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I'm sorry can I get a roll call for attendance I'm sorry we have to turn the mics on and I seem to forget to do that very often sorry Miss hernandis present Mr Oran Mr
Oran present Miss Enriquez Miss cabal present Mr Gomez Pereira present Miss balderas present Dr Neville is absent today Miss koves carab present Miss Al
Faro present that's seven present and two absent thank you okay we're going to open our public comments um meeting tonight with the
first item for the school choice for the 2025 2026 school year I will hand it over to Dr ala I can explain what this is for if anyone has any public comments they can
come up afterwards um basically what this is is school choice and it's the option if we were to could we accept students from out of District into Chelsea Public Schools and historically the vote is always normally no because
we are already tight on space and so we're not a we don't we're not a school choice District so that's basically if we were to vote Yes on that then that would mean that we would accept students from other districts um but historically
again it's normally we're already tight on space for the students that we do have in Chelsea so we are limiting our enrollment only to students that live in Chelsea are there any public comments anyone who would like to speak on this
topic seeing none I will close this section of the public comment for the school choice and we'll move on to the second item fiscal year 2025 2026 budget
once again I will open up public comments for this I will hand it over to Dr OA anyone who would like to come up and speak on this section um there is a three minute limit limit on speaking so
we will put a timer on um unfortunately we want to be able to make sure that everybody gets the same amount of time so I will now hand it over to Dr for those does anybody have public comments for this section for the budget
at this moment M chair can I interrupt yes just oh I'm thank you and anyone who's needing translation we do have a Spanish translator please raise your hand and let us know thank you
everybody U my name's excuse me my name's Katherine Anderson I'm a middle school special education teacher at the brown and also the president of the Chelsea teachers union um I'm just speaking tonight I want to thank Dr AA and the entire school committee team for the budget process this has been really
an unprecedented year there's been a lot of difficulty both within our district and nationally we have a brand new Finance director I know it's been an incredibly difficult time and I really appreciate that throughout the time we we've had an opportunity to have conversations about how the budget's
going to be affecting our students and affecting our staff um and that we've been able to experience a lot of receptive conversations and have been able to address those concerns in a lot of real-time ways um I know that's especially difficult this year and I just want to thank Dr beta for that um
that openness um and I know this is a more difficult budget year than we've had for the past several years now that we don't have Esser funds and as SOA is starting to slow slow down in terms of its implementation um but again I appreciate that there's clearly an effort to
prioritize student facing services and to focus on keeping people in front of our kids and helping our kids stay learn stay learning and you know stay regulated and supported in the classroom um that's what they deserve and I appreciate that that's what we're focused on thank
you thank you anyone else have any public comments I'd like to make at this time okay that will read one that was turned in I have a public comment from Thomas gordanier he is an ESL teacher at the high school and he lives in Cambridge it
is been hardening hardening it to learn that the district's current plan attempts to preserve classroom and support staff my colleagues come in Daily to support Chelsea students and learning and growing and I can't think of a single one of them who wouldn't leave a hole in their position who
wouldn't leave a hole if their position was cut we should be focused on our students first and we and where we concentrate our resources should reflect that I appreciate that the district worked with the Chelsea teachers union to keep that Focus thank
you thank you so seeing no more further public comments I'll hand it over to Dr ALB thank you so we are um we have gone through many reiterations of this budget
and first I'd like to thank all of our School principles I know we have two here um Mr Morales the Chelsea High School principal and Margo is our U principal at the Early Learning Center thank you for working in all of our department heads um we it is a long
process we get information from all the schools and then from all departments and we go through iterations of this budget so those of you who've been paying attention you can see that this is another iteration of our budget I'd like to thank our um president of our
Chelsea teachers union Katherine Anderson and the vice president um Vanessa for helping and giving us feedback as well and of course our school committee for being very supportive so we're hoping that this is one of our last reiterations of the
budget and um just very proud of what we will be presenting tonight and so I'll go ahead and start um here are our topics for tonight I'll start off with our we always start with the mission and
strategy our mission is that Chelsea Public Schools is a Gateway School System that welcomes and educates all students and families and we also are aiming to know all of our students by
name strength and story this is our strategic plan it is a uh three to five year Strate this is we're in our third year of our fifth uh this is a fiveyear strategic plan the different colors on the will
