this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers okay great all right uh good evening we are going to call to order this regular session meeting of the East Hampton school committee uh we're going
to roll call in Ben Ben hery here Megan Megan Harvey here uh lur Scott present Sam Sam Hunter here Linda L Marque here thank you we are going to begin with correspondence uh do we have any correspondents I don't have any to report okay great any gifts to report I
don't have any okay um and we're going to move on to our student representative update here from EHS is AA Patel hi AA do you want to take the [Music] podium um good evening everyone you know I'm AA Patel I'm student council
president um I'm just sharing some of the work we've been doing since our last school committee report um one of our biggest focuses has been meaningful inclusion especially in partnership with a spe special education department we've worked on um using the transition of
students into high school by having a unified bot team this year and students from the life skills program visit the school and they were welcomed by student council members who they had become friends with from Bachi and joined them for lunch we are continuing to explore
opportunities to connect with these students by working closely with Dr Lively and their teachers to create events that promote inclusion across our school we've also been working on step-up day in our visit to Mountain View where we help the transition for the 8ighth grade class we've talked with
some in incoming students about what to expect in high school including available sports clubs and classes outside of school we have continued our monthly visits to lthr to build intergenerational relationships we've been playing games like chair volleyball
and bingo while also having conversations to learn more about each other's interest while um learning about each other's Generations we're also looking at planning a community cleanup to contribute to East Hampton's community in terms of school spirit and engagement we're working on revamping
some of our older events moving away from traditional pepper to new events that get students excited to be at the school and enthusiastic to participate our school goal our goal goal is to create a culture where everyone feels welcomed and involved and earlier this
month a group of us attended spring conference in a hyanis where we've gathered many ideas from schools that we're hoping to adopt here to support our school climate and culture um lastly school student council elections for East ampton High School are scheduled
for April 30th when we will vote for a new executive board also Walter Baker our current historian is running for regional vice president so we're rooting for him if elected he would represent schools across Western Massachusetts and work to
support student Le leadership across the region thank you thank you aa aa at the conference did they still do a lips sync competition yes did you participate no but I think next year a lot of the student council members are going to do that nice we want video video please yes
thank you thank you so much AA um we'll see you April 8th would that be your last report to us I believe so all right all right I'll bear that in mind thank you um we also we recently named a representative from Mountain View School
kenz SQ but um we've had some rescheduling we had a meeting two weeks ago that had to be rescheduled due to some technical difficulties so I expect um we'll remind and invite Kenzie to join us to offer her update at our next meeting on April 8th we really look
forward to that at this point um we're going to open the floor for public comment if there's anyone joining us in person or remotely who'd like to share their thoughts uh we just ask that you identify yourself and keep your comments to 3 minutes if possible so we'll open that up for a minute or so now and see if anyone is
interested these temped media so dutifully showed that those are empty seats sitting in so see seeing no seeing no parties asking to participate in public speak we're going to close public comment uh for this portion of the evening I do want to highlight to the public that at
the close of this regular session um agenda items we are going to close this meeting and reopen as the public hearing for our proposed budget for the upcoming school year so that public hearing we'll have an additional public speak and given um
the unique nature of our timing tonight we could certainly entertain some short comments from the public something other than the public hearing if necessary uh so we're going to move on to the superintendent update superintendent Benda so our um update is actually going to come at at the end of this when we're
going to be doing a budget update and um we're hoping that everybody um watches it and um that you see that it is really a level Service uh budget and the only increase that we're really asking for um
would be the life skills teacher um going to the high school because the program is moving there so Moren can I ask for you to just because I don't want to take from the budget hearing to get into dep could you just explain for the public because AA touched on that program a little bit and I think probably there's a good amount of the public that aren't aware of what that
program is sure so we've had a life skills program um at Mountain View starts in the elementary school and goes up to the middle school we have six students there that are I'm going to move now to the high school um many years ago over 10 years ago there actually was a program there uh and so
we're bringing the program back uh we call it life skill students uh the students is a self-contained classroom but the students are integrated for different activities um you know as they want to be involved in them so for
example um they physic art music um some electives that they may be interested in so we club sports extrac extracurricular all the activities that our high school has the students will be um eligible to partipate in and encouraged participate
in uh the program also um in the later years um does training for transport Transportation training so the students can get themselves to the grocery store to doctor's appointments to work to visit their friends to visit their relatives um also involves job placement
in the community uh so that they get job skills prior um to leaving high school and uh the hope is that then they would stay in that job or it would give them the experience they can apply for other similar jobs that they've been trained in so it's it's a great program and it
keeps our students in our district where they with their friends that they grew up with and we're excited uh that we're bringing that to back to the high school very exciting really rewarding program glad to have it back um is that it for your update or do you have more that's
it for me okay so we are going to move on to the business update um hello again uh good evening at this time a 62.9 3% of the appropriation has either been spent or
encumbered for FY 25 um it's important to note that some of our expenses that are currently in the general fund may be reclassified as we approach the end of the fiscal year and move to other sources such as school choice or circuit breaker um we'll be monitoring that especially as we um get closer and
closer to the end of the year um we're going to monitor and areas in the budget where we may need to make transfers especially out of District tuition and special education transportation and mckin vento transportation are areas that we anticipate that we may have some budget deficits towards the end of the year and I will be coming to the school
committee in April with more concrete numbers about our estimates about that uh as we get closer to the end of the year um the FY 26 budget process clearly is well under Ray um I have not updated this report that was supposed to be presented to you guys two weeks ago that was saying two weeks from now we'll have
our budget presentation but obviously that will happen this evening um the finance subcommittee um met and we had three meetings looking at various aspects of the proposed operating budget for FY 26 um it reflects the primary cost drivers that we'll get into more when we look at our budget proposal um
in your packet are the Personnel reports for January and February uh we were able to um fill some positions that had been vacant um such as the a night custodian position at Mountain View um we've had some people leave the district and some
others come in um but currently um as of this report we had two par educator positions that were vacant at Mountain View um and I think on your report it said that the night custodian position was still vacant but he started on March 1st which is why that position wasn't
listed on your report but um feel free to let me know if you have any other questions great um anybody have questions on finance or personnel is it fun for you Julia to see yourself listed in a Personnel report that you
then deliver to your committee it is slightly ironic yes it's like voting for ourselves it's just a little upside down thank you very much and we will be hearing more from our fantastic new Director of Business Services juliia Ari Frank since we move into our budget proposal which she's worked tirelessly on and I have to say I want to commend
Julia because it was a seamless transition coming in at that time of the year is a gargantuan ask and she delivered it with such expertise and Grace and we didn't even feel a bump in the road and we're just so grateful for your work thank you thank you thank you
all right we are going to move on to school committee discussion uh first up is the policy subcommittee update uh Sam Hunter the chair of our policy committee would you like to take the lead on that discussion yes um we uh met a little while back um we have finally brought
for I believe the first is it the first reading tonight for the it transition policy I feel like we've had this on the books for a while so so we have um written a policy that we'd like to do a first reading of tonight um this is regarding transition services for students with disabilities ages 18 to 22
and just a little bit of do you want me to do like background and explain it first and then we'll would great do that so so essentially um one of the results of the mcast um uh graduation requirement ending and we're starting to see this kind of play out um in other
parts of the state um you know up until um up up until now it's been pretty clear that students who are unable to pass the mcast in 10th grade um and who have uh disabilities that um that have resulted in the curriculum needing to be
modified um May uh receive transition services from the school district up to age 22 so one of the concerns with and I heard this um actually when we were when we were running for office there were a couple of parents who brought this up you know saying I really um don't want to have the mcast as a graduation
required um but I'm worried about my um student with a dis disability uh not receiving those transition Services up to age 22 and um so just to be very clear like the the transition services are considered a uh part of a free and appropriate public
education for students with certain disabilities and certain needs um regardless of whether or not they pass the mcast in 10th grade um but it's become like very clear now that there are some people who are a little bit confused and they're thinking that oh if they are unable to pass the mcast um you
know as long as they can can meet other kind of modified graduation requirements and they should be able to leave when they're 18 um but a lot of our students particularly students with developmental disabilities and especially like since we were already talking about the life skills uh program those students uh as
well will be um you know in need of some additional support after age 18 this tends to be non-academic um it tends to be Community focused helping students um gain uh vocational skills and experience learning how to take the bus um learning
how to uh get out in the community um safety skills both like like crossing the streets and parking lots but also like how to interact with strangers how to ask for help when you don't know where you are or when you you know have to talk to a stranger um so you know it's all kind of based around what the
