##VIDEO ID:42uk4AoBKyo## yeah Drive yes I can mics are on can you hear me okay um good evening tonight um we are calling to order the first of two public hearings at 6:30 I also just want to note two things before we get started uh we have a member joining remotely on Zoom Julia Campbell and so so later in the meeting if we take any votes it'll be a roll call vote and I also want to mention that this meeting is being live streamed and recorded by HW Cam and can be watched on YouTube um so the first thing we have on the agenda is the public hearing for school choice for the 25 26 school year Mr Tracy thank you I just want to give a quick overview as we do annually we are required by state law to uh vote for school choice uh annually before June 1st and uh we generally do it in January so that we can get the process moving in early February it takes us um about a month or five weeks or so to uh keep the lottery open make sure people have notice Etc so uh this year we have um similar numbers from previous years we will be graduating out um 11 students this year who are in the choice program then the next biggest number will be the current junior class which has 18 numbers have fluctuated across uh the past probably 10 years now gone up and down mostly hovering around 10 or 11 uh on the average so these are the current numbers that are in our buildings and they're based again on um the vote of the school Comm commit is specifically to either have school choice or not have school choice and then the principles will look at openings uh generally at the secondary level because our elementary schools are jammed uh jam-packed they real open seats at the SEC at the elementary level so any openings generally occur at the uh secondary level 6 through 12 which is what you have represented here and then certainly um my recommendation for uh School choices to continue the school choice program it is a revenue source for the district uh it continues to uh fill seats as they become available generally at the ninth grade is where you see the most kids entering the program um but they as you can see there there are kids there have been kids in sixth grade there have been kids in seventh grade we actually um we we actually have one third grader who's a longtime Choice uh student because of what they call the sibling rule the law allows uh for one child gets in it basically opens the door for any other child in that family which makes sense when they're Drive they have to drive their own kids to to school Etc so um these are the numbers at the secondary um we continue we feel they'll continue to stay about the same Mr managon knows his six coming up from the eighth grade into the ninth grade so he knows his numbers of seats will be fewer um but again the principles will determine that as they figure out their schedules in in February thank you um so as part of the public hearing we can hear comments or questions from anyone in the room anyone on the committee have questions or comments how about anybody joining us in the room tonight looks like no how about on Zoom is there anybody on Zoom there's nobody on Zoom okay um so that closes the public hearing for school choice at 6:34 p.m. the next public hearing we have is on the Hamil Hamilton rhom Regional School District fiscal year 26 budget so I'm opening this public hearing on the budget at 6:34 p.m. and I believe we'll take it over jump off thought was the right time for an update right thanks windows ofle for here he is for did unplug or it just kick you out I when I plug in it doubles my screen so I to unplug for okay sorry about that uh so thanks for joining us tonight we are here to review for the first public hearing on the superintendent's tenative FY 26 budget recommendation now for those of you who were here last night uh today in the audience and maybe at home listening uh tonight's public hearing is based on the last iteration of the budget that the school committee has seen that was on January 2nd and it is our approved tenative budget later on tonight at the full meeting I will be updating these numbers a little bit which is what we presented yesterday at the quintuple board meeting so I'm going to run through some of our major uh budget highlights and then go over some of the numbers uh from a high level View and sorry I got a little bit of a cold so I'm struggling breathing at the same time uh so year-over-year uh one of the biggest things we've seen is our growth in our revenues from fy2 to FY 26 excluding our uh Town Assessments in our end we're seeing growth of just under $400,000 which represents a 5.7% increase and this really is what we like to see we like to see our revenues uh outpacing the growth of our expenditures because that ultimately means uh less of a tax burden to the community uh some of the major growth we're seeing is around our state aid for our circuit breaker reimbursement our regional transportation revolving fund and our chapter uh 70 base Aid is where majority of those increases year ofe uh is what we're seeing uh from the other side from our expenditures uh the biggest challenge we faced in FY 26 revolved around our salary cost increases for FY 26 our salaries have increased uh upwards of 8.8% which equates to a $2.3 million increase uh if you compare this to fy2 fy2 our total Town assessments only went up roughly $1 million uh so just our salaries alone are nearly double what our overall budget increase was was last year for the town assessments uh so that really is the biggest challenge we faced for FY 26 those increases are the results of all of our collective bargaining agreements being renegotiated um the teachers office Personnel custodians um esps and Food Service are driving those costs uh next up is our increase in our a of District costs for FY 26 uh we are predicting an increase of rough 517,000 our AO District costs can vary year ofe based on our student needs uh this 57,000 covers both our out of District tuition increases and the out of District transportation costs uh just relatively speaking it's about a $250,000 increase on both sides the tuitions and the Transportation uh we are excited about the next one we are asking for a new investment uh to hire two new additional stem teachers at the elementary level uh this is costing roughly 209,000 uh the two Elementary stem teachers will be split between the three elementary schools approximately s at each School uh and will really enhance the stem program at the elementary level I am also happy to announce that for FY 26 it is the fifth year in a row we are contributing and increasing our opep contribution uh I believe uh again five years ago we started our opep contribution and since then we've contributed over $2 million uh for FY 26 our annual total will be 300,000 and I think says a lot about us taking our OPB liability serious and trying to lower it overall um over the past few years next we are asking for an additional $30,000 for new curriculum and workbooks both for our Ela program and the uh math program uh we have we do have some reductions to our staffing whenever we add uh new Staffing in the district we always try to look in other areas of the budget and around the district to make reductions to offset some of those increases uh one of the areas we looked at was within our literacy program at the elementary school for fy2 each elementary school has approximately 2.6 um Literacy esps for FY 26 we're reducing each building down to a 2.0 so that's A6 reduction at each of the three elementary schools for a total of approximately 1.8 uh that is saving us uh just below $50,000 uh every year there are some savings from retirements this varies year-to year depending on who we have retire what position they are and where they fall in the salary schedule uh but historically speaking when we have a teacher retire uh they usually deeper in the salary schedule and when we replace them we try to hire someone uh who's lower on the salary schedule which ultimately results in some savings uh for FY 26 we're incorporating a $91,000 reduction for our retirements uh we are also seeing a reduction to our debt service payments uh for FY 26 It's a combination of two things we have a lower principal payment uh based off of our fy2 pay Downs so for fy2 uh we down approximately $1.3 million of our overall debt therefore we have lower uh principal in FY 26 which then lowers our interest and we got at a reduced interest rate compared to FY 25 uh the combination of the two is resulting in a reduction of 153,000 as it relates to our debt service payments uh the last item here is our biggest item our biggest reduction year of a year uh from FY 25 to FY 26 we are seeing a reduction to our end offsets of 1.5 million uh this really is what is driving our ability uh to not need an override for FY 26 uh if you see here those salary costs of 2.3 million the main way we are paying for that is from our end offsets uh so it is helping us for FY 26 but this will be something that we have to uh continuously look at throughout this year and before we go to build the FY 27 budget thanks Vinnie just for those that um are maybe watching at home and in the audience could you go through the acronyms and just Define what those are and if it's not of course clear just brief explanation yep so end stands for excess and deficiency for those who may listen to the towns it's kind of their version of free cash so at the end of