all represent the five priority areas that we we've been focused on and so what we do is we have a strategic plan and then we align our budget to that plan the factors that are influencing
this budget for the fiscal year 26 are our Sr funds have ended the student Opportunity Act dollars well we're extremely grateful for the dollars there's not a significant increase from last year to
this year or or the coming year and then we did have a decreased enrollment by 60 students and of course we we have increasing salary costs as you know inflation is is very high uh increasing
higher than what everything else is and so this is our um our budget timeline and I'm actually going to ask miss our new Chief Financial Officer this is her first budget season with us
I'm going to have um Miss Billy Joe Turner go through these slides so welcome Billy Joe this is your first time presenting so welcome thank you so this first slide for those of you that have never gone through a school
budget process before in October we're expected as a school district to report our enrollment every student that comes through whether they um have English as a second language if they have special needs if they're low income all of these
characteristics are reported to the Department of Ed and then they determine with that enrollment report they determine an amount that we must spend on our students it's a minimum requirement so once they determine that
amount they determine how much of that the city should be able to afford and how much the state will afford the next step in the budget process after enrollment determination is to update all of our expenses so even if we
maintain the same exact programming for this current year for next year you're going to have all of the raises that the teachers get you're going to have cost increases health insurance increases everything costs more every year so we update our expenses then in January the
governor gives us their budget which tells us how much money we're going to to receive so we update our Revenue when we know how much we're going to get for revenue and we know how much it's going to cost to maintain the same level of teachers poers supplies when we know
those two figures we can figure out what our shortfall would be once we know our shortfall then we have to work with the superintendent and the principles and we have to close the gap if it's going to cost a 100 to maintain the same expenses and we only got 80 we have to close that
$20 Gap right so the majority of the budget is collecting data on expenses Revenue then figuring out how much you're going to be short and work with the superintendent to close that the superintendent was determined to not let
the this shortfall impact the schools so we had to really try hard to do different scenarios to make Cuts without impact in the students the after the balance in part we then bring it forward and present it to the community and to the school committee so that we can get
it approved once it's approved we submit it to the city council for them to approve as part of the city's budget so that's the timeline um this next slide is just showing when we do the enrollment portion of present I mean
reporting to desie when they when we report our students not just the number of students impacts the total amount of the budget the different factors like whether you're bilingual or lowincome impacts the budget as well for instance
Chelsea went up 95 students with it that are bilingual so we got an extra 833 th000 for those students Chelsea also lost 47 students that were considered lowincome so then we lost a portion of money for those students overall Chelsea
lost 66 students and that made us lose about $1.5 million but overall we still get an additional 9 million due to the student Opportunity Act which increases the value we get for all these characteristics this next slide is
showing what type of expenses you'll see in a school district we have the majority of our budget is about 80% of salaries and labor and health insurance then we have facilities Information Technology professional development
special education supplies books and equipment so those are the type of expenses we're updating each year it won't oh there we go this slide is showing you what we do as a preliminary calculation of what our
expenses will be even when we know we're just going to maintain the same expenses as the previous year we know that we're going to have the raises we're going to have step increases we're going to have increases to health insurance rates we're going to have increases to special
ed tuition for the those of you that don't know what that is when we have um students with special needs if we cannot service them in our district we can send them to specialized schools but we have to pay for that that cost will increase at least 2.5 million this year
transportation is another thing that we see um rate increases every year so we're expecting 255,000 more for that utilities and insurance we're expecting $102,000 more in in contractual
increases overall before we even started we knew that we needed $1.5 million just to maintain this current Year's budget this spreadsheet is really for those of you those of you who like to
dig into the weeds this calculation will show you that we have our Revenue at the um the top which is your Chapter 70 money that state aid the state um funds more than 80% of Chelsea's um education budget then it shows you the portion
that's coming from the city and it shows you an elaborate um calculation more or less is showing that we're going to have $155 million to spend on Chelsea Public Schools we um and it if you go down it will show you that I'm going to point it
