n Wyndham Regional School Committee on Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 7:01 p.m., uh, I'd like to remind everyone that this meeting is being recorded and live streamed on HWCAM.
Um we will start off with an opportunity for citizens' comments, um. doesn't look like there's anyone on Zoom, is that correct, Eric? Correct. Um, I'm gonna guess there's no one in the room that's offering a citizen's comment.
OK, um, seeing no people who are interested in commenting. I'm gonna close Citizen's comments at this time. All right, and they're closed on Zoom, and we will
move forward. Um, next up is a review of a portion of our school committee protocols, uh, Kristen. as elected members of the Hamilton-Wentham Regional School Committee. We, including the superintendent, except the high honor and trust that has been
placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following and the conduct of our business. Administration will endeavor to make materials for school committee meetings
available the Friday before the meeting. The school committee will recognize that some circumstance s will not always make this possible. In any event, we recognize that having background materials available for school committee members is a best practice. Thank you
Uh, next up is a portion of our school committee mission statement, Jen. The Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Districts. committees mission is to ensure our schools create graduates, but a passion for lifelong
learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton Wyndham 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.
Thank you Uh, next up is, uh, the superintendent's report. Eric. A couple of small things I just wanted to note, uh, the exhibit on the agenda. We've changed around how we're doing the um
recognitions for athletics rather than have a couple of kids come and a couple of coaches come, um, we're doing it a little differently, so we gave an overview from Craig Genualdo, which is part of the um exhibits here they're gonna do uh
individual recognitions on all the social media. They have the social media team at the high school now and then um do announcements and things around the schools in the on the the TVs and TV screens. Um, pretty, pretty broad s elect ion of, uh, kids here.
They're, they're uh really an outline of everything that happened in the fall, so I'm having a little trouble with my browser here there we go. Uh, all the things that happened in the fall and it gives us an outline of who the champions were, who became, uh, tournament
winners who some of our captains were who the special award winners, um, all in this one memo so I wanted to just bring that to everybody's attention. Uh, second thing, the, the, um school start time committee met again this week, 3rd meeting,
and we continue to dig into a lot of the data we invited Craig Genualdo, the athletic director, to the meeting to get some insight from him, have some questions answered. He gave us a really uh good amount of data related to
when things start, when things need to start, especially when kids travel, so give us a lot of information to look at. We have another meeting that'll be after the holidays, and we've invited Melissa Emler from the Community
house. She'll be doing the same thing. We'll kind of do a Q&A with her, figure out uh what happens if certain shifts are made and then we'll continue on. Our goal is to have a report to the committee with some type of a recommendation in early March,
so we're hoping the first meeting in March, that is our target, so we're we're trying to do uh at least 3 more meetings before we get to that point and then the uh 2nd order business is the the third owner business is the um AI group. We're gonna
put together a small group of people to develop a policy, um in early January, who will work together to use the information from DESE as we outlined in our goal that we'll use uh the information that DESI has
provided. They've done a lot more research. They've put a lot more information out there now, um, for policy development but also so that we can start to devise what a test pilot would look like at certain grade levels, so we'll kick that off
in January and then the final thing, uh, Jen Clifford and I are putting together the strategic planning process which will also kick off in January that will really give us the opportunity to begin to examine
everything that we've done for the past 4 years, uh, 4.5 years, uh, all the things that we've completed, the things we're working on, what we project into the future and then really trying to build a plan that's 5 years this time instead of 3, so all of that work is coming at us
and I just wanted to give people a heads up that it will be mostly launching right after vacation and within, you know, within the month of January, the strategic plan will probably take us into April-ish, maybe May, depending on how many meetings we're thinking between
5 and 6 meetings of the group before we can formulate a final plan and then um that's really it for now. I just want to give people some updates . Thank you. Anybody have questions for Eric? um
Eric, I always wanna, I don't want to step on your, add something to your report, but we , I just discussed it earlier I right before this meeting. I just wanted to acknowledge that, um, the position paper that Eric
wrote regarding um the school funding that you presented to us , Chapter 70 Funny that you presented to us in, I think, November. I just wanted to put forward, I just watched the Wenham select board meeting. I don't know if anyone else watched that, but they, the one
I select board voted to insupport to write a letter of support of that, um, so I just wanted to acknowledge that and acknowledge the Wenham select board for taking the time to um study it and discuss it and thank you so we also have a
letter we just finished generating from the superintendent's roundtable. So it's like over 2 superintendents we. built kind of the next version of these are some deeper thoughts about it because so many districts have different pieces of the puzzle so we just
finished another document that we submitted as well, so this this some, hopefully we'll get some movement on it. Yeah, yeah, um, thank you. Anybody else have anything else? No? OK, um, next up is the consent
agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like to have held from the consent agenda. No I move that the school committee approved the consent agenda as presented. Second, seconded by Kristen Noon
, um, all those in favor. that is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes. All right, um, next up, we have uh Mr. Menagoni, I believe, is going to give us, um, some
information about the high school program of studies for next year. Thank you. And just to give a little context, um, the program a stone is reviewed and approved annually by the committee. When I was the principal and Brian still continues that they
have a group that will review it at the high school level, uh, make some adjustments, changes. Some are seasonal some years we run some courses and some we don't, so you'll see some courses come in and some go out and I'll just leave that to Brian to explain it, uh, some of
the changes and adjustments, so Brian Mantagoni. Good evening everyone. Uh, thanks for having me here tonight. Um, just wanted to maybe summarize some of the major changes in our program of studies for the 26, 27th school year.
Um. like in the front here we have new courses that we're going to be offering. Ah, first one in the math department, uh, probability and game theory, um, we were looking to add another math elective, and we thought that a class that focuses on
critical thinking, strategic thinking, uh, but also the ability to use numbers across a variety of disciplines would be a nice opportunity for kids. uh, especially older kids, you know, who have developed their foundational math skills to expand a little bit and see how math can be applied, um, in some
real world contexts. It's one new course, um, another new course we're going to be offering next year is AP Business, uh, with personal finance, and so we're adding another AP course, um, to our roster of opportunities for students. Uh, the good thing
about this is that it's a very accessible course, um, any kid can really take it. We're gonna start out by offering it until 11th and 12th graders, uh, just really for scheduling purposes in year one, also to allow the teacher some time to uh learn how to actually run kids through
this course. Um, and then look at adding or opening it up to 10th graders following year, uh, to give younger kids a chance to take AP courses. Um, also AP Business will um, offered for dual enrollment,
meaning a student can pay a fee and actually receive college credit for passing the course, uh, from Southern New Hampshire University. and I think this is a good thing because kids may or may not do well on the actual AP test connected to that course, uh,
which, you know, whether or not they receive college credit, but if they receive a passing grade in the course, uh, without having to take the AP test, they could still get college credit through Southern New Hampshire, which you then transferred to a variety of institutions.