every year um for every year we have a budget um just saying it's $40,000 if at the end of the year we only spend 30 I'm sorry 40 million if at the end of the year we only spend 39 million uh in theory we have an extra million dollars at the end of the year that falls to our eend D account otherwise known as kind of your savings or your residual balance at the end of the year when that happens uh there's state law that says if you hit a certain threshold you have to return it to the towns uh we choose to do it in a in the form of our budget process and enter it as a revenue line within our budget uh because it's such a wild card we really try to use offsets uh really Capital items to kind of offset that end uh because end can vary so much year-over year you really don't know how much you're going to end the year with until practically June uh so because of that you really want to try to use any savings you have for the prior year uh for Capital items for kind of one time expenditures that's what we have historically done I believe the past three or four years uh this year we are not doing that we are lowering our overall cost to do business and the uh cost to the communities does that help yeah just um some of the other acronyms that you have listed here as well um O stem stem OPB Ela I just I want to make sure everybody is science technology engineering mathematics um OPB is other post employment benefits uh so when an individual retires who is when we have an employee who retires uh one of the benefits we offer them is health insurance for them and their uh spouse and eligible dependents for the rest of their lives so that's a future liability uh so we have actuarials come in and say because you've guaranteed this benefit to an employee uh you have a liability in the future uh so they really that really hurts us uh when it comes to our bond rating when it comes to our overall Financial picture uh so what the best practice is is to stop putting money away now and pay for those benefits so when the future comes you have the money to fund it do I have any other acronyms in there uh Ela is English English language arts ESP is educational support professionals otherwise known as um teaching assist or power professions did I get them all I think so yeah uh just without going into it I would say probably three years off the top of my head it's the combination of having expenditures left year over budgeting and receiving more Revenue um so the state might put out a number right now that says next year we're going to give the Regional School District a million dollars in chapter 7 they haven't finalized their Bud budget till later on in the year after we finalize our ours so maybe when they go to finalize theirs they come in and say we're actually going to give you 1.1 million so we get an extra $100,000 we can't use that because we didn't put it in our budget and it falls to so there two sides of it it's the additional revenues you receive and it's the lack of expenditures that you spend yeah at the end of every year uh I give a presentation that has the amounts in there so I say how much we UND spent the budget and how much revenues we received but that is added to the prior year prior year before that so what I Det out is the additions to the account not the historic going fact to the home does that make sense just one comment the the given oops given the the enormity of of that one major um rise in the budget of the salaries I think it's worth saying that um to the degree we haven't already said it that it it was in and intentional strategy to become competitive with with peer schools in our adjoining towns because otherwise we were going to experience continuing brain drain um and uh so it it's a tough pill to swallow but it was it was that or have a continuing deterioration as a result of not being competitive not when you put it in the budget like we are now if we were to need it right now today we would have to uh hold a special town meeting and seek your approval to use it if we uh build it into our budget process and it's approved at town meeting it's your approval to use it how say uh it's just the sum at town meeting we're asking for a budget of X good okay so just to go over some of the numbers on a high level uh perspective for our tentative budget when you look at all of our operating and debt for our revenues again this is excluding Our Town assessments but now we are including our end uh you can see a drastic difference in the slide before I was saying we had growth of upwards of 400,000 uh when you incorporate our end it brings it down to 91,000 another reason you really don't want to rely on & uh to fund your operating budget because it is very volatile and can change year-over year uh something that brings uh unneeded stress to the to the budget process uh in terms of our expenditures year-over-year we are if our tenative budget is uh seeking an increase of approximately 2.3 million or a growth rate of 5.1% uh the department of Elementary in secondary education uh has regulations on the way of school district uh presents and approves their budget uh they have us categorize all our expenditures based on these uh Desi chart of accounts and categories so that's how we present the budget and vote on it how we historically manage our budget is by location or Department which is more what we look at uh these are both the same charts different categorizations again a growth rate of approximately 2.2 million or 5.1% um included in the presentation I have a summary of all of our operating expense changes year of a year uh you can see that the biggest changes year-over-year are around our Cola uh we have our additional Cola from fy2 because the majority of those contracts weren't settled till fy2 after our fy2 budget process process was approved uh so not only is our FY 26 budget uh incorporating the FY 26 colas it also has to build in the additional fy2 colas that we received above what we budgeted uh so on here we have a lot of moving parts and I've detailed out all of our increases and decreases that make up that 2.2 uh million doll increase year of a year uh that is with Thea correct sorry excuse me one sec s do you mind answering um asking your question in the microphone HW cam just said they couldn't hear your questions just want to make sure that people at home can hear your questions with acem col that's a cost of living adjustment Coler is cost of living adjustment sorry so it's a percent applied to a salary the following year I was think I was done with that uh in addition I have a summary of changes to all our staffing uh this is Broken Out by building or Department uh every year we really go through and take a good look at each one of our buildings and try to adjust our staffing and what our demands are based on what our student needs are uh you can see there's a lot of movement between buildings and again that's based on our student population at the time and what demands we have at each building uh year-over year we really try to be level and keep our FTE flat for FY 26 we do have a minor increase of a 0.8 FTE uh just under a a just under one full-time position uh this really can be attributed to a uh recent move in of a uh student that required a one toone Aid based on their IEP uh the school committee saw this I believe in October or November when we asked for an additional position uh this is being carried through to FY 26 to meet the demands uh of the current student population that kind of concludes the public hearing I can take any more questions if you have them thank you so much so um does anyone else have any questions comments go up to the mic and ask okay so that concludes I'm going to close the public hearing number one for our HW Regional School District fiscal year 26 budget um should we wait five minutes to start okay so we'll take aress until 7 o'clock to start the regular meeting e e e e e e e e okay um I call to order this meeting of the Hamilton wam Regional school committee at 7 o'clock I invite everyone to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance flaged States one naice okay um so next up is Citizens comments um I just want to show remind everybody that this meeting is being recorded and live streamed and that we also have a member um attending the meeting on Zoom Julia Campbell um so any vote we take tonight will be a roll call vote so citizens comments um any citizen wishing to speak before the committee can um I'd like you to come up to the podium identify Yourself by name and address um you'll be allowed three minutes to present material can I have a timer volunteer thank you um and why don't we start with some in the room thank you hi everyone um my name is Mario mahart um I live at 14 chest Street I am a teacher taxpayer um in Hamilton winham I work at the miles River Middle School um and if I'm remembering correctly it is the newest of the five school buildings that we have um so it's in pretty good shape um but I am here just to ask um even though I know in education we all like keep our priorities like this instead of like this um because we're passionate about what we do um but I am going to ask that we make a priority the physical structures that our children learn in every day um I know we're talking about a massive new building um that has lots of Promise um but until that time comes we've got some pretty decrepit crumbling buildings that are leaking rain