It being time I call the Gardner City Council informal meeting of Tuesday, May 12th, 2026 to order. The clerk will please call the roll. >> Councilor Brooks. Councilor Crawford. I'm here. Present. >> Councilor Donahue. >> Present. >> Councilor Harder. Councilor Heath. >> Present. Councilor Heglin.
Councilor Kuzmiskas. Present. Councilor O'Malley. Present. >> Councilor Tisoni. Councilor Thibodeau Meuse. Present. And President. Present. Announcement of open meeting recordings. Any person may make an audio or video recording of an open session of a
meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium, subject to reasonable requirements of the chair as to the number, placement, and operation of equipment used so as to not interfere with the conduct of the meeting. Any person intending to make such recording shall notify the chair forthwith. All documents and exhibits used or referenced at the meeting must
be submitted in duplicate to the chair as they become part of the meeting minutes. Is anyone recording tonight's meeting? Tonight on our agenda, we have the FY2027 school budget presentation. Uh before I give the floor [clears throat] to Dr. Pellegrino, as a good former Gardner Public Schools student, I did my
homework in preparation for this meeting tonight. In my research, I came across a 2010 DESE district review. A report that I believe is highly relevant to our current conversation. The report stated, "According to school and municipal
officials, the allocation of schools recommended by the city has diminished over the years because state aid is decreasingly portion of the overall school revenue and health insurance and other costs are escalating." I share this because it is more than 15
years later and we face the same issues. It highlights the challenges we are discussing tonight, specifically the $2.7 million gap mentioned in the presentation the school department leadership gave to the welfare committee just a few weeks ago, are part of a much longer structural
story of Gardner. The presentation noted significant achievement. Between 2014 and 2021, the gap between our actual spending and the state target narrowed from over 2 million in 2014 to just 50,000 in 2021.
However, the presentation then highlighted that this gap has since widened back to over 2.7 million. The framing of these numbers suggests a clean break in 2021, implying that prior years, there was a season of robust investment. While the current administration and
this council has since reverted back to just the bare minimum. The crucial detail that these numbers gloss over is the implementation of the Student Opportunity Act. As a graduate of this district, that narrative didn't sit right with me.
I was a senior when that DESE report was published. In fact, for nearly my entire high school career, our schools were funded below state minimum requirements. In fact, my freshman year, the district was nearly 3% below net school spending.
I didn't need a report to tell me. I felt it. My classmates and I lived it. I think we've been very fortunate. The schools are now under leadership, the steady leadership that is of Dr. Pellegrino, and have dug ourselves out of the hole that we were in. However, just like with city finances,
the school department faces fiscal challenges that are too numerous, too volatile, and the stakes are too high for us to fail. With that, I'd like to hand the floor over to Dr. Pellegrino. Thank you, Griffin Tyler. And thank you all for having me here to describe describe the budget.
Um so, I'd like to start first just going over student enrollments. I think, you know, behind obviously what drives the budget is our student enrollments. Um student enrollment in 2015 was um 24 2,400 um 73 students. Today, we're at 2,470 students. As you
can see, there was a slight decline um from FY25 to FY26, um Which is not surprising. 15,000 students in the state are not going to public schools that we're going to schools before. 85% of districts in the state are considered
home home harness because their numbers have dropped so much that they're maintaining the minimum amount of aid from the state. So this slight decline is not surprising and many districts have been seeing the decline over the last several years. Whereas over the last several years
we've been growing. And with the student opportunity act we actually had some increases in our budget but those huge increases were were all driven by our student enrollment. And as you can see in from 2021 through 2025 our enrollment up went up significantly.
Not only did our numbers go up but when you look at the populations of students that we have so there are high need students that are identified by DESE. [clears throat] So Department of Education says that students who will come from low income families, students with disabilities, and English language learners, they need
more. They need more resources. They need more supports. And so they're identified as high need. So any student that is identified in any one of these categories is also considered high needs. And as you can see we went from for a little over 1400 students to over 1700 students
from 21 to 20 to 26. Our low income students went from 1200 to 1400 almost 1500 students. Students with disabilities went up over 100 students and actually just to keep that in perspective that's about 20% of the population. Of that population. And English language
learners are more than two and a half times the number that we had back in 2021. So all of these students require more to make sure that they're succeeding. This is a graph that I put together
of high schools in the state. These high schools were all ranked on an accountability percentile from 1 to 99. Now, if a large city like Worcester was was on this, I actually just used the highest level
whatever their highest accountability. So, I only wanted one high school per district. And so, when you look at this, along the x-axis, it goes from 0 to 100. That's the accountability percentile.
Schools are ranked based on MCAS scores, dropout rates, chronic absenteeism, advanced coursework, graduation graduation rates, and extended engagement. So, every school is given a number from 1 to 99 based on their performance on on
these indicators. The orange larger dot right there is [clears throat] Gardner High School. The reason I put the other two axes in is the the y-axis is the the one that goes up and down.
Um, is real is our percentage of high-need students. So, again, that goes from 0 to 100. And the the reason I put a second axis in there, that red axis going horizontally, is because that's our 67%
high-need students. And if you look, there are no other high schools that have 60% 67% or more students who are high needs that are doing that's doing better than us. So, the further right you go, the
higher up you are. So, nobody above that line is further right than us. The only ones that are the only ones that are further along on the accountability percentile are all schools that have lower percentages of high-need students.
So, we're [clears throat] doing really well, and we're quite frankly outperforming school most schools in the state. Elementary and middle school, they've been in the bottom 20% for as long as I can remember remember when it comes to the accountability percentile. But we're finally starting to really dig in and
see some see some improvement. So these are district scores and when you look at this a star is our what we call our universal screener. So it's testing we do three times a year. We just started this last year. Um we switched over from a different company. And so we have this
program which looks at ELA comprehension so reading comprehension. And if you look, you already see the gray bar is how we did in the fall, winter, and then the spring last year. And the bluish-green bar
is what we did in the in the fall and then the winter this year. And you can see we've made improvements in ELA. And then math as well, we've seen a huge improvement. DIBELS is how we assess reading in our youngest learners. In our elementary school, all students take DIBELS. And as
you can see, our readers are at a higher percentage as well. So our educational outcomes are starting to improve. All the things we do here in Gardner though really had had an impact and this is um I guess a correlation. But it's our
school choice numbers. Back in 2014 there were Yes, I have to put on my reading glasses. 158 students who were leaving the district. The red lines are those students leaving our district. Um and the blue lines are students
coming in. And as you can see in 2018 when I first became superintendent, that was our highest level at over 300 students were leaving our district. And that number has gone down since then to a little over 160 and we have 160 a little bit more of a few couple more
students coming in the district than are leaving. This is really what we're looking for. We're trying to make sure that we're always focused on keeping Gardner kids in Gardner. When school when kids choose other schools because we're not meeting their needs, we're losing money. The
city's losing money. We pay through indirect costs and it makes it much harder to keep the funding in the schools. Um just another quick anecdote. It used to be it wasn't that long ago when I was the principal of the high school. We had students applying to Monty Tech
who were just college-bound. They didn't intend to go to a vocation. They were our top students, often times taking AP courses, and would go on to liberal arts degrees. I didn't like that. Today, because of all the different options we have,
instead of having 70 to 90 students applying, we only have 46 students apply. Out of those 46 students, 14 students are our top students. And out of those, only four students don't intend to go on to a vocation. Very different population now applying
to Gardner Monty Tech. That's what we want. We want kids applying to the vocational school that want to be in vocations. And all this is because we have a lot more options now at Gardner Public Schools. So all this is created we create a lot of systems, we create a lot of programs
to support our students. And we have a budget process that's different from many other districts. The first thing that happens is directors and principals get start out on their own and in their schools they ask, "What do we need to
keep things moving? What do we need to keep these programs? What are the things we need? What are the positions we need?" And then they're asked to do two things. The first thing is we cut over $1.2 million annually from our budget.