And then the final new course, uh, is a semester elective in the science department, uh, microbiology Um, this is a course that I think kids have kind of been asking about for a little while. Uh, we've been watching our other course signups, uh, for some of the other semester
electives in science, um, and I'll talk about that a little bit but we felt that uh microbiology would be a nice partner of course for the biotechnology course that we already teach because they use a lot of the same equipment and materials and uh we think, you know, it'd be nice to get kids who actually
took both, so they almost get like a year-long uh experience in both uh biotechnology and the closely connected microbiology. and it's a very hands-on course, which will be accessible to a lot of students.
Yeah, Jen Um, at what BSL level are we running that microcourse and I set up for it. I'm sorry, what did you say? At what biosafety level are we running the microbiology course. The same level that we would be using it for any of the other bio courses
that we have. at the high school where they, they are already using uh media growing bacteria. So it's, you know, that it's already some bacteria are being grown because some are
biohazardous, some are not. Yeah , we haven't ever worked with anything that's considered a biohazard that's, I think the advantage of working with some of the bigger vendors is that they're gonna they're provide things that aren't going to cause problems
for secondary school settings. Though after new courses, we have some courses that we're just going to excise out of the program of studies, uh, the advanced algebra and trigonometry course. This was a senior year course that just hasn't run for several years, uh
, because kids, um, who don't take precalculus or calculus. senior year or even AP stats um have been taking uh statistic s as their senior year course and it's worked well for them cause they think it provides them with a foundation that will
be you and in whatever field that they go into. um, and then biochemistry is the science course I was alluding to earlier that we're going to be cutting out um of the uh the program of studies. We just haven't had the signups for it and it's not as hands on a course, as
microbiology could be. Um, biochemistry can be a tough course to run in a high school setting just because of some of the things that you're using um, in the equipment that you need for it especially. I do it hands on Um, there's some substantive course description changes
uh, that are outlined in the memo, um, especially math area where our foundational courses, uh, course descript ion updated based on some of the instructional materials that we use, um, the struct al strategies and alignment with standards, um.
Biology has been updated, I think, to align better again with the new instructural materials that we have and the instructional approach that we're using. Um, anatomy and physiology was updated and I can talk a little bit more about that, uh why we're doing that.
uh, updating the course for anatomy, um, and then there were a number of art courses where we just chose to freshen up the language in the um course descriptions, uh, to align it more with what we're doing and the same with 10th grade wellness
Um, the other changes, uh, that are in there that are oftentimes part of the course descriptions. themselves. Like I said earlier, uh, AP Business with personal finance is another dual enrollment option on top of uh environmental science.
and also uh the marketing course that we have. And then we're going to make our anatomy and physiology course, a dual enrollment option for students. So again, if they would like to pay the fee and they pass the class, they can receive uh credit at Southern New Hampshire.
and that's another reason why we updated um our course description is to align it with what Southern New Hampshire is looking for as well. And, um, adding dual andro courses was one of our school goals for this year. um, just to give more kids the option um, to.
get college credit, uh, before they leave the high school and offering it outside the arena. um of taking A P Uh, to make room or AP business because it ' s a year-long course for
scheduling purposes. Uh, we are not going to run the marketing course that I had just talked about, which is a dual enrollment option. Um, because we have one business teacher at the high school. and if that teacher were to
teach both AP business, um. and the marketing course, we'd start to run out of room in that teacher's schedule for some of the other electives that she would be teaching, and we need to teach those electives cause kids need to take classes, but also they need the
foundational knowledge in the business area to be able to take some of the more advanced courses Uh, we had to make room in that schedule Um, every other year um, courses come into the program of studies and go out of the program of studies and social studies,
uh, because this year we're going to be uh well actually I should say next year we're going to be running contemporary history and current American conflicts and to make room for that, uh, real history and law and society will take a break for a year, and that's we've done that for a
number of years, uh, because what happens if oftentimes if you offer too many electives at once, kids sign up for all of them, and then you have absolutely no idea what you're supposed to run. So by limiting the options a little bit, we get a better idea of what students actually really want to take,
and then we're able to schedule them into those courses. Uh, another thing that we added to the program of studies, uh, was a description of our grading scale and our GPA scale, um. and some conversations with parents. They thought it would
be a good idea just to have that information. side by side with the course description so that way you know what you're signing up for and what the potential impact could be on a kid's grades and GPA, and I, I do make the point in the program of studies that that should not be a reason why you take a particular course at a
particular level, but it is something to keep in mind as you are moving through the high school Uh, and finally, uh, we added a description of the competency determination, the new one. uh from uh from our own policy, you know, we had always had that in the program of studies, uh,
but before it was really short and sweet, where it just said, you have to pass MCAS. Uh, now it's a number of page s long, um, and I would expect we'll probably be putting a new competency determination policy in there next year as
well, but wanted to make sure that that information is available to students as they start looking through, pick ing courses, um, the good thing is, is that all the courses that kids need as part of the competency, determination are really required courses, so
they're gonna wind up taking them anyways, but just want families and students to have that information. So I believe that's all I have for you for updates to the program of studies.
Thank you Uh, questions Um, two comments actually. I was reading through the AMP or the A&P description and there are 12 organ systems, not 11. Um, you guys say 11, but in reality there are 12.