individual student needs um and so what I wanted to do and what the policy subcommittee agreed that we all wanted to do was to come up with a policy so that we have something in writing that families can understand and can refer to um so that when their student is you know 16 17 18 um and they're trying to
decide you know what um what the next few years are going to look like we have a pretty clear policy in place saying that you know we we want to make sure that um this these transition Services continue to be available um when when they're needed um regardless of whether
or not the student has passed the mcast um and so the policy just kind of lays out what the process is um and uh and also includes the 680 referral which is uh basically the the uh School noting to uh state agencies that this is a student
who once they graduate they may need some assistance from an adult service provider or an adult agency and then um through doing that referral they um they're able to uh kind of get get ready to receive those services and the state agency is ready uh for them hopefully when they turn 22 so this is not does
not apply to all students with disabilities but it does um it does apply to like a you know a a a percentage for sure and um and for those For Those whom it does apply it is a critical necessary support it's a big deal and it's not something that
honestly like I I think a you know a lot about kind of when we were just talking about the life skills program actually this is such a good segue a lot of what um what what we have been talking about is just integrating those students into the General High School environment so they get to go to prom they get to go to
go play sports they get to participate in clubs build relationships build relationships and all of those things um are things that those students tend to need um it tends to take them a little bit longer to make to to gain those skills um and they they just need a little bit more of a supportive environment and so one of the cool
things and and one of the things that I'm I'm excited to get into in the next few years is that if we can really like think creatively and like very uh intentionally around our transition Services these are the types of things that like we can you know we can become known for these services and people can
can can kind of look to us as a model we live in a great community Comm um we have a lot of Natural Resources around here we have a great relationship with the library we've got two bus lines in in town um it's a very safe place to walk around we have Riverside Industries right next door and we have a lot of um
different um small businesses who are looking to uh work with our students so I think this is really cool I uh am excited to get to kind of make this um one of our values that we really um are putting out there and and um and I also want want families and students to feel
like they're welcome here and I think when you have a kid with a a disability particularly with a developmental disability you see all these other families and all these other kids of the same age doing and being involved in in school in all these different ways that um maybe you feel like your child can't access or you feel like it's not really
for your family so I like um just being able to to let them know that like we're thinking about them and um that that we're here for them too you know there's one more part to this and we were we were asked by several community members and local organizations to speak to speak and support
of removing the mcast as a graduation requirement and we spoke publicly about this and um Sam really brought it to my attention um and I was in an immediate agreement and we spoke at the time that what we really need to do is Shore up as much as we can on the district level a
protection since we do agree with the mcast being removed as a graduation requirement we wanted this extra parachute protection for the small population of students for whom this would be really critically important so this is making good on that and this is definitely something I've heard heard and this is like this is something that
I I hear a lot about in my day job as well and I've heard from families in other districts who are already um feeling like they're having trouble obtaining the transition services that they thought were coming and there does seem to be kind of confusion around what the mcass actually means for this population of students so I'm glad that
we've been able to be like um that we've been able to sort of see see ahead of that and kind of get in front of it and I appreciate everybody working with me on this this was kind of a um a very exciting thing excellent so um if you want I can State the motion okay and
then I would ask someone just to do you want me to read this out loud or do you want to just that is the point of a first reading of first reading y yes sure sure and just to remind the public so the way the process works and we consider and adopt a new policy um it's required to have two separate readings
at two separate public meetings so tonight we're scheduling the first reading of this proposed policy uh the second reading would take place likely at our next meeting on April 8th and then at that point um if it was adopted it would be entered into our policy
manual and it would be a newly active policy for the district yeah often what we're doing is updating an existing policy in this case we are creating writing a policy Crea newc wrote a policy okay um so this is um so I'm going to say yep
motion uh motion to enter the following as a first reading proposed policy for the East Hampton Public School District go ahead Sam uh so uh transition services for students with disabilities ages 18 to 22 students with IEPs are entitled to free and appropriate public
education in the least restrictive environment many students with IEPs work on goals unrelated to graduation requirements as a part of their free and appropriate public education students who are not able to meet graduation requirements as a result of their disability are entitled by law to
special education services which include secondary transition services that meet the requirement of a free and appropriate public education until age 22 the goal is to help a student move purposefully towards completion of their high school program and be prepared for Planned post High School opportunities
in the final year of high school if the student has earned the competency determination is on track to complete all local graduation requirements and the school has provided the students IEP services including a secondary transition services that meet the requirements of fape the district will plan to issue a regular high school
diploma consistent with the projected graduation date included in the current IEP this projected date may be the same as the students age peers or it may be later a later date consistent with the students IEP in some circumstances the IEP team uh hold on just scrolling there
you go in some circumstances the IEP team may determine that the provision of fape requires that the student continue to receive additional transition Services Andor other special education services even though the student has earned the competency determination and and completed all local graduation requirements the team will then specify
on the IEP the needed services and revise the date for the students graduation with the high school diploma part of this transition process may include a chapter 688 referral which would refer a student to an appropriate adult services provider such as the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission which is now called Mass ability uh
Department of Mental Health or Department of Developmental services to assist in the transition to adulthood post grade 12 transition programs shall be community- based and highly individualized to the transition needs of the student with a disability the decision regarding the need for transition Services the type of transition Services needed and the
duration of transition Services is one that should take place during a students IEP meeting beginning no earlier than age 14 and no later than age 17 and shall be Revisited every year at the students's IEP meeting until the student completes their schooling under the law transition Services must be quote a
coordinated set of activities Des designated to be a result-oriented process that is focused on improving the academic and functional achievement of the child with a disability to facilitate a child's movement from school to post school activities end quote transition services are based upon the students needs strengths preferences
and interests and include instruction related Services community experiences the development of employment and other post School adult living objectives and if appropriate acquisition of daily living skills and provision of a functional vocational evaluation okay I am looking for someone to say so
moved so moved thank you Megan can I get a second second thank you Ben uh any questions or discussion I do have a question yeah um so the IEP team is doing the determination is there an appeal process like if the parents don't agree is that
just regular IEP it's the regular IEP process which is a consensus it's supposed to be a team consensus so the whole team would determine if the child was in need of a um of transition services and if there was disagreement on the team there's a process to follow through want to make sure that if
parents are not happy with that then they yeah um and just out of curiosity how many students do we generally have each year in these transition services do we know hard don't have that I've seen it travel in bubbles so in my
experience there were these little pockets I remember my first term I think we had three or four students and sometimes it depends on what services the district is willing to provide for this so sometimes these are sent as out of District it's hard to tell cuz right now some of our transition students go out
of District right oh interesting okay so our transition students could be in District or out District depending on their particular or what needs we were able to meet as a district and sometimes I don't even I don't know currently if East Hampton how often East Hampton does this but some districts actually
contract with adult service providers so they might contract with Riverside or with viability or you know neba or whatever um and so we might the the student might not even be going to high school they might be going to one of these adult service providers and receiving Services there so it's it's it's kind of hard to tell and at some
point you know sometimes even the families get a little bit confused about like who's providing the services which is why having like a written policy um is going to be really helpful you know to kind of help people um remember where they are in the process right um but yet it it varies and it also really depends on like the students needs you know like
I'm I work primarily with students with developmental disabilities but you could have students with you know mental health conditions that maybe need an extra couple of years to just kind of you know um develop some of those uh skills they're need to go to college or to go to work or or whatever you know it just kind of depends there's students
with medical needs so it you know it's very very variable um I just wanted to say that we do contract with Services um for example uh last year we had a student at Big E up there and uh she
wanted to work in the bakery so we contracted um for a coach and then they worked with her and she's still working there she no longer has the coach and she graduate so that's wonderful that's exactly what it's supposed to be it's supposed to be like it's not supposed to
feel like they're in high school for four more years it's supposed to feel like something transition yep transition to adulthood yep um and you know ideally if the student you know if if all of our students when they gra when they graduate when they obtain their diplomas we assume that they're all going to be
able to go to college or go to work or go get extra training live independently and so we're just kind of saying that the same is true for our students with disabilities too and even for that student um part of the training was the teacher actually walked the student to