out the things that I'm pointing out would be the 155 million that's what we're getting as our budet if you go down it shows you the amount that the city gives us sorry sorry okay thank you um so that the highlighted areas are the ones that
you should pay attention to you see at the top that the um 25 million that the city gave us that's their required minimum contribution if you go down to the bottom highlighted area that's the amount that the city gave us above the minimum contribution this is extra money
that they given us they gave us5 million extra dollars this is just a slide showing you the different types of Revenue that the city of Chelsea gets most important is to know that the majority of up funding comes from Chapter 70 state aid the next
highest bucket is coming from the city then we also have grants and revolving fund balances that help us fund the district this is just another slide showing it visually how we have the Chapter 70 City revolving funds and
grants budget development inputs even after we do all of the budget and the expenses revenue and balance in we want the input from the community so we've had three Community conversations one on January 29th February 3rd and February
10th we've also presented at school committee meetings to get feedback through that Avenue we've also um made sure that the Strategic plan that shows our priorities in this District that our budget matches that and then we also met
with principles and schools to get their input um for school and Department request information this is what we've heard from our conversations and I believe the superintendent will share this sure so
with our community conversations we had three different Community conversations one for Elementary staff another for High School staff and then for the community and what we heard from our community
conversations um we asked three questions what's working what's not work uh what would you like to see improved and from so I'll just go over a little bit here so what we heard from our Educators is that they really liked high
quality instructional materials um they appreciated the addition of mle positions both at the schools and the district level um they also appreciated the addition of special education staff social workers
counselors and they're happy about the new building purchase um we just purchased a building for Chelsea opportunity Academy and for the intergenerational literacy program and for this um Chelsea virtual Learning Academy
offices and then we also heard from parents that what's working is prek our parent Square communication Extended Learning and then what's not working and what we could improve upon in our budget um what
we heard from Educators was that um maybe to balance the budget look to cut Li uh licenses that were not being used or um ESS which is our company for substitute Services maybe take a look at how we're using that we also they said
maybe Extended Learning and central office positions and more tier to training for teaching reading what we heard from parents is that they would like more ESL classes at the intergenerational
literacy program more full day prek and then of course if down the road they would love to us to have more Caminos programming so I'll turn it back over to you can you hear me okay um so this next
slide is just another calculation for those of you that like to get into the math more or less this slide is simply trying to show that at the bottom we had a $3.4 million shortfall after we updated our revenue and expenses that's
hard to close when you have $3.4 million the superintendent worked closely with the city and got them to commit 2.1 million above the minimum to offset this deficit which brought us down to 1.2 million and even as the superintendent
would work with the school leaders to close that Gap then we would find out we need to add more expenses if we needed additional special ed teachers so the numbers constantly fluctuate we add we subtract we end up closing a shortfall and then getting a new one so this is
showing that the $3.4 million shortfall we started with was closed by the city contribution and the superintendent working with um leaders to make cut that impacted the schools the least the next slide I believe the
superintendent will share with you all the reductions and cuts that were made at the district level so for those of you that have been watching this is a slide that you have you have seen before so um what we've done in this is our
reductions and cuts at the district level and so you can see all of the things that we are reducing to make to balance this budget um one is reducing professional development um with deep
contract and doesn't mean that we're not going to have deep but it means that we're streamlining the contracts we will still have this um partner with us but not at the extent that we had it last year we're reducing the focus monitoring
visits with school works at one time School Works was required by um our department of Elementary string secondary education it was the um partner that desie used and required us and now that um desie is going with
another company called air we do not see the need for duplication so we will not be using School Works um we'll still use the tool for evaluation but not the monitoring visits um we're reducing uh online
services tutoring with um fev uh we're reducing one staff um and the HR department and then two mediation Specialists and then we are uh reducing the triangle contract which is in
special ed uh one um staff and special ed Department one uh special education two special education translators that we never filled at the district level uh special education bra trans translator with that
is no longer needed and then um reducing some in buildings and grounds and then Extended Learning uh we had a we haven't this coordinator position has not been filled for a while so we're keeping it
