reside out in scho student services expenses are rolled up there's two sets of expenses for the general fund budget in the schools there's OSS expenses and then there's um general education expenses and they're separate so OSS is expenses ran out in December and everything else did not but because of the way it's distributed throughout the schools the office shows a bigger deficit but the system doesn't allow them to continue into deficit across the district does that make sense do you have any questions on that point I did not follow that okay it's it's kind of high nerd accounting there so basically if you can think about OSS as a big bucket and there's pieces of it in each School place and also in the OSS office and also in beep thinking of beep is another school as a big bucket they're capped by their budget and they can't go over it by the mun system won't let them expend this is not salary just expenditures will not let them go past that total amount but as you see in the student services office they are overexpanded because they have they have balances in other places but where are those other places Diane I'm confused each the schools there's OSS expense there's OSS expenses allocated to each of the schools so have you moved funding that is technically allocated to a school into OSS it it's it's all in a big OSS bucket the expenses live at the school under an OSS sub code I see so like OT expenses at RL or something like that we know it's OSS but we what happens at the rle I see globally they're all OSS and the balance all comes together but RL may have money OSS Central may not alog together is what matters so that's why you see a large deficit here but you see the others by school which includes both sorry about that which includes both OSS and nonoss at the school level so are you double counting them like is the r expense okay I'm not double counting so when we get to rle those will be r or any school netted out of the OSS expens expenses yes you're you're only when you look at Student Services office you're only seeing a portion of their budget other pieces of their budget reside at the school level oh I see I thought you had pulled them in here okay thank you no that I wanted to make that clear because the because it is set up for them not to run into deficit so how have they run into deficit they haven't but then why is it showing it's negative that's what I'm explaining they have surpluses in some of the school budgets so my understanding is that the way rollup codes work is there's um so OSS has a rollup code that is osss districtwide and so in the OSS District budget which is what you're seeing here it's in deficit because it's in deficit they cannot spend OSS money at the school level because the rollup code is for all of OSS expenses so that's why otherwise if the rollup code was by this specific this would have um sto spending in OSS uh for a of District placements and such earlier in the year am I explaining that right Diane not exactly okay that's that's my understanding about how how that works so the system knows that there's a deficit Central system knows when OSS is out of money regardless of where it's budgeted yeah so so it's like it's a lockout basically y understood yep I'm thinking of like the ATM machine and it's on them being like why can't I get my money so this is as of January 9th correct so has this been corrected I guess my question is what are the implications for student services provision if they are in a lockout situation what we've been doing since then is they've been going back through their purchase orders through their incumbrances to see what they can reduce to see what they can eliminate to see if there was any duplication and they've done that and they've been able to encumber others and pay other invoices they've been able to reduce some of their liability and pay some of their stuff so they basically had to go back through what they had encumbered and check it very carefully so are you saying that although this although we just said this was a lockout situation currently everything is proceeding as it needs to in office of student services not entirely that we still need to transfer we still need to complete our work to figure out how much money we can take from the general fund to move over to OSS so they can continue to pay they're they're paying themsel current but to complete the fiscal year we're going to need to move money over we also okay but through the current time services are proceeding and you're doing the work to finish out the year Bas on projections thank you sorry I'm sorry to make that more confusing than it needed to be I'm gonna think of a better way to explain it next time okay teaching and learning beep and then Baker Driscoll a Lawrence Lincoln Pierce Ridley rle the high school and here's Allin which is I think the more interesting view is it accurate is it accurate to say Diane that because of the soft freeze work that Susan described earlier that a lot of the non- encumbered expense I.E that 2.68 million may be reallocated to other areas that will certainly be a lower number how much lower I won't know until it's till we're done churning through all of those requisitions and we can rerun reports but essentially yes once you finish once once people encumber then that those funds will be reallocated for other purposes yes but it won't be 2 million it'll be lower than that understood so we've plugged in Susan's projection for the salary overage and this is Susan's table down here this is where the change in the in the phrasing was from when we sent this out earlier so this has been rephrased and I think Betsy will send out a revised copy this was can I just ask one clarification so the 66. 