We take those positions out. They're funded primarily from positions because expenses won't get you near to >> [clears throat] >> $1.2 million. So So, cut positions every year. And then they list out positions that they don't yet have that they feel they need. So, they take those two lists and then
they bring them to us and we talk about how those positions support their schools, why they need these other positions, and we talk about are there are there better ways to do this? Is there a different way we can do this? And we we take that list and then each school and director has that list and we go into a room and we
collaboratively, sometimes heatedly, have discussions about what is the first position that we're going to put back in the budget. And we rebuild our budget by taking that list of cuts and that list of needs and we say, "What's the first most important position?" And the high school might give up their
position and say, "You know what? The first position might be that kindergarten teacher. We need to get that back in." And then we do the second position and third position. Sometimes, one of those needs might actually supersede the need for a position that we already have. And so, then we have this prioritized
list. So, every year we're redefining who we have in our schools, who we have supporting our kids, to make sure it's the most efficient system and an effective system. After that, we meet with um the mayor and the school committee and then we come and we meet with the city council
with the budget that we developed. With that, going over the numbers is Mr. Hawk. So, these slides are really small, but I thought it was important to go through how all these numbers from the state um come to be.
So, starting with this one, it's probably easier to follow in the uh the handout rather than on the screen on the left-hand side. Uh number one is the prior year chapter 70 allotment, which is 32,375,000. The uh number two for foundation aid is
the current foundation budget, 46,507,000. And we're going to get into that number a little bit. The required district contribution, 13,487,000. Again, we'll get into that number a little bit later. Subtract those two numbers and you get
the foundation aid, 33 million 19,000. That's number four. Which is an increase, number five, of 643,719 dollars. So, we're going by the uh foundation aid, it's a 643,000 dollar increase for the schools.
This, uh number six, shows that a 75 dollar per pupil increase. This was off the governor's numbers. The House and Senate have since come out with a 160 dollar uh per pupil increase. So, at 75 we're 184,000.
At 160 we'd be just shy of 400,000. So, you take the uh the lesser of both or the the greater of those two, which is the foundation aid of 643,000. And that's what we get for new chapter 70 money. Under the right hand side where it says
comparison to FY26, it just shows the um the enrollment, the foundation budget from 26 to 27, the required district contribution increase, 825,000. Uh chapter 70 aid, and again that totals 1,468,720
dollars. The next slide is also put together by the state and how it's uh the local contribution is determined. Uh two quick points on number one and number four. Did I hit too many buttons?
Why is that good? Mark, stop touching the button. Where are you now? There we go. There we go. Number one and number four, you'll notice it's 2024 equalized valuation and 2023 income. So, the data
always lags by a couple years. So, there's sort of a economic foreshadow. Whatever is happening now is probably going to hit your um local contribution in a couple of years. So, the 24 equalized valuation, that's all the taxable property within the city
of Gardiner at 2 billion 325 million. Uniform property percentage is just that. It's uniform across all school districts. Um it may change a little bit from year to year, but it is the same for every school district each year. You multiply those two numbers together and you have
the local effort from property wealth, 7 million 696,000. That's number three. Number four, the 2023 income. This is derived from the Department of Revenue, 582 million 205,000. Uniform income percentage, again, it's
uniform across all school districts. May change slightly from year to year, but all school districts are then multiplied by 1.5897. So, the local effort from income, 9 million 255,000. You add the local effort from property wealth, number three, and the local
effort from income. Number six, for a target number combined effort yield of 16,951,000. That's what the state says is the target number that we should be spending on the schools. Number eight is the FY27 foundation
budget, and no matter how much you want, the most you can spend over net school spending is 82.5% of that foundation budget or 40,993,000. Uh target local contribution, which is the lesser of the uh
combined effort yield or the maximum local contribution. So, it's 16,951,000. And then number 11 and 12 just break it down to percentages. So, the local share would be 34% and the target aid for the state is 65.88%. Moving over on the right-hand side, you
start with last year's required local contribution of 13,581,000. That's number 13. Municipal revenue growth factor provided by the Department of Revenue. This could be different for every community. 5.1% for Gardner. Um
Uh number 15, the preliminary contribution. Multiply those two numbers together, 14,274. 426. So, the shortfall from the target, the 14 million from the combined effort yield the 16.9 is
2,677,000 or 5.39%. That's 21 and 22. If the shortfall is between 2 and 1/2 and 7 and 1/2 percent, there's a an adder or a penalty, if you will, of 1%.
If it was over 7 and 1/2 percent, it'd be a 2% um adder. So, 1% of the fiscal 26, the number 13, required local contribution is $135,000. So, you add that on to it, the shortfall
is now 2,541,000, and the required local contribution becomes 14,410,000. But, wait, that's not what the schools get. On the next slide, on the Wait, Mark, don't go there. You'll see the split because we have two
schools, Gardner Public Schools and Monty Tech. So, the split based on the foundation enrollment, Gardner would get the 13,487,000, Monty Tech would get 922,000. So, I just thought it was important to note that after all that formulas, we still have to split it one more time.
>> [clears throat] >> Yeah. So, if I could, so the what we were talking about before, um if on on this um on this slide, is the shortfall from the target. So, I think there's there's a um a misconception about the the budget,
where minimum spending is what is needed by school districts, and I think this is throughout the state. I'm not saying it's here. It's throughout the state. People think minimum funding is what kids need, and that's what school districts need to support the students that they have in front of them. That's not quite the That's not quite the reality. The reality is there is a
target share. What they do is they understand that school that that cities and towns have only so much money, so they give a minimum, but that's not necessarily supporting the students. That's why they have a target share. And so the goal is to eventually
get up to the target share. So this added increment is basically like um trying to pay off your credit card bill with paying the minimum payments. It's going to take forever to do. So it's important that we if we're going to get to where the target is at some point, we
need to start doing so thoughtfully and planfully. The next slide is Yeah. The foundation budget. This is really small lot of numbers. I'm just going to go a high-level overview on this. On the left hand side you'll see a pop it says
base foundation components and this is made up of basically our enrollment categories. Um kindergarten, elementary, junior middle, high school, and vocational. Those 13 vocational that's highlighted uh under the foundation enrollment, that's our MVP program. So money tech
sends us a bill based on the uh foundation budget enrollment under vocation each year. Um and then on the right side of this graph is the incremental cost above the base. So these are special categories
that uh DESI calls out English learners, uh low income, and such. And the right hand side is really what the SOA played with. They incrementally over the course of it was supposed to be seven then it ended up being six years increased those multipliers in there to
get to where we are now. Um down the left hand column is the categories that DESI breaks us out into administration and structural leadership, classroom and specialist teachers, etc., etc. So, then that all filters down to the bottom right where you have the
46,507,000, the aforementioned foundation budget for the city of Gardner. The foundation budget per pupil is 18,867. One other thing on this slide I want to draw your attention to is on the bottom left, the low income percentage, 67.35%.
This is lower. Mark mentioned that we lost a lot of kids year over year statewide. Statewide, we also lost a lot of low income students. We went from 420,000 down to 400,000 statewide. We used to be 69.78%
somewhere in there. This year 67.35%. I mention that because it is a a high number, but also if you hit 70% it's this next magic level where you just jump and it would mean roughly what, 1.5 million? >> 1.6 million. million for the city of
Gardner. And um long story short, we did ask uh DESI because with the categories are made up of 6% categories. So, we're in category 10, low income group 10. They're made up 6% increases until you
hit category 10, which is 15%. >> 15%. And that's how the law was set up many, many, many years ago. So, we are in this giant category, but if we just get over a little bit, it's a huge adder for the
city of Gardner, which is odd, but worth noting. So, there goes the small slides and on to slides you can actually read. New money, new expenses. This is going to say the same numbers a couple of times. On the left-hand side,
the Chapter 70, again 643,000 year over year increase. The required net school spending for the city is 825,000. So, we have a total new money of 1,468,720. On the right, this is year-over-year expense changes.
