e e e e e to the uh special uh budget hearing for the school committee um we'll open up today with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United
States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty okay okay Danver Public Schools is a dynamic community of independent Learners dedicated to respect responsibility creativity and the
pursuit of academic and personal Excellence this meeting is being broadcast on Danver Community Access television um is anyone in the audience recording okay and just as an FYI I'll say this at the beginning and the end the uh next school committee meeting
will be March 10th 2025 and we will uh go directly into the budget presentation and take comments at the end up to you Mr bow thank you very much chair Lopes um just a few notes before we begin the
presentation first of all just want to thank our administrative team they're here tonight uh not only to show support for all the work that they've done but if there are any questions that the committee has that might require their level detail for response uh but thank you for being here it's been a long day
for them coming off a vacation uh secondly are uh the budget book that you have if there any changes the reason we haven't put it online is if there are any changes we'll put online for tomorrow uh we'll also put a copy of tonight's slides on the uh web page as
well so I'll go ahead and begin so just as a refresher uh the work that we've done with the budget in terms of where we're at is really to build the budget for the needs of our students and it's really a collaborative process as we know um we've done a lot of work this
year but certainly have identified areas to for growth for next year as move forward the process itself really is a year-long process for the budget uh December really more November we begin the process of trying to evaluate our needs bring it together there's several iterations of the budget
that come before actually the workshop that we uh had on the third and then from any feedback we received from the committee to tonight uh hopefully to move forward with your approval to the select board um but the next step would be select board March April would be the fincom May will be the town meeting and
then before you know it we start July 1 and start all over again in the process um the design itself as I said was very collaborative our principles directors Central admin they've met with their stakeholders to really look at the priorities in review put together the resources we had several meetings back
and forth in small groups with Pam Crum myself and Mary just to really vet through the uh the needs and the asks and then bringing it down and collaborate with the town because there were goals that were set for one um you know looking at this year as we're in transition with a town manager but also
looking for areas that we can improve special education programming um so once we got to that the revised version of Last uh meeting the workshop uh here we are tonight and it's really not much different there's a few adjustments and I'll Point those out um but to be very
clear that our Target was level service which means the same level of services for schools as this year for next year maintain our salary and non-salary budget lines as best we can to provide um a level service for our students for our staff also to continue to improve
special education programming as you know we have lots of data lots of audit information that we're looking to build and certainly um sustainability is really key with those improvements we want to put together a program that not only meets the needs for our students but sustains over budgets ups and downs
as we know uh we're going through a tight cycle right now uh and also align it with our district Improvement strategic plan support and improve um student achievement as well as our sense of belonging the major pressures we Face we face every year is Chapter 70 funding
and there's no surprise that you know we're not the only District that we feel the pressure would like more funding uh our foundational budget is at $75 uh for each student this year versus 104 last year and um that's substantial special education out District placements
although I think we're doing very well and we're holding steady you know we still face increased costs increased tuitions we still have the uncertainty of movein and that's uh a moving Target Transportation costs are still increasing uh above the rate of inflation our contractual obligations
and I feel very good about this one we should all feel good that we successfully negotiated all four contracts last spring and I think we did a good job not only for taking care of our teachers and our support staff but able to to make it work within our budget and if we look look at just the
allotment of the um increase for contractual obligations is at 4.05% which is above our what we're asking this year um so we're making it work and I think that's important to note curricular needs which always change and then inflationary increases
so we really look hard to maximize our resources looking from within and the areas of retirements to reallocate positions any attrition we try to move positions as best that we can uh the non-salary pieces which are important of grant opportunities which we have a
slide to show the significant grants that Marin our team were able to attain for our district and then the one-time purchases if we can move those into grant funding we try as much as possible to minimize the um the pressure on our budget we're looking to flatten the curve of Transportation that's the big
one that we talked about in our Workshop we're adding two 7D Vans uh we found one driver we're looking for a second driver and that's huge for special education Transportation which would reduce our our need need to um um look for outside