I'm sure we could go to places and I would say 11, some would say 12, depending upon how you categorize things, but I think that probably aligns with what Southern New Hamp s hi re is looking for. And the other thing is the
table of contents is all screwy. It's messed up. It, yeah, it will be because when you update the um the text in the body of it, it just, it, it screws the whole table of contents up. So that's something that, you know, once we
reformat everything get it where we want it, yep, it'll be updated. Um everybody else Um I was gonna say that about the, I, I assume that that I because I had the same issue with the table contents, but I assumed
that that was, that it's just because it's still in a editing mode, um, I just wanna make sure I think I, I think I know, but I wanna make sure that the alignment of the courses that are dual enrollment, they're aligned with the Southern New
Hampshire, um, curriculum and, and um. but there's no difference to a student's actual experience whether they've paid the fee to Southern New Hampshire or whether they're right, there's no difference in their actual
learning or experience. It's just whether they're going to get submission to the OK. Thank you. um right, anybody have anything else? um
what do you need from us this evening? Your blessing. I. Do you need a vote to approve, or is that what you're looking for, a vote to approve? Yeah, I think so. I think that every year we just sort of look for the school committee to say it's, it's good to go so that
you know, to give you a little bit of an idea of where we're at , you know, right now we would like to just get this approved so that way we can, uh, first of all, make this suitable for the public, but also
uh start preparing powerSchool for scheduling, uh, believe it or not, we, we already have to think about that kind of stuff for next year, uh, because once we get back from vacation, you know, we're going to start talking with kids about that, and we need to have all that stuff in place, which includes having all of our new courses,
um, you know, listed out appropriately. OK Um, thank you. I want to make a motion. I move that we accept the Hamilton Wyndham Regional High School Program of studies
for the academic year 2026, 2027 as presented Second second by Jen Carr. Was there any further discussion? questions All right, looks like we're ready to vote. All those in favor. Uh, is unanimous of the six
members present, and the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you very much. you. OK Hm. Um, all right. Next up is an
update, um, to our regional agreement process, as you know, we've been , um, meeting with um representatives from both, uh towns to talk about the, um,
regional agreement and I wanted to give you an update, but we got some new information, um today, I think. Um. I'm gonna turn over to Eric for a second. The big change we got today was the
state, uh, Board of Education had made changes back in September to um 603 CMR 41, which is the regulations related to regional schools and parts there were
some substantial changes made in those uh regulations and I just want to touch upon a couple of the highlights. Um, several of the definitions were updated, something the difference between expansion and enlargement used to be really tricky to figure out. Are you expanding your district? Are
you're enlarging your district, so they've, they've now said that expansion is specific to grade levels. So if you're, if you're like Masco and you have just a few grade level, you don't have them all and you wanted to add more, that would be an expansion and then enlargement is adding another
municipality. So if you said, OK , we want to go from 2 to 3, um, it would be an enlargement. The membership if you will, of, uh, or reorganization now triggers a reorganization conference with the Department of Education before anything can
be said. So if somebody wants to come in or leave, there's a reorganization conference and then there's also a fairly substantial report that will be now due to examine the impacts of of uh the the change on kids.
There's some approval process changes that have been um identified as st re am line d We haven't had to use them yet, but all regional agreements now need to be approved by the commissioner, uh , through the department, so
they'll they'll go and say that any amendment if we made one amendment, we have to send it to the department, get that approved before it went to town meeting. So if we said we wanted to change the regional agreement and have it on the agenda for
April town meeting. We need to get it to the department now and get their blessing before it would go in front of the voters and then any uh reorganization, as I said , will be a long range educational plan. You literally
have to map out over the next several years, how any change you make that's either changes the number of grades or changes the number of municipalities, um , so it has to be submitted before any of those conversations even begin.
And then they talking about assessments and if you're if you're assessment is already outlined in your regional agreement, there's one in the law that says this is the way you would do it. Um, so you can use the alternative method method or the one in your
regional agreement, we stick to the one in the regional agreement. That's what everybody knows and loves so well, uh, which is what we, we do the 3 year average to figure out the assessment. and then we are required to transmit our budgets once it's adopted by the committee, uh,
within 30 days to uh it's got to be certified by the treasurer and sent to the towns within 30 days. We do that every year anyway as soon as it gets because it still has to go to them before I think March 2nd meeting. to be voted to be on the warrant , so we're, we're fine there. I
don't not sure of the change, but they did add no later than April 30th, so there are a number of communities that will have to back up their budget, um , process. and then, um, fiscal oversight, there are some changes to the commissioner's authority, and
that would have to do with um really looking at a budget failure. So if your budget failed and you went back and adjusted it and it failed again and you got to July 1st. The commissioner basically takes
over the district's budget and does what they call a 1/12 budget, a budget you for one month at a time until you can come to some resolution within the community so that they, they cleaned up the uh how that reads and what the authority of the commissioner is, so just some
changes, it's, it's uh. it's um not dramatic for us. It's, it's pretty straightforward, but we're while we're in this process of reviewing the regional agreement , if we do make changes, there are a couple of new things that we didn't anticipate that we now will have to do.
Thank you, does anybody have any questions? Oh, look at that. All kinds of questions. Uh, you said we had to now have reorganizations approved by the state before we do them, um
what do you mean by reorganizations. So if you said, um, alright, I'm just gonna make up an example. Topsfield's gonna now become part of the regional district, uh, before you do that or start to make any agreements, you have to develop the long range educational plan first submit
that to the state, get approval, and then move forward with the kind of the legal part of it with voting and things like that . So it's adding a new town. It's not like reorganizing schools in the district. No, no, you can, you can within the current, as long as you don't change the current structure,
you can do anything within, within the current structure. If you change the car if we decided elementary schools are now going to be just located at the towns and we're only going to have a regional middle high school we would have to, we would have to submit that, but something like what we already have in place, we can reorganize within that.
Thank you Christian, um, I was wondering, I guess this is a two-part question. If we know how long these new regs have been under development , and if there's any sort of like contextual history as to why the state may have put them
forth like has this been confusion or are they concerned there's going to be more regional districts and want to get ahead of some questions or, you know, things like that. Yeah , it's a good question. They've been doing this since, uh, early 2025, and they did a similar
process that they do all the time where they have, they put it out to the public. They got 6 comets. in the in the public, the public , so in the comments are pretty straightforward. So it was mostly they started it for clarity. There were a number of
districts that were concerned about the possibility because of the budget issues that are occurring with either readjusting their district, uh, composure, uh, construction or looking at it from the perspective of maybe this is a time when communities now want
to either. shrink or grow regional agreements. So I think this is kind of in anticipation to that. The changes aren't dramatic if you're already an established regional. If you're not and you want to, there's a couple more steps.