get there because it wasn't it's not a bus to get there it's how you walk there so that's part of Transportation training too like how do you figure out where you you can walk how do you navigate that's awesome yeah get to work on time you know deal with disagreements with your co-workers or your boss have
your uniform on this is there's a whole list of trainings that have to happen and Big E has historically been a really good partner I was going to say she's looking an excellent boss who's a really great Community partner yep great shout out to Mike Su that example made my my night a
little bit yes yeah no it's it's a neat it's a neat thing you know one of the cool things that we do so wanted to get it in writing any other questions or discussions okay so we are going to take a vote all those in favor of approving the first reading for a brand new policy
for transition services for students with disabilities ages 18 to 22 say I hi uh all those opposed extensions motion carries so we will hear a second reading of this policy at the next meeting and
if it again passes the vote then it would be adopted as an active policy um where what sort of um explanation you think we need to do CU I don't see all I see in our packets for the school choice are some school choice guidelines and
our current policy so I don't see anything that we could vote on tonight uh the new one should be in there it isn't it isn't oh it isn't uh unless is that change of date is that the school choice guidelines is that this uh hold
on let me let me look on my phone cuz we I mean essentially the school choice one was we just moved the we moved the dates back that's all um so hold on a second I thought it the when this meeting got rescheduled it threw me off
y it threw everybody off nobody hit the M but if all we're doing is changing a date then I can make a note on the current slip I have and we can move forward with the first reading for that um hold on a second let me just
make sure I have the right one just have pieces of paper everywhere I know that's that's what I'm trying to I'm trying to cut down on that the electronic version of this I have the killing trees version might have it in
here um that would have been on L sorry everybody the packet just got transferred so I don't think looking at the past packet is going to help let see that's under here here we go all right
this is from the it's taking a second to come up mhm uh school so school choice we this is the new one right this was the new one yes right so okay so which one are you looking at Laura it says
current adopted in 2013 no that there's another there's one and then I have school choice guidelines and then I have the school choice application you don't have um one that says all we have in the packet yeah what packet is this then
hold on this was from I don't know what this is okay all I need are whatever revisions you made yeah I don't need a hard copy in front of me okay I just need to know
what revisions we are rep proposing to replace so that we can have an appropriate motion yeah so the the and you can read from the one you have for first reading okay yeah so that's weird cuz my packet has
current and then the next one is is the I got it's it's on the um it's connected to the transition one on the in the yeah in the p on the agenda it's connected to the transition one if you scroll down from transition that says current
where's the new one it's the the next page hold on oh that just says guidelines keep religating this we can move forward I it's in that one page from last
meeting yeah the packet from the last meeting but you can just read anyway right I don't need a hard copy you'll need it to we haven't made any we the only changes we made was the dates so okay um so the uh let's see we are so we are looking to move the
dates back right does that make yeah mhm so um I can't look at both of them at the same time unfortunately May 1 huh really can you talk to me what are you you want to move the dates back later that makes it really difficult to
compete no no no the back in the calendar earlier but you know what's weird is that this does look so should we table this first reading for the next meeting well I'm just confused as to why you don't have this I don't that is not my concern my
concern is that you have the new one to read from and that you can State clearly for all of us what the revisions when's our next meeting April 8th is that going to be too late what's your proposed new date because you need two meetings you
have to do a first and a second reading so that's April 8th we have and then May 1 what what does it say what is the date that you have on that one that by May 1st of every school year the administration will determine the number of spaces in each School available that by June 1 if consideration is being
given to withdraw from the provisions of the Choice Law a public meeting will be held to review this decision yeah I don't know for some reason I don't have the right liit let's do it in April then okay do you will it help to look on a computer yes that's what I that no I
need my computer okay that's so we are going to table the school choice revised policy for the can you make a note of that for we're going to table that April don't apologize nope I want to just move along cuz we are crunched for time okay so that one we will take up at the next
meeting so the next item on the agenda um is a well we have a finance no no no no we're not there yet we're getting there the finance subcommittee update we are going to get to in the second half
of this meeting and the CES update have you met uh I'm meeting tomorrow okay great um so we'll have an update on that on April 8th and lastly is the request from Sam Hunter on February 12 of 2025 for reconsideration of the vote taken on February 11th 2 regarding the 1% student
population that may participate in the virtualy in the state yes Moren do you want to speak to that situation and then we can um frame oh sure a motion so it's called The Commonwealth a Massachusetts Virtual School enrollment restriction and what we had voted on was that uh we
did not want to go above the 1% for students taking the um the virtual school however afterwards um I looked on it chat and I saw that we had 1.24% of so we already exceeded we
exceeded it we so I didn't think and this is something we reset every year this is something yes that every year we have to do so that's actually 17 students that we have doing that and the October 1st count was 1,368 okay so I just didn't think it was
right that we hold it at 1% and those students that are already involved in it then we'd be able to continue and if there were new students that wanted to add they wouldn't be able to so I thought that we should um reverse that vote which automatically goes to 2% so in the state of Massachusetts you cannot
have more than 2% of your students so that we would just not have to vote on this be send our vote and go with what the state gives us which is 2% okay so uh so what I am looking for sense to me is a motion to resend the vote on
February 11th 2025 regarding the 1% student population cap to participate in the virtualy in the state I'm looking for so moved so moved thank you Sam can I get a second second thank you Ben I heard you right afterwards Linda I get you next time uh all those in favor say
I I I opposed extensions motion carries okay excellent uh next woof okay uh next is a school update uh with one item for discussion which which is the Federal Department of Education vote on legal
matter okay where to begin so uh today is T Tuesday it is Tuesday uh yesterday uh was the culmination of about a week and a half worth of deliberation and work on part of the school committee uh that work did take place um in phone
calls between myself and uh Sam Hunter and a legal aid group out of Washington DC and then we brought their suggestion to the committee in executive session last week um and so I can backtrack a
bit for the public to explain that we were approached by this organization of attorneys that take on primarily uh civil rights litigation to um pursue some legal action in response to the current
presidential administrations activities around the Department of Education including the mass firings of between 50 and 60% of their functional staff and then what later became an executive order directing the department to be shuttered
and have its critical services remanded to other departments that I will um anecdotally State we have yet to be given any evidence to demonstrate that those other agencies have either the workforce or the expertise to carry out
the duties um upon on which we rely currently so uh we're all referencing the Department of Education at the federal level I can say that from our perspective speaking very specifically to The District in East Hampton um we have received um this current fiscal
year upwards of $800,000 in federal funding um that the majority of that is um supportive funding for our students with disabilities under the idea funding
which is federal funding and we also in recent years have had enormous uh support and guidance from the OCR at the Department of Education which is their office of civil rights uh they were an integral partner in the work that was
done in this District to address uh deeply concerning racial disparities in treatment of students at our high school in concert with District leaders and the Massachusetts Attorney General's office resulted in a real transformation of
that climate at the high school that we continue to be proud of and extraordinarily protective of to this day but not only that it also increased our community partnership with uh the East Hampton Police Department and it worked to transform how they View
community policing in concert with the school department uh we replaced the SRO the school resource officer um that position was removed from the schools and instead we have uh regular events and Communications with the police both in and out of uniform in the police department has gone on to hire a
full-time social worker who not only lends really necessary guidance and support to police officers but to the community at large in the school department in particular in times of trauma and crisis so all of that is just specific examples that we can offer off the top of our head of our critical
Reliance on the Department of Education and um is what motivated us to move forward with a legal action uh what that that complaint was filed on Monday it is now a matter of public record and um I can make available it's roughly 60 Pages
we can make that available for anybody who is interested and likes to read legal filings um but essentially what the ask is in the complaint is um an immediate injunction to stop the firings and then um a reversal uh meaning an
attempt to rehire and maintain that institutional knowledge at the Department of Education and furthermore to try an attempt to try and prevent the dismantling of the department as it stands on two grounds um the first is that it would be a terrible outcome that would uh result in a lot of harm in
public schools and their students their staff and their families and secondly uh we agree with the legal Theory and argument that um if one were to read let's say article one of the Constitution it's laid out pretty clearly the process by which the United
States is allowed to both create and dismantle departments and it turns out that's the job of Congress yall not the executive so um that is what motivated us to take action in this way we aren't looking to pick fights and we don't start them um but we do when called upon
to support and defend public education we will finish that fight does anybody else have anything they'd like to say on that matter because we are going to have a second vote this evening um we have joined that litigation we are named as a plaintiff uh I signed in my authority as
chair of the committee a retainer uh this of course is just a contract retainer in that legal sense um this is a contract between us and the lawyers I want to reiterate as we had said in all of our public statements that this does not cost the district a dime we are being represented pro bono as are all of
the other plaintiffs um but that retainer is an agreement that states that we are allowed to withdraw at any time so that allowed us to move forward with signing ahead of this public meeting but I would would like just to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees have another vote in this public facing
meeting to um demonstrate what I would expect is continued support for that legal action so would anyone care to make a motion or does anyone have any questions before we move to that um I'll just add one other thing that um so I think that was a great overview no
