##VIDEO ID:oesW5DTFYsY## okay good evening and welcome this is the December 17th 2024 meeting of the school committee call the meeting to order 4:15 this meeting is being both audio and video recorded and I would ask that everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay no Samantha no she unfortunately her um her daughter got sick so okay yeah but we got covered minutes covered we're covered uh with the elcat take the minutes off there okay have we heard from Manny I I don't know I just you know I thought so and as I speak there he is he is all right right on here okay so we'll continue with our roll call Pam if you don't mind starting Pam assistant superintendent for business Gordon Smith superintendent of schools Gregory Thompson anilla okay we have minutes for approval I take a motion please I move to approve the November 18th 2024 regular session meeting minutes motion made by Ana second by Amy discussion all those in favor say I I I those oppose nay that motion carries 4 to zero committee and subc Community Communications menu would you like to start uh last we had the opportunity to go to the middle school concert a nice concert and then this Wednesday is the high school concert all single alongs do you get you get you're the sing you're in the in the course here or you're in the band in the band okay the field go ahead it's at 7 p.m. here y sweet and tomorrow night yeah good numbers right Manny coming up awesome he okay um I wanted to share that I attended the same concert as a parent and I just can't speak highly enough of the the band director the orchestra director it was amazing I really could not believe what these middle school kids were doing like one of the things was like something the Trans Siberian Orchestra you know you see it I'm like oh dear wow and then they started and I was blown away so I just wanted to give a shout out to you know the the individuals who are running the concert and the directors are amazing um I was able to attend um meeting with Mrs pool here through their little big kids program I just wanted to meet with her out of curiosity um because I've heard a lot about um her program and I know that the district was dedicated to continuing that through some of the um you know new plans for the new high school and I had a really nice visit so I just wanted to share that um the students were she was so organized the the little kids I was able to plan a trip to see the little kids in action with the big kids um and they were they had planned um lessons and activities um and it was just really well-run very efficient um and everybody was really engaged and it was a nice visit so I was happy with that that I was able to do that and then I attended an El LEF um meeting on um last week and one thing that I just wanted to share I think I shared this before but they are gearing up for their annual Gayla which is February 8th so more information should be coming about ticket sales and everything after the holidays excellent that both my daughters were big kids and it's everything you say it is yes it fantastic I was curious just because of my day job and you know I'm a education professor and I was like I really want to go and see this this pool was so welcoming and so responsive and was like come in anytime she was absolutely wonderful and she's running a really high quality program there and it was interesting because she was saying it's not just kids that want to be teachers it's kids that are going to be hope or hoping to go into things like even Physical Therapy where they just know they want to work with kids in general and just get a better feel for it so it was great you have experience Manel with the oh you're in it now awesome I I don't think I saw you in action but um she was awesome so love it that's right you were with the trick-or-treaters when they came around oh yeah that's right cool Jamie do we have the middle school concert on the loop awesome awesome thank you William I wish I had something as as as fascinating yeah hard to be right report right now okay I don't have anything fair enough all right all is well we'll move along then um we're going to have an opportunity for Community or committee I'm sorry opportunity for visitors to address the committee seeing none tonight uh I'd like to take a motion to move item 7.1 approval of proprietary specifications for elhs building projects out of order as the next item on business if I could have a motion to that effect please motion made by William second by Amy discussion all in favor say I I those opposed nay that motion carries four to zero okay Ben you're up all right thanks Greg everyone I'm Ben Murphy with scansa the owner's project manager for thean Meadow high school project um on behalf of the project team um as a formality in our latest 90% construction document submission to the mass School building authority um they require that the proprietary items which have been developed um by the school department facilities department and approved by the school building committee and and then included in the construction documents to this point um must be approved by an elected body of the district as well um so I I spoke with Gordon and and Greg and they were so gracious just to put me on the agenda and that's why I'm here tonight so um there was a a list of uh six different systems in the specifications that are listed to be proprietary that means they sole source that going to be provided that those uh systems need to be provided and included in the uh the new building um the reasoning well