Thank you. Anybody else um, I don't, uh, Eric, I don't know, but would you be willing to just send that to the whole committee has it just. for some light reading, um, so
will these changes force us to actually update our regional agreement because it doesn't meet their standards. I don't think so, but I'm not done going through comparing. I just got it this morning and started comparing and just wanted to give you an update of the changes, but
I started doing a little bit of comparison to see if if there because there is a note at the end of the email they sent. You might want to check with your attorney, uh, so. I'm just doing it now just to see um if there are any impacts. It doesn't look like it, um, but I don't know if we do make some
adjustments, what we'll have to do, that's what I was gonna say I'm not sure exactly how you meant the question. I, I think you, you're answering like if we weren't to do anything. I don't think we would have to do anything
make any changes. However, I think my my understanding is that if we do try to change any part of the regional agreement, my understanding even before these changes was that DESE will review the entirety of
the agreement. So anything that is outdated even if we didn't. update it at that at that point we would probably be told, but it would be in the context of we're trying to change some part of this agreement. That's my that answered your question. Thank you. And I can send you
the email that I got from the state today. It's interesting. This thing was approved. I remember going through the minutes of the meeting back in September. It was September 30th This was approved in state finally got out got out to the districts today, so.
surprise regional agreement is all is not a fast moving process slow moving train, very slow. Um , so thank you for that, um, when we originally put this agenda item on here, we really were just going to be giving an
update on our regional agreement . process and where we are and then this came in today and so it made sense to put it. to update you here. Um, I just wanted to give, um, so we have been meeting, um, our last meeting was on December
3rd, I think, um, but I wanted to at that meeting um so as you know just to refresh, the main focus from the point of view of the committee, the main focus was
two main things. One is to look at um our election procedures and to align them with state law , um or and or um which has been mentioned as a
real likely possibility is that to request special legislation, um, in order to align us with state law. So to get us in line. Um, and the other one is, um, the apportionment, um, and we've proposed. um, and we've talked about it
here many times, is moving from a 3-year rolling average to a five-year rolling average, um, in our apportionment. So every year on October 1st we get an enrollment, um, and it tells us how many students are from Hamilton and how many are from
Wenham, and um basically use that number to create percentages of the two towns and so, um, the committee is looking to, uh, move that to a 5 year rolling average to smooth out those curves, um, so
I'm here today to sort of give you some updates and get some feedback. I this is new information for all of you, so I'm not sure that we're looking for a vote. I'm sort of just looking for having some conversations, the select boards in both towns are gonna have similar conversations. So one of
the things that got proposed by the towns to the two towns is an interest in having a conversation about or an interest in talking about a different election.
uh apportionment, so apportionment of us, not the apportionment of the money of us . So our, so Hamilton Wenham is is unique and we are not the only district but where it's pretty unusual that we are all elected at large. That's pretty unusual.
Um, the towns are interested in having a conversation about whether we should be 3 from Hamilton, 3 from Wenham, and 1 person at large. Um I have I just want to make sure
everyone understands what I'm, what the proposal is that um that is not what we the school committee did not propose that. What we proposed was um getting to make sure that our
agreement was written in alignment with the way that we do things right now, which would be that we, everyone is elected at large in both towns that those elections are for 3 years and that those are held at the spring local. um elections. That's what we
were proposing, um so I actually have a very strong opinion, but I want, I want to hear opinions and thoughts and again this is just a discussion. It's not the and as like I said the
select boards are going to bring forth this, um, and also there is no way to have this conversation in executive session. Um, even though it seems like it should be because we're negotiating. It's sort of strategy, but and the select
boards are under the same situation Well, I have a question. Yeah. So, it makes sense to make sure that there is representation from both towns on the committee because you couldn't run into a
situation where the committee is made up of residents from just one town to the other. So that makes sense in theory, um, would it make more sense to have the structure of the committee align with the apportionment of students, which I know would be
not perfect year over year, but So I'm gonna answer that um sort of by not answering it, but to say that this is coming from change. It would, no, but what I'm saying is
we proposed one thing. They proposed that they're proposing 33 and 1. OK. So so you would need to ask them that you might need to ask them is my, is my point is that like yes, if you were sitting with a
hat of the towns I understand why that question is coming from. Well, I guess my question too is what do other, so yeah, so nowhere unique in that we typically other communities, and
I'm not an expert, but I have like other communities often don't have anyone at large at all. They just have it apportioned based, you know, like it you know, like you would have you know, 3 from one town, 4 from another, or
um whatever and based on the population or whatever agreement they have, but yes, was, oh sorry, no, go ahead, go ahead. Whether you're coming from Hamilton or coming from Wenham. This means that there will be at
least 3 people, maybe 4 on the board that are representing you, but you didn't get to vote for them. correct that I don't like. It's interesting It's It's interesting, yeah. So I all other cause I, like I said, I came in saying I have a very
strong opinion. I, but I want other people to yeah, I, I 100% agree with that. Yeah. And also what was their rationale that Wenham is going to favor Wenham and Hamilton's going to favor Hamilton. I just, I first of all don't understand
the rationale, but secondly, if everyone in the towns, from what I've heard and seen the signs, they want the school community to represent the people, then that, I believe, like you just said, Jen, would really not represent the majority of people
if I wasn't allowed to vote for 3 or 4 school committee members. Um, so I, I completely agree because we make decisions for the region for the district, and not for Wenham Schools and Hamilton schools. So
that's, I'm opposed to that, so, yeah, like yes. I think it disenfranchises the voters, to be honest. Yeah, well said, Julia. I have nothing to add, but I agree. So you wanna go
Um, I could say that I, I also agree that I think we're such a small region and I think it's better for the committee to be accountable to everyone, and I also get concerned that this could create a Hamilton Wenham
dynamic that is not going to be helpful in the school committee fulfilling its mission. Yeah, kind of an us versus them. I, I think there's a risk of that. I'm not saying it would definitely happen, but I think it increases the risk of that
happening. Yeah, so and I think it's challenging because no single school serves a single community, right? And they just think it's, I don't know, yeah, I'm really, I would just love to understand the rationale. It seems to add more complicated and then I am gonna, cause I really do have some
stuff to say, but I, but I am gonna, I guess a little bit. to, to be clear, it's I'm not sure what the rationale is for a change, but to be clear , what they're proposing is not
certainly not unheard of. This is, it is. you know so I just wanna, I guess I wanna give them that so that like it's , it's, you know, that, that there are other districts that do something similar. Um.
