All right, everybody. I'll call this meeting to order. It's 6:02 p.m. This is the regular meeting of the Ways and Means Committee, Tuesday, May 19th. Uh, I'll start with the roll call of members. Councelor Bulock had an emergency will not be here tonight. I'm
councelor Botmley, I'm here. Councelor Cibison, not here yet. Councelor Williams >> here. >> Councelor Webb >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> Two minutes. Um, we have no minutes to approve
public comment. Anyone uh in the room uh can sign the public comment and have three minutes. Anyone online want to do public comment? >> Name in the chat. >> You see anyone?
>> Okay. Hearing no. >> You have to ask it in this taping. >> Oh yeah. If anyone is recording the meeting, let me know at this time. Don't see any. Great. >> Have one person for public comment. >> Oh, two. >> Peter and then Pamela. Good one.
>> Great. So, we'll start with um Peter, please say your name and where you live. And you got three minutes. >> Hi there. Um my name is Peter Hunt. I live at 108 Stone Farm Lane. Um I'm just
here to comment um in support of um funding the schools um investing more in the schools and uh you know and uh the continued uh certainty of the way that um the police budget is being used. I appreciate that um and would love that
to continue. Um that's all. Thank you. >> Thank you Pamela Goodwin. >> Uh Pamela Goodwin. >> Yes. Hi. Um, I apologize because I just now looked at this agenda for this meeting. So, um, I guess I just want to
say a couple of things. I mean, I've really tried hard to follow all the ways and means. Uh, I usually am there in person, but um, this is so intense and so complicated that I can't keep up with
it and I try really hard. So I also will say uh you know like I'm thinking like oh I don't know where that 176 main is. Which one is it? Is that the RDI? Is that somewhere else? So I just am illprepared. I admit it. I want to thank
you for all your hard work. I like the fact that you're trying really hard to let the public know at all of these various ways and means. You know, listening to DPW, I listen to the public safety. you know, and now I'm looking at this agenda going like, "Oh god, I don't
even know what to say." So, I will just say thank you for all your hard work. Thank you for trying to get the public to be informed. I don't like some stuff I'm seeing on Facebook. I don't even trust Facebook, but I do trust a lot of hardworking people in the city. I also
would love to see that we would have enough money to do what the schools need. Um, I know we can't and we don't and I just want to say we've we've done everything we can. You people have worked immensely hard trying to figure
this out and I trust in you. And then I trust that on, you know, tomorrow night people will be civil and understanding and gracious and know that we are at the state's mercy about some of this and
we're at the federal government's mercy. And so I just want to say you guys have been rocking it and I don't want to hear a bunch of people say I never got a chance to talk. I didn't go to a hearing. I didn't give my two
cents because that's what irritates me the most is the people who gripe should come and make a comment just as Peter just did, just as I am saying. You don't have to be a rocket science. You just have to say what you support. And lastly, I absolutely do not want to
defund the police cuz we've all known what that happened. And if if you listened, you knew a guy showed up with a grenade at the police station. Then we had all the forest fires. Then we had an emergency uh preparation meeting that
was, you know, people showed up. I wish we'd had a bigger crowd. We can't afford to not have the services that we really need. And yes, I'd love to see the wreck building funded, but you know what? We're robbing Peter to pay Paul and
we're doing the best we can. So, I'll just close with that. Thank you. >> Thank you. And Molly Merritt. Molly Merritt. >> Hi. I don't know why I'm blurry. Oh, there we go. Um, hi Molly Merritt,
Precinct 7. Um yeah, I want to echo um what Pamela said. Really appreciate the hard work of everyone on the council and ways and means and everyone working on the budget and appreciate the hard work of the school committee trying to figure out how to fund our schools. Um yeah,
just another voice to advocate for school funding. Um that it's an investment in the future of our city. Um I'm a parent. I have a three-year-old. I really hope to send her to Newton school. Um, a lot of parents that that I
know are talking about where they're going to try to choice their kid out of the district because they see the schools being defunded year after year. And um that makes me sad. I want to I want um parents in this town to send their kids to the schools. And I also
understand why people are making that choice because they see that the schools are inadequately funded and that we're having trouble filling positions because people are going elsewhere. Um so we should have a vision um for the future of Greenfield. Um and that is going to
include um doing everything we can for our kids. Um so please fully fund the schools. Uh please restore the funding for the middle school recck room position. Um, another super important thing that matters to a lot of Greenfield families. Um, and yeah, I
watched the presentation last week from um, Chief Dodge and was just really concerned. Um, he couldn't answer a lot of questions about what the police budget is for. Um, a lot of budget lines were inflated and my city councelor told
me last year that we had to be able to um, justify every single cent in in the school budget. and we're definitely not justifying every single scent in the police budget. So, it seems like a really unfair double standard. I think our kids are more important. Um,
investing in our kids is preventative public safety. We need to give them something to do. Um, and that kids should come first. Thanks. >> Thank you. That looks like everybody. Great. And there's no one in the room,
so we will move on. there's no um public hearings and then hopefully without objection I'm going to move this order around because we start with motion but I think I'd like to move to the school budget so we can get people that
are here through this and we can discuss community preservation act items um after everybody's done. Um, so let's see. Let's move to let's start with um Franklin County
Technical School. >> Brendan Martin, welcome. >> How you doing? >> Well, I know you have a copy of the budget. Um, I'm on Zoom right now. It just be easier for me to show it, right? So the people at home and here can see
it. Um, so I want to see if I can share my screen. >> Yeah, let me make you a post. >> That's what that was a trick we did a few years ago. It came over pretty >> Are you your Rick Martin? Yes. Zoom.
Okay. >> I have Liz Bushad, our business manager. The first year here and foundations of district. We're excited to have her on board. Great. You should see a fellow host. Thanks for coming.
Okay. All right. Um, this presentation about 15 minutes or so. We're going to just really focus on what it is for Greenfield if we could. Um, this is the budget group that you have, but what you probably may or may not be aware of that
everything in the budget book has a link and is clickable. So, whatever you need to find, it will take you to that page. So, the first place we're going to go is the sources of funding. Um, and this is really this top screen
is how we receive our money. And we have the assessment to the town. We show a five-year trend and what that looks like. Um, and for Greenfield, we're going to go, we have 19 member
towns. And for Greenfield, we see it right here. Here's your enrollment the last four years. right here. So, it's gone down by six students. So, you would naturally assume the assessment has gone down. However, the
assessment has gone up, right? And that's in large part to the minimum contribution. The state has now increased in the last 5 years field minimum contribution by 36%. Even though the enrollment's only been
up 4%. So you're not it's a continued problem. I think it was mentioned in one of the comments and uh as it relates to um not getting the support from the state your average per pupil cost for green field is 11,478
um for the assessment. Our average for all 19 member towns is down below at 13,600. So that just kind of gives you a broad range of where we are with Greenfield. I was very taken back over the last calendar year that Greenfield's
assessment per pupil went from like 9,900 up to 11,478. Usually I don't see that big of a jump that shows it shows the economic status of what's going on with insuranceances and operational cost as well as the big one
the minimum contributions. So, um, when you click this book, you can just go back to the file left, go back to the sources of funding, and it will take us to, uh, debt service. That's our old windows, doors, and paving project. And got a few more years left on that. That
just shows what it costs per town. So, let's go to Greenfield. That proportion right here is changed every two years based on the equalized valuation method. So, it's 50,480. How does that compare to previous years? It
goes up and down, you know, $100 to $300 every couple years. It doesn't change drastically um for all of our 19 member towns. We go back here. Chapter 70. Here's
another area which we talk about. We're not getting if we go to the cherry sheet. If you're not familiar with the cherry sheet at home or in the crowd, that's the department of revenue where they dictate kind of what each school will receive for their reimbursement for chapter 70 and regional transportation.
Um, one of the key components of this is I heard a comment earlier talking about the transparency and budget and we work real hard on taking our time and making sure it's fairly transparent. So, when I go down to the cherry sheet right here, the Department of Revenue, and I click
that button, oh, it's not allowing me to share. >> Assume it won't allow you. >> It won't allow me to share. Okay. So, when you're at home, um, you can click that button. Whoop, that's a valatoran speech by somebody. Um, you would click that button and it will take you right to the Department of Revenue. And the
sheet I'm showing you now will be the exact numbers for Franklin County Tech. But you can scroll to any school district in the entire state and it will show you what that chapter 7 money is and what that regional transportation. You see 6.248 248 million for chapter 70
and 959,000 plus for regional transportation. When I go back to the sources of funding, you'll see our chapter 78 is 6.248 million and our regional transportation. So, we're just using the dollars that
are provided to us in that category. Uh regional transportation is a a big um dilemma for us because uh we have the largest geographical area in the entire state with 561 square miles of bus
routes and territory. Um and we have to our tax pace and our towns have to come up with $400,000 about when you look down here and you see how we spend the money, we have to come up with 1.297 297 for the to to
fund the transportation. So where did that money come from? It's just we're not getting funded according to the promises that were dictated in legislation that they would fund regional transportation at 100%. And especially out here where we really need
it. Um just concerned about how they're treating Western Mass out here. Um non-member towns are those who aren't part of Franklin County Tech. um we had to use basically all of our non-member
town money to help offset the budget and uh the biggest cause of that was our increased insuranceances which we'll get to in a moment. Uh pre-employment program right here is our self-contained. We were we had a few more students so we're able to take
100,000 from there. other revenues. Primarily, we are a vocational technical shop where when we replace um old equipment with new equipment, we're able to auction that money off. And there's Medicaid reimbursements and things like that. And then excess and deficiency.