and children are tripping over buckets that are catching rain and um hearing yesterday about dead animals in the wall starting to decompose and smell at the high school so some of the time on learning for the kids is actually time on relocating to a place um where they can concentrate a little bit more and really benefit from the teaching and instruction um when that's possible I know as you know Eric said earlier that elementary schools are really packed to the gills so when there's an issue in one classroom there's really no place for the children or the teachers to go so um you know it seems like when it rains it pours or you know if it isn't one thing it's two things um and in our case it seems like it's 10 things all at once and I know that Shoring these buildings up and keeping them in good shape um is very very expensive but whatever you can do and whatever you think we could do as teachers to help rally some support to make these buildings better places for teaching and learning um ready and happy to do it thank you very much thank you yeah thank you very much hi hi I'm Linda mastriani m s t r i a ni I and I live at 23 Maple Street and I also teach at all three elementary schools and um I am really hopeful that we will get this new school um the the students and the teachers are and we're doing really good work but the students deserve to have schools that support and encourage their learning and the teachers need a place that they can work as well and I'm not looking for the Taj Mahal but somewhere that is appropriately warm and dry and Vermin free would be a great start um so as a taxpayer and as a teacher I am looking forward to this um I know that there are lots of thoughts around neighborhood schools and I will admit that my parents and my children and I all went to Cutler school and we have great memories really really great memories but throughout the years we've had lots of great memories in my family from the South School which probably never none of you have heard about or the East school or the high school that was on Union Street which were all great places until they weren't and I think that's where we are now we have great St great families and we could really use a great building thanks thank you yeah thank you anyone else here anyone else in the room want to offer public comment after the pyramid B before yeah I got anybody on zoom on zo nobody on Zoom okay so that concludes public comment or citizens comments rather um close the zoom Link at 705 next up on the agenda are the school committee protocols um I failed to pass them out to anybody so I will read them tonight we are reading school committee protocol number eight as elected members of the Hamilton wam Regional school committee we including the superintendent accept the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to Ure that the students of the district receive the best education possible to that end we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business number eight school committee members will vote according to their convictions will avoid bias and will uphold and support the decisions of the majority of the committee once a decision has been made positions will not be used for personal or partisan gain next up on the agenda is the school committee mission statement which again I didn't out to anybody so I'll read that as well um it's only fair um the Hamilton mon Regional uh School District school committee's mission is to ensure our schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential the Hamilton one Regional school committee will lead and inspire a district that inspires all students to realize their fullest potential and feel a powerful sense of individual and Collective belonging um next up on our agenda is um a word from our student representative rney GI hi everyone I'm here tonight to talk about some of the events currently going on within the district um first at the high school it's a sort of in between period right now currently uh with midterms coming up next week the environmental Club is currently selling Wildflower seed packages to raise funds uh to support those in California affected by the wild flowers and there's also an alumni panel last Tuesday in which High School alumni came to speak with Juniors and seniors about their college or After High School experiences so far and then for clubs and sports at the high school the boys and girls basketball teams have been very consistent this year and the boys team actually had the opportunity to play a game at the TD Garden last Saturday against Milford and they won 60 to 42 the swim team has had a successful first few meets uh gymnastics won their first meet of the season on Tuesday and they had another one today the ski team has also been pretty strong with the girls team winning their first race of the season last week and the cheer team has a competition coming up that will be hosted at the high school on February 8th in Esports is also going strong as for clubs uh Student Government Spanish Culture Club robotics environmental club and more are meeting frequently with strong participation and finally Deca is sort of starting to wind down for the year with a state competition being held in The seport District in Boston from February 27th to March 1st uh next at the musical they're currently performing SpongeBob the musical um starting today into the weekend there are many clubs running as well including homework club uh GSA jazz band Art Club National Junior Honor Society and more there's also a cross country in mural then it's a little quieter at the elementary schools uh at win up they have a jump rope assembly coming up on the 6th and there's also a r Rubik's Cube Club Going On from now until the 6 as well at Cutler they have a jump rope performance also on February 6 and then lastly buer is hosting an elementary literacy night on the 28th of January along Ong with the elementary math night on February 8th thank you all and I'm happy to answer any questions you all might have thank you anybody have questions all right thank you so much for that report it's always so nice to hear what's going on in all the schools and as Dana always those um you're welcome to stay but we understand you probably have some stuff to do thank you so much thank you okay next up on the agenda um is the consent agenda um does anyone have anything that they would like held make a motion please uh sure uh I move that the hilum regional school committee approve the consent agenda as written in tonight's um excuse me meeting agenda second second any discussion okay uh we're going to do a roll call vote we have a virtual number um start with yes Julia yes Amy a yes David yes yes okay and that passes of the five thank you so much as usual for donations that is amazing next up is new business um the first being the state of the buildings report think I'll jump in here I have the opportunity to finally introduce our new uh director of facilities operations maintenance and 4,000 other things um who has been on his toes running since we hired him many months ago um so I appreciate the time he's taken to kind of go back through the former report that that was presented last year and update and he's here tonight to go through some of that and answer some questions condem to the basketball thank you Eric uh for the record my name is Curtis Whitman the director of facilities Vance operations I also live in town on 27 Le Road in South Hilton um so copy of the state of the uh facilities report was provided as part of the agenda I assume members of the school committee have had time to look through that um so what I really just wanted to highlight some of the key issues that were as part of the executive summary and then if any questions have come up we can go through those um the big four one is accessibility across the district um Ada non-ambulatory occupants main entrances aren't adequate um across our elementaries so whether it's door width or ramps uh the switches required to open the doors we're we're fairly non-compliant in in uh that regard mechanical systems I'm sure all of you are aware of the current flight at the middle school high school with the boilers um we're continuing to fight through that their end of life and we're we're working on coming up with a solution there and lack of cooling in air conditioning across the district so I know this is a problem over the summer especially with summer programs um so something that we want to definitely consider uh for me one of the biggest things having a background in the military safety security so uh not only do we have a lot of alarm systems in schools that aren't working we have blind spots with cameras and I highly recommend that we reach out and have a study done by a security firm to come in and and really look at what we could do better especially in this climate today's environment I think that's very important uh finally you heard some of from some of the members of the of the community but uh roof and structural Integrity so leaking roofs um really the high school at the end of its life and we are pursuing options through the msba there to get that as part of the ARP program uh Middle School's right behind it uh we unfortunately are not eligible for another couple years to replace that and buer here in this school particularly the flat roof uh needs to be replaced as well so that's really the big four um I don't know