sources to transport our students and then the collaborative plan is coming into fruition which they say will be a 10% savings which is huge um and then certainly looking for ways that we can continue to build our special education programming our autistic strand our therapeutic and language-based
programming uh we received quite a bit of funding last year for that and we're looking to capitalize and keep moving that forward so with our grant funded um we talked about this last time but substantial to note that over 200,000 this year was secured versus last year
so Mary and her team did an outstanding job finding tons of grants in fact still in that process of more grants are popping up and we're doing the best that we can to ensure and bring them in is that does relieve on the uh budget side so U thank you very much Mary on that
and uh we appreciate the work of you and your team um now it's just a matter of making sure that all that is applied to the budget and we're using it to the best of our abilities and we've been doing a great job with that I don't know if you have anything you want to add Mary and as we talked about the emergency assistance program that is
separately funded it's not on our budget nor was it last year we received funding from the state um and as we know that the funding that we received this year is $14 per day per student that was not on our October roles last year um because they figured those that came in
before that were're included in the Chapter 70 funding um so that provides for staff curricular needs and community ation to help uh navigate our newcomers into our schools but we know that the funding is ending this school year as we know that the shelters that program is coming to a
close so we're working closely with Mary and her team for adjustments we need to make on our staff is enrollment shift uh there will be some reductions in students of course next year but I we want to say that we have a continued need for our ESL programming as that number has come up overall um we have
transportation reimbursements that will continue through this year and that falls under Kenny vento uh the federal law to ensure that we get those those reimbursements typically come a little bit later in the year and then certainly the ability to move any remaining funding that we have uh for our 104 per
day that we can move forward to next year to support those positions uh that we still need it within our uh operation budget and again strategic planning for the future it's critical that we as we look at our special education programming how we're looking to improve
but we need to make it sustainable and something that is fiscally responsible program building um and and our team has done a great job we have more audits coming actually in the therapeutic strand this spring and this information has provided a great deal of information
to continue building um special education Transportation the savings with that um I can't we can't we're really looking forward to that David did a nice job presenting in our workshop on that we continue to get news even of today in terms of the new van driver and the van that's available for the town so
good coordination there um and again moving staff as much as possible to keep our staffing uh with if there's attritional retirements and again looking at our strategic plan which is coming into coming along very well for our vision of The Graduate or portra of
learner and a vision for the future so I think a big portion of our presentation uh last time revolved around student services um and it's not to negate our our other technology transportation and our schools because most are looking for very little in terms of increases more
along the lines of curricular uh within technology a lot of grant money received but more importantly a town warrant money that's helping us uh continue great technology so I won't go through the slide and this is the exact same slide but the key there is you know looking at how we can vertically align
our programs ensure Staffing matches our profiles students as our team has dug in and as a reminder it's a brand new team they've done a lot of work digging in and finding areas that were meeting needs that weren't met necessarily in previous years but also looking at a way where we can shift to a team chair
structure that will change um greatly the way we administer our um services for our students so the other part too is there was a lot of realignment this year we moved um our specialized programming that houses in four of our elementary schools Highlands has no capacities as
we know it's already full to the gills with with students in there but the realignment was to move our Learning Center is over to Smith and the Riverside Learning Center cohort ends this year so those resources will be moving to other areas in the district Therapeutics at Thorp although we have a
strand remaining at Smith for one more year uh prek has all been moved to Riverside and uh principal Fitzgerald and her team as well as DPW in collaboration did a wonderful job making sure that there was a lot of work that was done there and the language based
program we're growing that the at the Great Oak School which is important uh um I do have to make note of the positions the the money that we received last year from the town was well received the 6.41 increase and it went to putting together positions of our
bcbas our instructional assistants social workers our 0.5 SLP speech language Pathologists Behavior technicians and also the support positions that we rolled over from Esser which have brought stability in our schools uh at the high school and the middle school um the interventionist