decisions were made lightly we've spent hours yes hours discussing thinking through all sides of it and um one of the things that kept coming up is a source of particular pride in our district is our We the People team who are experts on the Constitution Article
One in particular um and we just you know we have a a group of students who wins at the state level and they win at the national level about the Constitution and how um unfortunate it would be that we did not also join you know a
constitutional um right along with them and sort of fight for what we sure and they know was right so anyway I just wanted to um yeah we're inspired by our students we want to offer Clarity that we are we disagree with this action on two fronts we disagree with the
decision and we disagree with the process and that is the heart of the legal filing and the legal complaint and now we let the courts handle it from here um so motion to continue with the legal action uh against the current
Administration and the Department of Education so moved can I get a second second thank you Ben uh all those in favor I opposed abstention motion carries unanimously for the second time
thank you very much to the committee and we really appreciate all those who have reached out to um share their support and appreciation again as Megan said these issues are not taken lightly we take this work incredibly seriously and um we are heartened to see that um our
values are just so white widely shared and appreciated in the community um yes I have figured out the policy thing okay um can we go back to that or no okay we're going to do that it's 554 we got to get heing and I have a whole list but that's fine it's fine that's great I'm excited for April 8th
when we can have that discussion um all right so we're going to move on to action items um do okay you got that or do you want to take not fine okay um okay uh motion to approve the school payroll dated 211 2025 in the amount of
$732 second is that Tempo that's a real okay we're getting a not that's real okay uh Sam thank you for the second do you want to do you want me to take notes on the second Sam can you just second all of these for the ease of Megan's record keeping great uh all those in
favor I opposed extensions motion carries motion to approve the school payroll dated 220 2025 in the amount of 6244 $7.96 second thank you Sam all those in favor I I
opposed extensions motion carries motion to approve the accounts payable authorization for payment dated 220 2025 in the amount of $288,400 three or do we go on but anyway okay uh motion to approve the
school payroll dated 36 2025 in the amount of $63,600 second thank you Sam although in favor say I I opposed extensions motion carries motion to approve the minutes of the 25 2025 regular and executive
session minutes second second thank you uh all those in favor say I I I opposed extensions motion carries I misread meetings for minutes I'm sure it doesn't matter but the minutes from the meetings not the minutes from the minutes was a small typ or small missp just for the
record excellent motion to approve the minutes of the 228 2025 finance committee Finance subcommittee meeting I'll second thank you all those in favor say I I opposed extensions motion
carries motion to approve the minutes of the 22 what is happening with the dates motion to approve the minutes of the 225 2025 Finance subcommittee meeting thank you all those in favor say I I I opposed extensions motion carries
motion to approve the minutes of the 21 2025 regular and executive session meetings second thank you Sam all those in favor say I I I opposed extensions motion carries and a motion to approve the 2025 2026 school calendar draft
number three uh I'm assuming 24 is the date that it was revised yes we had uh we had this back in January but something yes so we now have the revised one for approval can I get a second second thank you Sam um are there any questions before we vote what
changed uh what changed was uh the day before uh Christmas and um it was going to have to uh the union had requested the uh the day I think it's the 23rd not the day before Christmas had requested
that the whole day be off but um we can't do that because of the Union contract required days so it's a half day for kids but a full day for staff okay I want to highlight for parents because I'm already getting this question on Facebook so for the newly about to be approved school calendar for
the 2526 school year the first date of school for students will be Thursday August 28th 2025 bear in mind if you're a high school student in grades 10 11 or 12 you'll have a delayed start that day freshman only started the regular so
August 28th everybody um kindergarten has a slightly later start date I think that's the 4th yes y yes pre and kindergarten students September 4 all of the students August 28th um and that'll be on the website imminently uh all
those in favor I I I opposed extensions motion carries excellent um our next meeting dates are April 8th May 13th May 27th and June 10th I'm going to stop there because we don't need to go through the whole rest of the year um we are going
to adjourn and then reopen this immediately for our public hearing for the proposed budget um motion to adour motion I so moved thank you Sam can I get a second second thank you Ben all those in favor I okay motion carries we
are adjourned and I will now call to order our open public hearing on our FY 2026 proposed budget we're going to roll call in Ben Ben hery here Megan Megan hervey here Laura Scott present Sam uh
Sam Hunter here Linda the mar is still here mayor here excellent okay so um Julie would you like to kick things off sure um can I share my screen yes you're in here now so can you give
her access yes I can you can't ever miss a meeting and you can't ever leave a commun that's fine that's great thank you that was very reasonable as long as I can read dates okay you should be fine all right
all right uh good evening everyone uh first off I would like to thank a number of people um for their work in creating this year's budget proposal I'd like to thank the district leadership team for their time and effort um and all of their hard work in thinking long and
hard about the budget and the activities going on in their schools um I'd like to thank the finance subcommittee uh for their time and their input and their discussion and their feedback as we honed in on the budget proposal and also I'd like to thank anybody who answered
my questions as I stepped in in the middle of this process uh to step into this role and um I I'd also like to thank Nick Bernier right for leaving me incredibly detailed information and notes and a process and a timeline to follow and being willing to um answer
phone calls emails and texts about questions as things came up um to try to make the process as smooth as possible um detailed information about the FY 26 budget proposal is available on the district website um I'd also like to thank Michael oconor at the high
school and the art students in his program for Designing the cover of this year's budget proposal which is here on your screen um so thise presentation will be available up on the district's website tomorrow as well as a link to the full budget proposal for anybody that would like to read all 160 some
hundred pages of it um as we start I would just like to highlight um some things about the current conditions in East Hampton public schools for fy2 our official enrollment as of October 1st was 1,393 students that is what is used in all the
calculations at the state level for determining funding formulas so obviously our enrollment fluctuat Ates on potentially a day-to-day basis but that is the number that all of the calculations are based on currently our average class size is 17 students um our most recent calculated graduation rate
is 91.8% and our We the People team that has been mentioned already is now nine times state champions so the district and the committee and the staff are very proud of the accomplishments of our staff and our students um and we believe that this budget proposal supports and
continues to support the efforts going on in the district so the development of the budget for FY 26 is what we call a needs-based budget what that means is that the budget focuses on the needs of students and aligns those needs to District goals that are articulated in
documents such as our values our mission and vision and our strategy for growth uh this budget aligns priorities and personnel and services that directly impact students our goal with the budget is to utilize all of the available sources of funding including revolving
including grants including State funding and local funding to support the programs going on in our district and our goal was to provide level services for FY 26 so that means to continue to provide the services that we're currently providing in this fcal year that we think are meeting the needs of
students and continue to provide those services to our students next year um as you can see in the slide we have had some changes in enrollment over the past couple of years um our enrollment spiked right prior to co and
then after Co we've see that we have had a decline in enrollment um but along with that we have had an increase in the percentage of students with needs for additional support that includes students with disabilities English learner students and lowincome students so while we've
seen a decrease in the number of students that we are Serv serving we are seeing an increase in the needed levels of support that we need to provide to the students that we have so this budget includes the necessary resources to support the needs of our students here currently in the district Julie can we
make a brief note for the public the declining enrollment is not an East Hampton phenomena yep we were seeing that Statewide pretty much with very few exceptions Statewide are we seeing districts with increasing enrollment and that's just you know shifting
demographic shifting populations right people have moved on you know smaller families Etc so this is a Statewide issue that we're seeing with declining enrollment and declining enrollment is not actually something that is really addressed in the Chapter 70 formula and we can talk about that when we get to that
[Applause] slide um this next slide you'll see that our goal for next year is to keep as close as possible our current class sizes to next year so the budget proposal maintains current class sizes at approximately the same size that they
are currently at the elementary level from this school year to next school year so there are several factors that are driving budget increases uh the first factor is that FY 26 will be year two of implementing new collective bargaining agreements with
approximately a million dollars in Personnel cost increases right while that is a large number that number represents a significant investment in our faculty and our staff that we believe will help with retention and recruitment for staff and all of our bargaining units that will allow us to
continue providing services to our students right in FY 26 55.3% of teachers will be on the top three steps in their Lane but that means that we have a very highly skilled highly trained staff who have a lot of years of experience and are dedicated to our
school district and we want to keep and retain those teachers um Chapter 70 funding is flat um next year it's projected to be 8,946 167 which is a whopping increase of $1
17,37 over this current year so it's not even keeping up with inflation not even keeping and it's because of our declining enrollment and the the concept of hold harmless so all we're getting is that additional funding per pupil um which may fluctuate depending on what
happens in coming weeks with uh the state budget process uh the inflation factor in the current state budget is 2.89% sure all of us are realiz in that that is not what we are seeing in terms of actual prices y um l pbec through tuition we are estimating a 5% increase
those rates have not actually been announced by lpvec yet um but that is a a reasonable estimate given what the rate increases have been in um recent years um out of state uh out of District tuition the rate set by operational services division is set at