So, 1.6 million for salaries, 1.8 million in expenses. Addition or cuts, I'm going to make sure last year we added $321,000 or so, this year we cut 1.5 million. So, the delta is 1.8. This is not saying we
cut 1.8. We cut 1.5, but the year-over-year change is 1.8. Non-net school spending, this is a negative number cuz it's paid for by the city, but it's in the school department budget and it does not count towards net school spending, so we have to back it out. It's at 896,000 year-over-year
year change. Indirect costs, this is mainly health insurance. Um $949,000 year-over-year. And then the carryover deficit from last year, 474,000. So, total new expenses, $2.2 million.
While we're on that slide, I just want to mention the funding of net school spending. One of the things the mayor and I worked on last year was we talked about the Medicaid reimbursement. We have counselors, we have specialists who actually have to have to track their hours and submit them to
to DESI and actually we get money back from Medicaid. Last year we took in $467,000, which goes to the city. So, Mike and I had agreed that we'd get 300,000 of that 467,000 coming back to the schools.
So, so that says zero, but it's because there's no difference. This This year we're planning on getting the 300,000 [cough] above based on the Medicaid. This next slide says basically the same thing but with a pretty pie chart down bottom. So, there's the 26 money, the 27
money, and then the right is the the change, so it's 1,468,000 in new money. Where does the money go? On the next slide, uh you can see the 25, 26, and 27, um the payroll accounts broken down between
These are again DESI uh breakouts, regular education, special education, support services, school administration, central administration, facilities, and substitutes. And the increase is there, the aforementioned $1,687,000
increases [clears throat] in those categories. The expenses, um we did make a concerted effort to try to cut the expenses, but a lot of the expenses are very static or um things that we
don't really have a lot of uh control over. Uh we're really a much like the city, it's an 80/20 salaries expenses. There's very little expenses that you can cut. Um so we made uh an effort to reduce expenses wherever we could.
The highlighted lines, the other programs, this is made up of two things, out-of-district tuitions and collaborative tuitions. It's a $1,081,000 increase this year. And then transportation, $766,884.
Now I said uh there's some like fixed costs, so like facilities is increasing 36,000. We had a much larger increase our um cleaning service. Morais had a 5% increase, and that was $60,000. So
we cut $24,000, but still an increase there. So just that, just those two increases are $1.8 million. And we get 150 1.5 million in new money. So that's what made this very difficult.
Those two highlighted numbers are 20,000 short of being the full increase for the expenses. Out of district placement costs, these are actual costs from FY16 going forward. You can see in the last
few four or five years, there's been a uh pretty good increase, so $2.2 million this year. Collaborative tuitions, again, last couple years, it's uh spiked again. It looks like there was a spike
earlier in '16 '17 then dropped, stayed low, and it's been back on the rise. $1,155,000 this year. Just to be clear, collaboratives are just like other out of district placements, we're just part of a group, and so we get um reduced tuition when we send students to these
schools. Um I do want to mention we've invested a lot of money in our substantially separate programs in the schools, teachers, RB um registered behavioral technicians, a lot of um board certified behavior analysts. We've
spent a lot of money trying to keep kids in the schools, and we're doing a really good job with that. However, we have had a lot of move-ins. Um and it's been very difficult to recruit staff. So, these jobs are can be very
difficult, and right now um everybody's fighting over the same employees throughout the state. So, there's a shortage of teachers, but there's a great shortage of special education teachers. So, we're finding it difficult to um uh to meet the needs of all of our
students, even though we've invested a lot and restructured our program a lot. Again, for the kids to be able to stay with their friends in their community, that's what we're trying to do. Um and it's really difficult for us when we have to send them out and we can't meet their needs. I just have a Can I just
ask a question after that? So, right now though, do you have the maximum number of of people filling those positions? Um I think Do we have um any positions that are open from subset separate rooms, Joyce? We we do, but we have recently hired vendors to
cover the vacancy. Hiring a vendor means we have to go to a private organization and we tend to pay a lot more for those positions. But that would keep those students in our district. Correct. Thank you. Yeah. The costs that do not apply to net school spending, this is transportation
costs, um, couple years back uh, the state made us break out Mckinney-Vento, which is homeless transportation, then foster care transportation. The special ed transportation number was a giant increase this year. Um, 896,000
increase in transportation costs, and again, this is backed out because it does not apply to net school spending, but it's funded by the city and within the schools' budget. Can I just ask a question? On special education transportation, especially for out of district placements,
um, who arranges the that? Is it done within the district? >> Mhm. Okay. And so, I mean, you see the van pools all over, and I know they're quite costly. Um, does the city work to put more than one student on a van to reduce the cost?
I mean, a lot of times, in my experience, you'd see a van pulling up with one student or that student, um, or has even considered of, you know, if you have four kids, you know, two kids going to RFK, and Braintree has two, of doing something
inter-district to try to overall, you're all you're all experiencing the same thing, to try to work together to reduce your special education transportation costs. So, special education transportation doesn't quite work that way. You think it would, but it doesn't. Unfortunately, we pay per per student.
So, whether they're on one bus or we have 10 kids on the same bus, they charge us the same. It's very difficult for us. Am I saying that right, Joyce? Um So, it it really depends. Um so, sometimes yes, you can get more than one
kid on on the same bus on a similar route and we'll send them a bill with a discount. Um it's really not that easy because there's so many out-of-district placements, so many different ages, different start times, so many things to
factor in trying to reroute all these kids going from the city to city to school with different start times, different grade, high school, elementary. It it it's not that big of a savings and and I would say to anybody, you know,
the state just did a um they just looked at and did a big study around the future special ed transportation in the state and that was just released a couple months ago. It was a special council and that report would be very helpful in seeing what the
pitfalls are in special ed transportation across the state. So, we try to we try to minimize obviously we try to minimize cost wherever we can, but um it's often times just not possible. Are there Do you Are Do you happen to know are there any school districts that instead of outsourcing their transportation try to
do it within, buying their own vehicles and try to do their own vehicles? Um I'm sure there are like I know um Worcester does. I know there are districts that do that. Um I'm just wondering The The I I It's not a It's What's that? It's not cost effective.
>> Yeah, it's the Yeah, the amount of It's It's a cr- So, they can't find drivers. We're now putting ourselves in another business, trying to understand how to how to recruit drivers, train drivers, and do all of that stuff and that's not really our wheelhouse. Um
Which is why we usually go out. We'd also need facilities, we'd also need a lot more staff than just drivers cuz you'd need mechanics, you'd need backup buses. The capital was just huge. It's also added liability. Uh indirect costs
um last couple of years, last year were so large there were two um health insurance increases. Um indirect costs that are made up of uh various things. The largest two are obviously health insurance and then the second largest one would be the uh
retirement which is out of this hundred and hundred and $949,000 increase, retirement costs are just over a hundred thousand, somewhere in here. So, health insurance really drives the indirect costs.