vacant and then um with information technology we are shifting the carrier that we have and so that will create some savings and then we just will not be refreshing the Chromebooks as frequently so um that is page
one the next reductions and the cuts that we have at the schools we tried to keep it very minimal um at the ELC two t two tutors those are retirees um the burkwitz is one mle
teacher that was never filled this year and it's currently vacant and at the Kelly Brown we have the program the communal program moving from the Kelly to the brown and in that transition there's one FTE that we will
not need and then at Chelsea High School one assistant principal because we have added during when when time we had the finances we added an extra assistant principal or operational leader and um
as Mr Morales know I had told them this may not last forever so um we are reducing by one assistant principal um ads conversions to the schools we are adding we have to because we uh need to
be in compliance with special education one special education teacher at the ELC actually two and then we're converting one physical education teacher to a science specialist at the hooks we're adding a special education inclusion
inclusion coach as that school is receiving more special education students at Clark Avenue converting science to Mily a math to Emily and a history to Emily and then at Clark we
are we also adding one ml teacher and then um multilingual education you're welcome and then at the district level just want to make sure okay we
have we're adding uh esy which is Therapy Services for students in special education uh our Wellness office diens for Navigators um Navigators are staff that we've hired to work um after school
to reach out to families and students um and do home visits we have um also stiens for navigator PD professional development then we are adding safety
care and trainee stiens and then every year we have to have consumables for curriculum instruction so we're we have to build that into that our budget every year and this year it's a little higher um so we we're adding that would be an ad and
then in athletics at the high school School we're adding um stiens for coaches and we have one more uh budget we have two more budget meetings uh one on the
20th and another budget meeting on the 27th and that concludes our budget presentation for tonight and we are open for questions and comments are there any questions or comments you'd like to make
at this moment after seeing the presentation I know it's a lot of information um a lot of hard work has gone into putting this budget together and keeping um the cuts down to a
minimum um I I just think that that is a comment I need to make because I think that everyone needs to understand that there's um there's a lot of hard work that goes behind the scenes to putting together this budget and
trying not to cut no no cuts are good um and and we would prefer no cuts to have to take place but unfortunately um with all the the the changes that are coming um we've had to make some Cuts luckily
not directly um to our to our schools and hopefully um we keep our fingers crossed for next year because we have no no promises and no real indication of where we'll be for next year
but um Johnny yeah thank you so much for the presentation um super insightful and also um Sully also for the budget books and like uplifting some of the art from some of our students which is really amazing um
my question is regards to sort of like District enrollment regarding low-income students um I was reading the budget book and also just sort of looking at I don't know what slide this is but essentially the breakdown with all of the pre- students have to a garden all
of those lines um I'm wondering how students are able to like be identified as low income because clearly that has a component on how much the state is giving us um I know in the budget book
it mentions that you know there's maybe some cross referencing with you know uh programs that provide like Snap things like that um I'm wondering if there's the option for students to sort of like self-certify like what are the mechanisms that are currently used because I know that we
have um large a large population of students that are possibly living in mixed income households or mixed documentation status households that may not qualify for things like Snap or Mass health so they may not end up on these lists thus impacting you know that
there's money on the table they might qualify as low income but because they're undocumented or whatever the case may be that's not being accounted for um so just trying to get a sense of what that looks like I don't know who might be best to answer that question thank you that is a
very real concern that we did face the whole state um they did try to modify from using the snap programs they would CR cross reference but as you said undocumented people were not being filtered into that so they converted to
another way of calculating the poverty rate for a district um several years ago but they found that it was better to use the snap method that we were get in a higher percentage for that they even put a c program in place where if a district
does have a lot of people that are undocumented that we can provide free lunch for everyone rather then go through the free and lunch I mean free lunch process that would take into account snap um recipients so you're right they did modify the process to try
to catch the um undocumented people in our numbers but being that it wasn't helpful they went back to the regular version which is to cross reference with state agencies gotcha thank you so much and you mentioned an acronym C could you just tell us me what that means you know