3.67% our regular Transportation increase per our contract is 3% special education Transportation increase per our contract is 7% and we are continuing to see increasing cost in electricity right we're hoping as more of some of our
solar things come online that we see some more rebates with that right but these are all the major drivers that are leading to the cost increase that you will see in our budget proposal um currently we believe that we will be able to continue providing
Universal free breakfast and lunch as our cafeteria revolving account is healthy and as of right now we have not heard any legislative changes that will change that for FY 26 can we just let the public know that is very much in question we just don't
know and we've contacted Department agencies to try to get answers and those folks have been laid off so we don't have direct word or assurances about how much longer the free breakfast and lunch will continue yes we it will continue as long as the funding is there but we
don't have clear information on that right the state seems committed to that at the moment is there is a separate line item in the governor's budget appropriating funds specifically for that that is outside of the normal funding channels for School meals so our FY 26 proposed budget
summary uh is 22 mil 79415 the current year City appropriation was 20, 67557 158 which is an increase of 2.1 million which is 10.25% overall
what that represents is approximately a 5% increase due to our collective bargaining agreements and a 5.25% increase overall for all of the other expenses included in the budget Julia do you touch at any point in this presentation about how we are currently
about a $1.1 million deficit for fy2 I do not okay so that's another factor is we've been appropriated 20.6 million for fy2 our projections currently say that that's about 1.1 million shy of what we will need by the close of the fiscal
year so if you factor that in that percentage increase continues to shrink correct all right so yeah in this slide you see that there is um historical budget information right we do see that the past couple of years our budget
increase has been higher than it has been historically but it also represents the new collective bargaining agreements right which were costly but again were important investments in our staff here in the district in terms of increases so
what have we added to the budget um there are two positions that are currently in the budget or in that are being funded by grants this year in FY 25 as a requirement of that Grant we need to move half of the FTE of each of those salaries into our general fund budget that's that first line in them
that is $446,000 that's the bright classroom yep uh the next Edition is a special education teacher at the high school earlier in this meeting we talked about the life skills prog program so we have students that are in a life skills program currently receiving services in the middle school and those students are
aging up out of that program and need to be moved to the high school so in order to continue providing those Services we need to have a teacher to teach that program at the high school that is approximately $75,000 and it is a cohort of students this is a six seven eight students six six students so yeah yep
mhm okay um we're anticipating a $135,000 increase in special ed and homeless Transportation um based on our current students and the placements that we anticipate for next year we're anticipating a $455,000 increase in outof District
tuition uh we're anticipating $165,000 increase in utilities um in the budget includes a line item of $62,000 to replace um some obsolete technology right there's a computer lab at the high school that will no longer be functional because those that equipment can no
longer be upgraded we have old operating systems can't accept new updates yep and so without replacing those uh computers uh those classes cannot be offered anymore at the high school so in order to maintain that service we need to um replace those computers and that includes the beginning of a refresh
cycle for Chromebooks that we had had prior to co so over the next several years we will need to start replacing devices to continue our on toone programs so um most of the increase in the budget is personnel and then there's some supplies and contracted services
such as transportation and those things so those are the items that make up the 10.25% increase in our budget in the budget uh in terms of overall changes in FTE for our budget proposal for FY 26 it includes one additional special educ teacher
education teacher at the high school for the life skills program uh to the reallocation of three Paras from the Middle School to move into that new program at the high school and to move5 FTE of the two bright Grant funded positions into the general fund so the
overall change in FTE from this year to next year is 2.0 uh this next slide shows the proposed budget by location and expense type um I would just like to point out one piece of information on this it looks like there is a huge change in Personnel cost at the district level a a
decrease of 21% and large increases at the buildings that's because when the budget was passed and proposed for fy2 we did not know uh how the collective Bing agreements were were settled and so all of that money was set aside in a line item that was assigned at the district level and so this budget
proposal shows those um amounts being reallocated to the schools and amongst the staff where they those belong in the budget uh a little bit of budget history for you um so this next slide sort of breaks down a lot of people um don't understand sort of where all the
different funding Pieces come from in our school department budget some of our budget comes from the city appropriation some of our budget comes from state aid in the Chapter 70 funding formula so as you can see in FY 24 from in state aid we received approximately 8.6 million in
FY 25 it was 8.8 million and in FY 26 uh the current calculation is 8.9 million right uh the state calculates what they call required minimums what they believe it costs to educate students to provide the level of services that the state deems necessary the rest of that then
comes from the city share so in FY 26 the required minimum right calculated by the state is 23, deed breath as this as the uh state budget sort of moves through its process so um also keep in mind that
there are expenses related to the schools that are not included in the appropriation to the school department right we are lucky enough to receive Services um such as insurance and benefits for our staff and our employees trash removal snow plowing um all of
those sorts of things that are reflected in other components in the city budget which is why you see at the bottom right um City total net education spending and includes all dollars that are attributable to educating students here in East
Hampton so one thing to point out is that these numbers reflect minimum Aid right so currently um I think the minimum Aid was set at $70 per student last year it was 60 in the governor's budget but was changed
to4 right at the end of their budget process so we will be keeping an eye on that to see if that minimum aid number changes P mon second jul you were at waves and means on Monday did they say anything about it was not especially hopeful great okay we just going to keep okay let's keep going
okay um this slide shows us uh some District generated funding sources that are being utilized by the district to support the operating budget right so we have a bright Grant that's um provide Staffing and supplies for a tier 3 general education transition program we
have the special education 26 two grant that is targeted to early um childhood it provides a stien for a coordinator and some supplies and materials for Early Childhood Program uh the special education 240 Grant um is one of the idea grants um that we're worried about
since that provides um out of District tuition social emotional consultation uh related services and professional development to our staff um title one right funds three reading specialists in our Elementary classroom and some supplies um our almost our entire
professional development program here in the district is funded by title 2A um title five or four provides us the money for our English learner program and then we use circuit breaker to fund out of District tuition and special transportation and then we have revolving accounts including school
choice um or textbook fund um chap our food service our Athletics right that support other initiatives going on in our district I'm going to pause you for one more second y can you highlight for us or I'll pick on morine of these sources can you identify which are
federal federal uh the 262 Grant is the 240 Grant Title One title 2A and title four so to a total I think we're somewhere around $860,000 is what we've received in federal funding through the Department of Education Federal Department of Education continue Julia
$888,000 great thank you for the Precision um so obviously Grant amounts for f26 have not been established yet those numbers haven't been released um so we uh use projections to develop the amounts that we believe will be available for funding in the f26 budget
um our projections have been cautious right um because of changing conditions and are based on the current information that we have and existing fun funding formulas everything that we've been told is that the funding formulas and the amounts have been set for FY 26 that the
Department of Education was currently starting the process to calculate FY 27 amounts so um again we haven't heard that there will be any major changes to these programs right but it is on our radar to keep it we were notified and it's been publicly reported that that office that you're talking about that
does those calculations typically staffs about 155 people today there are three employees in that office continue Julia [Applause] [Music] yep so in total the summary of total
costs from all funds that we are projecting for the FY 26 budget is shown here right the First Column shows what we um are hoping to use from the general fund budget which is made up of our local appropriation and Chapter 70 aid from the state are school choice funds
circuit breaker funds Food Service that is essentially self-funded right through um the national school lunch program and reimbursements from both the state and the federal government our athletic revolving fund that is funded through gate receipt student participation um in
athletics or chapter 71 revolving fund that is bus passes and grants another revolving funds so the total District budget including all funding sources is 26293 n38 for FY
26 are there any questions anyone have questions yes mayor um so when you had mentioned the student population of 1398 um does I just remember some of the
calculations of reimbursements we get go like they're almost like a year behind or something in numbers so the 1398 so the October 1 enrollment numbers of this past year so October 1 and 2024 is what
is used to calculate our chapter 7 7 Chapter 70 funding for FY 26 okay yes I did not know that yep other reimbursement programs like circuit breaker Mak evento Transportation those are based on actuals so we'll be able to
submit actuals when those reports are due yeah I mean one of the reasons why I uh appoint that out if you were to go to des's website and you're looking at like money per student or calculations of formulas are really hard to find and
there's like discrepancies and it's like why are there two numbers for um enrollment uh right so the 1398 does that include choice in students
yes um and it should include any student that we are reporting in Sims so it should include in District students and in District programs resident students who are in out of District programs school choice in students it should include all of those so when we look at
that total number it includes in chro it kids who in choice or anybody who's in Sims and and so when you look on des's website and it tells like it gives you a number of all possible students who like
are in I guess child find or or whatnot within eastampton that's not the 1398 no because that would include school choice out students that would include homeschool students that would include include students that maybe we know exist but aren't enrolled anywhere could
include um families that have moved out of District but Jesse hasn't received information about where they've enrolled right because desie doesn't sort of update a student until they have confirmation that students are enrolled elsewhere desie is a state agency yes so