And it's no secret it's happening on the city side, it's happening in every um city and town. >> [clears throat] >> The funding gap as of today assuming $300,000 over net school spending $793,600 $69 >> [clears throat]
>> short. We get this by coming up with the uh the total funding $46,807,000, the school budget $38,937,000. The backing out again transportation, that's the budgeted costs that do not apply to net school spending $4,089,000. The city budgeted indirect costs
$12,753,000. That gives us total net school spending of $47,600 $799. Um that is the ask and that contains a revenue shortfall again assuming
$300,000 over net school spending of almost $800,000. And there's also this hanging out. This is our These are federal grants. They obviously run through the federal fiscal year which ends September 30th. In the um these federal grants, it's
just over $2,000,000 and there's 18 and a half full-time equivalent people that are carried in there. Title 1, we've been told to expect a roughly a 10% cut and that's a 10% cut cut to the state, so then the state still has to divvy it up. Um
there is some dysfunction in Washington, which could affect these. We just bring this up to say it's not just that $39 million budget or $46 million foundation budget. We have $2 million out there in federal grants that help pay for all of
our operations, also. We find that out in August? We find that out when we find that out. So, just again, our enrollment trends, you know, have greatly shifted. Our high-needs populations are growing. Um I put this this graph in, which is another scatter
plot. And again, the accountability percentile is going from left to right. And then the Y axis, the the vertical axis, is above or below minimum net school spending. So, if you're right on that zero line, that means you're getting
100% of minimum net school spending, exactly 100, no more, no less. >> [clears throat] >> Um and as you can see, there is actually district way over to the upper right that gets about 100 150% above minimum net school spending. That
means they're getting 350% um um two I'm sorry, 250% of minimum net school spending. Um the reason I brought put this graph in though, is again, Gardiner High School is at the 45th percentile. And if you look at the schools that are along
that zero line for the X axis, um you'll see there's only one school that's on the line that's further right than us. That happens to be Holbrook. They have 51% high-needs students. But that's the only school that's on the line that's outperforming us.
Um This tells you that ultimately we you know, our funding isn't isn't huge. It's actually the um It's actually the 14th out of 215 schools out of those districts, we're the 14th
from the bottom. But we're getting these results because we have systems, we have processes that really work efficiently to support our students. Healthcare has gone up 62% over the last few years. Special education transportation has gone up 220% um percent since um
uh FY24. Um so we're really outperforming. So from these slides, I hope you see that we're outperforming the amount we're getting for funding and we're outperforming our high needs population what's expected. So the shortfall um
this shows what the shortfall is from what the target is to what we're getting funded. Um And you know, as um President Tyros said, you know, there has been a shift since FY21. I think the important thing to note is the school's been working with the the
city every year. For several years, there were there was no gap. We were able to use ESSER funds because COVID gave us a bunch of grant money. We were able to use ESSER funds and we've been spending down some those one-time monies that are getting eaten
up rather really quickly. Last year we asked for 400 400 plus thousand dollar increase and we got a 0% increase over minimum net school spending other than the 300 that we that we got from from the Medicaid. Um
This year, we're looking to start moving towards that. And again, we're working with the city. Um when you look at the we did a reorganization. This is from the you know, the um uh a things we cut um four administrators, three teachers, and four other positions that are, um,
uh, different positions. Um, in our reorganization. That's cutting Gardner Academy and a few district positions, and I'll show you those positions in a second. That cut over a million dollars. I'm never going to be able to cut a program like that again. I was able to do that this year. Um, if if I was to do it at
any time, this is the year to do it. We finally paid We're past the point where we have to pay back any money to the MSBA for the windows and the and the furnace. Um, we're also We also have Gardner High School at a very good place when it comes to their tiered supports.
So, having the 24 students go from Gardner Academy as a separate school out in in Elm Street, going in as a separate school in Gardner High School, um, will mean that the students are still getting different types of services. We're We're We're We're, um,
making sure we're going to try to meet their needs as necessary. Um, but I'm not going to be able to cut a program like that again. So, I was able to cut a million dollars from my budget by cutting that program, mostly. Um, and then I did another $487,000
in cuts, almost $500,000. So, this is almost 1.5 million in cuts. The positions, um, in the reorganization, um, we we, um, the district's MTSS director is now going to be the um, the MTSS administrator at the high school.
Um, so, we don't need the the central office sitting this in the central office anymore because quite frankly, she's just done a phenomenal job getting things up and running. Our administrators at the, um, middle school and the elementary school are doing phenomenally well. So, she will
coordinate some district, um, uh, convenings, but ultimately, she will now be the administrator at the high school. We were able to cut a nurse position, and that's just because we didn't fill it this year. We were still still able to service as kids. So, that was a position that we cut. We cut the SRO,
but to be clear, we're still going to keep the SRO is still going to be around because the city is going to fund them. Usually SROs are funded through through cities finances. These other positions are Garner Academy. Um and you know, I do want to say I was I was able to cut Garner Academy, but
I'm a little concerned. You know, when Garner Academy came in, we had a 10% you know, back in 2009, we had a 10% almost a 10% dropout rate. One in almost one in 10 kids was dropping out of Garner High School. Um when Garner Academy came, the next year it was a 5% and since then we've been at
steadily 3% and under 3% for our dropout rate. That's important. These are our kids that go that live in Garner and I can tell you hope is minimal for kids who drop out of high school in terms of getting a a sustainable job um
whether or not try to whether or not always struggling to be make ends meet. A lot of those students quite frankly are now my parents who are sending their kids to school. And they were just enfranchised and it took us a long time to redevelop the reputation of Garner Public Schools and
to win that back. And that's why people are staying in the district because we're doing a good job. Some other positions I was able to cut, we did cut a UA teacher at the middle school, so those UA classes are going to be larger, but fortunately we did we we kept the music position at the elementary school which has this huge
music program, so a lot of kids are going to now be in band and chorus. So, those class sizes will be large, but they're really thrilled about that, so that's okay. Um yeah. So, the unified art position at the middle school was one of the tech positions. >> Okay, that's right. Yeah.
Um there's a shared secretary between GHS and Garner Garner Academy. Um that position has traditionally come and gone every every few years. Every time they don't have it, the second we can get it back, they're
begging for it because the front office at Gardner High School is busy. And not having that not having that third person makes it really hard, especially when somebody's out. And this is about attendance and taking care of kids when they're coming in the building, making sure the building's
running well. It's an important position. We're going to do without it. But again, I know what's going to happen in that position. At Gardner Elementary School, we cut the librarian position and Mr. Martin has you know a plan around that.
We also cut a grade one teacher and power professional. That's going to make those class sizes go up. Fortunately, this year's kindergarten is a little smaller than this year's first grade. So the class size will only go up 1.5. So one between one and two students.
to cut because of numbers and we were able to cut a special education teacher from the high school. It's very rarely we cut special education teachers. I do want to say, you know, this year we got a DESI came in and they did a
special ed audit and we got we had no findings. Which sounds boring. But I can tell you Director West was thrilled that we got that that rating. It's extremely hard to get no findings in one
of these reports. And that's because again, we have systems in place, we have supports in place to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to do to support our students. Uh Dr. Yes. I don't know. Um I don't want to interrupt your flow, but I do want to ask about that. If there
are findings, what does that mean? That means they will >> have Does it cost us money? How do we have to It's It's sometimes It sometimes costs money. Often times we just have to revise our practices and procedures. But I will tell you there's a what we call a PRS. It's the problem resolution system
where any parent, if they're not getting what they need, um whether it's special education or in education in general, they can just call the state. And they can say anything they want. They can say, you know, you're not my kid missed the bus three times because the bus was too early. You're not providing free and
appropriate public education. We then spend days doing research on any claim that they make um to um to report back to the state. [clears throat] They have to provide a response. It's
a huge response which takes takes a lot of time. >> Okay. PRS now can also um provide um compensation. They can they can say, here's how you're going to make the person whole. Okay. Um so then they have that ability. Thank you. >> So yeah, it's really important.
Um lastly, we did cut an English language learner teacher. Um this is >> [clears throat] >> possible because of the numbers. I don't like this. What what's going to happen now is I cut half of a teacher from the middle school and a half of a
teacher from the high school. And what that means is to make sure we're meeting our we're meeting our um the hours that students need, I have a teacher who's going back and forth between the middle school and high school. And I can tell you, really difficult to do in terms of um the instructional time. It makes it much
harder for the people to do their job. And English language learner teachers are really hard to find. So it's hard it's going to be hard to find somebody and then keep them with a split position like this. Um that's how these cuts um you know, affected us. So
to me, the cuts that we have right now um hurt. Um things are going to change and they'll be difficult. Do I believe we can do this? I do. It's on the backs of the people though that are in the schools. They're going to have to pick up more. When we cut any position,
things shift and people are doing more and they're they're working harder, but I can't really ask them to not much harder. They're already doing what they can. My main concern um is the $793,000 gap.