many reasons uh for each item but uh the the main focuses um the town utilizes these systems already effectively elsewhere in town um and it would be you know costly and ineffective for them to switch the system so um just need to vote on that and approve it I'll be out of your hair does anybody have the list of uh items it's uh 7.1 it was a letter that um was originally directed to the msba on August 25th can read through the items of this sure yeah please um so that's structure wear specified the building automation system H hbac controls if you will um access for the door access system slage for door hardware access security cameras for the security cameras Atlas as a clocks and paging system and then access again as a video surveillance system and many of those as you said we use as a town and a district developed with the school department for reason we try not to too many uh proprietary items obviously we want a you know competitive bidding and and as Fair the price as we can get on on the uh Market but um these items were important for the district to uh include specifically right okay so we're looking for um the approve to approve the recommended proprietary items as recommended by the SBC and are included in the construction documents I take a motion that effect okay I'd like to approve the recommended propriety items as recomend as recommended by the SBC by the SBC and is included in the construction document motion made by second by William any other discussion I would just mention that uh Ben has been more than an asset to us and guiding us through this process scansa and the whole team uh but specifically Ben has been in every uh one of our events and is a a a a wealth of knowledge so thank you Ben for guiding us through this all uh with that I would take uh a mo all in favor please say I I I those oppos nay the motion carries four to Zero thanks for coming tonight thank you yeah you too same okay moving along we have the FY 24 end of year financial report audit yes right ni to me okay so what I did want to pass around to you I'm sorry it was an afterthought as I was thinking about talking to you about the uh audit um but you should probably have more documents that you better understand it so every year in the month of September I complete the prior Year's end of year financial report and every business manager in every district is doing the same thing I'm doing in the month of September and and um luckily they were able to um do the audit very quickly this year and I'm really happy about that cuz it's hard when you go back 6 months later to try to figure out I not sure why I did what I did you know those kind of things um so what I wanted you to have here is um you always hear me talk about the doe codes and this is the chart of accounts document that you have we classify Desi uh classifies things according to like teachers are all lumped together under doe code 2305 everywhere across the state of Massachusetts so that's how they can get like the different report reports to compare you know one District to the other and Auditors come in to make sure that business managers are reporting things where they're supposed to be reporting that there's no um you know errors because that could affect um the foundation budget you know just a lot of things behind the scenes so I wanted you to have that chart of accounts and then the next document that you're going to see is the actual um schedule one from the end of year report so this is what I use you know all of my reports um to complete this end of year report and this is our uh operating budget it's our grants our revolving accounts as well as the town expenditures that are for the school department okay and the last document is the town expenditures and agreement that we have with the town and every school has an agreement with the municipality on how are they going to charge those and Desi comes in if that's part of the audit to look at are they complying with what we have agreed to and if this um document was to change it needs to actually have Des approval beforehand so long and short um the audit is in front of you and I'm happy to say that there's only one uh amendment that needed to be done hallelujah things were changed a tiny bit um so they're they're not counting little small um items that are so minute in the $35 million budget that so I'm really happy about that so one of those items that that has the um amendment that I needed to do was that one of the items for the active employees there uh the town is supposed to uh take the total and then charge multiply it by the percentage of school department employees which makes perfect sense they accidentally just put the full amount in there I didn't catch it they didn't catch it but the auditor did so we made that correction and it was significant $1.4 million so um it's those kind of things so um everything in the document states that um uh procedures performed without exceptions except those ones with the um insurance which have been amended already so I just need to always be transparent and bring this forward to the school committee so that you are aware of um that it was done and if the audit was prepared and you just need to accept that audit one just one thing that's great an it's really good yes it was quite a relief to tell you the truth it takes a lot of time because remember I told you uh Desi likes to have um Desi has to have the way it is is I not only report by the doe codes but we also report by every school individually so if the air you have to track it back