if somebody moves out of state desie has a hard time tracking that right sometimes yeah right it's like 15 days you're not in a particular School Sims hasn't changed you're supposed to report it to like DCF or something like that yeah um and I mean it's pretty cool cuz
they actually go to different states and find kids most of the time um all right so Choice Charter out um so two questions there the amount of money actually that
we get when a kid comes in and then have to pay receipts right and um does that calculation of what amount of money we get for in andout Charter Choice does that change or is it a a a consistent formula the my understanding is that the
formula is consistent year toe unless they update and make tweaks or changes to the formula um keep in mind that it's a flat fee per student in out but then if a student receives additional Services there's What's called the special education increment formula so
that the more services you are providing right you file a claim for form and then you get additional funding for that student if they require additional services so is it possible that a choice in or Choice out student might fall under circuit breaker yes like mbers y
um and then the Cho Choice shutter in out um do we I know desie does but is that number up down like over the last couple of years or I don't have that information in front of me but I'm happy to pull it together and provide it to you I was going to look get the Cher
sheet and I what are you asking are you asking the amount that we receive for choice or that we have to submit for Choice out has that number changed yeah yeah I'm curious what it is now too and it's easy to find on on the cherry sheet but I just forgot to pull it and I wanted to get the question on the record
yeah um so when we look at um the 55.3% of our Educators who are highly qualified do we have worries about this year next year about retirement have two I mean I know we
don't know but like when I saw that number I was like yes and then I was like a lot of those teachers have t for a long time do we have well how long does it take to hit the top step 20 years I believe mhm of service in the
district yeah that's why wow just we have two retiring this year two retiring this year that we know of yeah so um we gota we got to sit them down and say not all in the same year folks stagger it no
com um out of District placements so the tuition increase has been set generally for the per DM price y um do we know expect um any specific requests by any of the out of District programs that we use that they might say it's
extraordinary as far as like they can't get sing language professional so they're going back and they're asking for that line item in their budget like an increase of xll I haven't heard of any um so out of District programs have to apply for what's called program
reconstitution right if they're substantially changing their program which then create substantially different cost structures and there's a fairly lengthy budget process that they have to present to OSD and OSD can do midyear rate changes it is rare um I
think in the three years I was filing circuit breaker I think there were two programs in that three-year time that were approved for a midyear rate change okay so it's not totally unheard of but not frequent um the FY 25 budget of 1.1
million um that reduces the 10.5 right because that the deficit you mean yeah yeah um I understand that of the 1.1 two questions 1.1 deficit could this deficit be reduced when circuit breaker
reimbursement comes and any correction so circuit breaker is based so you file in June or by the end of June for your cost in the prior year you get that Revenue then in the current year which then a lot of districts try
to sort of bank that money in the current year and use it as an offset the next year because then you know the dollar figure that you're getting right part of the problem is that last year we applied for Extraordinary relief and we essentially were prepaid a portion of
this year's reimbursement last year that they used to close out last year's budget so it doesn't change the total dollar amount that we're getting so we effectively sort of paid Rob from Peter to pay pa and used a portion of those funds last year um and so we're obviously not going to get those funds
this year because we already got them right um we are going to be in the process of looking at our extraordinary relief claim the claim is due on Friday um so I'll be working with them to see if you qualify but it's rare that districts qualify two years in a row because your costs have to have
increased 25% over the prior year and so logically if we qualified last year right to have if so if our cost went up 25% last year if they would have to go up another 25% this year in order for us to qualify so but we'll be looking at those numbers very closely
the next couple of days and then similar question around Transportation y m vento special AED transportation is there a chance that we can recoup any of that money that was spent this year but we wouldn't get until next FIS fiscal year
so is that included in the 1.1 million deficit so special education Transportation costs are included in that deficit um there you usually file a claim in October for your prior year because it comes from your end of year report so we won't know until October of
next year what that claim is so potentially okay yep um so the estimated $ 886 or $888 in federal funding that includes
the Nutri programs no no right those programs are essentially self-funding and every we've been given every indication that the state intends to fully fund those programs next year even assuming they don't have to fill some other unforeseen Gap right right but
again there is a a supplemental propriation line item in the governor's budget using fair share funding to fund that line item that was my next question so just fair share can cover nutrition yes there there already is a line item and do you know if the nutrition programming or the nutrition that line
item does that include free breakfast and like vacation or summer programming uh summer programming is a separate application process right which we'll be looking at that that application will be due in May um the past two years from what I've been able to tell we've sort
of lost money running those programs to provide that service but we're able to regain that um due to the the efficiencies that they have in the program when they run it during the school year so they're able it was much better once we relocated the site but it was wasn't getting quite where we like
it the program was building but we yeah remember it started over at the park and it was all rainy that summer and buggy um not that's not money related well maybe it's money related so the the just
so ridiculous but like the first year we went back after Co like the requirement was you had to eat on a site you had to go to certain sites this last year it was like you had to go to a site to pick up like is there
any expectation especially to increase the access to that that we can um get a waiver for that given like the bizarre way like you want you want to take that one julieet because I'll scream about it if you don't want to take it I so they took away the the
waiver for grab and go meals and offsite distribution I have not heard that they're intending to change that it's USDA and again you can't get anybody on the phone they've all been laid off and um that said is there a way
through the state that this coming year we could work with somewhere like the East Community Center or the pickup drop off drivethru meal sites um that already have families and individuals coming to
pick up food if like with the E I know they're jam-packed but there are days where there's no food pickup but like ECC is it's close to a bus stop um people know where it is there's a whole bunch of different reasons to go there as restrictions on the buildings we can
use for it but I don't remember what they were had to be within a mile of a title one school I think um which I think the ECC is outside of that radius it is and again there there's the
prohibition on grab and go meals so they would have to come to the site and eat the meal there right and whether or not there's there's facility there to somebody should put yeah somebody should get Doge on this we've talked about this I I completely agree with this in like this
line of thinking like how can we be creative if we can't do grab and go can we do something like you drive to the to mvs and your packet your food is there and then you get to eat in your car with your family before you drive off site or
something but like what kind of but that's not technically we're on property then right no no why they W us I I read the regulation it's absurd we can talk about it another time but I would like to to see what we can do to yes I agree mhm while we're
burning everything down let's burn that down let burning and Loop in the Champions program sorry yeah right so I'll I'll be meeting with kend page to look at the the requirements and the application before we submit it and I will look very carefully to see if there are any loopholes that we can take advantage of
great and then nutrition programs does that include any of the food support that can go to like um preschool or other like private that uh which I don't know I don't have kids
or I did like 30 years ago um like all about children Young World or even the reading the reading program or the the summer reading program no it's like a little family group oh the
EFC yeah yep so so do we are we able to give them any food through this funding or do we know we know I that's a great question I mean I I think the summer food sites are are open to any school age resident SCH
any school res right so even if they if they live in town and they go to a private or parochial school if they live in town and they school choice out if they live in town and they don't are homeschooled I will say one part of the regulations they are not asked for address or identification verification
at the site but they cannot remove food from the site and yeah that's so any school age child can receive meals at and they don't feed adults so like if a mother goes with three kids everyone 18 and under can get
a meal has to be consumed on site and the mother doesn't get the meal I think the parking lot count who stops that um chart Wells and it's run through our Our Food Service contractor okay so it's not like a change in in Vendor nope um and
it's covered under our current contract yeah okay so the 1.1 million deficit for this fiscal year is that just a roll over as a deficit how is
that covered or addressed for the end of this year for the end of this year well we've got a couple of options we can use more of this year's circuit breaker Revenue which means that we have less to roll over next year we could use more school choice Revenue right which would mean that we would have less to use as a
budget offset in next years's right um we can apply for Extraordinary relief and hope to get a prepayment of next year's circuit breaker increase the funding right that just like but it just gives it to us now to close out this year's budget as opposed to next year's budget and then uh the next layer of options well we could do a um spending
freeze right I could lock the budget right now and tell people that they can't spend any more money and we could use as much of our current funding as we have right to pay those or we can go to city council and ask for an additional appropriation and Julie has presented all those options earlier this year and
then we did our the committee had suggested cobbling together a a partial appropriation not for the 1.1 million but for a portion of that um and then but we were cruising directly into budget season so we decided to take up the appropriation amount request
following the approval of the proposed budget um all right the two other questions and I didn't SC them down um [Music]
that was one of the questions why or related to deficit and and whatnot and the uh Choice Charter out like how does that money work that's one of the reasons why I was I wanted to figure out like has Choice Charter out that amount
gone down or number of kids gone down and if so would that help address deficit I believe there are charts addressing that in the full budget book okay um but I can definitely pull that together and send you that information that was my last question um