if there's any questions on those or anything else that's in the report that I can help clarify the committee or whoever I'm sorry my understand you're at the very beginning of of a study that National Grid is is H sponsoring can can you give us any insight into what exactly they'll be doing so he reached out to me and Eric a couple weeks ago I believe and I reached out back to him we're playing a little bit email tag right now so um my thought is they're going to come in and do a full energy audit um based off just what is the limited literature in the email so um I'm hoping for some more information on that a part of the report a lot of what I have in here is around building automation so I'm hoping that they offer some solutions for that lighting hbac controls things like that so I'm hoping that that to your issue of there's no Cooling in the schools that um that they'll also be looking at the energy tradeoffs of of using heat pump kind of Technologies but both of the Town Halls are doing a complete makeover I don't know whether you know that um spending about one and a half plus million each uh using actually probably the most expensive the geothermal kind ofs but um there's it struck me that there that was one of the options that would involve trading off on both sides of the equation truck and the cost versus the utility of of having Cooling and and classro control absolutely no I I agree that's going to be part of it I I agree and and I hope it is uh I'll be transparent with Eric and Vinnie and and the committee about what is presented and we'll obviously seek the best solution that we can so thank you yeah absolutely um thank you and welcome we're excited to have you um I in going through the report which was very detailed um I didn't see any mention of the the water quality report that was done on the district I don't know if you've seen that or Incorporated that into your thoughts of recommendations moving forward so I I'm not a water expert so I I wouldn't know um but we did have water testing done by the town of WAM and Hamilton I also know that we reached out independently and had our own water testing done so I think me and Eric have the the results of that um I have not rewed those um my recommendation would be to bring in an expert that could tell us what those mean in action that accordingly yeah I would AG greate from from the water can sorry from the water perspective I I think one of the things to note is the towns um have different Cycles so the town of wenam does the buer school they actually do schools preschools in in their community so and they do them on these rotational basis so one town does once every so many years and the other town does one in different cycle of years so one's a six-year cycle uh I think coming up in 2026 and they specifically test for lead and copper and um is this inside the school or delivering to the edge of the school inside the school and to be noted they take the worst absolute case possible so they do it first thing in the morning before any anything has ran they take the sample um so they actually did it over the summer here buer yeah and the last test for the high school in the high school Cutler was 2021 so we're coming back up around on that one okay where where are those published I was unable to find them uh way back when we went ahead and did the the summit so they they were done by the towns so we actually had to reach out to the towns Curtis reached out to the towns and got the latest results which aren't really the latest because one was done in 21 and one was done in 20 so we were able to get those from the towns we didn't I wasn't here at the time as the super I'm not sure so back then uh since I haven't seen those if you've looked at them did any school have for example any trace of lid so just looking at the reports it didn't appear that there were anything outside the the normal limits so everything was either at or below there my rate of it was that there's one and a half possible billion lead in winter only will rest with lead free and one and a half is one and a half more than the American Academy of Pediatrics think is thinks is acceptable you're talking about the town reports you're talking about the town reports yeah okay this most recent report no Town reports though not the not the one yeah yeah reports I believe are the ones that we're talking about yeah no I'm talking about the most recent report which um I think Vinnie okay who who actually did that okay just to clarify so we have had multiple different samplings and testing of the water the ones that we've all seen recently look like they were done in 2024 and so which ones are we are we talking about those are the independent ones okay the ones that everybody received three question Mr Frankle are the independent reports we've recently received through the work of Curtis with the towns the 2020 and the 2021 uh reports that were done by the towns and they again they do that for all of the school buildings including private preschools and um you know other schools that are in the community not just not just the buer school or not just the high school middle school so it's it's a standard practice for the towns we we uh have learned about you know Curtis has been digging in trying to figure out ways uh I think I think he was initially trying to figure out how to get some more water bottle fill stations with filtering built into it the filtering because you can get those uh for just about free from uh number of vendors through the through the federal government programs and some State programs um one of the things you need is this testing that's done by the towns for lead and copper um so that's that's the reason we started to pursue this correct me if I'm wrong but that's correct that was kind an EPA dictate I think nationally wasn't it yeah it was the money ran out on the EPA side I think there's there's a number of uh smaller groups and smaller grants that are still available but I think the AP EPA if I remember correctly ran out at the end of 2023 because we got we did years ago get um at least one maybe two bottle fillers water bottle fillers for the middle school and the high school uh back in the maybe 22 or maybe it might have been even earlier but I'm just you know we've been involved in that program and through Curtis's work he's reached out to uh Vicki Mason and track down some of the things with the with the towns that we were not fully aware of so he's been able to help us to nail that down and get that moving in the right direction it does does seem to me that there's a need for a true expert to take a look and advises because apart from the lead there were some things there that I was uh quite surprised like quite high levels of chloroform um which seemed kind of weird above above stated standard levels and there was a couple of other chemicals that I can barely pronounce I was going to say this some uh that we always wonder about but uh I mean we can I mean the committee would have to direct us and figure out how to fund that but yeah there may be there may be uh available resources at Department of Health because Department of Health will do a free assessment for example of air quality um I don't know what facilities I've not inquired as to what facilities or no at the the state level okay we can check um so okay any other questions for Curtis sorry not public comment time um any other questions about just related to this yeah um so has Curtis received the the reports that were forwarded to us yeah okay um so Curtis um knowing that nobody here is a water quality expert would you be able to in your next report um address the water quality reports that we're forward be happy to excent absolutely great excent any other questions no thank you for the great diligence and Detail in here appreciate that really appreciate it meet thank you for your time I think it's important to note that Curtis has been standing in front of a tidal wave since he walked in the door uh so he's literally been digging through old piles of stuff cleaning stuff out trying to organize uh things like plans for the building so that we have them in places that are A Accessible B dry and uh you know so that that they're useful and even things like looking for previous testing that's been done on anything and really uh this is even includes trying to figure figure out um electricity usage in the buildings you know can we carry what we're carrying on the electricity coming in the building so he's he's done a lot of work and I really appreciate having him on the team as a member of the team and look forward to continuing to work on on all these things with him so thank you terrific step forward thanks everybody all right next up is uh vote on school choice do you have an exhibit just make a motion is just a motion to accept or not accept school choice for the 25 26 school year excuse me all right uh I moved at the Hamilton wiam Regional school committee vote to approve to continue in the school choice probably accept accept I'm sorry vote to accept the school choice um to participate in school choice second second by Trent any discussion discussion okay 256 that's yeah I actually meant to but someone was very very excited second for the 2025 I mean 25 26 25 yeah good okay thank you um you still second I get beat every time I have to have to wait for there to be key absences to be able to get in okay thank you