I've thought about this a lot and I know I, I just kind of well I had mentioned it in negotiations, but I, but, um. so for me, and this is what you all kind of were saying, but for
me, having been elected by people in both communities when someone sends me an email or asks to speak with me. I, it doesn't matter to me whether they like I live in Hamilton, but it doesn't matter
to me whether they live in Hamilton or whether they live in Wenham. I don't and I, and while I as a human being, I don't know I don't think that that would change the reality is, is that one of the things is the way we are
structured right now. I am. being held accountable by the people in both towns, so I it would not be wise for me to
not pay attention to, acknowledge, listen to, respond to a Wenham citizen. um, because I mean that's the way democracy works, right? Like then you get held accountable by , so for me as somebody was saying
about it it's creating a division where right now there isn't one Um so I feel one of the things I've always felt passionately about is that Hamilton Wyndham is a unique community in that
I think we really are one community, even though we're two towns. which is a separate thought that I have about whether we should be two towns or not, but that's, that is outside the four corners of this
conversation, or ham ham. ham ham You know what ham ham.? Hamilton Wyndham, everyone says it anyway. Let's see. Um, but anyway, um, the other thing, yeah, go ahead, kind of seems almost like an electoral college . Like if we're gonna make the board representative, we should
make it representative based on population. because otherwise you have like 3 or 4 people from when I'm representing 1/3 of Hamilton Wenham, and all the people coming from Hamilton, representing 2/3 of the people in the district. Well, and
that's what we have now. I mean, in other words, it shifts here but it's a but in other words right now we do we have more one of people, right? So um right?
um I'm one of Dave Frankel, but the fact that we all have to sit here and say I don't even know who's from Hamilton Wenham is like uh that's what, that's the point that I'm trying to make is that we don't, it's, so anyway, I, I don't see a benefit to
structuring it that way. And it's interesting to me that they are looking at the one at large, which is interesting because I think that's your point. Like it isn't it balances out the population imbalances maybe a little bit arguably that you're
guaranteeing those representation and then it's potential that either town could have um. the majority, so, oh sorry, it's the question when we have our next quintuple board meeting. Is this part of that meeting? or
is that meeting solely just on the budget. OK yeah. Um, so I I'm gonna just say we don't need to talk about this forever. I'm looking, I was looking for feedback for when I go in. to that meeting
looking for feedback to say. we don't like it. But in general that the the the committee that sees value in the at-large positions. all of us being elected. Thank you.
Um, does anybody have anything else for an update, um, the other part I just wanted to mention is that in general for a long time now, we've been talking about this apportionment moving from the 3 year to the 5 year rolling average. And in
general, the feedback we've gotten almost just, I mean universally is that is a generally a good idea. There's some concern about how you get there like what the first, you know, like what the first couple years look like, how it gets their transition. But in general , people are, um, I just wanna express that there's
some concern and I, I think we're all aware. that there's a buzz in the community. around being a concerned about what we're doing with the regional agreement and that there is some concern that
because this part of it, the apportionment part that I'm talking about now about moving that because it is to do with money and it is a financial part and it might have some impacts in the first couple of years that there might be community resistance because it might not
be fully appreciated and understood. in the community. So the towns were just expressing some concern about bringing forward anything that's going to have any kind of a financial impact. Um, so I just wanna make you aware of that and sort of
I mean, our intent is that was what we put forward. I think we're going to continue to put that forward, that that's what we want, but I just wanted to share that the town's kind of are acknowledging some concern about bringing forth. That's more about accuracy, not
I think the concern is about getting it passed that. the financial piece is about financial accurac y not about taking more money, right? It's not about taking more money, but it would change like the
you know, it would, right, and, and I see what you're saying yes It smooths out the smooths out the shift, um. but it is a financial proposal like it is. you know.
is it possible or legal to have a transition period. in the agreement. And I say this just because I draft this with bylaws sometimes where it's like a board is moving from no term limits, no staggered terms to staggered terms you can have a period where you're like for 2
or 3 years, sort of neither set of rules apply because we're in this transition zone where we're slowly morphing I don't know the details, but I know that our current agreement definitely has transition language from things that have been like it's they're
still in there and it needs to be removed, but it's a transition language when they move from one thing to another, it'll say for for year one this will happen, year 2, this will happen. And then after that, this is the way it opens so I would say yes there are ways to have transition language to just like make instead of it like a sort of the graph being
aggressive one way or another in year one, just smooth it out over a couple of fiscal years, you know, so I think that's something that could be discussed and negotiated, but um yeah, that is what we put forward to have it go in over a two-year period. So the first year would be a 4 year
calculation, then the next year would be the full 5. just to smooth it a little bit more. Um, all right. Does anybody have any other questions about that or? right, I'll continue to update you. Our next meeting is January 7th.
I'll continue to update as we go All right, so weirdly, I will, you will see the irony in these next two things. This is as near as I can figure, the only time that we
ever vote based on what town you are living in. And I, I was like , I can't believe this is when this fell, that we're have it back to back. but, um, so every, uh, 3 years. The, so Essex tech
School Committee. um has representatives from both Hamilton and Wenham and the way that um uh and I wanna just have shout out to Roger Smarriage for helping
me navigate this 3 years ago and then doing a wonderful job by sending me our email chain from 3 years ago so that we didn't have to recreate it. I was very grateful for that Um, but basically, the way that
this um works is that the moderator of each town makes a recommendation. for a citizen from that town to serve on the um Essex Tech
School Committee and then we, the school committee, um vote to approve that. recommendation OK, um you'll see that there are 2 here . The first one is, um,
uh from uh John Buco from Wenham and the second is William Lennon, um. from Hamilton and both are currently serving those , so both are um
currently on the EssexX school committee and both have letters you can see they're from Essex, North Shore, saying that they are you know, um, in good standing and valuable to the team. All right, you need a motion? Yeah, why don't we start with a
motion and then people can ask questions because it is right. you live in Wyham, correct? What ? You live in Wenham, OK, so make this motion. I can't make the Hamilton one. I don't think so. Go ahead. That's weird. Vote
, OK, sorry, vote. I move that we vote to reappoint John Buco to the Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School District. Second, All right, so that has been motioned and seconded and this
is a vote only of the Wenham? just to say to the um school committee. that Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School District School Committee . I just don't know if it makes sense. All good with that amendment.