the budget book y um where will hard copies be uh there is a hard copy in the city clerk's office there is a hard copy in the mayor's office there is a hard copy in my office there is one available for the public here at the school department uh there is also one in
superintendent benda's office and one in um Sue K's office as well as the full budget book is scanned and available as a PDF on the district's website M those are all my questions fre questions mayor anyone go ahead well I just wanted to say about that the 1
million deficit like a lot of it came from unexpected special ed out of District trans all of it you know out of District transportation and um well AO District tuition transpost tuition for students
and mck transport and we we only have one um homeless student and uh now we're up to six so um that was unexpect it's unexpected and for the students you know
that were placed in um outside placements um the district just didn't have the programs or could start the programs um for them to receive the services they need they were so severe so that's what happens we wanted to make
sure we met the needs of our students and they were placed out in the tuition for some of those are a large right and especially for cases where there's DCF involvement DCF chooses the placement and we don't have any say in where that student winds up
programmatically and if the parents live in East Hampton then we are responsible financially we should talk to the mayor about that pending one too that the state thinks we should be responsible for that is not even a resident of the state but yeah yeah sure yeah Sam did you have a
question I just um so I first of all I really appreciate this presentation and I read the budget book um and I found it um this gets this is a very complex topic every year I feel like I understand a little piece of it better
which is good so um so you know I I appreciate kind of picking it up as as we go along one of the questions that I'm hearing a lot from the public is um you know what we hear about other school districts who are are um doing a lot of layoffs right now and not not not able
to pass um budgets like like ours is and everybody keeps asking me like what is eastampton doing differently and I have been sort of saying we've got a really good team working on this and we've also gotten lucky for the last few years cuz I know that we've got like really good folks working in other districts as well
I was wondering what you might um what your thoughts were just about like why we're able to sort of make it work right now and so I'm going to give you an answer that's to the best of my knowledge having been here on the job approximately 30 days uh my sense is that the district
heading into the pandemic was doing a good job of sort of on a shoestring budget providing the services that were needed to students that then during the pandemic and with cvrf um sr1 sr2 sr3 used a lot of those funds for onetime
purchases used a lot of those funds for curriculum for Chromebooks for supplies materials things that weren't personel cost for salaries right that any of the Personnel costs that were initially used with that funding was moved off of those grants
either starting in fy22 23 and then 24 so that this year we did not have any staff that were on those Grant funds that this year as up September 30th those that um those funds had to be fully expended so we weren't sort of
trying to figure out how to support those um positions like I think the team here had a really good sustainability plan when they made decisions about what staff to bring in how to provide services how to use that money so that they avoided the the fiscal cliff that
everybody's been talking about for the past couple of years and especially since in some districts they were able to sort of offset that fiscal cliff with changes in SOA that made up for it but we're not one of those districts so I think um Nick knew that we weren't going to be one of those districts based on
our size and our demographics and so I'm sure cautioned people against using those funds for things certainly did yes that weren't sustainable so uh my answer to that is just sort of long thoughtful planning and I'm sure there were decision I'm sure there were discussions
said we have all of this money let's just hire a bunch of people and people said but if we do that now we'll have to lay them off and then what yeah um this District knew that because this district has always been Hard Scrabble Sho string right Nicole and Megan has overseen the budget for a
number of years so I want to add a few things to that because I think it's important to note how great the city is doing in supporting public education while it crumbles around us um this city has and that's because of a lot of different people it's because of the
group that keeps getting elected into these seats but it's also because we have a city council and a mayor that keep getting elected and this when you look at those year aftere increases it's not like we've had a one time increase of 9% this has been 4 years of huge
support more so than we see from other cities which is all about you know and that's through election cycle so this is what the people of East Hampton are voting for this is what they want and as their elected officials this is what we've been fighting for and we've had inflection points over the past I can
least say four years where we've said do we ask for what seems like almost an unreasonable increase or do we increase our class sizes to 24 right and we have held firm that we are not going to do that and every component of the city has
stepped up and agreed that that's that doesn't align with our strategic plan or our vision or our mission and our values and we just I think that that's a huge piece I cannot and the parents and the EA and the teachers and we've had students come to these meetings um this is a the smallest crowd I've ever seen
at a public hearing for our budget um we have packed this room um and student students have come and stepped up at the podium and read scripted you know thoughts about what they need and and what they are not willing to you know let let slide off of the
budget so um I just wanted to to recognize that you know it's that long-term planning but it's also the commitment of this community including our mayor including our city council um through election Cycles so it's not just like a one time thing it's this is what the community keeps waiting for I want I want to point out too this
is the all this conversation that we're having is relative this is not a hugely aspirational budget for sure not this is a level service budget what we are seeing what makes us stand out from many of our neighbors who are in a tougher spot is that they are making
extreme reductions in force which to the average person means teachers are losing their jobs support staff are losing their jobs positions are being cut I think East Hampton has always been a working class gritty at its core community that has been used to
stretching every buck and I think that when the pandemic shut down and they were flushed with a one time influx of cash from the government they could see that inflation would come they could see that prices were going to increase and it was lock it down it was you know and
there are parents who are still demanding more from us and I hear them and I respect that and I understand it that there's more that we want to offer but right now we don't want to fire anybody and we don't want exploding class sizes mhm so the long-term cost of that it we it's hard to even calculate
the build back it will take you're just bouncing constantly in I mean the class sizes um and we we touched on them briefly but I when I was going through the budget book like and then I was comparing to other districts um right now like our class sizes are really
competitive with other districts like we're really um it's I I was surprised honestly um I I knew that we had small class sizes but I um I hadn't realized like how that compared to other communities and it is worth noting too that those were really in line with our
values a decade ago they those smaller class sizes are critically important for just keeping the Train on the tracks at a second grade level can you imagine 24 very high needs traumatized second graders trying to learn to read and to
write and to do basic math like these CL they're not a luxury right now in this post-pandemic hellscape they're a necess for learning um sorry I was just also just going to ask about so I I went to the
ways and means meeting yesterday which was interesting um there was a lot of discussion around the circuit breaker special education costs like increase in special education cost I was just wondering if if you have um and I know
you've only been here 30 days if you have like heard anything you know from your counterparts at other districts or in other parts of the state about any kind of relief like State any kind of legislative relief I did not seem to hear a lot of that at the Ways and Means
Committee um so the ones that they tend to talk about are um rural schol Aid yep Regional Transportation reimbursement neither of which impact us and circuit breaker because those are three things that the legislature can change the
number on without having to have right an amendment right they don't have to change a mechanism right because the the way those three programs are drafted and the way the legislation reach is every year it is subject to appropri so every year they appropriate an amount and if they want to provide more funding they
just appropriate a larger amount right right so there's caps on the reimbursement per so with circuit breaker the goal of that program is to reimburse a district up to 75% of the extraordinary cost Beyond a threshold and so the goal is to but when
they say fully funded they mean to fully give you that 75% there have been years where it's been 72 where it's been 68 where it's been 55 um in lean budget years right 2008 2009 um it's um when they added transportation
to that right so Transportation you could start claiming I think starting in 2019 or 2020 um the tuition portion of it always gets funded first and then Transportation gets reimbursed so sometimes they run out of funds so Transportation gets reimbursed at a lower rate because because they're fully
funding the tuition portion of it and that when they added the transportation piece it says that they have to fully fund all the all the tuition costs before they can fund a single dollar of the transportation cost right so again if if the you know Ways and Means
Committee right if the conference committee if they add money into those buckets it just means that they're re increasing the likelihood that they will fully fund those programs and it works um the same way for uh Regional Schools transportation the rural school aid is like different because it's just a
bucket of funds that then gets dispersed based on a formula based on population density yeah right so those are three buckets that they can choose to just throw more money in that bucket without having to pass additional legislation which is why those are the three that they say if you want something done
right now these are three mechanisms for doing it yeah yeah as opposed to I saw some of the discussions about like we need to tweak the Chapter 70 formula yeah that was very much off the table yesterday they're not interested in TW chapter 7 because I mean it took them took a committee 10 years to come up
with the changes that they just made right and the problem is that um right the tweaks that would help our community are not the same tweaks that would help other communities so it's it's diff I can see where they're coming from where it's difficult to create a formula that's going to help everybody I mean the only way you help everybody is just
by like dumping overall more money into the there was more there was more discussion than I expected about hold harmless and the effect that hold harmless has and that was felt more gerine to us well and it's because we're seeing declining enrollment across the state I think now of the 360 odd
districts 251 of them across the state are in hold harmless now okay so I know what hold harmless means in my work Y what does it mean in this work it so it means that you will not get less funding next year than you got this year right