This is the this is the money that's unspent from the previous year. We're using every penny of it. So, unfortunately, when I go into excess and deficiency, we have whole paragraph that explains it. So I think what's important here is it won't show it here because on Zoom they don't allow you to go to the
external links is right down here if I were to click that it would give you the exact figure but Franklin County Tech or any other school district you just scroll and find it and it comes out to the exact amount of the um 533,747.
So, we're using every penny of our excess and deficiency to help balance the budget in light over the last calendar year of a $1.2 million increase in unanticipated insurance um increases. It's it's been devastating which allowed
um which provided for some layoffs and you'll see in our instructional um services line item. Even though our enrollment is steady, we had to decrease that line item here. You'll see it from the previous year at 8 million. Um the
district leadership in administration was just a change from an experienced um 28-year veteran uh business manager to Liz. And so there's a little bit of a cost savings there. That's primarily what that was. Um I didn't bring her on
for that reason by the way just for um and and then we have uh student services uh that's your athletics and your safety and cafeteria and all of that information that's pretty much stayed
flat. We just talked about the regional transportation plant operation and maintenance kind of stayed steady over the last year. Um retirement contributions. So here's where you start to see it. So we have retirement contributions going up, you know, 250
300,000. You have insuranceances. Well, from the previous year when we got build, it was 1.584. We're now at 2.4, right? And now we have, you know, other jump. We were at 551,
now we're at 116. Um, so those were the biggest jumps and that's kind of was a budget driver. It's unfortunate. Um, but we just recently changed insurance companies because we're not going to do this roller
coaster ride again. Um, remember rental lease equipment, uh, capital stabilization budget, as you notice, we came way down on that just to balance the budget. Um, a debt service we talked about earlier. school choice tuition
saying, "Well, why don't we get school choice?" We don't have school choice, but Monty Tech does. So, if there's a student who gets into the Monty Tech school that's part of a member town um with with the town of Monty Tech,
they we are obligated by law to pay the school choice tuition of $6,054 or whatever that number is for. So, this is about two students that maybe were from the town of Orange or uh New Salem or pretty close about that are going to
Monty Tech. Um transfer to OPED. That's just um to help with our bond rating. You know, we couldn't take as much out of it this year. So, um Liz is a great accountant. So when you take it and you look at the how much money we on the top line, how much money we actually
um received and how much money we spent, you'll see the balance. Now the important part that I wanted to get across here is I'll just scroll quickly rather than try to find a link. Everything in our budget is laid out pretty transparent. All of the trends, >> every position,
>> every position is not lumped. So you get a pretty good idea where our budget's at. Um and and then we go to where we're at with Greenfield enrollment trends, too. Um and so here's kind of where we are with
all the schools. Now, this is other data that we collect to try to budget correctly over the course of 10 years. So, if you go down the deesc um state report, you can find all of these numbers. These are recent. So these are the numbers that are the most
recent numbers on the department um of ed state reports enrollment and so that gives you an idea of where each of the school districts are. So if I have a large amount of seventh or eighth graders coming in you can project where that might land. Here's an interesting
chart and this is uh 2025 26 year. You see we're right here at 172 with the orange that's in incoming freshmen. The blue represents the
available eighth graders according to the chart above and um that are in Franklin County. So out of those available eighth grade there were 585. We have 172 roughly around that 28 to 30
percentile about 30% of that population. I would argue that we take less kids now than we did back here in 2015 16 on a percentage basis when we had 132 the catchment area was way up here 662 with
the enrollment but we only had 150 applicants here with the 172 we had 290 applicants so percentage wise it's not as high um when I put that out this is why you can do this 10 years out in any type of
budget, you know who's in the seat. When you look at the school attending report that if you press that, it will show every single town in the Commonwealth exactly who's in kindergarten all the way to 12th grade. And you can calculate that for yourselves. But when I look at
where we are trending in that catchment area as 8th graders, you see how it's going down. It's slowly going down. So down to 525 and if you know by the early 2334 so we maintain our percentage our number
will come down. You see that orange that's going to come down too. So we'll stay within that same catchment area. Um when I look at in district enrollment this is where we are now. So this is where we were trending where and I told everyone last
year that that would be our high point. we're going to start slowly. We'll slowly based on the numbers I showed you above, that's what's going to end up happening. Um, and that's always good for future planning because when we do budget reductions in the past, I
would I doing this for 18 years. I would start reducing staff three or four years out rather than one big hit, right? Because you can see it coming down the road or vice versa. And that's let's see where else are any
other candy for you? Um >> last slides. >> Oh the last slide just to be true to Franklin County Tech. These are all of the vocational schools in the entire state from a regional perspective. Um and these are the students who have
declared their intent to go into the workforce in which they were trained at their vocational schools. Franklin County Tech um was easily number one across the state for the three consecutive years there. Um so we're holding true to our mission.
Unfortunately, many both schools don't get the message. The ones who get state and national attention are down here and all those kids are going to Harvard, MIT, you know, they're taking all the top kids who are our member schools. Greenfield does a great job getting our
kids into the college tracks and so do many of our other schools. Let's let them we're a partner with our regional school districts and with our member school districts and because we partner we're able to have this and when you
don't partner you're down here, you know, and I think that's that chart tells a lot about staying true to our mission. Um, so that's my go 15. No, I said I'd be done in 15. That is uh that's about right. I'll take any
questions. Oh, we will take any questions. >> Thank you so much for that. Do we have any questions from the committee? >> Thank you for how thorough and >> I love that no stone was left unturned. That makes it really that really makes
it like helpful for us to just have our questions answered. So this is kind of guessing in the future, but if there isn't a new school, I know there was some talk. So the lines that would affect us the most would be capital expenditures.
>> Yes, I would say that would be the primary because the bond system that u we got some bond council that they wouldn't allow us to do a 30-year bond to renovate or to do anything. They could only get 15 because they don't want to put good money into
authoritarian type of building. So they'd be it would be a continuous 15-year bond for like long long time >> and that would be to renovate the old school. >> Yeah. So to renovate the old school um we had two independent cost estimators
because we don't always trust one. So we had two um and their numbers were really close. So the average of that is approximately $126 million to renovate the school and um got to keep pumping the 15-year bonds in there. To get a new
school iss 12.8 million after the reimbursement from the MSBA because the renovation we wouldn't get in the MSBA reimbursement. >> Right. So it just be a matter of how those phases will stage you know type systems and the certain things are going to
trigger different you know you do a roof you do a system the electrical so um but yeah so capital stateation is defined >> or just the capital assessment to the towns in general >> right right >> you mentioned that you shifted insurance
and yes can you explain that what insurance expert. >> Yeah, sure. Um, so we were with the New Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust, which I'm sure many of you have heard or read about in the paper. So, um, when I started in the role, we had, um, entered FY26 with a 20 about 18 to 19% increase
depending on the plan. Um, and then we found out in the summer we're going to have a 20% increase in October. So, that was huge. Um, devastating to the budget and we knew we would have that moving forward. um in meeting with the trust and going to all the meetings in executive sessions, they're just not any
solvent and maybe they will and I hope that they succeed. Um but I was really concerned about the writing on the wall and their cashections. So that would you know we looked at GIC we worked with many different consultants and brokers try to see what our parachute was if the time came before that would make us a
decision. Um but thankfully we had time for us really through a lot find the best option. Um, so we're working with Burnrock Heling Group. They are broker. Um, and they have us as part of a large captive. So it's almost like we're self-funded. Um, but we're part of a
captive union. So we're protected with the same, you know, the stop loss. And so they kind of bundle us at different tiers. Um, so we have a much more aggressive stop-loss coverage. Um, we have secured rates, so we know we won't have a new year plan um, increase.