OK. Friendly amendment by yourself. OK. Um, uh, all right. So, anybody have any questions? All right, so it just went, um, all those in favor. that is unanimous of the three Wenham school committee members
and the motion passes. OK, um, Megan, we don't want to do the honors. Oops I move that we vote to reappoint William Lannon III to the Essex
North Shore Agricultural and Technical Institutes school committee. Second, seconded by Amy Kumonberger. Anybody have any questions or further discussion? I do have a question. So this is not a letter from the town moderator.
but we can appoint Eric So we didn't get a formal letter from the town moderator. We did get an email. I just didn't think it would. be appropriate to post an email on the. Oh, I see. OK. I do have an email in hand that his, he
has recommended Mr. Lannon to the committee, right, thank you. Bill Bowler has sent just sent an email instead of a formal letter. Got it. All right, any other questions All right, looks like we're ready to vote, uh, only Hamilton
people, all those in favor. and that is unanimous of the three members present and the motion passes. Congratulations to you both. And thank you for doing. Yes, um,
it's a big school for me. It is Um Next up, and, and thank you to both of them for their service, like thank you for doing that work. It's important. Um
so, uh, we have a school committee conflict, if you will pull up your calendars. to uh April 16th. um, so we are scheduled for a
school committee meeting on April 16th. It is now election day in town and I have been informed by the town clerk that that is not acceptable. We can't have a meeting on election day I see I learned that the hard way
several years ago. Um, so you can't have it the next week. So what I would like to propose, no , is to look at either the 2 days before the 14th or the 15th . which are not our regular
Thursday, um, but would allow us to have that meeting before the election, um, OK. So I don't know whether anyone has thoughts on either the 14th or the 15th. I teach Wednesday nights, so there's no way for me to Wednesday night is not great
for you. What do people think about the 14th I can do either right now. I could do 14 or 15, so. really far away I can do the 14th or 15th. Eric, 14th is over . Why don't we do the 14th.
14th. All right, um, I would entertain emotion about the 14th if somebody has one. I move that we move the school committee meetings scheduled for April 16,
2026 to Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. Second by Amy Kumerger, um. any discussion All right? All those in favor? uh is unanimous of the six members present, and the motion
passes. Thank you. OK. OK Uh next to Eric is the NEC Annual Report. Thank you. This is
something we do annually. The, um, annual report is a requirement to be shared with districts. in the usually in the fall, um, late fall is when they usually finish it up. So because I am a
board member, um, and we are paying paid member of the NEC, we are asked to present the annual report to the committee for the public to know that it's available and, and, and out
there and just also because we are members of the uh NEC group that it's uh a nice way to see where what programs they have, what some of the things that they, they do, um, highlight for kids, and you can see here there's a
list of all the schools that are involved in the consortium, each of the superintendents in most of the surrounding schools are part of the consortium and on the board there's over 20 of us on the board and then um they have a number of schools
that are uh within their program that house different levels of needs, so there are kids that are medically fragile, for instance, so kids that we would not be able to keep in our school districts because we just don't have the the
logistics, the staffing and things like that, so, um, this program at, at, uh, the consortium really helps us to find places for kids who need more than we can give them within our classrooms and it
could be emotional, behavioral combination of both could be medical, um, really, uh, kids that, that have very specific needs, so this is uh a good opportunity for all the communities to as members have a place to send
kids it's, it's full and some time of the year and other times it's not so it's, it's depending on what's available for space but because we are members and we have, we're, we have there are more spaces available for member schools and it's a reduced tuition for member
schools as well depending on the the program kids go into, um, so this is a, a good option. I just felt it was good to, to show the um the annual report just to make sure that everybody had a chance to see it publicly and if there were any questions on it, I will
do my best to answer it. The, the, the program is looking now just so people are aware they host the recovery high school, which is, uh, for it was created years ago, uh, to help with kids who are really having problems with drug and
alcohol addiction in the high school level who weren't making it out their home high schools, uh, this program has kind of shrunk down over the years because there are more needs within the more, more needs being met within the
school districts now so they're looking to rebrand it if you will and recreate uh the services that will be available. There are still lots of needs out there for, for kids, especially at the high school level and uh they're just that's one of the projects
that we're working on as a board to try to figure out how to rebrand that, put them in a different space and um try to serve more more kids and and again all, all of the tuitions kind of drive the, the health of
the, of the consortium over over time so certainly answer any questions or. I just want everybody to be able to see it. Um, just a question on the cost-effectiveness, which is on page 22. It lists the NEC
prices, and those are highlighted in blue, are the ones listed below also NEC schools or they part of a different program cost comparison. The NEC comparisons, uh, schools are in blue, the, the teal, if you will, and these
are other schools and what their tuitions are they're charging so I understand, you, you have it dead on. y. NEC is in the bluish teal, I think might be green. Um, but it's in, it's uh colorized so that you could see
the difference just just a comparison, they do save us money. We are also working with them on, uh, you may remember from late last year we were working on a transportation program with them. So we're doing, uh, transportation consolidation by working with 10
other districts. We're trying to say, OK, if we're driving a child from Hamilton to a particular program, uh, we might be able to pick up a child from Ipswich on the way and and split the costs in half, um, so NEC has been working with
that with us on that as well to try to save some transportation costs on the outer district transportation. We won't be able to know until a full year goes through, how much, how much the the actually saved us, but it's, it seems to be based on the combinations that they can do with kids instead of having a
single kid being driven by a single driver, you can now have 23, and even 4 in a van going to the same location. saving each of the districts a percentage of. of the overall costs and some of these drives are $300.
a day so it's it gets pricey really quickly. Mhm Other question All right, thank you very much. Thank you
All right, um, next up, uh is some budget.
Did you know print these for David. These are all the exhibits for tonight. Yeah OK, I I might, because it's like for my, yeah. No, help yourself, absolutely. No, it's ta pe
it also sit here
I'll just Oh Alright, I'll move it. It's OK your You know, it's like first day I taught was like that
. Yeah bro, it's good. It still won't come out
Oh put more pictures. It's all good though once you see the baby.
Uh, OK, thank you for letting me speak tonight. Obviously, we are here to review our changes to the FY 27, uh, budget recommendation on November 20th, you saw our preliminary budget for this one we're calling it our updated preliminary budget,
uh, before we go through the exhibit though, I'd like to, uh, just briefly go over the exhibits. Hopefully I can get it on this screen. Amanova. Yes
I can't see it on mine. So the exhibits tonight, I want you to go over it because I know it's a lot of information and a lot of them look the same. So I just wanted to give you a little bit more of an explanation other than just the word exhibit on the agenda, um, so when I look at it, it's really broken up into two
different sections. Uh, you have your first section, uh, which let me try to expand this.
correct Uh, so the first section is really where I compare our preliminary budget which you saw on November 20th to our updated budget that you see tonight. So the first exhibit is the detail by school and by DESI
category of the changes to our gross expenditures. So in there you'll see a change of roughly $430,000. Uh, that's the detail of all the changes again from what I presented tonight to what we uh presented in November to what we're seeing tonight.