that the Middle School the reading Special Elementary and then you know as you look at all this that's that's a lot but we still have more work to do so I guess the point is is that we're we're grateful for the funds we received we've fully utilized the funding to put these positions into place to improve our
programming but we still have more work to do as we build and move forward um and this is just the chart of what we're looking to add and a lot of this will come from reorganization for example utilizing contracted services for a few areas that we can move into positions
because that frankly is cheaper per hour than it is a contracted service so there's a number of things that our Special Education team has found and then also being able to move a few current positions uh to fit the needs for therapeutic uh and obviously the team chair is something we're looking for but that's something that may not
happen right off the bat but we're look with eyes to make that happen you know within the years possible the next slide just goes over the transportation costs that have elevated that have exceeded the rate of inflation as you can see from fy18 up to
our projected cost at this year up to 2.5 million it's just not sustainable it's the uncontrollable so we're looking to flatten the curve and the next slide really points out that David's work to run more District vans that way we can uh use less contracted Vans for our
special education in District uh work to consolidate van routes again try to reduce the amount of um bands that we have that are we're subcontracting with Contracting with um and again the other piece too is this uh Northeast um
Consortium regionalization of Transportation which will be huge where we can look to multiply not multiply utilize multiple towns to if we have several students going to one of the Consortium schools then we can pull our resources together um and we're looking
that 10% is the is the area that we look for a Target and right off that piece from the 2.5 million you we're projecting a savings of you know 15,000 which is substantial and that's why this is such a moving Target where you know we can't put that in as a guarantee at
this point you know that's our Target we hopefully it can actually be better than that uh and a lot of work is happening to make this this work so what I'm saying is the resources will come in through hard work that allow may allow us to do a little bit more as the year progresses and in conclusion I think the
big pieces we have our proposed increases uh which are made up of the aod district tuition and transportation contracted Services supplies materials and and contracts and just please note that we did increase the the codable text for grades 1
through three as requested grades four and five will be grant funding and and working with Julie and her team the four and five we may need something that might be more specific based upon the testing so we heard loud and clear and we're going to make this work and we appreciate that feedback and again the
contractual obligations we feel really good about where we are you know meeting the needs of our teachers and our instructional assistance and Tech um cafeteria and administrative assistance um we want them to have a fair contract because they deserve it they work hard for us and we're making it work within
our budget within our means and you counter that with the offsets which we're looking to dip deep into circuit breaker again um and the grant funding will keep utilizing that to take items off those non-salaried request items as much as possible uh retirements
attrition reallocation that's right now around 330,000 were being able to save and move around um and then moving contracted services to positions when possible so when you take those two and put them together think I'm out of whack in my
slide it comes down to um the total of 53.9 million which actually we did receive a little bump from the town over the interourse of um from the workshop to um last week we got a little bit of a
bump to 3.8 that I'll show you uh which we're able to utilize that to preserve a few of our special needs positions um so it's 3.8 from 3.6 was the change um so it's a 1.9 million increase which if you look
at our time over 13 years our average is 3.87 and that's including last year's large ask so even with our 3.8 it's still below our 13-year average which in a very tight budget year where other entities within the town were asked to
do you know the level service budget as best as possible we feel good coming in here um because you know I think with this we're being responsible which I think is important we're looking for sustainability and certainly know that we have more work to do and this picture
may look very different next year so I just want to assure the committee that although the ask this year is lower than was last year we still have needs that we need to fulfill we're hoping with the savings and I have to come off my slides I apologize um you know if if these are
the ifs Chapter 70 is increased to this the 104 foundational that's quite a bit more money and we'll work with the town that comes into the town we can work with them on that if circuit breaker increase uh the tuition reimbursement Transportation goes from 44 to 75%
that's a substantial amount of money that can replenish circuit breaker and still allow us to do a few more things the savings off transportation and we I will bring a proposal for the prek uh tuition we're looking to make another bump next year but one that's affordable but one that will still provide great
services and be reasonable for families so when you look at all those items um you know again these these things haven't happened yet but we know the foundational budget is there we certainly know that the supplemental budget is moving forward within the