>> How much in the next year? >> So we have a 6% rate increase this year over the 12.48 48 that the trust um would have had. Um the reason 6% would have been lower um we have to deal with um leaving the trust. So tailings claims and the runoff of that um we'll be
responsible for. So we would try to be pretty conservative in the premiums for this year to just make sure that we weren't going to get hit with some um you know surprising claims from June. Um you know did a lot of projections. So I think we think we're good on that front,
but any money saved if the claims are are low in June will just stay with us. So rather than going back into a trust will stay with Franklin Tech so we can build reserves and hope to keep our premiums lower for future years. >> And that's a hobby pilgrim model, right? >> Right. Yeah. So it's um a 32. Um the
plan design is exactly matched to what we currently have which was free. So disruption was next to nothing um as far and for our retirees as well. So, >> and that's all Liz's hot work >> and I don't have a crystal ball. It was a big leap, right? Um, we hope that,
you know, we we put a lot of time into this decision. Um, we had an insurance advisory committee that met many many times and and, you know, was part of part of the decision- making. So, it wasn't just on my shoulders, but, you know, essentially leaving something like this was was quite stressful in making the leap. But I think I think we did the
right thing in seeing just the state of the trust that they did well by us for many years. So tough decision but you know at half half of the amount that we would have been with um on our premium increase. So not just for the district sake but also our employees
that's a big hit to to their pay and to their wallet. So we looking out for them was was huge. >> Have a question. Could you explain how the regional transportation uh funding works and like
we like is it our public transportation or is it our transportation system that's taking the kids or do you have your own >> Damascus? Yeah, we use Damascus. We have um 13 or 14 buses. >> But we go out to good we have a bus contract. So we u work with her fog
>> um for our bus contract and there's just not competition out there either. Right. So, we have the one bidder. Yeah. >> Um, so it it, you know, and I've heard districts um saying that they're seeing 50% increases in their transportation
costs um from last year with with new um bids. So, thankfully our escalation is in the five years is the smallest two and a half% for five years and we're going into year three. But as far as reimbursement from the state, >> right? Yeah. >> That's kind of a mystery. um
>> the small font at the end that they'll fund it 100% and then in two fonts at the bottom of the page it said if appropriations are allocated >> so who's supposed to appropriate who's supposed to allocate those >> right
curious too you always uh programs which is really impressive are there any is there anything new you're working on or any new programs that would be expanded with like a new building Well, we just started um with the new building probably not. Um one thing we do with the new building to keep cost down is um
we currently have 650 total students in the building, but we're building the new building for 600 and it's strategic on a couple of levels. One is we got overall our regional school districts and our memberships are experienced declining enrollment at the high school level. So,
could we build it for 800, 900 and be able to fill it? Probably. Would that be good for our communities? Absolutely not. So we want to continue to be a partner with them. So we dropped that down to 600. The MSBA want us to be 720 or 730. The difference between 600
student building and 730 is 80 million. It was a no-brainer for us to go lower, right? Um just get what we need. That's all we're looking for. I mean, I would have been perfectly content just to renovate the building till we found out it was more than a new one. >> Yeah. Exactly.
I mean, and so we got and with that new building, there's no auditorium. We're going to we were creative. We had a cafeteria kind of spread open the walls. We are making a gymnasium kind of like a fra gymnasium that can have auditorium like features in it. So, we were trying
to get away from the costs that aren't reimbursed. You don't get reimbured for the auditoriums. You don't get reimbured for your hallways, for offices. So, we try to narrow our square footage where we could. We task our designers with, you know, keeping the cost possible and not, you know, a safe, sustainable
building without all the bells and whistles. Um, no frrills and >> yeah, >> they they're doing their job and have continued. >> They heard us long. There were 30 in the room when we started and then we got down to just one that was going to
actually work with us and know that it's a rural environment that they're going to be dealing with and that cost I don't I'm not looking for an architect for them to come in and look what I built. No, this is just a building capable. It's the teachers and the people that
are going to make the school. So, we'll be okay. So the newest program you have there is >> it's the aviation >> aviation. >> So the aviation uh tech well the aviation maintenance technology program and that was stemmed through the Massachusetts aviation task force out of
Boston. >> Um we got some um grant funding that we applied for. So it's all paid for through the grants um 100% we have a half a dozen aircraft in there. We have um $1.5 million worth of uh training
modules, mockups. It's a college type of curriculum that's ready to go. Um we're not there yet. We can now be able to get that direction. And it was really ste because of the in World War II, all the aviation maintenance technicians that
currently existed have all retired. So now these airlines are are paying um people who apply for these jobs 75 grand just so they could train them, right? And so there was there's jobs everywhere as
soon as these kids get out of um once they are able to get out of their training. And um we're excited about that opportunity. far as other new programs, the new building, you know, we got to get settled into what we're doing right now and do what we have between
our 14 programs and do that really well. And then we always look at the what are the industry needs, what's the pioneer white paper saying about jobs, you know, back in co medical assistant was a big deal. So we added that to our health technology program. So whatever is in
need, then we go after it. >> And the veterary program, how is that going? >> That's going very very well. How many attending? >> Um, fully enrolled. Fully enrolled. >> Fully enrolled. Grades 9 through 12. Um, we're under the animal science umbrella as well. That's a veterary building. Um,
you know, when we look at Franklin County, we're number one in the state with agriculture exchange. Yet, we don't have a training program for animal science for kids. So, it was a need, right, >> that we needed to look who we are >> and and try to grow from there.
>> Thank you. One other program and it's not part of our daily program. We have an adult education program fully grant funded through CTI our CTI program commonwealth core mass hire just think it's pretty notable um that >> we had 100 100 adults come in that were
disenfranchised and undermployed adults that are now getting employment. That's exciting. giving giving our adult communities a second and third quarter chance and gain some viable skills that can give them a livable wage,
>> getting the the tools they need. Um, I mean, it's impressive. So, I think that's not it's not part of our day program, but the expansion of that and the reach to our adult community is is huge. any programs under enrolled >> that varies from year to year. If it
like like overall I would probably at trends I would probably say no. Uh but it does kind of trend and you know you'll have a year or two >> this year in programs that were lower last year. >> I would I wouldn't want to publicly say one program for this year when three
years ago that was you know >> it's not a pattern yet you know. Um >> I have one last question. Um, I know a few months ago you presented to us first the MSBA um, proposal and I'm assuming
you've presented to other towns. Now, how is that going? What is that looking like for Greenfield? Um, >> sure. >> Is it still the same numbers? >> Um, the numbers adjusted downward a little bit since then. Um, but that's a great question. Um, if it went through,
I believe it's um, $250 a year per household for Greenfield. Would that be accurate? both, >> right? And that's what it would come down to. Um, so Green >> for the average and Greenfield is not the highest. >> Um, I thought they would have been, but
they're not the highest um per household. >> And would this be like a debt exclusion measure or >> That's up to the top, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. um whether you take the debt on yourselves at the city level or the district takes on the full debt with the >> and is it still the 30-year bond plan or
is that the >> Y >> which I have um projections here based on the newest cash flows um now that this project budget has been voted by the MSBA I'm more confident in in sharing this um so if you wanted me to leave this here with you just to show
you >> you know how that'd be great how you look um it's a big number and we know it's a big number. Yeah. >> Um >> based on the other current projects that are going on with the MSBA, we're actually a low number and it's doesn't doesn't feel that way when we talk to our our towns um city.
>> It is it's still a big number, but not doing something and renovating our school is going to cost us >> well with with a lot of disruption to education. >> We do the public forums at Greenfield Community College as well as getting out to every single town like we're doing
like we did a few months back. Um and we're finding that um it's they understand they get that there's no zero dollar option. They get that there's never a good time for a big project.
There's never going to be a good time. And you know it like we were you know if you saw us three years ago we were like oh my goodness they can't renovate this place. new and taken back, you know, um >> a meeting with an electrician today and
talking about, you know, we still need this building and exist and oh well that's going to cost $100,000 and that's just for one part or you know I mean these are >> you probably read in the paper back just a few months ago we had to turn kids home because the electrical switch gear
went out and that that happened after we spent uh $300,000 on electrical switch gear in the last several years just replacing these 500 pound electrical switch that are built by federal Pacific debt technology that doesn't exist anymore. So, it's the intern the outside
the building looks great like I said before, but it's the internal structures why the Massachusetts School Building Authority when they came around, they put us number one on the list for that year because they came through and they go, "Oh, this ain't going to work." And we've asked them at every meeting to
increase our person architect and they told us pretty much that we were lucky that we locked in last year because project costs are just increasing and they can't keep pace. So they're either going to take on less projects or reduce reimbursement rates.
>> The more it's going to cost. That's the other it goes up 8% a year when you count when you calculate the 4% increase in labor per year. a 4% increase in supplies of materials. It's it's just a short few years down the road. So I
>> and I can see the reimbursement rates declining based on, you know, sitting in the meetings where I'm not always the first item on the agenda in the meetings. You hear what's going on with their financials and um I imagine if we we don't get the project now, we have to wait years and reapply many years down the road, reimbursement rates won't even
be what they are now. >> Yeah. Yes. >> Any more questions? >> Thank you so much and yeah, congrats on the retirement and thank you for all your your presentations to us over the years. >> Much appreciated.
>> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right, let's switch to Greenfield Public Schools. You need to be co-hosted here. >> Yeah. >> Not yet. We'll see. >> Welcome everyone.
>> Welcome superintendent. Superintendent. Yes. director. >> So, yes, Andy Pocket, our business director, chair Samson, chair of school committee, right? Dean Sullivan here, our assistant superintendent, member mayor back there. Um, appreciate you
giving some time this evening to share what's going on in our school and in our budget for next year. Want to give a a quick overview. You obviously have I know you have a slide showing our executive summary, but for next year our FY27 executive
summary, our draft represents roughly a 7.4% 7.26% increase over this year. That's a level service budget. This is that's taking this current year, literally everything we have for most, you know, and saying here's what it's
going to cost next year, right? to do. Um that would cost $1.7 billion more dollars and those are real dollars, right? We know that that's not this is not monopoly money and that's the tough part for this. The drivers in that the
big drivers of that 1.7 million are contractual obligations, salaries almost 900,000, right? Um some of these you can almost right and we know that we're dealing with smart people. You can project that out, right?
Because the city signed um and I say city of school committee signed and we're negotiating now with some units right now. They did some units last summer as well for three-year contracts. So, you can almost right assume this is coming next year too, right? Like um you know, we had great conversations with
our business manager talking about projecting out like these aren't secrets right? as you talk about transparency and I mean all right if you're paying $8.99 this year and that was about with a lot of somewhere in the range of 3% raises roughly right and that potentially holds
true for next year you're going to have that right maybe a little more obviously for that so that's about half literally just 51% half of the increases also special education out of district tuition totaling 625,000
35% of the increase. This is for students that were unable to meet their needs within the city of Greenfield with the programs that we have. They require specialized programs, different needs, and as much as it costs to send some of
our these students out, it's never a bargain. If you've ever seen some of these tuitions to some of these programs, they're expensive. But to repeat or make that program in-house for singletons when I say singleton like a single student right um isn't cost
effective on that sense either if we have multiple students in a similar category or with similar needs absolutely we try to create that program within our own buildings and in essence you would save money because you can put them all together under you know one
classroom with teachers pair professionals appropriate service providers in that sense. So, you get a lot of the big things on that one. And then the other biggest one is an increase anyway, not the biggest thing in the whole budget, but the increase is special education
transportation at about 15%, 266,000. Um, this increase is for new students that have moved in as well as new transportation needs. Some of our students who have IEPs require specific transportation, specific transportation to different programs, right? We have, you're you're
aware, I know you've probably seen some of our minivans and small yellow buses that run students not only within the district of Greenfield to and from their our own schools, but they also run up and down Route Two or up and down Route
91 to um we go to Springfield daily where some runs. Some of that has to be for programming. Some of that is for McKenna Vento which is students who are unhoused or homeless at the time or displaced from their their homes at the time. So um a lot of other increases the
other expenses overall really are a reduction of 1%. Um so this is you know kind of the first steps in our process. We presented a lot of these things are budget and finance subcommittee. We have a subcommittee obviously like you do you have many of them here works very hard
to create overviews and priorities. We've also attached and I know people can click on it. Our slideshow and I'm just going to run through the the top of the older first few pages then obviously talk to you about some things. Uh there's some
of our priorities this year were curriculum and instruction to make sure our students have high quality materials, right? To invest in literacy interventions, social emotional learning programs, anti-bullying efforts, restorative justice, which is being piloted at
Federal Street School this year, active bystander prevention, um to to maintain arts and music opportunities. We're going to talk about that later of what we have going on here because that's that's a big fixture in this community. We know that um had a a
great turnout last week at another concert. Um our elementary schools are having individualized school performances these next couple of weeks. I mean we want to keep supporting our supporting our integrated arts. Um we're working on staffing and volunteering.
Always working on staffing. You know I talk all the time to this crew here. from the mayor, Steve Enberco, there about um this is my second time coming and working in Greenfield. I've loved it. I I think you have a great community. Um I grew up my
whole life skiing at Birkshire East. So, not that I spent a lot of time here, but coming up into Franklin County and used to go to Clark Ski Shop downtown, right, and get our ski sharp in there. It's just a we don't have the numbers of human beings to provide our services in
that sense. I mean, I always say like and I'm proud of this working here, right? We are we're the big dog in Franklin County, right? We're the the county seat, right? The county seat at roughly don't quote 18,000ish in my in that range, right? That's the big the
big person here, right? Okay. Well, one step down to Northampton, 34, 35, almost double our size, right? But then another step to where I spent most of my career in the spring, the great Springfield area, 150 in Springfield, right? Chick where I worked for 20 plus years
55,000 I mean just the number of human beings around there who are eligible to be employees right is there um you're not doing anything wrong in that sense of attracting I think you know some of the wages are they're fair we could always go up in certain things and we
always need costs of living etc it's just not having people literally physically around to do some of these jobs like years ago We couldn't give away jobs in in education or c I say politely custodial jobs things like that. People would call
us in the education world and say I'd love to have my kid or my relatives. Can you get them in line? That's been in custodian job like civil service, right? I can't give them away now. Can't give a job away. Right? We have openings and we are able to fill a lot. Don't get me
wrong, but it's pulling teeth to to get employees. So, we're always looking. my little pitch where we're always looking for workers. Some of the other things we're prioritizing are professional development to make sure that all of our staff are well informed and teaching through
proper ways. Uh and transportation. We're making sure that we provide equitable transportation for our sports, our co-curricular activities, getting parents in. We were fortunate this year through the help of some of our grants and assistant superintendent Sullivan um where our schools offered we all did but
um they had our principles had some great ideas. We offered transportation to some of our open houses in our night events where we sent around a bus to pick people up because we know not everybody can get to where we are right some people can walk absolutely but we're a distance away from certain
people and we I've tried that in some other communities and it worked out. We didn't we didn't have tons and tons of takers, but we had enough. And it's one of those things where I'm a believer of and I know many of you are as well, too. Um, we have to offer it, right? If we offer it and a few take advantage of it,
then it was a a success in that sense. And then it'll build off because maybe they'll then talk to their neighbors or somebody else and say, "Oh, yeah. Hey, um, maybe you're a onecar family. Maybe you're a no-car family or the the bus isn't running that day." Not an excuse, right? We're trying to eliminate excuses
in that sense and give people the power to come and be participants in their school. So, we're looking for a lot of budgets and assumptions on that. We're appreciative of what everybody has done. As I mentioned, our budget this year
over last year is 1.7 million, a 7.4% increase. I do want to pass out to two down that way. >> And I want to say like I've heard many of the public comments out there about
sporting education, right? I've spent a career in public education, right? I'm a product of public schools. Absolutely believe it. Um, and you I think you probably can see sometimes I hope you can see anyway my passion for it. We know that there's there's no
rainbow or buck pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, right? I'm looking for it every day just like you are out there and I was hoping it maybe rain tonight. We'd get a rainbow out there when I was coming in. Um, but didn't see it. Right. And I know that the mayor um, we talk a lot and and I appreciate all she does. I
don't say I'm not say she's pulling her hair out. I hope you're not pulling your hair out, mayor, but um I know it's got to be tough to sleep when you're trying to cut and slice and dice a limited amount of funds amongst competing needs, right? We all want more. It's kind of human
nature, right? Things cost more, prices go up. Um last, you know, I've been doing this only a year. You know that I started coming up here last summer. I think I was paying 240 in gas a gallon last summer right?