why I refer to it as C because because I actually it's Community I think it's Community eligibility um Provisions well the CB program but um it's more or less free lunch for an entire District rather than going through the free lunch application process gotcha thank you so
much thank you Johnny any other any other questions that you'd like to make at this time thank you so much um and thank you so much for this presentation and um all these Community conversations have been so insightful and thank you to all who are here present today and I hope you
all are will be attending our future uh meetings later this month um I was wondering if you could provide additional context around the conversion of like the content lead teachers to multilingual Educators at the Clark
AV I'll do my best but it was actually very confusing for me too I just I I had a a a call with the prin this morning as we were going through it and they're trying to they're changing their model of servicing multilingual students and
so that's why they're converting the teachers need to have a a multilingual education license and so what we're doing is if the teachers that are currently there if they don't have an mle license then we're giving them the
opportunity to get an mle license and we'll grandfather that until they get the and we'll help pay for tuition or whatever it is that they can so that way they're not you know being like we're not saying goodbye or to them but we're giving them an
opportunity to really stay in their position but get the multilingual education license the E license that's really awesome and and just the additional support for our multilingual Learners so thank you so much and you can see we did to make this work though
because it's um if it's a program and to make it work schedule wise we had to add one more FTE to it as well to make it work for the schedule um I just want to say thank you so much um to uh the superintendent and the school
committee um we have a goal that he was to protect the students and the staff especially students and we did this year and I hope you know we can pray for next year that something can change so we can
support again the students um for us it's very important to really have the quality for the Student First and the support than anything else and we have shown by this um budget and I just want
to say thank you to everybody who's supporting thank you for everybody who's part of this and thank you for you guys that are here here uh we are your voices and you need to be in speak up what are your needs because if you don't speak up nobody's going to hear you and I just
want to say thank you again good evening everybody juth Welcome this is your house how do you feel you're learning a lot you're going to go to the state house now right you have a lot of context so that's um uh Mary Joe thank
you such a great presentation very detailed uh that we have here and I would just like to say that we also like to thank you Dr ala I know you have been behind the scenes communicating with the city manager so
that we can get more funds thank you it takes a village so that we can build what we have in our community and thank you for all you do I'll Johnny just another question um regarding low-income students so I'm
looking at the slide that is before the expenditure breakdown I don't know if that would be helpful to see but I'm seeing a number of lowincome students then then there is a amount I think it's 51 m754 y y yada um is that to that
total number that 5,870 the number of low-income students that we have in the district and is that 51 million the total amount that we get for those low-income students I'm just I think having a hard time figuring out
what these numbers are just because there isn't uh what's it called a label at the top part um yep one more keep keep going one more time that's it I there we go yep so I can't tell you
yeah the low income line so I'm seeing 5,870 students for well that's for last year but for this year right the same question still applies um 5,823 students right and then that 57 million
488 is that the total amount that we're getting specifically just for that low-income population within our schools yes so you're you're catching on quick because this is um that was exactly what I was trying to show that if you lose 47
lowincome students we um it actually impacts that 57 million that we received so 57 million of our budget is specifically for the number of low-income students we have the confusing part for the um for any of you that do dig in you may look at the loss
of 47 students and think that well how did we still get a $5.7 million increase despite the fact that we cut some of the low income students that's because there's two things impact in the um amount a rate increase from student Opportunity Act they increased the
amount we get due to low-income students so that amount is going up simultaneously with losing 47 students but the net effect of the lowincome student count is that we went up 5.7 million this year despite the cut of you
know but yes you're right 57.4 million for the 5,823 students is specifically for the lowincome status gotcha so that increase in the rate is that 9,873 that I'm seeing there right
absolutely okay great and then in terms of like identifying English language Learners how does that happen with our schools is that just sort of like a pick thing right like parents enroll their their students okay I'm seeing some Nots awesome thank
you thank than you thank you so if there's no more public comments or um questions at this point I'd like to close this um public comment section of
the budget and I like to ask for a motion to adjourn motion can I get a second second second we will adjourn the meeting thank you very much
everyone e