state for that includes a circuit breaker in Chapter 70 um so if we keep working as hard as we have been and I know we will you know we may see more funds that are coming our way later that may allow us to move a few positions that we've been um subsidizing this year
as best we can in our student services um which I I think brings optimism if you look around the Commonwealth and I think we've all have seen what's happening in other towns in terms of you know districts really facing some Financial struggles right now we're looking you know in a in a
pretty good place where we are maintaining our services um but having an eye because we hope things bounce back next year and certainly you know as they put in a town manager and hopefully things do improve um I think we'll be in a good place the worst would be to really build something
that wouldn't be able to sustain for a year and then be back at the drawing board and that's something that we don't want to do so um I now I went kind of quickly on that piece um but I think the good news is that we have a little bump to 3.8% um we can move a couple of items
over over from uh student services take care of that uh also we have a seam collaborative increase of tuition that we can cover that as well and then knowing that we have some things that we're working on that might bring in some more Revenue you know down the road that I will definitely help this
District so um and then also like you said the it is a big thing to add those decodables and really listen to that piece because we've seen a lot of success and our elementary teams have been working really hard with the literacy program so that's all I really
have at this point so um ready for any questions um thank you so much for that Mr Bower um actually no questions for me but just a couple comments I mean in three years in being here um all that has been
accomplished you know within this you know starting out with obviously Mary as the interim superintendent bringing you on board I mean that entire journey of you know getting our you know 4.79% in 24 having the incredible support of
fincom last year to bring in the 6.4 being able to put all of that money into use and articulating it so clearly as you just did um really makes me feel good about you know the fiscal responsibility
that we've demonstrated as an organization um the offsets that you've put in are appear really sound um the fact that we have no outstanding contractual obligations is is something else so I
mean I I think this budget exercise is a is a culmination of like all of the incredible work that has been done over the last years again marrying the team and then with you coming on board and what you've done over the last two years so um it's for me it's not so much you
know a question it's it's commentary on you know I think it's a phenomenal job I see the progress on paper um I love that we got the codable stuff back in because the data is telling us that good things are happening and we want to support it
and we're still below our 13 average for our budget ask I don't I I look forward to being in front of fincom and the select committee because maybe they'll offer us more money because of what we've demonstrated you know so it's uh
in great work and I'll just that's all I'm going to share is my Kudos and if anyone on the committee has any comments or open to speak I kind of want to back um what Gabe was saying that as I was going through this packet um deeply um the
innovation of just the rearranging of things to make it work rather than just digging deeper digging deeper um know reallocating the funds from one thing to another um seamlessly ly you know I definitely appreciate and like you know
I Echo what Gabe said that you know hopefully that outside of this room people see that you know you and your team have put together a very hard thought process and you know it's looks like it's coming to fruition so appreciate that but yeah I'm very
impressed with keeping it within those lines any uh word in your your superintendent's play group in regards to feelings about the chapter 7D money getting back up to 104 first through
just yet I know it's still they're still working on it but I don't know if anyone had a was hearing anything I think the the big thing that I've heard is certainly you know obviously the formula it's been around for a number of years needs to be changed right um and
certainly um superintendent Association uh they're advocating for an updating of that formula as well and advocacy if we can go back to the 104 um hopefully we can get that done um because you know again that seems small but that's
substantial amount within our our district and it all counts with you know I think we've done a great job with retention um so the students that we have on the roles that's important but um you know that that's General narrative is that I think we're all like we need the formula needs to change
needs to be updated truly reflect you know the changes and it doesn't keep up with inflation so that's that's a big piece right I agree um the other comment I want to make is that you know again kudos to you and the team to everybody
who's been involved in this process you walked into the select board and you made a big ask and when you made that ask you Justified it with a plan and a lot of times when that happens you
get the money you go back people forget about the plan or the plan does not you know get put into place the way it was in expectations to expectations but you went and you put it into
Play Everybody stepped up so when you walk back my point is when you walk back into the room this year and we make the ask a reasonable 3.8 you can just fall very simply fall back on we said we were going to do this and
we are doing it and and here is here here is what we've accomplished and and here is the the rest of the of the of the plan and the team is highly engaged in the plan so that we are not just fiscally responsible but we're also getting an incredible bang for our part