for clearing that up any discussion on voting Choice okay we'll do a roll call vote start with Trent yes Julia yes Amy is a yes yes FR yes okay and that passes five members present thank you great okay um the next thing on the agenda is competency determination for class of 25 and Beyond Mr thank you um I'm gonna I need to do this from here only because I'm connected to the owl so um everybody will be able to see it on presentation but as you know in the most recent election the oh I can see it and I can get the um attachment or the exhibit from the no it's called I just can't disconnect from the can't disconnect from the owl so we're okay the um last election the in massachus mcast requirement for graduation was voted down by the people um and that has put uh the public school systems in a precarious situation of figuring out how to continue to meet the federal law uh so I want to do a quick overview for you of uh what what has occurred and realistically there's some new language in the statute that talks about competency determinations and graduation requirements and what was removed as measured by the assessment instruments described in section one that is all gone which which section one talks about uh M an mcast type assessment and now it is switched to what you see and read on the screen by satisfactory completing coursework that has been certified by the students District as showing Mastery of the skills competencies and knowledge contained in the State academic standards and curriculum framework Frameworks in the area measured by the mcast high school test described in section one administered in 2023 and in any additional areas determined by the board um fascinating language it just really puts the burden on each School District to come up with their own graduation requirement so there's still a legal requirement for a graduation requirement and it's just not mcast uh so I just want be people to understand that that that requirement is still there so we we talked uh several we've had several meetings with the Department of Education and uh they've given us a little bit of guidance um to kind of kick things off for districts and then some of the things that they have given us in one of their uh FAQs and through some of the conversations we've had with them in online meetings um you have to be aligned with the new new language of the statute that allows the district to demonstrate students have met uh the new requirements the new requirements are are they competent and proficient in order to be a get a diploma that unfortunately is going to look very different for every single school system so it's it's uh we're pushing from the superintendency to try to say we need some alignment here because it'll look different in Lee Massachusetts or on the cape it'll be it's going to be different we're already seeing some of the examples pop up um whatever we decide on has to be approved by the school committee um it'll be shared with students Gardens and District stakeholders we do that with our with our um handbook at the high school level where which is generally where the graduation requirement comes in it has to be publicly available in multiple languages we put everything in 11 languages now I think 12 actually um so not a concern there we just wanted to review some of the current promotion requirements students uh just to move through and I'm going to use the high school as an example assuming the kids have made it through all the way to 8th grade the high school um becomes kind of a credit collection exercise where uh kids uh must earn at least five credits during their freshman year which which is which is really five full-time classes um summer school credits can be included we generally don't have a lot of kids who go to summer school um and the same thing is you go into your junior year you have to earn 10 question uh credits um you have to have earned a total of 10 credits during freshman and sophomore years um and then a senior you have to have a total of 17 credits um which gives kids some flexibility people always say to me well why isn't 20 um because what happens senior year is kids go like this and they spread out and start to take uh courses that they're interested in and courses that they feel like might prepare them for whatever college experience they're looking for so those are the current requirements the credit requirements uh require 24 credits to graduate so different than the promotion requirements you only need five uh each year up until the senior year then a total 17 to actually move through the years um but to graduate we have um a total of 24 credits that are required and this is a combination of full one-year classes which are one credit and a combination of U two halfe classes could be one credit as well uh so we have a number of courses at the high school that are uh one year and halfe credit so kids can again assemble those so that they get 24 credit credits if you do the quick math um you know if you if you look at the seven period day uh for kids they could take seven classes and get um credits in each of those and do that all four years and end up with many more credits than they actually need so it gives them some flexibility in their schedule to do things like internships which our our graduation uh requirements now allow and then uh community service is still on the book so this really outlines where we're at the red is the part that we will remove uh the m i I left it in here because it's still current with this graduation class U because they they had taken the mcast all of our seniors who are uh in alignment to graduate have passed the mcast requirements so not a problem for us this year there are a number of schools in the in the uh Commonwealth who are wrestling with kids that have not passed mcast and they don't have competency determination uh requirements in place yet so we we don't have that issue we're we're actually in a good place to take time to review this and look at it carefully question is is there any intent to continue to get the mcast just to give you some normalization data yeah the mcast doesn't go away I'm gonna get that one second okay uh the mcast doesn't go away this is just a slide with the piece that we're going to pull out of the current language um there may probably also be some additions and to answer your question Mr frinkle here we are uh mcast is still required so kids in third grade through 10 grade will still take these assessments uh it's still going to be used by the state for accountability a little bit worrisome for school districts uh because the lack of the graduation requirement takes away the seriousness of the assessment so now the state's going to be using this kind of flawed accountability system those are my own words I will take note that I said them I believe they are it's a flawed accountability system when you don't have um really this stringent requirements of making it uh connected to graduating so that's still in play and that's a important piece to keep in mind uh students in who who would not be on track for graduation this year would not be eligible to graduate until their districts put something in place every Community is working on this every superintendent meeting I've been to has been the buzz it's been the buzz on what we're doing what they're doing uh I've noticed a number of school districts have said if you passed um English n and 10 and algebra one and geometry then you're eligible to graduate I think we're going to look a little bit beyond that uh to to make sure that we have uh U good competency determination to make sure kids are eligible to receive the diploma from the community which brings me to my next slide which is the plan moving forward as I said the 2025 are all set we're not worried about them they will get their diplomas in June uh excuse me in May this year I I just realized is was moved um and then uh the high school principal would do the work with his staff to figure out what makes sense for competency determination for students in the class of 2026 and beyond that will be done in Mass with that staff it will come to this committee for a discussion and then ultimately the committee will have to approve some form of Competency determination based on those discussions um quick question yep what what do you do if they pass mcast but don't pass your point system they can't they're not eligible to graduate if they don't have the 24 credits so if a kid had 20 credits at the last day of senior year they would not be eligible to graduate even though they passed MC correct okay correct because it's a combination of both um one of the questions that came up several times was since mcast is still at play could a community choose to still use mcast as a competency determination the state uh has said yes um we're just concerned about the the validity of assessments moving forward um and then we'll we'll continue this work in alignment with the program of studies that the the school committee usually gets to see right around late June and those things should all mesh so that we have it ready for the start of the school year and then we'll do final approval which will be which will coincide with the student handbook I just wanted to give a quick overview it's not there's nothing for us to dig into yet but we will at some point I have a I have a question is is there any issue of kind of turnover of the say current