If I don't start getting more money over minimum net school spending, I'm going to have to cut again. If I'm at 0% If I'm at just the 300 um 1,000 above that we get because of the Medicaid um reimbursement, um I'm going to have to cut next year.
And I'm concerned if I have to cut another 100 500,000 dollars, it's going to decimate my systems. We're not going to maintain the outcomes that we have. As you can see, we're on a we're on a tight budget, but we're doing great
despite that. And that's because we have great systems and have hard-working staff. That's the only reason we're doing so well. But if I keep cutting positions, it's going to hurt. I can tell you I'm going to start by cutting the outside, and that's going to be things like sports. I will tell you I was just talking with
the school counselor yesterday. There was a district right down the road and is talking about cutting sports. We had six applications for school choice coming to us. Things can change very quickly. Last year, we've been trying We've Again, we're trying to work with the
city. Last year, we asked for 400,000 above minimum net school spending. That's what we were looking for to maintain our services. We got 0% over minimum net school spending. What we're trying to do is work with you because we don't have these monies. These monies are going away. These
one-time monies are going away. It's not a way to fund an operational budget. And right now we have almost an $800,000 gap. And so I'm asking the the city council to recognize even if there's even if the budget that comes out, if it's not funding the schools the way
they need to be funded, I'm asking you to change that and make it so. I'm asking you to to fund the schools where we need to be funded. And to start moving towards above this minimum net school spending and start moving towards the target.
With that, that's all I have to say. Yep. I have a I have a couple questions. Um going back to previous slide presentations that you've done for us, um and usually, you know, you have the positions cut. Usually, you give us the prior the
priority list if you had if the if you got funds, what you would reinstate, what's the priority? Yeah. So, this is pretty much in priority order. Um other than the the special education teacher might be moved um
might be moved. But, right now, these positions are cut with the gap. If I got more money, um I might bring back some of these positions, but I I wouldn't be like I'm not like if you gave me money, I'm not going to be able to bring back these positions. Do you see what I'm saying? Like what I would what I would do is it would Right
now, we're using that one-time money, and it's so my my money's going like this. Our goal was to start having those one-time monies dwindle. Last year, what we wanted to do we we're going to cover 400,000 one-time monies. We were asking the city to step up with another 400,000. And so, this year, it's I'm
looking for the 800,000 if possible, but to move to start moving towards that 2.6 million. We can't just do the minimum piece of the 150,000. My other question is are there any additions? Are Did you add things? I mean, I know you absorbed the the
recreation director position from the city to the athletic director position. Are there any other additions that have occurred? I mean, sometimes you still add even though you need to cut things because It's a great question. No, that's that's a great question. Um it's we actually um added a preschool room. And the reason
is because our preschool kids aren't getting the services that they need. And there's no way with the staffing that we have that we were able to work that out. So, we had to add a room, which means a teacher and a paraprofessional in preschool. If those kids start out in preschool with a gap, it's almost impossible to get to come back from
that. So, we had to add that in. Our preschool at I'm not sure how much you know about our preschool, but preschool in public education is really focused on the students with special needs. And so, there are model students, and then there are students with special needs. And those students need services,
and they need a lot of services during their time in order to not have huge gaps when they get into that first grade. So, those are the two positions that we did add. Great question. And my last is I think it's important for people to realize when you discussed with, you know, working with the budget with the city, you're having those discussions with the mayor. There. Yes.
>> Okay. Not with us. This is when we hear about the school's finances and what the budget gaps are and the cuts. It would be nice if we had these conversations earlier, but I just think it's important to know that basically the decision on net school spending has
already been pretty much decided before you present make the presentation to us or the lack of us contributing more has it you're you're doing based on meetings [clears throat] that don't include the council. Right. Well, that's why I'm asking you now. So, you have the power
to increase our budget if if you feel that's necessary. With a 2/3 vote, you can in fact tell Mayor Pellegrino that. What's that? >> Is that a fact? Yes. Uh chapter 44 section 32, which oversees the city council, you can with a 2/3 vote override the budget that's
given if specifically for schools only. I've I've seen it in a stipulation in there. That's not for anything else. That is not something typical that that is not something typical that the city council has done. So, It's a rare exception. Absolutely. This is why but in you're absolutely right. I was invited to the meeting today, and
that's why I'm I'm having this conversation with you to let you know that minimum net school spending and just a $300,000 above, if that decision's already been made and we're not going to get more money, okay, we are where we are, but I'm telling you now, next year this is going to start
falling apart and that's my concern. Toxic is insistent. Thank you. Um, thank you for the presentation and for the your asks as well this evening. Um, I do want to respond to some of the comments that were made during [clears throat] the school bus budget presentation that was at the welfare committee meeting and also that
were uh, made again tonight and I think that similar comments were also made last year as well and I I think it's important to address them. Um, first, and this is also for the public watching as well, but you know, first I think it's important that everyone understands how school funding works in Massachusetts in general. In Gardner,
about 70% of the school budget comes from the state and the state also decides what the required school budget should be each year, as we've seen. Uh, in in in really simple terms, for about every $3 that the state contributes, the city's
required to contribute roughly $1. That matters because the state funding system has changed significantly over the last several years and it directly relates to the message that we've been hearing um, from, you know, superintendent, from the school business manager in these
meetings and so beginning in 2020, the state made major increases in education funding. Over the last 5 years, Gardner received roughly $12 million more in state aid for schools and because of the state formula, the city is also required to
increase its local contribution to about $3.5 million during that whole time. Obviously, [clears throat] costs have gone up and inflation is real, so that needs to be part of the conversation as well. Um, but if school spending had simply
kept pace with inflation since 2008, then we would be spending around $14,000 per student today. That's how I see it. Um, but instead we're spending closer to about $18,000 per student and And of that increase above inflation happened within the last 5 years or so, so even
while student enrollment has been declining. I wanted to start with those facts because I think that it's important for the context of this conversation. So, the idea that the city was somehow more supportive of school funding between 2012-2020
just is not supported by those numbers. And the suggestion that the mayor or this city council has not prioritized funding over the last 5 years is also inaccurate. As a city, we have increased for the schools at a faster rate than we have for any other part of municipal
government. At the same time, the solution cannot always be more money, more money, more money. We already spend more on the school budget than we do on the rest of the city government combined. That's important thing to note. I think it's
reasonable to expect stronger long-term planning and better financial forecasting in the future. I have tried to look at the bigger picture here, not just this year's budget gap. In my opinion, >> [laughter] >> we increased spending on staffing too
quickly and now we're facing the financial consequences of that. And some of those [clears throat] investments were necessary. There's no doubt about that. And there are absolutely needs within the school system that deserve that support. We've seen that here this evening. But we also have a responsibility to
make sure those commitments are sustainable over the long term. So, that's why I mentioned forecasting and planning. I do believe that decisions were made based on assumptions that future revenue would maybe continue growing, student enrollment would stabilize, and federal funding would continue, but unfortunately, those assumptions didn't
hold true, but they were fair assumptions. So, now we're entering the final and most expensive year of that contract while serving fewer students and bringing in less revenue. So, there should have been some warning signs last year when enrollment numbers came in
lower than expected on October 1st. But from what I can tell, the School Committee received limited information from the School Department until February. And And even now, it does not appear that they have that full picture. And as a result of that, both the School Committee and this Council are now being
forced to scramble here to make cuts and adjustments on short notice. You know, glad to entertain the ask, but that is That is the situation that we're in. And so, realistically, this conversation should have started during last year's budget process. And it was possible to
do that, but it didn't happen. So, just to kind of sum it up, my message kind of moving forward here is that, unless this truly turns out to be a one-time issue, issue, which I doubt it's going to be, we can't continue waiting until at this point next April, you know, to openly
address the next budget problem. We have to address what the issue is now. So, that's just what I wanted to put out there and clear up and state. Thank you. May I respond? Yes, please. >> Absolutely. Thanks. So, No one I'd never said this school This
um Council was short-sighted, nor did I say that it's your fault. Um for several years, quite frankly, we had a 0% gap because we we worked with I worked with the You're right. I worked with the mayor, absolutely. And we we came to that um conclusion. And so, there was 0
0 0. Last year, I did send up warning signs. I said we needed $400,000 more. And we were trying to do that. And quite frankly, when we um when we did our when we were doing our budget, we we were using our SR funds differently than others other districts were able to do.