this morning coming through the down federal 435 or 440 in a matter of month eight months nine months right I mean we know that you heard the other group talk about the escalation costs and gas prices etc luckily they're they're locked in right with some of those
contracts because you know if you're bidding a new contract now they're taking into account that increase and they're going to get you even if the prices go down you're going to end up locking in unfortunately high what you see in front of you is our school committee budget, our local budget
there. Um, with the level services, the mayor through her hard work proposed a budget for us of 241, right? Which was an increase of $450,000 on that. So, that leaves us a difference
of $1.25 million between what we're offering this year and what we we're saying you'd like to offer next year. We've heard I've heard over and over, right? Um, I didn't go through this last year with you. I didn't watch anything from last year, but I've heard some antidotes of
possibly what might have occurred. And we've listened through the out the course of the year, right? You know, I've been to a lot of your meetings. We've we've heard feedback. I've talked to all of our our school committee members and with the work of all of our school committee members and Andy Pette and Stephen and our principles. I think
we can do something to help everybody because I don't want to start pitting us against anybody, right? Um, listen, I love public service. My brother was a state trooper. My other brother is a reserve police officer, right? Um, we need support. When we need it, when
we need help, we're going to need them, right? So I don't want to pit us against them or and I don't mean me Roland but the schools against the library or the schools against the council of aging or whatever the appropriate term is here in that sense. So there's a 1.25
difference. What we're proposing is to that we would take and use some funds in our revolving account. We've heard you loud and clear that many people and I don't want to use the word think we're sitting on a cash cow but that we have some money in reserves and we do and I think that all of us should have some
money in reserves. So, I don't I don't feel sorry for that in that sense, right? Um, you can't run your house without having a little extra if my hot water heater goes tonight. I better be able to do something, right? But I'm going to call a career tech kid because I can't do that, right? I mean, I can help come in here and I think I can um,
you know, work with the schools and do a lot that, but I can't fix my own hot water. I need somebody to do it. I'm going to need some funds for that. So we're talking about dipping in and using 500 about and these are round ballpark numbers obviously you know as you know that things are never fine we
don't even have we won't have state numbers probably I bet you we won't see in June July right after the unfortunately the new year starts but talking about using about $500,000 of preschool revolving using our vacancy
savings estimated to be around ballparkish 600,000 and using about 125,000 from transportation revolving and saying to you as I sit here but that I did not do
this work because sometimes people say the things I will politely say everybody did um chair Saxton Stephen Andy principles people that we're not going to ask you for anything you know we would we appreciate what the mayor has
allotted to us and know that you have your work cut out for you every single night you do this for competing interests in that sense we would have no staff lost due to budget that's about from this we may
move in reality and I say grants for move where it's needed but no loss due to budgetary reasons and no program reductions on this and we've heard you loud and clear right people want to come to school and our students want to come to school for they want to come to learn
but for some students, we'll say some, hopefully it's not a lot, but sometimes I think it's a lot. They like other things that are going on in schools, too, right? Sports. My kids, we have three boys, my wife, love the sport part of it, right? I know other people love the band part of it or the theater part
of it, right? Or the science club or the bike club that's going on or the writing club at the middle school that they just started this year. The different things. And I don't call those extracurricular, I call those co-curricular. They're part of our curriculum. >> And that's a draw for some of our students. We always hope that the reading and the writing, right, and the
arithmetic are the draw as well and the knowledge that people will gain because my mom would always say, "Nobody can ever take your education away from you, right? Once you have it in that sense and we hear from our parents, right? Where am I going to send my kid?" Well, send them here. Send them to us in
Greenfield because we offer lots of sports teams. We offer musical performances, right? We offer field trips for our students. We offer a lot of great things. I was talking to some area superintendents a couple of weeks ago and some of our our local towns are
going through overrides. I am not asking for that by the way. Not at all. But South Ali was proposing one and we were at a meeting. They were proposing it. The next day our neighbor to the south right here received 30 applications for school
choice from South Avenue once they said they were going to cut sports. right now that may not be the end result but that's the talk right when you have to do um cuts you have to cut things away from that done so I want to say you know proud and loud that we are not cutting
anything for next year we are not having any reductions you can send your children to us to have these experiences not only within the classroom but outside of the classroom on that and we're hoping that we can make your lives a little easier by literally giving you
this and saying thank Thank you. We're not asking for anything else. >> Yay. >> Way to go. >> Bravo. I want I want to thank you too for um for listening and your honesty
and your holistic approach because we are one city and every single person on the city council I've served with in seven years has cared about the schools as much as they care about any other department. So, it's extremely important to us and I think some of the um when
things got heated where this distress of the situation with these horrible budget situations, they're just awful. >> And you know, when you're faced with uh cutting off your arm or your leg, you know, it just it creates these very tense situations when people are digging
for money. Um so, I I really appreciate that you looked at those revolving funds. Um yeah and what we hope to do is and and I think that by doing some of that while you're seeing us not cut right and we hope we don't have to to cut and I
always I try to be an optimist and I hope that life is cyclical right um this is a tough economic time there's no doubt we do know other times have gone better where state revenues have increased right due to different reasons and different economies of scale that this won't leave our superintendent also
for next year our superintendent incoming. I mean, we've talked about this. We'll not leave them in too tough of a bind, I don't believe, for next year. We're not going to waste your money, right? You've you've tked all of us to be financial or fiscal stewards of the
city's money. I take that seriously along with our principles in that sense that um next year, right, you know, should some numbers move, there will be times in the future where, you know, we'll we'll end up doing this this year, right? politely saying to hey I got this
well in a few years and I'm not projecting any trying to be dire but if there's not as much in the reserves we may have to say hey I need a little more right but and then hopefully we'll all realize hey we're honest with each other we didn't we got it this year we can cover you couple years you might need to
throw me a bone something like that you know in that sense >> um yeah I have a couple questions but I did just want to point out for everybody like the fact that our schools are funded. There's no cuts to any programming. We're not going to a two
and a half override question. Like, that's amazing. >> So, thank you, mayor and Stephen, and everybody involved. Um, yeah, when I heard about South Hadley, that was >> I'm like sad. Um, the questions I have
were, can you explain for everyone where the money in the current revolving accounts came from and then also what the vacancy savings? >> Yes. So, the VA vacancy I'm going to have to hit you on a couple, but um jump
in if I'm going wrong here and got some good history with Greenfield as well, too. So vacancy savings are jobs that we had wanted to fill this year that we didn't for some reason or another, right? And it may not be complete. So when you look
at it, you don't want to think about it as we just never hired a teacher. We may have hired somebody late in the year. So I was talking with our middle school principal today. We had a an interventionist, math interventionist. We had one just start the year literally. and about two weeks in um
person had some health issues had to resign. Took us about a good half of a year to find somebody, right? So potentially if that job was in the budget at maybe how do we kind of throw them
>> 70 a job we might put in the budget at 75 if they're a stockholder. If we didn't spend half of that or a little more, you might have saved $40,000 from those weeks that we didn't have somebody in that position. Right. We do have some IAS, individual assistants, some district compare professionals. That's a
term I've been used with a lot. Some we have a hard time filling those and we have a fair amount of turnover in those. So for times when you're not paying somebody the salary, you're saving money in those scenarios. So those are the
vacancy savings that we we have right now. Obviously, we're not done with the year left. That's why I'm using round numbers, but I am telling you what's not round is the zero. We'll get to zero on that one. Did I explain that correctly? What do you think?
>> I understood. >> Yes. No, I mean, so uh and it's a thing where we had a discussion just a budget finance subcommittee earlier this week and we never want to say but you know the comment we never want to balance our budget on back of agency savings. these are positions that are need >> you know so it's I mean you know
financially it helps but for what it is that we want to do in green field it's not how we want to operate so um that's a key point regarding that u regarding the revolving accounts we have primarily four revolving accounts that are used to offset our budget I'll start hit them
one at a time or school choice uh we open up seats to districts around where we have space available for kids to come to green field so we get funds for those students that come uh from other districts. Uh that goes into a revolving account. We use that as an offset to our budget
>> and and we'll have an ad in the newspaper this weekend for that too because we want to get more students in the green field. >> How about that? We have a special education tuition revolving account that is similar to what uh superintendent Joy talked about earlier where if we have the capacity for internal special
education programs where we have space available to open it up to other districts that might have students that have a need for that we would then take them in and charge them a rate to collect those funds. So I don't know the exact programs per se, but I just know that it has been a longstanding or
lobbying account that we have had programs that uh other districts avail themselves of that we bring in students that is a revenue generating for us that would be used to offset our budget. >> We have the transportation revolving account that is uh several years ago
when Mr. Member was actually the business manager here. It was explored to run our own transportation with the ability to potentially offer transportation services to surrounding areas. We are doing that and so we charge communities for providing those
services because we are able to do it cheaper, less expensive than some of the vendors that we have out there. Um and so uh that generates revenue that we use as an offset as well. And then the fourth one lab is called the special education circuit breaker program. That
is a state reimbursement program that uh similar to what the superintendent Martin talked about of 100% funding. Circuit breaker has always been told that we'd be 100% funded from the state. It's yet to be 100% funded. So we are on the hook for it is for it's a program
for high cost special education expenses. We are on the hook for the first four times what your foundation expenditure amount is. So regardless of whatever it is on our our per pupil amount is we have to pay the first four times that. Any cost above that was
supposed to be 100% reimburseed but it's now been everywhere low between sometimes up to 60% to as high as up to like 75 77%. So that is a reimbursement program that we get from the state that we end up using as an offset to our programs. And
then this year what was talked about in that Suzan Joy references is like we have a preschool program where we actually charge for nonsp specialcial education student to take part of that preschool. So that has been kind of used I'd say period it hasn't been used to
what it potentially could be and so it has built up a balance. It's kind of been a contingency for that program. So with that balance being there, it was at the public hearing, the school committee voted to use uh probably about close to 90% of that uh to offset this budget.