sophomores and juniors that we would have concerns about in light of you know removing this requirement or it doesn't matter because they'll earn credits anyway you talking about kids that might not be eligible to graduate because of the lack of credits yes yeah so so otherwise so the the high school really does a lot of work it starts now where there are emails already flying out saying if you have a kid in your class who's not doing well we need to know and the guidance Council start doing individual meetings there's a lot of work down on the ground um to make sure kids are ready to graduate as as you know our our graduation rate is very high you know so it's it's not generally an issue um we do have sometimes one or two kids that do need to take they may have to take a class in summer school and then they'll get their diploma at the end of the summer um some kids stay for another year because they need to or they want to and that's okay too so okay thank you anyone else have questions interesting yeah it is thank you for that um okay next on the agenda is Town election information um you want me to take this me to do it okay I can do it okay um as we know the annual town meeting brings also the town elections and uh this information that's on the agenda is is for public consumption so that people understand when uh things are happening including the annual town meeting on April 5th the annual Town election on Thursday April 10th uh and then uh it has a number of uh registration last day to register to vote uh dates to get out there to people uh when nomination papers are available they are available they were available as of this past Monday um the last day to submit them is February 20th um which is which is a it's a Thursday and then um the last day to object to withdraw is on March 10th uh those Library papers uh for um any of these positions can be picked up at the town clerk's offices the elected bodies that are available across the the towns uh select board there there's uh threeyear terms two positions available in Hamilton Town moderator uh oneyear term uh is available Board of assessors there's a three-year term Single seat planning board three-year term three seats uh Library trustees there's a three-year seat one seat and the Hamilton wam Regional school committee threeyear three seats that is for Hamilton let me one second I'll swap to venam see if I can get on their stuff um and the ballot for wenom will include Board of assessors three-year term one seat Board of Health three-year term one seat select board three-year term two seats Hamilton wam Library board that that's the single seat I talked about uh it's a three-year term school committee threee threee three three-year terms uh planning board five-year term one seat and then uh an interesting planning board four-year term one seat and then two water uh commission seats available one threeyear one twoyear then then one twoyear housing authority and one three a Housing Authority available so those are the the um positions that are open uh anybody can grab these either off of our agenda this evening or in any of the Town websites okay thank you um okay next up is finance and operations Vinnie show us switch a r another budget a different budget beating beating the clock very well still there Julia this is my ninth one exactly getting better at it before this time and Vinnie will you just explain the difference between this version and the version we looked at earlier um so the version earlier that um for the public hearing was the tentative budget which was the last budget before this one that the school committee saw on January 2nd uh every every school committee meeting pretty much since the budget starts we update the budget uh pretty much every meeting and incorporate our changes that we worked on from the prior two weeks uh so this is the update and all the changes that we've gone through since January 2nd thank you uh so tonight I'm uh presenting the superintendent's updated tentative FY 26 budget recommendation uh so again I'm just going to briefly uh go over the changes from the budget you saw on January 2nd uh to where we are today uh and then take any questions uh so like every year the last thing we want to do is ask for an override so our attempt is always to avoid that um so we went through our budget again and tried to reduce every way we could to get that number down uh below the threshold um uh so some updates tonight again are on both the revenue sides and our expenditure uh so from the tenative budget to today's updated uh we are seeing an increase of approximately $40,000 for our tuition in accounts uh this is a specialed student uh that is not a Hamilton wenom student uh there are student uh a resident from another school district whether it's ipswitch um Gloucester or somewhere else that is tuition into our district uh this usually saves money for the sending District uh and generates a revenue for the receiving District uh taking this student in uh did not increase uh the need for any staff and was a minimal increase uh to our supplies and materials uh so it really is a generating Revenue source for the district uh so that does lower the overall assessment and the overall tax burden to the community by that 39,000 in terms of our trans Transportation reimbursement uh Transportation reimbursement is a calculation based on the price year amount we spent on Transportation uh and that is directly related to all students that are transported above 1.5 miles if they're below 1.5 miles the state does not reimburse you for any of your expenses uh so at the end of every year we go through a massive uh reporting scheme to the state which includes all of our transportation expenditures and breaks them out uh below and above that 1.5 miles once that's verified and the state builds their budget they then reimburse you a percentage of those expenditures you don't get all of them back you only get a percentage back uh that end of year report was a little late this year uh we completed it in the end of November uh beginning of December uh and went through basically a three-week verification process uh when it came back we had our final numbers after I roll it forward for FY 26 It ultimately meant a $46,000 increase which again directly comes uh the town assessments as as it's an outside uh Revenue Source uh in addition to our increases in revenues we went through our expenditures and tried to decrease way we could uh we do have a $5,000 reduction to our athletic contracted Services uh this relates to the new athletic turf field uh there is netting that is going to be back there that when we first built the budget uh we thought we had to hire someone to take down and store it for the winter uh after consultation with the uh manufacturer and other school districts uh we are we are able to leave those up uh so we don't need to pay for them to be taken down or for them to be stored uh so we reduced our budget for $5,000 related to the storage of those Nets uh and again an attempt to close the gap uh between where we were in that override threshold we are reducing our uh administrative contingencies for any new newly hired administrators next year by approximately $6,000 uh earlier this year I implemented a new uh Social Security uh a new Social Security uh tax liability so Regional School Districts uh in many municipalities and governments don't contribute to Social Security because we have pensions uh we have been contributing to Social Security for our non pensionable employees since I got here uh this year I finally had time to implement a Ben cor FICA alternative plan uh that means the employee is still contributing into a tax shelter annuity however the school district does not have to match those funds uh so we feel confident that our social security tax liability will be reduced in FY 26 I do anticipate it will be more than the 10,000 however I'm waiting for a full year uh to pass to realize all those savings uh as we do have a lot of non-pensionable employees that join us over the summertime uh the state did update our school choice out numbers so this would be um students that do reside in Hamilton or Wenham that do not choose to go to our school district they go to another uh School District ipswitch clester Beverly um we have two less students going out uh just like our school choice in when we receive 5,000 per student if we a student out it costs us $5,000 per student so with those two less students going out we reduced our school choice out by $10,000 uh last week I did update you on our retirement savings uh I neglected at the time to reduce those retirees longevity payments when scrubbing through all of our expenditures uh to fall under that override I realized that I needed to zero out their longevity so Z out those five people which reduced our budget by another 11,000 uh again in an attempt to close the gap uh we lowered our teacher professional development funds for our tenative budget and for all um prior budgets before this at least for the past six years the school district has always budgeted $250 per teacher FTE for professional development money uh we reduce that to $150 per FTE uh which equated to an $18,000 uh reduction to our budget uh Stacy Buck the director of student services gave us an updated AO District tuition's projection for FY 26 it contained one less anticipated a of District student uh which ultimately reduced