863 you didn't have that broken out by building but you have that as an overall fund so that's why you can plug it in here but not the subtes exactly okay thank you so our budget 18431 394 our salary expense general fund overage was projected at just under a million dollars with bringing our current FY 25 salary total to 19397 848 with the grant adjustment that Susan was talking about earlier as we went through the idea Grant that's another 1.23 263 781 bringing our total salary need for fy2 to 120 661 629 making our total salary deficit as known as of right now as of January as 2 million 230 235 so that 2 230 235 is the difference between it's the difference between the FY 25 appropriation for salaries and the 12661 ETC you got it okay I didn't do the math thank you and thank you for CH taking out the word deficit that can I mean I figured it out but but sorry so what does GF stand for general fund I see so the 966 was the 750k of the stip anded adjustments from before plus the Paras we had discussed the four Paras we had discussed last month right and the breakage that was released right so when we looked at it in the first quarter it was like one maybe 1.1 million or something in total between that and 750 was associated with extra comp um and then the other portion of that was what we call breakage and breakage um has uh We've we've realized um uh some breakage since the last quarterly report because we haven't filled those positions so um so that improved but then I added in the four Paras so that's kind of how that Nets out okay um Mariah go ahead send was that from the first are we going back to the I where when did we talk about stiens stiens were discussed in November I don't know if you recall back in even the prior fiscal year um Diane and Susan had been doing a lot of work to understand the discrepancy between the budgeted stiens and the actual total amount of stiens okay and then um that work continued through the fiscal year that was an unknown quantity at the end of the fiscal year continued towards this fiscal year and in November we got a detailed breakdown and the gap between true true true stiens and budgeted stiens was 750,000 which we're now carrying in the budget okay thank you and you sent me that the other day so so the 966 454 is that 750 and change plus some of the other positions that we've talked about in the position control report yeah yeah I'm glad I didn't miss something about stiens in the beginning of this conversation now I just want to add that with spending frees and if we you know continue with not hiring um you know staff between now and the end of the year then I'll release you know the need to hold on to any additional money that will improve this situation on our salary side so that's why that's where it would be reflected um when you have a spending freeze so it would shrink the amount of money that we need we wouldn't need then 120 661 629 it would be an amount less than that so um the budget balance as of I guess I'm trying to interpret what's our budget balance projected I'm trying to merge the salary deficit information at the bottom with the table at the top and trying to understand where that leaves us I would say almost break even but we know that we're not you're saying the salaries are 2.2 in deficit however the expenses are 2.1 less whatever else you pick up so we're talking about those encumbrance aren't showing a spending projection to the end of the year which incumbrances sorry the incumbrance column right here yeah the expense which you already said earlier was going to be increased sum and the 2.68 would be reduced sum okay so we're talking about TBD but hopefully in the ballpark of less than a million in deficit I wouldn't I wouldn't put a pin in that yet okay overall or just for salary overall right I wouldn't put a pin in that number yet until we see what's come in for encumbrances until we see what we need in OSS I wouldn't Hazard a guess yet okay okay oh sorry sir go ahead you might have said this along the way here [Music] um expenses uh I mean are we talking again about field trips or are we talking about paper we're talking about everything and believe me after last year's freeze caught people unprepared they are much better prepared this year and they've been encumbering things early and often so once things like like intramural sports at the middle school level well that's that's more on the salary side okay because that's a stipend correct so right now um in this projection it includes running spring intermurals but if we don't run spring interal then this number uh the deficit smaller so anything we don't do um that costs money obviously makes the deficit smaller but included in the 120 is spring inter murals the four Paras um all of the extra comp that we're going to have to pay out and the grant adjustments if you know based on on you know approving the idea Grant as you did this evening other questions from the subcommittee so going forward from here at our q1 report Susan you are going to be um providing an update on the plan to close the gap now we're at Q2 um and I guess my question is what's the plan from here to will we get a report next month or do we have to wait for Q3 what's our timing look like yes so um I mean the plan is I shouldn't even say next month because our next meeting is in two weeks I think or three weeks but anyway yeah yeah yeah so once Diane is able to process um the requisition that have come in will have a better sense of how much money isn't available in the non-salary lines so part of the way that we're going to close the gap is by transferring money out of there to cover the deficits um in other areas so that's one um two we're going to look once we get the FY 26 budget launched and out to you then uh the working group is going to be focused on two things one refining um how we're closing the Gap this year as well as um you know working through the implications of making some of the budgetary reductions that um will need to take place during this budget deliberation cycle so in the next several weeks yeah we will be able to give you more information um on that but um in essence we we do have some balances in our special Revenue funds uh two of them in particular that we will will likely have to tap in order to get through this year again it's it's onetime money um and it's not going to help the structural nature of the um expenditure shortfall this year but it will at least uh be able to get us through the year got quiet all a sudden Susan oh um there you go you're back okay yeah thank you um so yeah so that's uh that's where we're at with that okay go ahead Sarah or no maybe that's not a hand up that's a okay other questions go ahead Carolyn going back to um Diane's explanation about OSS um funds and how they are distributed throughout schools and and sort of this um situation where what should be the control so that that doesn't happen so that people at the school level know whether there are funds that they are that available to them when they are I guess calling in whatever