and servicing our students and families in this community so again I see I see that and to Sean's point I hope everyone else sees that and um and so I applaud you and the team I appreciate you pointing that out and again I appreciate you pointing out
our team because team is outstanding um frankly they they do so much work and and they really thought through this and where we came in on the first day of of the ask versus where we're at now you know were a lot of hard decisions that were made and certainly um you know and
our team is maximizing and going above and beyond um and the other thing about the the ask part too is that and I just want to be clear that we have a lot more work to do um and certainly we've we've seen improvements but we know that it's it's holding but we know that if we
don't continue to bring improvements I next year you know there it'll be a challenge because we still face the same pressures and certainly the needs of our students haven't changed but we are providing more services and things for our staff to support them but um our
special education our student services team they work really hard and looking but but I know sitting back here there's certainly some other support positions that we we need but again we want to make this sustainable and I think that's the argument that we not the argument but just be very clear on that part is that we're we're being very thoughtful
in this piece but I just want to be clear that there's still more work to do okay I I have a a couple of questions for the team and uh then some comments at the end if I could Mr chairman um and the comments mostly all follow the same
theme and and the first one I was looking at um level Services we tried to talk about what level Services means um basically I'm taking it to mean that in this budget we're trying to be able to provide for the students and the staff
roughly the same resources that they had last year the same programming that they had last year you know the same access to social workers psychologists um supplies what is needed basically sort of flat not taking any
steps backward um am I correct in that sort of division okay um and we talked about the major budgetary pressures and one of them was curriculum um are there things that you
know you would like to do this year curriculum wise that the resources are going make difficult to accomplish unless we happen to get more Revenue there's specific things that we should think about for years ahead well I think the good news is that our curriculum
team they did a great job boiling down you know obviously we have the level service and there was a a bump in terms of some of their needs with some curriculum adoptions and certainly more refinements sure in that piece and with uh Mary and her team you know doing a
great job with the the grants you know those may be things that if there's a bump you know we're trying to make it too where it's a budget that you know um has enough guard rails in it but certainly if there's a little bit of room here and there and hopefully if something would pop up but they've done such a great job planning they they've
laid this out so we're not anticipating any bumps in that area but certainly anything that we attain you know in terms of the ways of the transportation if that helps us in any of the circuit breaker if we needed to you know we certainly would be able to utilize that
but that's not I don't think we're going to need to be in that position position because of the thoughtful planning they work with their teams on that okay um let's see now I think we had a net is it net minus one teaching dist through the
whole District say Yes um and I noticed at the high school we are uh looking at reducing a math position social study position um unless that changed with the
new budget yes and it's okay chair um certainly want to be very clear that we're not um we're not in a position where we're cutting people in that for unit a certainly knowing that you know when retirements come if we could move sections around to not necessarily feel
that that's what we'll do it's ation and reoc exactly um we're not losing any core sections that sort of thing we can to say yes right it's just in terms of the uh you know being able to balance and and that's where theer and the high school team will will look when they do
the scheduling I though there's room to be able to make these moves um operations coordinator we're talking there about Transportation are there other things that are going to fall into that category as we go for the building is
that intended one day to include that or doesn't include so the primary focus that's a great question with with David has been Transportation although he's working with Patrick Hamilton who is received stien to do our work with DPW he's our
Lon okay so David's been working with with Patrick and the plan is by the end of the year that David will then fully take that over okay so we just really want him to focus a lot on there's so much work in the transportation sure but also knowing that um ultimately he's
going to be able that that's how that stien will roll we're able to make it work with with David salary perfect sense okay um contracted services are again unless has changed 423,000
um and that's still to the eye that's still a big number um do we think that during the course of the ER like I I I guess the question is are we looking to find more Savings in contracted services and I sort of get
the the idea that in order to replace some of that money with a permanent position you've got to have a critical mass of the need you know you can't if you have one student who needs a particular type of therapy or therapeutic