Uh, the second exhibit is just the summary of all those changes . So instead of it broken out by DESE, uh, by school by DESE category. It's all just lumped into one slide on one chart, uh, so you can see the summary of it all. Uh, the second section I
tried to break it out, uh, from everything that has changed from our FY 26 final final approved budget, the budget we're in now, uh, to our updated budget, updated preliminary budget that you're going to see tonight. Uh, so the third exhibit is the
full detail again by school by DESI category, that'll break out the whole, uh, $2 million gross increase year over year instead of the reduction of 430, uh, on the first exhibit. The fourth exhibit is the
complete account detail of all of the changes from our FY 26 final approved budget to tonight's update, uh, that has the complete list of approximately 500 accounts and how you come up with the assessment and all of our revenues, uh, and finally the
fifth exhibit is again a summary of all of those all of those changes from our FY 26 final approved budget to tonight's updated budget. Uh, so the reason I did this is really twof old I know it's a lot of information and a lot of these presentations look the same, so
I just wanted to point out that a lot of them are different. You really need to look at the title of the slide. Uh, look up at the title of all the charts and make sure you're comparing the same numbers. Sometimes you hear me talk about gross numbers. Sometimes you hear me talk about
net numbers, what are our assessments, all those numbers are different and depending on which one you're talking about, you're taking in or uh adding in different numbers. So you really have to pay attention, uh, to the titles and what we're, what number we're actually focusing on. And the
second reason is I get a lot of questions about the budget and I realized that people are joining us at different times. So some people have been paying attention since November 20th. They spent a lot of time over the past month, uh, looking over our budget and recognizing what
our growth is and where our reductions are. So they don't necessarily uh wanna go through all that data again, so I just have the summary section and what has changed, which is that top section. But then we have other people that are just joining us today, and they don't really
necessarily care about where we were a month ago. They just want to know where we are today. So I try to give it in two different formats. Uh, those people who are just joining us and those people, uh, who just wanna, who have been with us and just want to know about the changes from.
uh the last presentation. So like my prior presentations, I'm not gonna go in-depth on the detail. I hope everyone got a chance to review, uh, the detailed presentation. I'm really just gonna go into the summary, uh, and discuss the
major differences, uh, between what we presented on November 20th, uh, and what's being updated to for today. So in my mind, there's 3 major changes, uh, that, that we need to take into consideration for our updated preliminary budget.
That's the uh recommended reduction in staffing that we'll go over in shortly. Uh, the changes to our capital stabilization transfer amount and our salary scale advancement, um, just to start with an easy one, our salary scale advancement, which is the
2nd 1 off to the left. For salary scale advancement, uh, just to give a brief introduction to it. I'm sure you're very familiar with it. Uh , teachers have the chance to submit for salary scale advancements, meaning they move along the salary schedule and
advance their degree. With that comes additional uh salary compensation. So the deadline to submit for salary scale advancement is December 1st. So when we prevent present it to you on November 20th. We really didn't know any of those numbers. Uh, we didn't gain all
of them until December 1st. In total, we had 35 teachers submit for salary scale advancement out of those 35, 11 of them already submitted last year, but have not yet met the qualifications to advance.
There's two deadlines for salary scale advancement. The first one is the first day of school. The second one is the midway point of the school, roughly January 30th. So 11 of those individuals who submitted this year also submitted last year but didn't meet those qualifications on the
first day of school. However, there's still an opportunity for them to meet it by January 30th. Because there's still an opportunity to meet it. I've already incorporated those additional salaries in the first iteration of the budget you saw.
So those 11 people are already accounted for. Out of those 11 people, 6 of them resubmitted for next year. So they did it last year, they did it next year. Uh, those 6 people, no matter what, will carry forward to the budget
the whole time. The other 5 people, if they do not meet the qualifications by the 2nd uh deadline January 30th, they will be removed from the budget after that and reduce it after January 30th. It won't be a large amount if all 5 of them
don't meet it, it would probably be approximately $10,000. That would reduce the number, but we won't know that till February 1st or January 31st. Out of the other 24 people that, uh, remain, the total cost for their salary scale advancement
added up to just under $100,000 so it was around $96,000. Uh, that got added in to our budget that we presented to you last week. Just so you guys make the connection. when somebody sit uh requests a salary scale advancement and they move along. Obviously, they
now have a larger salary. If they were to receive a step increment after that, the dollar value now grows because every step, every column, your salary is growing. So if we have someone submit for a salary scale advancement. If it happens
, they're stepping from increases and their cola increases. So not only did their salary scale advancement change, but it also changed their step increment and their cola. So both of those numbers here, uh, have changed. The main one is the step increment. The reason we do not
see the cola going up and I don't know if this works. Uh, it's on the negative side is related to the reductions we had . I, I'll get to those in a moment, but because we had some recommended re reduction in
staffing that also reduces our cola year over year. The net result of the salary scale advancement people advancing and the reductions going down. The cola was a negative. Both of those numbers combined is a negative. That's why it's not on the other side. Nonetheless
it went up around uh just under $100,000. This is, uh, in similarity to last year, last year's number, I believe was 103,000, so it's in line with what we saw last year. Uh, outside of everything else, that is our biggest increase when you
compare our uh preliminary budget to tonight's updated budget. So any questions about that No? OK. So the next biggest item or the biggest item is our capital stabilization fund transfer. Uh, if you remember
our original preliminary budget had a transfer request of approximately $100,000 for our updated preliminary budget. we in theory removed that $100,000 transfer and dedicated
the remaining of it to offset E&D. So END last week, I submitted to the state for certification when I originally developed the preliminary budget , I knew the number I was putting in was a little bit low. I'm always conservative in my
revenues, especially during the preliminary phase, and we as we advanced through the budget process, we refine those and get a little uh more detailed. So I knew it was gonna be low. I thought it was gonna be low around 1500 to
200,000, uh, based on our prior year, unspent, unencumbrances, uh, nonetheless, it was, it has not been certified, but the number I submitted was about $250,000 higher than our preliminary estimate. So we
dedicated those additional $250,000 to direct END offset by expenses and cat eg or ize it as our capital stabilization transfer. So even though you see here tonight, there's an increase of $216,000
for capital stabilization. We are recommending that that be directly funded through an END offset. So that does not increase our town assessments. It actually reduced our overall town assessments by roughly $53,000. Uh, so the end result