>> How much do we get yearly from that uh the ELA the preschool one? Uh, can you get sucky this also varies obviously by number of enrollments, but we're looking at an average I'd say
like 150,000. We had a high of 175, you know, so we're out there. >> You're done. >> I mean, I guess my last question is we're, like you said, we're relying on savings. We're relying on potential salaries for new teachers. Like, what
happens if you fill all those uh positions, then you're underfunded? And then what does the next like two to five years look like if we're spending all of this down right now? um if we had a crystal ball. I mean, I'll put on my educator hat and say that
we would rather come to you and say that we have no vacancy savings, >> you know, but unfortunately historically, you know, last year's vacancy savings is about $600,000. This year, we're about hitting the same thing. Two years prior was like between the four and 500,000. So, it truly is a
struggle for filling positions. Is it something that we want to consider as a reliable funding source? Absolutely not. So I hate to say it but it would be a nice problem there. >> Okay, questions.
Go ahead. Thank you. Um somewhere along the line I was of the understanding that we have a a poor literacy rate and our graduating students. Is that true or not?
The question is kind of an open-ended one. You know, poor lady graduated students. Our students graduate and they meet the right the requirements of the Greenfield public schools for graduating. >> Okay. >> I know I'm not trying to be run a circle
on you, but if if our students are graduating May March 30th or 29th, couple day weeks from now, we're going to have graduation. If they're walking across that stage, they have met the requirements for the Greenfield public schools, right? Whether that meant taking all the classes, right, passing
them at the high school level, it might be, don't quote me, like four years of English, right? Math, science, etc. Um, the MCCAST or the old days, right? Um, you want to jump in a little on that one? >> Sure. I think nationwide we have a literacy problem. I think the latest
stat is about 67% of students in preK through five are reading below grade level. Um, and we fall pretty much in line with that trend, which is where a lot of our professional development money this year has gone to building up
the capacity of teachers that we have. So, we're not looking to add more positions, more reading specialists. Filling these positions is a challenge. So we're investing in the people who have been committed and loyal to Greenfield and trying to build their
capacity with structures in terms of we take um a benchmark assessment and then if you're below grade level based on that we give a follow-up diagnostic to try to hone in on what skill the student might be struggling or where there might
be a gap. And then we've invested in resources that support the teachers in helping fill that specific gap. So we've really tried to think about sustainability and not relying on individuals or more people. Try to
create systems and build the capacity in the people that we have. Um I think like the superintendent said graduation rate is different and we are a tick below the state level in terms of graduation rate.
Um, and we have work to do at our middle and high school, but we have really focused, especially this year, on building a stronger literacy foundation for preK through four students at our elementaryaries and at the same time telling our middle and
high school like we know you can't wait for six or eight years to have better readers. We're going to continue to do the work there, but um that's been a major part of our investment this year. >> Okay. And I know Sher >> also just wanted to note that last week at our school committee meeting we took
a vote to authorize the administration to pursue a literacy audit. So we're going to audit the entire program with an outside consultant to give you even some more information about how we can continue strengthening the program. >> Okay. Excellent. Thank you. And can I also ask um in terms of your entire
budget, what percentage of the budget is administrative? And are you talking just personnel or the overall administrator? Because it also is one of the things where it's the how do you define administration? Are you talking administrators as well as
the technology director, facility director, central office, you know, because we have administrators at that type of level. So >> all the entire administrative level. Yeah, >> that's kind of getting in. Bear with me.
Take that short metrics. Anything maybe I can >> Oh, sure. Just back to the vacancy savings. If we're getting around 500 a year, where has that where has those funds gone in previous years?
This is my first year. >> I can take part in that while Andy's looking. I think the budget is built using projections for some of these um revolving accounts. So, school choice is the one that I would typically think of
is so the budget's built using $400,000 in school choice revolving funds. if those positions aren't filled, and Andy has said this at I think every school committee meeting I've been at in two years is
the salaries, the expenses are assigned to the local budget first and then if there's savings, it ends up in the revolving account or other grants that haven't had to been used and that's
where um some of those revolving have grown up. And I think the other piece that Andy's talked about, I wasn't here and he get into more specifics. I think a number of those revolving accounts grew through the pandemic through ESSER
funding. Um, and the state was urging districts to make one-time only expenses and not hire personnel. Um, many districts thought like, well, we want to hire the personnel and we'll figure that out down the road. And I think we're seeing the results of that. where
Greenfield didn't do that. They did use it for one time only expenses and allowed some of the revolving accounts to grow in that way, which is why we're not asking for that two and a half or we're not talking about reducing um programs and staff
because those intended one-time only funds were not used for staff. >> So, the vacancy money doesn't get put back into the city's general fund. It goes into your revolving funds. >> Yes.
>> So, how much is in there now? >> Question. >> I went through and just totaled up all the district-wide administration. I took both salary and operating because those are districtwide. And then I took the building administrators salaries because
some of their operating expenses are instructional in nature. So, it's not administrative. So, we do that. It it is 11% of our budget. >> Yeah. Now, can I ask one more question? So, if you So, these revolving accounts, and I'm glad they're there because you
could you could do this, but once you uh use this money in the revolving accounts, I'm assuming you have an understanding of what's your lump sum of all your revolving accounts. I'm wondering once you use this money, I want to know what's left. >> Yeah. And it's in if we were to actually
pull up the other it's in a PowerPoint. If you to go look at >> it's slides. >> Do you want me to make you a cohes? >> 17. >> Are you Yes. >> Tech slides 18 and 19. What I put together was a combined balance sheet
income statement. I call it that shows the original plan. >> Is it in here? >> Yes. It's going to come up on that screen. >> Oh, it is. Okay. >> Yep. >> Sex is our technology.
>> So, it's slides 18 and 19. >> Yep. Right here. Right there. So, these are the four. If you look at the top row, that's what we started FY26 with. >> And then FYL, >> that's right. And then if you look and
see that second row was our projected revenue at the time >> for what we were going to have. And then the third row is what it is that the budget was built on for using >> for FY26. >> Yeah. >> And then a projected balance in each of those accounts and then a total to the
far right. So if you take just the total, we started with 4.1 million and then we're projecting it all things that go on according to plan for FY26 to end with 3.3 million. So it's a 19% reduction in funds available. >> Okay, very good. Thank you.
>> And then we actually did I projected out the next year as well. >> Great. So if again all things going according to plan starting in FY27 with that top row the 3.3 again going on the far right we have the projected revenues
in that second row and then the FY27 budget at this time. Now again that has changed because we've added an additional $500,000 from the prek but excluding that prek number right now. We started with 3.3. We're ending with 2.8
8. And in that fiscal year alone, it's a 14% reduction in all those four revolving accounts. The 2-year change is I is that bottom row. It is a 30.87% reduction and quite honestly even more considering the preschool reduction in
our funds available. So that's what Superintendent Joy was talking about. Message received regarding use of the revolving accounts. That's >> right. And in this slide um in thank you Angie for explaining that and doing a great job on was presented and these
numbers slide was locked in I think it was late March something like that. So as we build have been building this met with our budget and finance yesterday we'll go to our school committee obviously in June prior to I think we need to close out your stock at the end
of June those numbers will change because we'll draw down even more. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. So, I think some of the questions we had before were, you know, how much should be in there and that was kind of where the question was coming in and the
projections of what should be in there was was what got into trouble. And I think if you're following the mayor's budget so far, anybody that has revolving city, you know, we're in critical times, they have to use them. We just can't afford
at the moment to sit on a lot. the rainy day has come, >> right? So, I think that was it. The other thing that was like when you look at Franklin Tech, it's so much easier and some of it just because we're we're different animal, but like they have their excess and deficiencies and stabilization and it's a lot easier to
see. The hard part for the public and elected officials was that there's money left over at the end of the schools. There's unused for every other department. It's easier to see what that is and it goes back to the city and comes out as free cash which then goes
into our stabilization. This is tough because there's the money shuffle that happens. there's a the chapter 70 and it and so it's very hard to see where the money's going because it doesn't come back to the city and it it would I wish there was a centralized place that it
could go and then be transferred because what the problem we had last year is it goes into school choice tuition transportation then people the public says well why are you cutting transportation why are you cutting special ed and that's not really it there is leftover money and a lot of
departments in the that he had it. It's just the way it gets shuffled is very hard to see what's going on. >> If I may just the practice that has been done and I I said it when and I understand I mean if you know but it is
something that when and I I go through this when Mr. remember how was the finance director. The process was done the same way when Howie Barber was the business manager for the school district. He did the same thing when Liz Gilman who was the business manager and then a former city uh finance director
was the same process was done. So much so that even Liz Gilman when she was sitting on the city side would reach when we were here before would reach over to us and say, "Hey, look, I'm seeing that you've got $300,000 left in your general budget. Do you want me to move those into, you know, those expenses out of choice so that we zero
that out? It has been a long-standing practice here in Greenfield for the schools to do this. So, what is being done here is no different than anything that's been done over I'm going over 10 plus years. >> Is there can we change that?