intervention um you can't necessarily hire someone to do that so you contract it out but are we we must be looking for ways to bring that number down if right and that's where we're able to utilize you know some of the the position moves you know I.E uh bcba for example you
know we're using contracted Services we could roll like we did this year to bring the two positions in for the budget so if we could take that uh and reduce that as well as some uh tutors that we've had to to make them in for literacy bring them under our position
because it's C it's less to do that sure so there's a few of those positions that we're looking to bring those in we're spending quite a bit this year necessary necessary expenditure for our Learning Centers as we're providing U training and um they're doing a lot of work right now in the Intensive Learning Center um
and that's needed but the hope is that we can Fel some of that back once we've provided structure and more training for our staff sure was good long-term planning um can we look at the budget book I want to look at the
um appendix section E I believe and um within section E I think it's e13 looking at the um the grant money that's been brought in which is excellent in a
testament to Mary and her team and uh getting that kind of money the door I know some of these are probably entitlement France too so um but what I want to look at it's not e13 I'm sorry E3
sorry I was close all right so as we go through these grants and they total 235 million rly very impressive and thank you for doing which could to bring in all of these um so my question is
which of these are let go through I say like title 2A which is on line to that's a Federal grant okay title three Federal grant um I DEA Federal gr that's a big one that's
uh $1.2 million I assume ecse IA is also Federal uh Title One and title four which are on this list are federal anything else on this list that I haven't mentioned are
federal the um IEP program Improvement Grant is also a Federal grant the I Improvement program yes but it's kind of uh between the idea and the title one Grant okay that $20,000 Grant is also a
Federal grant okay and um so I total up the the federal money coming in to and I could be off a little bit but you know a little over a million and a half dollars could be wrong you maybe it's 1.7 it's
over a million and a half and this is sort of where I um I go into commentary versus question because this budget I think that we are bringing to the selectman and first of all to everybody who worked on
this P Mary Dan all of the principles all of the administrators the curriculum Department sped everybody who worked to craft this budget now real Kudos because this is what I would say a conservative budget in terms of what we're looking
for for additional monies it's enough to cover the um salaries that we're committed to and basically to keep things level and so U you should be very proud of the work you've done to put this budget together and I think this uh
has to be a conservative because when you look at the um what's going on on the federal government and not convince words but it's very unclear as to where the Trump Administration is going to go
in terms of Education things are on the table like eliminating the Department of Education and spreading out the financial functions into other departments we don't know what that would look like if it happens there's talk about taking Federal money and
giving it to sort of increasing the ability of parents to use vouchers which takes money out of the public school system it just does there's no mincing words about that um there is so much talk about cuts and we
don't know where the cuts will be or what they look like that we have to present a conservative budget because there is too much chaos going on now and too much chaos that can continue into
this next budget year that we really can't be necessarily sure what things will look like six months from now seven months from now a year from now so I don't think we have a choice but to present the budget that you presented
which allows us to do what we need to do but takes into account there are so many unknowns what's going on here you know we talk about looking for State money coming in well if there are federal cuts to things that the state is trying to do
does that impact Chapter 70 money does that impact some other funding that might normally be able to go to the schools we don't know any of this point but any of it could affect us so um I guess that's my my speech for tonight I
think we have to be very concerned and I think that this budget reflects that really responsible budget so I thank you all for putting this together thank you Mr any other commentary any comments from the
audience is there anyone in the audience from the public that would like to uh ask a question or make a comment anything else Mr B before we conclude just looking for approval to move this forward oh we I don't think
there's a vote today is just look for approval to move this forward to select board okay so I know p in past years I think we have actually approved in March later in the season so there's no other discussion you wants to
approve this tonight and selecting meeting uh that is March 15 so just for a time frame um once we finish tonight then you know I need to provide a budget book to them uh at the
end of the week that right end okay so I just need a motion Mr chairman I move that we approve through the fiscal year 26 proposed budget of 53,9 65981 representing a one point uh
roughly 1,975 633 increase and an increase percentage wise of 3.8% I second okay any
commentary okay all those in favor I I I oppos None the motion carries and with that uh motion to adjourn so move Ian propose motion make
motion to adjourn second all right thank you and good night daners we got V oh we got to vote all those of who approve I POS none and good night damers thank you for