they need to spend money on the funds at the schools aren't comingled they're they're segregated the principles don't have access to OSS funds and the OSS doesn't have access to the principal's funds so they reside in the school locations so you the reports by location you see comingled but they're not comingled okay so if you wanted to see the fiscal picture of what's being spent in a building you need both because one without the other doesn't show you what's what's the activity in the building you need both to represent the building but they don't you don't cross the scam the streams like Ghostbusters they're separate it's not the principal who's buying things for OSS it's the OSS coordinators and the OSS office that's using their funds to buy things that are needed for OSS okay I think I understand thanks and then also just as far as expenses I'm trying to get sort of a picture of what between now and and June 31st looks like all together in terms of um anticipated encumbrances um and I'm I guess I'm trying to understand what all is wrapped up in this expense I I know I asked about this before so I'm picturing sort of school level and then if we go into sort of the district level like is there is there PD that has to be put on hold that's you know considered somehow you know I I suppose there must be some PD that's higher priority than other I don't know um there was in OE there had been an an equity audit consultant had been in the budget has that been encumbered or is that going to be on hold thing things like that can you pull this the thing back up Diane because that's a good question Caroline because I noticed that they only had encumbered like I thought like a$ thousand dollar in the OE budget so yeah no that the but that was as of January 9th which is now almost it's a like three or four weeks old at this four weeks old so the oee contract uh for the equity audit um will be in the next report I think it is encumbered it's not yet released because the contract is not yet completed can you scroll to that page just so we can look at it it it won't show up in this report because this report no I understand it'll show that it's not there so how much is that it's 103,5 okay so I guess I have to just say my reaction to that is how could we be doing that or and things like that that are not essential for educating our students on a day-to-day basis in classrooms right now and I is 100 what was budgeted I thought it was 60 I I I I think we need like that needs an explanation and sort of everything in that level needs an explanation if there's lus lus can we spending money on and not spending money on between now and the end of the year or at least right now when we have this kind of deficit other than teachers in classrooms lonus can you respond to that sure I just want to make sure that the equity audit piece um was that funded through one of the title grants no that wasn't okay so I so yeah I was thinking that was on the title Grant aspect of it so we once we get these sort of the roll up of what was requested I think we can dig deeper into what people believe that they need to have for the remainder of the year as well as then direct those types of things over to continue paying um our OSS obligations as well and the other part is I'm wanting to make sure uh um because I I'm continuing to struggle with sort of these older invoices that are still coming in from last year to make sure we have a full accounting of what our true OSS needs are um recognizing that they're also incre they increase um they've been increasing for this year as well um but I think that's a fair very fair question Carolyn to say then how these items that are not student facing directly do we need to continue with those and given that the contract hasn't been signed this would be the opportunity to get in front of that before we have a an obligation there I do think it would be helpful um per Carolyn's point and I'll call in you in just one second Val just to um if there is a process that you're going to be doing to sort of re-evaluate or I'll say not just accept at face value what people have decided they want to encumber for the year so or maybe lonus you can talk about that or Susan like even though they've encumbered things are you also scrutinizing them to ensure you agree with their necessar yes so once that information's gathered I'll I'll ask to see what those are and meet with those uh those budget managers to verify that aspect of it as well because again I think the concern the broader concern is how how big is the bread box right now that's un unseen to us and so I just want to make sure that we aren't partially solving a problem but we're actually having enough bandwidth to cover it in totality thank you Val thank you um Diane I just want to follow up on something on something you said earlier you said that special education costs are captured in both the OSS line but also in the schools yes so do you have and maybe you said this and I missed it do you have insight into the the total OSS spend on a monthly basis at oaf that so between all those cost centers or I can roll I can roll the expenses all together and look at it that way I don't usually look at it on a monthly basis I I generally look at it you know in December when the balance was getting low I was looking at it every couple of days um yeah I can I can see it that way I I roll it all together to look at it or I roll it apart but really I mean it's the whole bottom line that's the important thing you know one of the biggest things that my concerns are is have we encumbered enough for all of our out of District tuition costs have we encumbered enough for our transportation costs you know those are the hugest ticket items and we have to get those encumbered right away um I think we did a good job with getting those on the books right away this year I was very happy about that in fact um when they went back through them they found some duplication and it's always glad I'm always much happier to hear we had duplication than under encumbering um but the next part of it is the the contracts the out out of District providers and getting those all on the books is continues to be more challenging we're making good progress we've made a lot of progress in the last month but until we have them all on the books I won't really rest easy and so it's challenging for that at this point in