down it's not everything funnels into schedule one but there's different schedules behind the scenes so you have to like go to schedule 18 make that and then go to schedule you know s and do that so that it corrects it in schedule one so this was a huge relief to me so yes very pleased with it thank you take a motion to accept please I'd like to make a motion to accept the fiscal year 24 end of year financial report audit as presented mtion by second by Amy discussion all in favor say I I those oppose nay that carries for to zero great thank you okay the next item Financial monthly update yeah so uh I'm sure I don't need to remind you um I was here as you recall last month um I brought your attention of projected uh deficit situation and the operating budget we spoke about school choice revolving account offsetting the deficit um going for forward I will be giving you the monthly updates um because I feel compelled to do so for you um so this is as of November 30th uh we turn to page six M before you at your places just so it gives you an idea um we've been just monitoring you know list and um the media and it this just gives you three um quick snapshots of what um District are dealing with in terms of special education costs and transportation costs uh and then specifically in terms of this is MBO right if you look at MBO and the superintendent Association partnered are requesting that the governor uh look at how circuit breaker is reimbursing specifically in this case Transportation because remember they added transportation to circuit breaker but then had so many requests for reimbursement that instead instead of the 75% reimbursement it went down to 44% so for us that was $150,000 decrease um for other districts that may have been you know countless hundreds of thousands of dollars or Worse um and so that was significant but if you look take a look at the Globe article and um the Mass Live article it just gives you some of the things that we discussed at our last meeting yes thank you cour there are many many districts um having the same exact challenge we're we're not alone um so as I always tell you the page six is the spreadsheet for the operating budget and we have the salaries on the top section and the expenditures um expense side on the bottom section um unless someone wants me to go through each line item I don't feel it's necessary because not a ton changes in a month but when it's a quarter it's it's a little bit different then so um what I want to say is that last month I explained how I had charged the special ed expenditures that I could see that were going over the special ed operational budget lines to the school choice revolving account so that I could get a good handle on it and really see what was happening um so there is a Desi advisory on financial administration of the school choice program regarding expenditures and it indicates a legislative intent that these funds be used for general purposes of the school choice program allowable expenditures include only uh any expenditures for staff materials equipment or services that directly enhance the quality of a District's educational programs and benefit students who currently attend a District's schools I reached out to our outside auditor because I did want to make sure I was going about this the correct way and I was Guided by her to um to charge to use the school choice for the teacher line items that that was the best line item for me to do that so it's just behind the scenes there's journal entries and things I need to do to make that happen happen so once we discovered um where we were at with the school uh with the circuit breaker account being um you know potential deficit there which you can't really have a a negative balance there so what did I need to do that's why I've highlighted here hopefully you have colored copies so the first one there the blue uh the overage in the circuit breaker expenditures that were reported to you last month have been reclassified to the operating budget out of District tuition account so that we report special ed expenditures accurately goes back to those doe codes I talked about and the program codes and special ed is separate from the regular needs um operating you know uh program code so that when I report things out by Doe codes it's is it regular needs or is it special needs um so that that picture is very clear so that was the first thing I needed to do it because of the end the last statement of that because they're out of District that they're they don't qualify for the circuit breaker or that doesn't make it appropriate is that the determining Factor no I'm sorry what did read that made you think the last part of the sentence in terms of what's allowable that must be within the the school buildings it said or something is that the reason why we can't use it for out of District tuition you can you can use circuit breaker for out of District tuition what you can't do is you Choice my fault so I was trying to correct the school choice we saw that yeah so we saw that this I'm sorry if I switch things around I apologize so the circuit breaker once I saw the special ed operational budget lines being depleted I started to as as expenditures came through I put them to the circuit breaker account which of course just as a reminder we had a milliion 38,000 I rolled over and we're anticipating getting close to $1.7 million again this year but I could quickly see that this was also going to go in in the negative but it was it's better for me to bring that picture to show you there that