Other districts had I don't know if you know, but some of the districts had to give their money back cuz they didn't spend it in the way that they needed to. We were able to actually have these one-time monies. And what we were doing was we were spending down the one-time monies, asking the city to start coming up
to to a higher rate. Last year was the first time I asked for $400,000 over minimum school spending. I was really concerned. We We We knew healthcare was going up. We do forecast >> [clears throat] >> quite frankly very well. When we hit that number, so and
let me say when it comes to the when it comes to the budget, the reason we got so much money was because our our numbers didn't go down. Our numbers went up. When you look at the number of enrollment, we were down in 2021 2200 students. We went up we were up to over
2500 students. That's why we're getting so much money. When you're getting that much money and you're increasing high need students, especially students with special needs that have specific people that you need to hire to support them. I have hired over the over the since I've been superintendent, I've hired a total
of 66 positions. 66 positions. Out of those positions um 58 of those positions are student facing positions. Teachers, mostly mostly people in the union. Um and then I've hired eight
administrators. Those were all needed things. One of the things that President Tyus, I appreciated your your opening remarks about healthcare and what those drivers are. They did another study back in 2015 on a on the foundation budget. What they found was again, healthcare was a was
one of the drivers. What happens is when healthcare goes up, we wind up stealing money. Stealing money is the wrong word to use, but we take money from typically maintenance and things that don't have anything to do with anything to make sure we're paying for those requirements. All those increases were
most requirements for our special education. I hired a lot of special education people. When I said I was investing in substantially separate programs, those were registered behavioral technicians, power professionals, um and special education teachers. Not to mention when we had the SOS, so when we first did the SOS,
Student Opportunity Act, when we were asked to get input from the community, we had a huge convening of of people. There were politicians, there were community members, families, parents, teachers, staff, all came together. There were 50 people in a room and we
looked at data and we said, "What is What is going on in Gardner Public Schools?" I will tell you, when I first became superintendent, I was taking three to seven calls a week about Waterford Street Schools, about kids who were becoming dysregulated in classrooms, and the classrooms being
evacuated constantly. I shouldn't say constantly, a lot during school weeks so other kids were losing time on education. So, what did we say? We said we needed more supports in the schools. We increased the number of staff um in the classrooms. We made sure that each one
of those classrooms has typically two stu um two adults in it. It's either a paraprofessional or a tutor or a special education teacher with the other teacher. Those calls are gone because we're now supporting students the way that they need to be supported. So, yes, I've increased staff, but our our
population from 2021 to 2025, to say that we didn't forecast that, we did a great job of landing in a spot where we have the right amount of people. Even last year to ask for only $400,000 over minimum net school spending, if you had come up with with some money, that would
have been helpful. That's all. I'm not saying that it's the school that the city council's fault. I didn't come here in with with um uh this much passion in my previous experiences because quite frankly, we were doing really well. The state was funding us more and more and we were
getting these huge grow um we were seeing a lot of growth. Last year was the first year that I asked for an increase, and I didn't get an increase. And so, this year I'm I'm I'm I'm saying this louder because I held up the flag last year. I tried to give the warning,
and that didn't That fell That fell flat. So, I need to be louder. And we don't have the the budget until February. And we started talking with the mayor and the and and the city council president in February, March to talk about the the
that we had. So, I did bring this up. I brought this to the city. That's my job, and I make sure that that we're I'm informing them as much as I can. I don't know what else I what else I can do. You're saying I bring it at the last minute. This is the way the the budget rolls out, and you're right, 2/3 of our
budget is from the state. So, we depend a lot on Chapter 70 funds. This is not like some of these other towns that only have 40,000 from the state, and most of it's from local taxes. We get a lot from the state, so I can't figure this out until we get these numbers. Was I
expecting a little more this year? Yes, I was expecting last year of SLOA to at least be larger, um and it wasn't. We were we were able to respond, and I was able to cut $1.5 million, and I'm not asking for that $1.5 million back. I'm not saying that I'm So, again,
we're really trying to make sure we're meeting the needs of the city. All I'm saying is we need to start moving towards that target. So, I'm not blaming anybody. I didn't blame anybody the other day, either. I didn't bring up the city council, saying the city council didn't do this. I'm just showing you the numbers. The numbers are there.
I'd like to interject. I think uh and then Counselor Tibbetts, you know, I'll call you. I think the counselor's position is coming from a piece of collaboration and increased communication. I think what what the council has heard is that the minimum has been met. What the council has not heard also in that
statement is that the target's also moved. I think the counselor brought up data about the costs increasing, the minimum requirements increasing from the state. That's where, you know, not just the school department, which is a big slice of of our city's overall finances of the pie, uh every every department in
the city has come through this chamber with requests that have meet an increased rigor of financial oversight, cuz that's our job. It's our job to ask the questions. It's our job to look at, you know, I I remember your flare that you sent up last uh budget season, and and I caught
it, right? And since past May, there hasn't been any public hearing requests or discussions outside of 8 weeks ago, your initial discussion of um some of the issues that we're facing. And where that concerns us as a council is we heard the SR cliffs coming, right? The money
had to be spent. It was spent smartly, I think a lot of us would agree with. Uh but when we look at are we right-sized to serve our needs? I don't think any of us want to step backwards, especially to the 2017, sorry, 2007 to 2011 you know, five principals in four years was not a
pleasant experience. Uh I don't ever want to see our schools go back to that. And I think when the counselor or the council asks a question around right-sizing and the numbers, it's coming from a place of how can we help? And that's where uh the discussions
really do need to start this year for next year's solutions. Uh it's May, our budget needs to be passed by July 1st. Uh you know, there is a tight crunch in every single department the city is facing. Across across the old city. Uh we will have issues with students
wanting to come to Gardner if if the roads are not paved, if the toilets do not flush. Those are issues that we need to to face here. So, uh I think what what the counselor would like to hear, you know, and what I would like to hear is since the 12-month period of the flare going up, what has been some of
that financial forecasting, any simulations, uh anything we could do differently this year moving into next year cuz the issues are going to persist. They're not going away this budget cycle. I fear next year's budget might be tougher than this year. And you've [clears throat] pulled one
big lever with Gardner Academy, right? That's a structural change. >> Yep. What else is there available? That's what I'm trying to tell you. Like >> [snorts] >> we're the the number of people I have, I don't have ex- I don't have a glut of people. The The people I have, when we
look when I when I hire folks, I'm I'm we we don't I'm not hiring to have tiny class sizes. The only The only thing The only big lever I had was Gardner Academy. When I hired, I I'm thinking of my of my of of our
caseload size. Our caseload sizes are where they're supposed to be. They're not huge and they're not small. They're right where they're supposed to be and that's how you service kids. I can't just cut more positions and I didn't add extra positions. I I I don't
I don't I don't know what what make anybody like that, but I clearly had a huge increase in numbers and so I had to increase staff. I I don't And so for for for casting, we we wait we we have the state numbers that come
out in in February. Um you never know what the state's necessarily going to do. Um but we actually tried to make this so again the city would have kind of a soft landing. Um and that's why we had 0000 for um a gap
those several years. And so the only thing that's that's drastically changed are those two numbers. Healthcare went up twice last year and once again this year, which were huge numbers. Our indirects used to be So you're talking about forecasting, our indirects used to be
between 500 700,000 was huge change in indirects. That would be huge. We had 1.2 [clears throat] last year and we had set 900,000 this year. That How could I predict something like that? How could any of us have predicted that? We knew we knew it was going to go up, but I wouldn't I wouldn't think 1.2
million. I wouldn't think 900,000. >> there's a very real reason why when you turn on the news, you hear about overrides and two and a halves failing across the Commonwealth. It's just a fact that costs are rising at an exorbitant rate. Uh just earlier today
the finance committee met about the city's water rates where we heard we must pass a 20% increase in the rates or else our enterprise fund will run to zero in a few months this fiscal year. Right. So These are big problems that we need to work together on. I agree and that's
why I cut $1.5 million and I'm saying that I can't cut $1.5 million. I can't cut more. Like I'm I'm I'm bare at that. And this is important for the public to hear cuz I think this is this is a big problem for us to all solve together. Fair enough. Councilor Tubbs Burnett, I did call.