>> Uh, >> so it's clearer and more transparent for the people. I I guess I you know I wonder because when you you know our monthly reports that we provide to the student committee I would like to think are pretty transparent when we show and our reports
that we show that you know if you were to look at the you know the summary reports that are given the detail we do show how it is that we're as Sullivan mentioned charging everything to the local first and then we show the offsets that we're going to use to get
it down the so it's here and it's a practice that I know the associate commissioner of finance Jay Sullivan and I we've had a discussion and uh he has said that it's appropriate he considers it transparent uh the audit firm is no longer males and he but I actually took
that from a concept that they used when they were in llo you know so so it's things like that so you know I'm open to you know anything but at the same time like I guess I'm saying that uh it has been a practice and I from my time when I was an audit with the state this
concept of management by the office of educational uh quality and EQA it was educational quality and accountability they had a board the EMAC board and stuff it was considered an exemplar practice by the state auditing agency that audited districts under no child
left behind so we just took that concept and we did it as we did here which as you can tell by the fact that Mr. Number did it Mr. Barber and Liz Gilman did it as well that it's been an accepted practice. >> And I want to say it's I'm not even not
trying to say that you're doing anything wrong. It's just complicated and it's hard to see. And my original hope was that like what was considered reclassification would be a transfer just so that like the school committee would have eyes on it. So someone would have eyes on it. And that's part of why
things blew up last year because we didn't really have access to all that information before. And so then it it's just really it's just hard to track and and maybe there isn't an easier way. I don't know. Uh and then the the issue of incumbrances or predictions of accounts
that's always a matter of opinion which can be contentious at times too. But in the end, we were just looking at how you you can look year 1 2 3 4 back and see how many millions are left at the end of the year in those accounts. Uh
regardless of everything else, this is how much is left. And I don't think anyone wants to see a complete draw down. I I think everyone uh including the mayor and finance director of the city wants to see some reserves because I mean I don't I was at the band concert
and if looking at the numbers of the fifth grade band I would say you may have to invest in some more instruments uh with the success of that program which I hope continues to grow. So I mean I'm hoping there will programs that will also grow. Um so yeah it's just
trying to understand it and be on the same page so that we don't end up fighting about speculation or what's really happening or that sort of discussion. And I don't know if there's a way to make it easier. We've talked about trying to have some sort of collaboration to just so we can
understand because it is it is very complicated. I've gone to those uh chapter 70 funding is how they determine that and that's a nightmare >> that holds up for a red discussion on with the state. >> Right. And yeah, again not saying you're doing anything wrong. I just I I have
most of us I guess like coming from not knowing anything to now being counselors like we're we're asking all the dumb questions and all the questions that people have asked us and that we've had concerns about. And I think what I've noticed is like people that are not like just regular residents
want to follow along step by step which is insane but also you know as is their right. So making it as like this is this is this is this as possible is like but yeah >> yeah we'll definitely work on that and there's no doubt right as you know this
the school committee that's that's a little of the funny part of municipal finance right how the school committee is in char I would say in charge but I guess you'd say that right of the budget and and the mayor is in charge of lots of departments right um all throughout
the city at the school committee kind in many many cities and towns, right? And a lot of us have it I don't say does their own thing, right? But kind of they have a checks and balance, right? An elected school committee to do that. So yeah, it is it's it's a boring concept sometimes to people thinking, well, wait a minute,
you know, we see all this here on on all these departments because you guys have I saw your future forecast for meeting. You have a slew of departments coming through. Uh this gonna be in this room. It's going to be a busy room. There's no doubt where the people. So yeah, we're trying to open it up and always open to
your suggestions or specific questions where we can get you answers. >> Well, and that's the hope too with the committee have said this in general. Uh if people can ask questions ahead of time, it's better because we've had things where if I mean it's great for
transparency to ask the questions of the department chairs or the schools in the main committee meeting, but then it can get into the sort of gotcha moments and it's usually much more helpful to get the stuff throughout the year and ask questions so you can actually get those answers without it getting into that
heated realm, political realm. >> Yeah. And and I know our school committee, right, as we've said multiple times tonight, right, wants to be partners with you, right, and work with you and jokingly, it's not a peace offering. It's a lot of hard work, right? But
basically saying, here we go. We're showing you we're moving in that direction right? >> Thank you for the Thank you, mayor, for the and you for the additional 450, right? That doesn't go unnoticed. And we'll hit the rest and let you hopefully politely worry about all the other
Thank you. I have one more question. Sorry. Um, sorry. Sorry. You and your other school uh meeting yesterday were talking about rainy day revolving funds in other districts and I'm interested in hearing more about that practice and if that's something that Greenfield has ever considered and also how much is
usually in those rainy day funds. >> Sure. So, what I I've had discussions with audit firms. There's an off firm that uh and a lot of the clients that we're in um had this similar discussion as to what would be considered an acceptable if you look at all the what we consider
the rain funds for the districts. I take circuit breaker out I would even take special education tuition out because those are very specific to the special education program but in no different where people are here like END for a regional school district is kept at 5%.
So a number that an auditor had thrown out at the time was like why would that be any different for a school district for amongst you or revolving account to have around a 5% number. Now I know there are other things as far as like stabilization funds that when communities have that that if you take a
look at the stabilization funds and the city or town's free cash it be more than 5%. You know, so uh conservative number that had been thrown out by this audit firm was, you know, and it was agreed upon between this town and the school district having a potential 5% of the
total operating market as a number to, you know, a target. Not hard and fast, but that's kind of what I you know, sort of what's good for the goose is it good for the king or so? >> And that might even be me on the one, right? The collaboratives can go is it 25. >> So the collaboratives, there's 24
collaboratives in the state. um educational collaborative. CVS is our local one in Northampton and then where I worked originally was the lower valley education collaborative, right? So they can I'll use the word sock away right up to 25%
of their budget for downtimes and tough times like this. So to give you an idea of what that would be for FY27 and now I'm taking it based on the all funds because we have grants that are also used the quoteunquote amount that we should using that 5% number would be
just under 1.5 million. >> And if you look at taking out the circuit breaker and spent tuition where 1.2 to 1.3. >> Um, I think it's also important to note that uh it's not like the schools are a
complete separate entity like just so the public knows the schools and the city are >> really merged because there are some things over the years the city has tried to take um off the school plate to help too like um uh utilities I believe are
covered by the city. uh sometimes some of the grounds some I mean there's various things >> uh where city employee where it gets melded together so it's not like there is the school and the city there's a lot of things that overlap too >> oh absolutely so you 100% agree if you
were to take that amount then that 1.5 million becomes more because those are school related expenses that the city are covering between health insurance exactly so those things are you know those are they're expenses when you talk about what costs are for the school.
What we're discussing here just what for lack of a better phrase, the school controls. >> Now, there's maintenance matering that are school related expenses that are part of that school spending that uh you know come off the top that are on the city side of the books and
everything and as well as uh the health insurance and retirement insurance and assessments for retirement contributions. So when you look at that or you know as far as what it is back to the what we should have for the reserve it's more than the one. >> Yeah. And you know and we appreciate the
capital expenditures right that you you and the mayor and everybody whoever is saying that. So yes there's there's no doubt right it's not us versus them. We know it's a symbiotic relationship where we're all working together. >> Thank you very much
for being here this year. So much clarity. Yeah, >> that I did not have it all before this evening and I'm very grateful for your presentation. Thank you. >> Appreciate your time. >> Thank you for all your hard work this year. >> Good luck on all the others future
meetings, you know. >> All right. Getting back to our under motions and just wondering any questions for the mayor. Uh we have an authorized to establish a valley health regional collaborative
evolving fund and I didn't know if um director is going to explain that. I don't actually know if this is something that urgently needs to be voted on. when we have a huge packet and we're on it.
That's kind of the um paid grant public health private account being one other that I can't remember and um I think sort of to expensive the
communities that come in and in the revolving ground would allow it to be spend. >> Yeah, I think maybe explain a little better. >> So they provide services to the other towns and then they receive revenue
services for the other town. Um and this stemmed from a presentation that they went to where they recommended to have a revolving fund uh for this is so they could so basically when they receive revenue then they have to spend this
money on uh servicing all those other towns. So this would be there it would be able to take in the revenue and then like with any revolving account it must be used for the activity that it's that it was the money was raised for. So this
would be kind of like okay we taking the money and then we're going to spend it on servicing those towns um that that they the money comes in for and does who would be in charge of that fund? Was that the health director or
the >> So the health director would be in charge of it but it would go through the regular warrant process. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So it would you know >> accounting approval, collector's approval regularly just with a normal cap.
>> Do you have recommendation on which type of fund we should be in favor of? It looks like there's two recommended for us. Yeah, I I would recommend the revolving account. >> Could you specify what? >> Oh, so the revolving account um is a
statutory um account that we can establish and the specific reason is because the funds must be used to support that. So like if we set up a a parking lot revolving account, we have to use it for the
parking lots. So >> So it's restricted. >> It's restricted. Yes. And the other one is a specialization stabilization something. >> Yeah. And and that's not a a great idea. >> You need two two months too for that any
expenditures from stabilization and second reading. So it would hamper the >> just be a lot along. So revolving are just like it sounds
and we have you know folks that here that work in other communities. So up there so what I'm hearing is you guys are furthest to health directors for it. It seems like >> a good thing that would be a good thing.