so even if your population goes down right so and the part of maybe I shouldn't say this in public but the part of Home hard home hold harmless that nobody talks about is if you're a District that's had declining enrollment consistently right your district is technically overfunded you never get out
of hold har you never get out of hold never get out of hold right so you get what you got last year plus that minimum Aid per pupil right which is why we get that extra $117,000 because it's the $60 per student right so you get what you
got last year plus it's weird so they set a cap on the emergency relief for circuit breaker but not a cap on the whole armless I would never have my client s a hold harmless that did not have an xere on it well that's that's just me maybe you should be elected to
the legisl you no thank you mayor did you have another question thank you um what is the base amount for the circuit breaker like formula you'd have to ask me that wouldn't you um can you repeat I didn't hear the question uh the base
number uh for the uh circuit breaker so it's like whatever percent they give us over a certain number it was 50 4,000 and change the last time I looked at it it goes up every year at a based on the inflation
number that was my next question is that set arbitr well not arbit whatever by the legislature or do he when SOA went into effect they put in a number with the assumption that you were getting more per student um and so they made the
adjustment based on the changes to the Chapter 70 formula and you know is based on an an average of the per people expenditure and some factors um FTE for the school year we're up 2.0 2.0 okay so there was no loss net
loss no 2.0 2.0 um and that's just the life skills program I right it's really going to be an an increase of one body because we had two staff that were fully Grant funded that next year's a term of that Grant can only be half Grant funded so next year they'll be half in the Grant and half in the general fund
budget and then the next year they'll have to be fully in our budget for FY 27 um and then do you have an idea right now with this budget what percent will be over the um
the required uh local contribution I don't have that number off the top of my head I mean is it reasonable and I forget what it was last year but say 115 um do you think we'll we'll bump above above
115% I don't think so I think it will probably hover about the same okay that's my I there's probably a page about that in the budget book but I can double check that figure and get back to you you can tell who didn't read it but I do very nice copy in my office it it is
lengthy right and there's a lot of graphs and a lot of got a lot going on in your defense yeah that's why there's that's why there's more than one of us yeah exactly right there you go there you go um Linda do you have any
questions I do have a general comment oh yeah so so around like the the budget and why we you know aren't necessarily we aren't in the um position of of other districts layups and whatnot I I think
there are a couple of reasons and and Julie I I don't disagree or Laura with any of your comments but you know the why we while we are hard scrabbled I I think folks when you look back
historically back um at our education budget um it had been woefully underfunded funded so to make up like when we talk about the good budget years we're just never going to
gain back those underfunded years especially with inflation on top and um one uh uh two uh around that the um districts around us took or could take a
different approach during past years um and provided a lot more services that we hear from parents all the time that they would like to see here you know the you know the foreign language at the middle and elementary school levels expanded
stem Y and I think that the um so it's great this year or last year and you know we're you know these budgets are um you know being presented you know presented the way they are
um but longterm we're at a loss yeah like you know to you know Julie you could run the numbers but to get where we think we should or to meet even half of the needs
yeah um you know your suggested percent not that I'm guaranteeing full funding on this um and I will abstain from this vote as I always do as mayor always does everybody yep um you know 25% increase isn't going to fill the hole
Yeah so that's all now I'm done great no that's all good conversation anyone else Sam I can I can smell it on go what do you um I don't know how I feel about that I also just want to put a general
comment out I think I and I you know there definitely going to be people watching this you know who aren't maybe as well versed in school um budgeting as uh nerds stuck here um I just want to like really emphasize too like we talk we're going to be talking a lot in the
next couple of years and we have been talking a lot tonight about special education um and and just across the board like the cost of special education has been going up for all districts especially out of District tuition um and and especially transportation and I
just want families to know like it is not your responsibility as the parent of a child with a disability to balance the school's budget so I just want to make sure that you continue advocating for your kids um making sure that they're getting what they need they do deserve that free and appropriate public
education just like everybody else does um and so I know it can be uh it can be kind of alienating to have a kid um especially a kid who has really significant needs and I just you know want to put it out there that like we we want we want your kid to keep getting what they need um and we're not um
you're not responsible for that that's a a a funding issue a legislative issue that we're responsible for fixing in some way but but you're responsible for your own kid so and we in this District do not pit our special ed population against our gen Ed population we have a student population and we will meet all
of their needs absolutely the only difference is there are laws in place to guarantee needs met for one population and not the other right yeah so we're going to um we're going to keep working on it yep um yeah anyone else have comments or questions um the only comment that I have is that
we've discussed a level Services budget which I think all of us are very proud that we're able to do that and we're very of the community I think you sp very clearly to that Laura and Megan to the community and what we expect here I want to make it clear that I think every
one of the members of this board really are always lucky ways to try to increase those Services we do know we would like to have those programs we we want those we want to look forward toward that and we're looking for ways to be able to do that in a fiscally
responsible way that we can grow that in this community in a way that it would be sustainable and that's what we spoke to with the reason that we're in this position but just because we're saying that we're here now is not because this
is where we want the education to stay we're always looking ways to improve our Arts our foreign languages our other um areas and if I've left something out it's only because you was getting late here stay through this but we're looking
at ways to be able to provide more for our students and to have you know all of us are really committed to that so I just want to make that note and the community supports that we the people is an example the American eels is another so we are always receptive they are the they are huge
they are the scariest they eat blood worms I could talk for a really long time about the E we'll talk about the eels next time okay I agree Linda yes again it's not an aspirational budget but it is it is the product of good work in the current environment and we still
have a lot of long we are aspirational in ourselves yes i' I'd rather go down on no other sinking chip so oh excellent wow happy FY 26 every get a beer and talk about the Lucitania
all right um one more one more thing um I think and and you brought it up the the costs that don't show up in this budget um one uh pension post employment benefit so the city has been historically we hope to
continue um to be very aggressive on funding opep funding pensions pension is 77% and funded and we want to push that forward um I don't know how many School Employees there are but it's 2third of
the budget so the percent that you would see in the budget book or overall calculation in some places doesn't show that whole number um but the other is our health insurance plan is
ridiculously good um compared to other yeah it um and it also went up 18% this year and we expect a double digit increase so not as a warning or what not like I just want to make it really clear that there's always comments about the
school I mean the city isn't doing their fair share blah blah blah and it's hard to get to that behind the scenes number it's not an obvious number um and sometimes we do this year uh we don't know that number until this um has vote
but we do and it's health insur is 18% we we do have a a commitment to be very um aggressive funding those the other thing that we have done with the Retirement Board they've been great Partners is um we have increased our
base salary higher and higher so retirees are able to access more benefit and and it actually helps the like right now to help the retirees in the next four years um just access more of
that so that's another cost that's behind the budget that affects all city employees so there's a charge back for that um but it is a part of what the city puts towards schools right and just a comment on that is that every
municipality handles that charge back differently so that when you go to compare your school spending to another school spending right it's very apples to oranges in a lot of cases because of that and then you factor in Regional Schools say and it just throws the ho
yeah yeah um so I just want to make a note we're we didn't have any members of the public in attendance when we kicked off the budget hearing at 6:00 so I didn't open for public speak I just want to give an opportunity now because legally I have to um if anyone from the
public would like to weigh I know that they've had the opportunity to see the full presentation on the budget so if anyone in person or at home I'm not singling you two out you're okay you don't have to speak you can if you want to do you have question or a concern okay um we are joined by Two Gentlemen
from the Eagles Scouts with us tonight who are here to earn a merit badge to watch democracy in action how's it going did you read that budget book in preparation no oh no you're not ready to sorry okay I can't say I
did um so with that then seeing no interest in public speak I would entertain a motion to approve the proposed budget for FY 26 I would love to get that motion so moved so thank you Megan can I get a
second like the second that thank you Linda Superstar okay uh we're going to go down the line uh Ben Ben hery I Megan Megan Harvey I Laura Scott I Sam uh Sam Hunter I uh Linda Linda Marque I and May
obain thank you so much uh the proposed budget passes thank you so so much to Julia s Franks that was a that was a rockstar performance tonight we're just so continually impressed and so appreciative and grateful again 30 days coming in in in the Heat of the Moment
yeah excellent work thank you thank you uh with that that is our last item on the agenda for tonight unless anybody wants to start talking about bloodworms I think I would entertain emotion to journ that they e that's what the eels eat that's what the eels eat a Jour hold
on I as I'm I'm if you're wondering what I'm doing writing I know I'm sorry writing the mid as we are doing this and it occurred to me that I did not say that we had um our initial ad hoc committee meet up the playground group um which was great we are meeting again
on Monday um we do have an official ad hoc committee um those minutes are not quite ready to share because the person taking the notes hasn't written them up yet um but we encourage anyone everyone and kids to come we have lots of great
parents who are working on it so excellent that will be in the notes of when meeting are I would entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn thank you Sam can I get a second second thank you Ben all those in favor post exensions kidding good night
everybody thank you so much we will see you on April l e for