Thank you President Tyros. Thank you both for your presentation, your leadership Dr. Pellegrino and um keeping um students in the district in particular early college. I think it's a lot to do with that and uh and the other wrap-around services for
special education students. Um I just I had a question and I have a comment um about the the influx of students from calls uh and how that impacts [clears throat] uh the the services that you talked about uh having to require you know, or
or to keep students in the district the in particular the majority of students are 2 you said 67% uh ESL D uh uh students with disabilities and low income. Um how does how does that impact there and then I also noted that you there's a cut to a special education
teacher. Not sure if that's at the high school cuz I or where that's at but uh Yeah, so we'll have a a special education teacher still dedicated to the students for Gardner Academy. And we have the tiered supports at Gardner High School itself. So they'll be able to participate in all those tiered services and they'll be
able to to get um to get those services. Keeping it as a separate school also will allow us we're going to be able to um do some creative things in terms of the amount of time they need to be in the school. Um and so they they should be getting the supports they need. And we're also looking at um Gateway to
College. While that's been shrinking um where a lot of other districts have been um uh taking that over on their own, it's not just through us anymore. We're actually looking at working with the college for some of the foundational courses to expand what they're doing but also
give them extra support at the school to to make sure that they're able to participate. Thank you. And that that leads me to to the concern or the comment as related to looking at the cuts, you know, 10 folks who serve the most vulnerable
students in our district, right? And and from experiences you know, I was a Gateway to College advisor for 12 years. I know that the students who are in that program, which is a program for everyone else might not know about it, the most
the students who are making it in the in the traditional public school setting have an opportunity to go to college through a dual enrollment program which I've seen over time go from 50 to 60 students a year to I think
there's like six in the program right now, right? That's a safety net for those students in this area. It's a partnership with with the district. Also with the with Gault closing. Also the other thing I have to say about the students in in these this population is when I say they didn't
make it at the high school, some of that's related to at home, right? Some of that's related to whatever is happening at home, but a lot of times students leave the district to go to an alternative school, whether it's ours or somewhere else or to the Gateway to College program
because of the toxicity at the high school, right? It's the you know, the bullying either by staff or by students by their fellow students or or things like that where they've got a target on their back and so on. They need a safety net. They need a place to
to go so they can be successful. So I share your concern about the the the decrease that you the decrease you've seen in the dropout rate as a result of having Gault and meanwhile, you know, seeing the shrinking of both or or the
disappearance or or or moving that into the high school and cutting 10 staff and at the same time that the Gateway to College program cuz the only other safety nets are and this is this relates to choice school choice are that those students if they're not getting the services here
are going to be choice into another alternative school, right? Um and uh and that that's that's of course is going to affect all the numbers that you know, you have all the progress that you've made, right? I mean that I think that I just wanted to put that out as a concern because it's you know, um
you know, this often times happens with with budgets I've seen in in in Fitchburg when I was on school committee there and in in a youth center I worked in Worcester, a lot of times the the first cuts come to the [snorts] folks
um affect the folks who are most most vulnerable. Um thank you very much for that. You know, and and um you know, as a former principal of of that school, um you know, this is this is really important to me. I will say Gardner High School um the toxicity the reason there's only 24
students it used to be we'd have 60 students that were from Gardner going to Gardner Academy. Um then we'd have about 40 school choice students going to Gardner Academy. Right now we have 24 students going to Gardner Academy. So Gardner High School has been doing a much better job of um
uh getting rid of that toxic toxicity especially from from teachers. Teachers have been phenomenally supportive and are really invested in the the our MTSS system um as well as supporting kids in the classroom, all kids, and then um you
know, going above and beyond for kids who need a little bit more. Um so I think a lot of that shifted. Um bullying happens everywhere without a doubt, but I do have the administrators who are who follow our bullying plan. We have a very good bullying plan, so we do address that um
to the best of our ability. Um Am I going to be Am I going to be watching this closely? Absolutely, I am. So, we're going to want to make sure that we we support those students. Also, having the uh the Maki building now is an automotive program with Montachusett. Uh and we have the MVP program. Those
are all programs that they've been participating in, um which has really um changed some of the dynamics at even Gardner in the county county where it is. Um a lot of the kids are now a lot more invested in school cuz they can they can see a future for themselves. So, those are some of the things we're doing. Thank you.
Councilor Mack. I just want to feed back on that as somebody who probably has probably the most experience at this table with Gardner High School and the education process that has occurred. Um I just want to clarify that the majority of the students in my 23 years in the school counseling office at
Gardner High who went to GOLF when it was created, a lot of them it was family issues. It was um you know, attendance issues. It wasn't just for social emotional issues that they were concerned about. And a a lot of them fell behind in credits. They had a horrible freshman
sophomore year. And when we looked at things, we realized that student was going to be on a a five or plus year program to graduate from high school. GOLF gives them the ability to catch up on their credits based on the structure of it as well as
the ability to take online classes. Um so, some of them could double up. And they they just they needed that small environment. I'm pretty much assured that they're still going to get that at Gardner High School. I don't think that's going to change because the location they're
going to be in at the high school is self-contained. It's 109 which started off as a preschool room years ago and is now the special ed office. And next door to it is the library. It was the library office when the building opened up in 1976. It was That was the old library.
Then it became WGET. Okay, those are pretty much self-contained with the library. Guidance is across the street. Your EL teachers are there. And and it's accessible for those students to come in and out of the building and not disrupt the other classes as well, which is very important.