our overall a of districts by $80,000 uh last but not least is a reduction to our health insurance uh I this is a moving Target I met with our insurance broker and Harvard Pilgrim our insurance carrier uh we went over our loss ratios and how we were serve how we are doing uh in terms of the benefits that Harvard Pilgrim is pushing out for our employees uh at the moment we are running well uh so they notified us to expect a lower than anticipated premium on our insurance rate increase uh that ultimately meant a $105,000 reduction to our health insurance equates to a basically a 1% uh decrease in our health insurance premium increase every year so from the tenative budget till now uh these are the updates that we've made uh and the towns both reported to us last night that with these reductions it does drop us under that override uh Mark for now at least uh so just to review the revenues at this point uh we are seeing revenues outside of our assessment coming in 9.6 million which is an increase of roughly 216,000 or 2.3% over the prior year again excluding the town assessments uh in terms of our uh operating and Debt Service budget in in Gross form uh year ofe we are at this time requesting an increase of 1.9 million which is a growth rate of 4.08% um you can see the third line down on the has the biggest increase uh this is our teachers category uh obviously like I said in the uh public hearing it has to do with our new collective bargaining agreements uh and those new uh cost of living adjustments uh that were agreed to uh just to point out that is not where all of our teachers reside this is that Desi category chart that I was talking about uh Desi classifies uh teachers in a certain way we have about 30 other employees that are covered by the teachers collective bargaining agreement that don't necessarily fall in the teachers category uh in that category you can see this F 152 FTE uh the people covered by that category is more like 190 so they are spread out in other categories uh so there is more than that 1.5 it's about that 2.3 million that I mentioned earlier uh and just a point out again that capital and fixed asset improvements is our biggest reduction at1 million which again is that offsite um this is that same chart but based on our site and support program or our school or Department again I've broken out a summary of all of our changes that now reconciles to the new 1.9 million that we are asking for year of a year and we have here that same chart that we saw earlier our summary of all of our changes uh asking for an additional 0.88 increas year uh so just as a final reminder uh this is the last meeting before our vote on February 6th for the final budget uh that that vote does require a super majority of the whole committee uh so at this time uh if there aren't any questions or if there are any recommendations if there are no changes anyone is requesting from the quintuple board meeting uh the chances of us bringing this the numbers see here into the February 6th meeting unless we hear otherwise is probably what we will be requesting in our final budget question what sorry I'm not familiar with what what constitute a super majority 66% okay thank you um anyone have questions yeah um thank you as always Benny for a great um presentation um FY 26 we're paying down expenditures with D and D to get below an override um FY 27 all things being constant without some unusual windfall are we expecting to put a budget in front of the town that would likely constitute a need for an override um that would be a question we put forth to you guys before the budget process starts are we gonna put forth a budget that requires an override or are we going to try to make reductions to fall under it that we would ask you that before we even start the budget process next year what what are the sizes of reductions that we would have to make to be able to all things were equal it's again don't quote me on it because a lot of things can change you're on camera would be that and amount of $2 million two million okay thank you anyone else have questions yeah what would that be in teacher headcount if if it was that's a very tough one it would not be an entire teacher there wouldn't be one Union or Department that doesn't get hit it would not be all teachers just for comparison reasons uh this happened to us during covid we had about a $1.2 million reduction and at that time it meant about 20 sta 1.2 20 St it also hit a lot of other areas uh that didn't directly relate to salaries but that's just to give you a rough idea of what we're talking about it's important to know too then when you're looking at situations or times of of having to cut uh remember the salary scales how they work you know your the way the union contracts work and the salary scales work you're cutting your lowest paid employees so you end up not gaining a lot I mean gain 56,000 I think we're at at the lowest step um versus somebody at the higher step uh it's just the way the system works and when we start to look at uh Cuts that's those are the those the impact points so there may be just use two departments and I'm not picking on a department but if I had you know math and science and the lowest paid people teacher in science that you know if we decided to cut was making 880,000 and the lowest paid teacher in English making 56 that's the variation you could see in cut so that's why Vinnie says it's hard to it's hard to pin down because you could be looking at secretarial staff who's making 30,000 or um nursing staff that's making more t as much of that you know so it's it's a moving Target until you actually get there when you start to look at okay what are the what are the things we want to look at and we would look at as many things as possible that are not uh salary related we want to keep our teachers and keep them in in place but was only so far you can go on a tiny school district right well part of the trade-off in the end becomes facilities Improvement new facilities what uh my head quite how how to make that tradeoff that's harking back to the comment yesterday from one of the the I think select MERS is it's a bunch of priority choices and how to make them visible for example when when David I can't hear you oh I'm sorry when when would the the cost of the school actually hit the annual budget 28 28 or 29 28 or 29 20 28 or 2029 that's when the first payment on debt would be and and roughly what would that be it depends on how you look at it so the debt schedules work differently for different projects you can do um you can take out debt in a straight payment which means you're making the same payment every year for just use a cycle of 20 years you can take out a reducing payment that starts out high and drops down over the 20 years you can also do a um debt schedule where you're only taking debt to cover the expenses that you need for that particular year uh which which makes it kind of move all over the place but uh does help in the kind of the initial stages the initial stages are generally the highest the first you know 10 years are usually the highest as we probably saw with the middle school when they built it so how how can we make those modeling choices visible to to taxpayers well to us first yeah we we just we started we've been working with um John McGrath on the fincom in Hamilton a lot we've started to work with Phineas sprag who's the fincom chair at Hamil winham we are waiting for the state to give us our updated reimbursement number they do it in January and it's usually the second or third week in January we don't want to move forward with a number that's not the number in two weeks so we're trying to nail that number down um we've also gained incentive 5.76 incentive points on top of whatever we get for our reimbursement rate so once we get that then they'll they go through a a schedule of reimbursables like what the state qualifies as something they would reimburse the community for and then they go through and say all right these are the reimbursables and this is how much square footage gets reimbursed in the calculation so we will have that number soon and we plan to continue to work with um both both towns to to get those things out there to to people uh well before we get to town meeting before we're we're hopefully targeting to have something out as late as it you know the next few weeks just to get get it out there in public we're also going to work on some um tax calculator so people can put their individual properties in and figure out roughly what the impact will be it really depends on how we choose to finance if if it gets approved and how we choose to finance is is really um different you could you could say all right we want to make it a 30-year note and drag it out but the problem you do with that is you're usually making repairs on the on the facility before you even finish paying for the original build so we we generally recommend we generally recommend 20 years for anything and I think you know that's that's a generally a good way to go but some sometimes communities will say we would rather stretch it out so that the burden the taxpayers less the problem you run into is your interest payments uh start to take off when you do that too so there's a lot of there's a lot of scenarios to look at with the towns and try to figure out what the best approach would be whether we go in that direction or could be anything even if