February why what what's the biggest barrier get in the book having the contracts properly done before the services start being delivered okay but we had these contracts I assume in July we did not okay I'm a little confused about that we didn't have any of the contracts out for these services in July no no I I made a list from last year's big contract providers and met with Lisa before I went on vacation in July and said it would be really good if we could get these contracts going and uh get them all moving quickly through the summer so they could all be in place before school started but it didn't happen okay thanks other questions from the subcommittee on the Q2 report I would just say this is super helpful um thank you and I appreciate the explanation I'll just sort of um add if if if going forward it can also pull in some of those sort of District level things that are anticipated um for the rest of the year that would that would help round it out even more thank you sorry I don't understand what you mean yeah I was getting too that's okay like the thing I asked about excuse me you mean like once they figured out which things once lonus reviews the things he agrees are absolutely necessary then we would see an updated Report with the updated incumbrance as you're saying in a manner of speaking except that I feel like in a crisis it would surprise me if decisions are made to be spending major amounts of money on things that are not student facing classroom um classroom sure but that would still be an updated list even if you it might be shorter than it originally was right I guess I would say then I would object and I would I would be troubled if if the same austerity that we're seeing um here is not applied throughout I hope that it will be and and sort of conversation about that will be helpful thank you if a $100,000 contract is encumbered between now and the next time and then we're told about it that doesn't do us much good financially well I think that there I'm not going to speak specifically about that contract but I think that speaking specifically about that contract there may be very good reasons in educational reasons to pursue things and there may be a difference of opinion on school committee about what things Advance our educational Mission and um so I think that I am going to be interested to hear from l which things he determines to be necessary and not necessary so we can have that conversation but I just want to put my my voice out there of saying um it's not predetermined to me that the um Equity audit isn't required I just think we need to have that conversation about if there's going to be big changes that also impact our strategic plan because a lot of what is in the budget is tied to the Strategic plan and Milestones and outcomes so if we understand that there's going to be impacts on things we're doing I I do think we should have that conversation about where we see the plan being um Modified by modifications to the budget that would be my opinion on it um okay the thank you Diane if you don't mind taking that down um the next items on the agenda um is FY 26 budget development updates and then discussion of strategies to increase revenues and contain costs discussion of strategies to increase revenues and contain costs my understanding it is it is not ready for today although we had hoped it would be and that will be coming um by our next finance committee meeting lonus Susan is that correct lonus I got distracted with the DPW message so oh sorry I haven't gotten it yet um the question was the discussion of strategies to increase Revenue and contain costs that will be coming for our next subcommittee meeting correct yes that um and by that you mean what are we going to be looking at for the FY 26 budget to correct the pants that we've been given yes exactly um and then um or or I'll even frame it differently how close can we get to fitting inside the pants we've been given I don't I think we need if we can't we need to talk about that as well but I want us to understand what the proposal is and how far it gets us um so we're not going to talk about that today and then there is uh the last the item before that is FY 26 budget development updates and I wonder Susan if you could just give a brief update if there's any adjustment to the timing of um budget delivery or anything else that the committee might want to know about about when they can see when they will be when you're anticipating they'll see the FY 26 um initial budget request um that's now my uh time and effort will shift back to doing that but I had to pause that in order to get prepared for tonight's meeting so um we're down to um finishing up the narratives and having those written um but the bulk of the work has been done we just have to uh pull the last few pieces together so um I'll be here first thing early in the morning to continue on with the work with with that um so our goal is to get that out to you uh tomorrow thank you that's a tremendous amount of work for you and all the other people who are contributing to that to that effort so thank you for that um any last questions or comments from the subcommittee before we adjourn for tonight or from you Dr Giller well thank you all for your engagement um around um this budget um situation that we're in uh we are committed to figuring all aspects of this out to ensure that we're not in this type of space again but also more importantly that we are act we are building a budget and having that information contained early on within the budget so that we understand exactly what our needs are for our students as well as our staff and so as we've been shifting from a centralized model to a site-based model we found um as Susan's talked about in Diane as well um items areas that were missed or weren't encumbered uh weren't included and so we are getting stronger with our budget build and as we're going through these types of changes it's recognizing that this work is complicated especially in a system where that model hasn't um hasn't been the standard as such and so um we appre appreciate your commitment uh as well as your questions and pushing us to ensure that we have the strongest uh financial plan that matches and exceeds our educational plan thank you okay everybody have a good night and we will we have school committee tomorrow we do right okay see you tomorrow yes goodbye everybody