>> It it'll increase the speed of service. >> Wonderful. Do we have any more questions on that? >> Well, I'm looking at these list of potential hurdles. >> We looked at that yesterday and I said we need to put that together just so you know.
I brought that down to Stephen. I said who wrote this? >> Are are any are you finding any of these? >> No. The blue pages I brought that just that's very funny. I brought that down. See, I said, "Look at this." And I actually called Michael. I said, "Who
wrote this?" Because they are advantages. Like we all the accounts that they were talking about tonight, those are all revolving, right? >> And we have revolving in, you know, um the fire department has a couple of revolving accounts. The building
department has a revolving account. Um recreation has revolving account. Money goes in, and goes out and comes in and goes out. And it makes it if if we had to come or if the health department had to come to you for every expenditure,
you would just be in meetings day and and night because they happen on a on a weekly basis, you know. >> So this bypasses that are needing to get approval. >> Yes, it does. It
um like you said, everybody's using balances that they haven't revolving this year. Um and most of them are a lot of them are fee driven or something else right everyone involved is happy
anyone not happy >> make sure the finance department knows the management the accounting is everybody good with this concern philosophy. >> Michael and I brought it to what would you say? I guess the department of maybe
the department of public health put this together. We had nothing to do with the writing of this nor did our health department. I'd like to show you. >> Okay. >> So that parting loop did not come from us >> and um you know it must have been a slide presentation.
>> Okay. from them. But there are you'll see that when you know as you go through the budget process, we didn't have that part on the evolving but there are many evolving accounts. Some close to the general fund and some of the balance remains in there for expenditure. Um and
this is one of the balance she I read that too and it seemed like some angry public health person and like the fool wrote it. I don't know. It shows you did your homework because you were leaving
yesterday. >> Yeah. So, we think we're ready to vote on a recommendation from the committee. >> Yeah. I feel judgement. >> Um, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. uh any abstensions, any nos. So there's
fat this will also help with transparency of what's going on in the health department. >> Sorry, it's making a note there. Um and now we'll move on to community preservation budget which is another huge packet. Okay.
And I did want to talk at some point. I'm going to I'll put in something to committee chairs. This is our first year doing a budget this way. And I was realizing it's really overwhelming because it just sort of happened that everything comes together. So we have
the budget and the capital at the same time >> which is really overwhelming. Um, so it's something in the future we might want to just try to figure out how we can separate it a little bit or and I'll talk to Laura about having all the
committees going full tilt, you know, EDC. Um, because just when you get these packets on ways and means and you're trying to glue the 27 departments, right? >> It's a lot. >> The CPA, all of the because I had was just looking at those for the first time
as well and it is that's a lot. It is a lot all of those but I yeah >> I don't know I'm sure it's it's related to what you said but maybe off topic the DLS website which I've been living on learning all of this stuff like number
one fan but they also recommend having like a city budget calendar that's like public facing and then after the budget process we all meet and talk about what we could do better and I think that would be just something that would be great for us to try and work on as a
group after This >> cool we can do our postmortem >> on that for like capital expenditures. I didn't do all of the capital expenditures. I did the ones well I did not have to do most of DPW but the things that had to
happen in the summer um because it is >> but most of the DPW projects are in the good weather and a lot of paving >> and so I could wait because I'm happy to
to do what works for the rooms um but I thought you know as a recreational one you have to do those things. >> It's nice out. >> If you clean up the road to fix a a water pipe, sewer pipe, I would imagine
it's better to do that when it's nice. So, so um you also have the ability to come back and um put forward more capital requests later on. >> Yeah, it's a little strange. I think I think it's in the charter. The way it
explains it is that a capital budget has to be proposed. So that's what the date has to be and we got the whole thing, right? >> And then the financial orders can come through. Got it. And they don't have to be all in one bunch. For many years, we
did them all like in March. Gotcha. >> Um and then the other budget and shoot I can't remember now. Uh but they were separated by like a month. But um but I think even then the charter said, you know, that you just have to have the
plan and then >> and I think there's probably a reason to to wait on some of them too. This is such a this was an abnormal and a precarious year. Um there was nothing normal about this year. >> Yes.
>> Um community preservation. So >> maybe we should go through each one of these. I did not watch these meetings, but I do want to say because I've been through this before, they do an incredibly thorough job on this committee. They do unbelievable outreach
on it. There's just almost every way to offer feedback, which is really impressive. So, I feel like they're when they go through this, it's a very thorough process of getting public input. >> Um, what's the first one? >> I I guess I have a question. Yeah. first
is that okay the the the funding requests totaled uh 664 56 so that's like a way bigger number than what's what is what's was allotted
and I'm wondering if there were um uh uh projects that that didn't get any funding did did we because I didn't see those on the list
>> and just you know I did um try calling chair today she was not initially invited to this meeting to see if she could be here and she couldn't be here tonight because that's really helpful to have >> yeah uh somebody that's really intimately familiar with this >> this is on tomorrow's agenda is it too
late to invite her >> no this is these are first readings so normally what we've done is >> uh we would wait to discuss these the meeting right before uh as the second reading essentially. So we're a little
bit ahead. So I mean there's a possibility we could talk about this. We don't have to necessarily vote um a recommendation too if we wanted to. >> But it's nice to have the chair of the committee here just to give us they're so familiar >> the projects
>> that would be great. >> That would be really great. >> Yeah. Um, and like I said, I think I was looking at the meetings like next meeting looked really full. I didn't have a chance to talk to councelor Bulock about this, but I think we had an extra sort of ex like our extra normal
meeting. We had nothing on at the moment. And that would be what sometimes people don't like is that you're voting right the day before city council but >> it's just kind of the way it is. Um, so we could potentially put it on that one
also. >> Okay. >> I didn't attend those. I I couldn't report on most of those things because >> I was not I wasn't attending. >> I don't want to wait that long, but I also just feels
like we should have Susan here. >> Yeah, it would be great. >> Yeah. >> Um >> or some representative, >> somebody. other thing we could potentially do I think there's enough time for all the public notice is to put this on
April when is our next meeting when we're going through all the other departments and then deliberations so there's a lot of things we could do we could go through all the departments do this and then save the next meeting for deliberations anyway I think there's flexibility since
it's just the first reading will be tomorrow at city council and We won't be voting on it for another month, >> right? >> Okay. >> But I I would ra I like having something here that's really agree with them, >> right? Yeah.
>> The motion to table the >> Oh, shoot. Because these are under motions, aren't they? >> Yeah, they are under motions, >> not discussion. >> Like I said, there's been discussion about this before. I'm having ways and
means. >> I don't think there wasn't just usually we don't flashback to have >> you might have talked about community preservation. >> I don't think we've got these these in depth. >> No.
>> Okay. I'm trying to think. We could we could table it until the next meeting because we can just take it off the table. >> That seems the most
>> transparent word of the day. Transparent things to do. >> I think so. I would rather have >> a representative. >> Yeah. And it also gives all of us, it gives me more time to because again this packet this time was >> and the public >> public. Yeah. That was enormous. Uh for
anyone who clicks on that full agenda, uh it's a little tough when when you have a full-time jobs and you're trying to read all of this and process the budget information. >> 30 cents an hour, >> but this is when this normally comes in now.
>> Is there any time sensitivity with any of this? Do we know? >> We don't know. >> With the f it's just the first reading, so we're not voting it on city council until >> Yeah. So, even if we table it, we're not changing the trajectory of this timeline. >> Okay. >> No, we're just going to make another one
of our other meetings longer. >> I would make a motion to table this. >> Yeah. Second. >> Uh, all in favor? >> I. And is that it for our pages? I think we needing number eight.
Oh, yeah. So, our next meeting will be Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:30 p.m. and it'll be here in the city meeting room and we're going to cover a whole bunch of departments. the next budget. >> Uh yeah, and and it also have the
operating budget deliberations and recommendations for mills and needs and potentially add uh I don't know if we can add this or if we have to wait till our regular meeting, but but I'll find that we'll find out. It'll go to committee chairs
would be my guess. So snacksmith >> one quick thing you you had asked last time about debt. Uh so just just some information for you. We can talk about it next time but
>> thank you so much. >> Thank you for that. That's exciting reading. That's probably depressing, but it's >> what are y'all doing? >> Doing some serious shopping.
>> They they didn't pay. They're paying that down pretty quick. >> Because how >> they um they took out the debt and then they decided they would uh they would convert that to long-term debt very quickly. So, the the
payown's a lot quicker. Okay. Great. So, can do I have a motion to adjurnn? So, >> second. >> All in favor? >> I thanks everybody. We are adjourned at 7:49 p.m.