we're talking about just you know replacing a roof there those are multi-million dollar jobs and those are debts that that get taken out um over time yeah what concerns me there's another big variable um is the cost the cost may be severely impacted by the rebuild in California Lab labor materials I think going to be nationally under a lot of pressure because that's that is a massive reu yeah yeah it's a difficult model to model just wanted to jump in to respond in sequence to these parts of the conversation um first around you know that $2 million and what that looks like I think that you to your point of how difficult it is to make Cuts it's the job of this commit to make sure that we don't ever get there right yeah that's like the most important work that we're going to do over the next two years um is that whatever that looks like in 2027 passes um and then to the question about the when we're going to be promulgating information on the the tax cuts um I was surprised last night to learn that this had already been run for one cost of a home and you know put up uh online um and I think that that's excellent if you happen to own a home that's $789,000 right right um I do Wonder um if it would be of the interest of this District to um not put up a calculator but to put a mailer out for each home that is going to be impacted by this this is what the estimate is going to be um because we do that for other things yeah right and if we're developing the tax calculator then it's really just about printing the data that would be there um and what what I don't know because um John didn't say it yesterday is if this is like a linear relationship right if you're able to say well it's you know $1,800 a year for a house that's 789 which means if it's a house that's 689 then it's just a proportional decrease my guess is it's not otherwise that would be too easy right um but that means that we have to have some kind of complexity that's built in to be able to get people accurate numbers and I think the best way to do that would be to send it right to every person and say this is what to expect and I can have that conversation with with the towns too John has been really good John's been on top of it since day one he's been really into the numbers he's he's been trying to figure out the best ways to present the scenarios how how things should look to the public how things you know he he basically just keeps putting information out there so the best source has been John um not 100% accurate because it it changes so much which is part of the other the secondary problem somebody goes to the website and sees the original price of 150 million when it's currently 143 million I think the bigger problem is like how would you even know to get go to the website yeah you know like I'm on the town um newsletter right um I try to follow the happenings across the different committees such that I'm here um but not a clue that that was published on the website back in in April yeah um and so I I if you know if you're not involved at all because you know you have kids at home and you are you know um working and have all these other things I think that that the the burden of getting information is really on us that we can work with the town I think the other aspect of of building a proper forward-looking view over the next 10 15 20 years is that the work that's just been begun by the new facilities director which is what to to the complaint that was made yesterday what improvements can we and should we make with and without the new school how do we budget for that how do we plan for it because I don't we have a coherent plan yet that that deals with all that and raises the standard of all for all students and teachers so what what process would you like to see that would get us that kind of plan and that kind of budget forward looking look again to because it's again it's going to be a priority choice for for the town first of all and then for this committee yeah every every Capital project is is a priority choice not only in the district okay we're going to do a roof first um but it's also with the community because those Capital purchases or expected purchases need to go to town meeting every single time we can't just say I'm going to drop $2 million over here um we have to really be transparent about that so it's it's really incumbent on us to take the list that we've the new list we've generated that Curtis presented tonight and start to aggregate that and then look at what that looks like outside of um you know building or no building just take that off the table where do we go from here I guess is your question so that's part of the planning that Curtis will be doing over the next probably six months yeah I want to say it more like a smus board than rather alart menu with yeah with no prices on it in a high price restaurant but um just so that that um that we can give an honest answer to how we how we going to avoid this this um deterioration issue really affecting and impacting learning absenteeism and all those things so any other questions about this budget words right out of my mouth everyone wants to talk about the school how about the budget question are there any questions because this will be what we present last chance okay um thank you so much you guys all right um thank you again next up our committee reports anything from Capital Financial Planning subcommittee I can report on that um if I can pull up my minutes from the last meeting um we did another look at the FY 26 budget in great detail um and um I was nominated to be on the capital Improvement project subcommittee committee Advisory Board Advisory Board and I accepted congratulations there go I'm on the capital Improvement project advisory report okay um and we adjourned okay um do you have a future meeting planned we we dos one on the books okay um policy subcommittee I will take that one um we're still arranging a meeting time so I'll will send out an email just to remind everybody this is reminding me that that okay um and Eric I don't know do you want attend that next meeting yeah okay great and negotiations of committee anything uh the next two or me negotiations no we haven't been up to anything lately and the secretary's report I did reach out to Janelle and we're playing a little bit of tag we're putting a report together but it's not ready okay thank you end report sure uh just a couple of quick items the first one is you know whenever the students are here they always they always get some of some of my report but I it's worth repeating SpongeBob tonight tomorrow and Saturday uh the middle school always a fun time to go to uh the events at the the schools I think uh one of the thing events I went to last week that was interesting was the panel that uh Whitney talked about it was a uh uh former students who came back to speak with seniors about their experience going to college and the interesting thing was there were some kids who were in the states in college with two kids who are in Europe in college uh so they were able to talk a little bit about the differences and kids were able to ask them questions about you know okay what's this experience like where are we heading you know and so uh that was that was interesting and then the uh kind of the big news for all of our high school kids during Martin Luther K week is always uh midyear exams so if you can't find your child who goes to the high school they're probably studying uh during during that time so it's it's a big time it's a stressful time for the kids but it also marks the end of this the halfway point of the school year so we're we're a little more than a week away from the halfway point of the school year uh which is which is exciting to try and you know as you come through this Colder Weather get into a little hopefully a little bit warmer weather um for the rest of the year so that's all I got okay thank you and I don't have anything for the chair's report so I'll move to any topics for future meetings I can pass along just the just the um the next meeting I'd like to offer the um the response to Dana's okay um riff yeah I think I made a note for next meeting just more generally speaking if everybody could maybe think about preparing ideas for um procedures to respond to actions of committee members when procedural questions arise so kind of similar to your topic um anything else um just asking the new facilities director to respond to the water quality reports yeah and because of the enormity of the expenditures that are going into aties I'd love to recommend that he reports update pretty much at every every meeting we have because the K is very very industrious very active and I'm guessing that there's going to be action new actions pretty much on a regular basis yeah you're you're looking at 30 years of deterioration and and lack of upkeep that's now caught up and no matter Direction we end up going in in April we still have to deal with the issues that are facing our kids every day in their classroom so yeah right at least for four years in the uh at the very least in two of the schools and in all the rest yep y okay any other topics for meetings Julia you're all set all right I will take a motion to adjourn oh I'll move a motion to to to adjourn as I think is the word I'm looking for 808 808 the second second you go okay meeting adjourned at 809 now good to see you thanks so much for your on the bud you