But with the MVP program with foundation classes, which is huge, these are the kids that you want to have them take their foundation classes so they can place into college classes at the mouth. I I I just think that there's to me there's I don't want to see this as a negative
thing. I think it's positive because, you know, Gault has had its issues. I would be the first one to admit that over the years. But it's also assisted a lot of a lot of non-traditional students. And I I think that we all have to give it the benefit of the doubt that the district is still going to support
these students. Thank you. Councilor Councilor Cousins says Um I just I just want to be really clear [clears throat] um from the comments I made earlier and from the superintendent's response too. Like I have always acknowledged in the last, you know, nine budget presentations I've sat through here. I
remember in 2018-2019 when you made your first one giving a five-year plan of what was going to happen, learning about our ABTs, all those things. Like always supported the schools, always understand the importance of it. It's the foundation of our community. It's over half our budget. It is incredibly important. You've done a fantastic job. So, none of my comments take away from
any of that. I just wanted to make it really clear about the fact that you know, over the last five years the um because of the state formula, the city has also been required to increase its local contribution by three and a half million dollars. So, we've been required
to do that. And so, it is absolutely reasonable to work together and to talk about adding more on top of that requirement that we've had. But that's also affects city side of things and and the budget that we the the money that we have to increase to give just as a requirement. So,
everybody bursts at the seams at the same time, right? Like that's that's part of it. And I just in terms of the preparation piece of it, yes, there was an ask last year and and you know, and we knew the budget was going to be the state budget was going to be tight last year. We knew it was going to be tight again this year. We were all told that to begin with and we're all feeling it. Um
but it's just in terms of, you know, the the the planning piece of it and then forecasting piece of it at this point, like knowing that the population has gone down at the school. I mean, that that is the issue a lot of places in a lot of school districts is that enrollment is is the problem. Um so, you
know, I just I I really I don't think I have to defend that cuz I think that's always been pretty clear about where I stand with these kinds of things, but I just wanted that to be acknowledged whereas like it it's it's we are we want to work together and want to collaborate for sure and I and I can speak for myself, but I think, you know, the council is a collaborative of body on
that piece. Um but I I do want to say like what it how it has affected our side of things as well when, you know, the state changes things that they do, too. So, it's it was definitely not to be that there was, you know, any blame or pointing fingers, but when, you
know, what the matter of the conversation and saying like what, you know, we've been hearing, we also need to acknowledge this other side of it as well and I just think that's important. Thank you, counselor, for the comments. Just one last comment. I It's actually a question and it comes back to what
uh Counselor Kuszewski said in her statement. Um other than the presentation last night to the school committee, the the the presentation. What is the involvement of the school committee in the budget process? Do they have any idea before the meeting last
night what things occur? Cuz I think that I mean, we as a city council, we're I mean, we're having individual budget meetings with all the departments um in our committees. And then And so, none of us is surprised by anything. We're part of the process pretty much
all along. And I'm just wondering if the school committee isn't, is there a reason why? Um, they're involved through finance. Um, the finance subcommittee. Um, it was what, 2 months ago we started talking about um, where the budget was at that point when we get the numbers.
What do you say? Uh, probably March 1st. So, that's that's about when they when they do it. We're working on the budget itself and then we come up with our prioritized list and then when we hear from the from the state, well, here's the state number, right? And here's what the minimum contribution is, that's when
I start saying, okay, so that makes it real. We um, very reluctant to um, put out big info big information only because like this is people's livelihood. So, I don't I don't want positions or anything, but I'm happy to come to, you know, I had
spoken to the mayor months ago about this. I I've spoken to President Tyros months ago, too. I'm always like, if you want me to come and just give a a couple quick things, I can give some things, you know, if we wanted to talk about what the what the numbers were from the from the state, I could
have presented I can present on that if you'd like me to come to additional meetings, no problem. Any other questions from the council? Council Heath? Thank you, um, President Tyros. Um, I just had a quick question. Um, it was more of um, well, obviously the numbers dropped on
enrollments, but are you keeping track of how many kids go from the elementary school to the middle school? How many transition and how many go from the middle school to the high school? The reason why I ask is cuz I know the middle school has had a lot of uh, movement.
A lot of movement and I'm wondering how many kids from the middle school are going to high school. And I'm asking that because of course I deal with a lot. Yeah. Um, I haven't I haven't seen any any different like um, spikes or trends of a bunch of kids leaving um, at the at the
before they go to the middle school. I've seen that, but I can look into that. Um but you're right, the middle school was has been a struggle. And one of the things that we did this year was we I think the word would be begged Sherry Gelinas from the high school to
go to the middle school as the assistant principal. So the new principal I actually asked That was a good move. So and she's been phenomenal and the new principal Brian Cody is just wonderful. So they've turned things around at that school. It's it's been just a
a great move. So that's been where my turnover is. You know, one of the things the school committee charged me with was not having a revolving door of principals you know, at in the district. Um And so that's been my job is to maintain
some stability. And we've had a lot of stability at the elementary school and the high school. Um We haven't had as as much stability with administration at the middle school. I think that's contributed to it. Um I can be tough to work for sometimes and
I expect a lot of my administrators. They work more hours than they're supposed to than they're you would expect and more days than than a contract provides. They work really really hard and so I have just a very high expectations and so some people have moved on from the
middle school, but I think we have a great team there right now who's really shaping that school and I'm really excited about what the outcomes are for this year. Any further council comments or questions? Yeah. My question I had was federal grant money is that
assumed in the budget so the shortfall is So we're expecting so we we've heard from the state we're we're expecting right now this is their best estimate from title one is our biggest is our biggest number. That's over $800,000. It's 15.5
positions I believe. Um that is we're we're looking at that was a cut of what 74,000 I think is what the last number was. Um from the state that they're expecting. >> fall already? That's already that's already calculated within it, yes.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we were expecting the the grants to be cut. We just didn't know how badly. But what else is cut? What else falls? Um I don't think there's anything really about the first The hard right the hard part about the grants is yeah, you're not going to know
until later. Any further questions? I did want to point out on this slide. This is a poor graph in the bottom right, but it shows a glide path of this year's foundation budget and the um mandated minimum net school spending. If we zoomed in and I was trying to find
a slide or a graph of that. If we zoomed in, there is a glide path in grants to the DSOA and an increase. Instead of going up, I'm making up a number here, three or four hundred thousand dollars a year, it went up four or five hundred thousand dollars a year, but it was not fantastically exorbitant.
Um we do have a pro forma, but it's it's a wild guess because the um GBA unit A and B, their contract ends in this year. So, there's going to be negotiations. What that lands on, I don't know. I can put a guess in there.
What chapter 70 is going to be for next year, I'm guessing it's a 2% increase cuz that's relatively what we got this year. Um but we also have the millionaires tax which has been flooding the state coffers with money which is supposed to be spent on transportation and
education. So, I believe that a lot of that money was spent to help fund the SOHA. So, is there new money from the state or is it the millionaires tax? That's for someone else to decide. During that increase in population,
we did see good size jumps, but it's because of the per student price that we got. So, there was more money than anticipated because of the student enrollment increase. We didn't predict the student enrollment increase. It was a happy surprise. We
didn't predict the 60 kids lost. We thought we'd stay even around 2,500. And also those numbers are not the students in front of us, but it's the students that we're also financially responsible for, which may be somewhere else we don't know. So, we don't have We Last year we I think it
was 2,532 was our student enrollment. Our number said 2,500, so that means there were 32 students that were financially responsible for that weren't in front of us. So, there's a lot a lot of variables going in. And again, the wildest one is
indirect. If you can guarantee me that indirect are going to be 7% for the next couple years, I think we can make this all work. We haven't seen a 7% increase in indirect in several years. So, we do plan. We plan a
lot, but with so many wild variables, it's almost impossible. It's really just a wild ass guess. Any other council questions? I just like to speak on that before we end. I think you know, I'm a firm believer that hope isn't a strategy. Uh that, you know,
even if a problem has multiple variables, there's probabilities you can assign to them and there's models that you can look at. I think the problems that we're facing as I brought up when we opened this meeting are the same for 2010 and probably same for longer than that. If it takes us as a city working
differently, I think we should set the standard higher. If there's joint sessions between the City Council and the School Committee that need to be booked for Dr. Pellegrino, you and Director Hawk to come in front of us, I think that's I think we should do that. I think that's reasonable. And I think
when we know a number's coming, whether it be a federal number in October. We should have a session in November. If we know our census is coming out in November, we should have a session in December. We should get ahead of these problems and we should be more proactive this year cuz it could make a big difference next year. And I think
that's a big theme I've taken away from tonight. We need to look at this problem differently than we have in the past. If there's structure that we can put in place, and this is something we're doing across the city where we're at least trying to, right? Looking at structures, looking at policies. How do we do things
differently? Cuz I think the problems are far too numerous. They're too volatile and the stakes are too high. There's no other questions. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Motion made by Councillor Kazinski and second by Councillor Cormier to adjourn. All those in [clears throat] favor, aye.
All those against, no. We stand adjourned.