tonight, uh, we're able to reduce our overall net assessment by $600,000 while at the same time contributing 316 to our capital stabilization fund for FY 27. I know that's a little confusing
, the detailed presentation, I tried to do a step by step process so you could see what numbers changed there and how I came up with them. I can take any questions about it or just go on to my next items. I do know it was a little confusing, um
I kind of hit you on those. So again, even though here we are showing a total um net uh total gross expense change of
423,000 because our revenues increased by approximately 250,000. That again, that net assessment to the town is a reduction of just under $700,000 compared to our original preliminary budget. Uh, moving on to our reductions, uh, for the moment I'm gonna
come back to the recommended staff reductions and we just go over a few of the other items and then end with the staffing. So for our Essex County retirement appropriation, uh, during our preliminary budget, I set our percentage increase
exactly equal to what we received in 206. Our increase for FY 26 was 10.98% so for our FY 27 preliminary, I said it exactly equal to that, 10.98%. Uh, Essex County retirement is
not legally obligated to give us our appropriation number into the first week in December, we've received that number, uh, and it is a reduction of approximately $93,000. Uh, so that's good. Our Essex Accounting appropriation, uh, is not decreasing this year,
but it's decreasing compared to our preliminary estimate. Uh, that saved us again, almost $93,000. Um, the next item and the next few items I'm going to discuss, uh, after last, after last school committee meeting, uh,
Eric and I left with some direction from you guys. We weren't entirely clear on where we want you to go, but we knew, um you wanted a lower number. So the first thing we did was try to avoid staffing. Obviously, that's the last place we wanna
go. Uh, so we really tried to focus on things that don't have direct instructional contact with children, um, and obviously avoid any new additions that we might have asked for in 207. The only new edition we asked for in
207 was the 0.44 um elementary special education coordinator. We have a late retire ment and the idea here was to get somebody in on day one so they can get familiar with the students, uh, and we can get a highly qualified candidate. If you wait till halfway through
the year to hire someone, you might not get the most qualified candidates, so we had a request to bring somebody in day one. as we are going through reductions and looking at where we might be able to reduce expenses. Uh, that is one area we focused on,
uh, that is an additional, not to say an additional full staff member. It is only a 0.44%, but as an additional member that we don't have today, uh, so we again we didn't want to eliminate a position that exists today before we posi uh, eliminated a position
that does not exist today. Does that make sense? So that's where we went first, uh, that was approximately 57,000 Um, from there, I received 4 notices for retirement again based on our teacher's
collective bargaining agreement. They have a deadline of December 1st to notify us for retirements . We received 4 retirement notifications out of those 41 of them is a highly specialized position that we did not reduce
the salary for the remaining 3 we did, uh, because we confidently feel like those other three positions we can hire somebody at a lower salary, uh, than the retiring individual. So those 3 salaries that are incorporated here
uh, lowered the budget by approximately $54,000. From there we really struggled on where to go from there. Um, one of the things we looked at, I'm sorry it's not showing up on my screen, um, is athletic user fees. So for athletic user fees are
preliminary budget, uh, incorporated a split between the student and the district of 55% to 45%. So the district contributes 55% of the athletic user fee and the student 45%. Um, part of our reduction
process, we are moving that down 5%, so it's an even 50/50 split. Uh, that result of the 5% reduction lowered our budget by $32,000. This lowers the district budget, but I really want to point out. it also lowers families' budgets
. So now instead of the district paying part of that fee, this is going directly to parents, directly to athletes to now cover that additional um $32,000 . um because we have lower
retirements this year, we were able to lower our sick day buyback, uh, teachers only receive sick day buyback when they go to retire. Last year I believe we had 7 eligible teachers for sick day buyback. This year we only have 4, so we were able to reduce our overall,
uh, sick day buyback pool by approximately $22,000. Um, the next few items revolved around, uh, late buses. So right now we have two late buses at the secondary level. Uh, one services the town of Wenham. One services the town of Hamilton.
Each one of those buses costs roughly $33,000 a year, um, so we've recommended to reduce that down to 1 and have one late bus service both communities, um, being fully transparent, one thing that will cause is obviously a longer bus ride. Uh,
you now have one bu s that's going to travel around the majority of both communities, um, which will result in a longer time, but again, we are trying to stay away from direct instruction, uh , before we eliminate everything
. Uh, most of these other items here are self-explanatory. Uh, it's weight room leadership, uh, and reductions to professional development again trying to stay away from the classroom. If you look at that list, it really didn't get us very far.
It's only about $200,000 outside of staff that we were able to focus in on. The only other place to go, as you saw in our presentation is staffing. It represents almost 60% of our overall budget, um, so right now
to get to uh what we thought your recommendation was last week. Uh , we've incorporated about 7 FTEs as a reduction for FY 27. Uh, if you look at the detailed presentation, uh, we try to
spread it across the entire district, uh, at the moment, and this might change before the final. Uh, we are estimating, uh , 3, a total of 5 at the secondary level and 2 at the elementary level. Uh, I'm using an average salary of
about $60,000. So how I came up with that is I took all of our non-professional status teachers and came up with an average cost for their salaries and use that as our baseline for what our FTE , uh, what our overall salary
reductions would be as we work through this process and we identify actual positions which we have not entirely done. We have, um, ideas where the positions might be, but we have not identified actual positions at the moment. Once we do that, that number may
change once we get into actual salary figures, uh, and see what those individuals are actually are on the salary schedule, but at the moment we're anticipating again a reduction overall of 7.44 FTEs if you include the
0.44, um, just talking about the seven FTEs. It's a reduction of just uh under 420,000, uh, again all of these overall net assessment
is dropping about 690,000. Um, that is where we sit for our um updated preliminary budget, uh, tonight, we're really gate, we really want to gather what you guys think about this and kind of what direction we want to go from here. Our next
meeting, you will be voting on the tentative budget. After that , there is only, I believe, one other meeting before the final budget, so it would be um greatly appreciated to gather your thoughts on what we have
here tonight for our reductions and what path forward you would like us to take. and I can answer any questions. Thank you. Um, yeah, I was gonna say let's start if people, OK, let's start with questions first , and then it sounds like questions and then you want opinions.
right? You want both, but let's do questions first. Um I forgot my question. Never mind . My question is, I mean, in capital finance, you showed us what that reduction would mean
to the towns to the percentage, is that in one of the exhibits that I've missed. Um, yes. I have copies right there if you would like them. OK. Cause that's something I just think the towns would be interested in. Yeah, it's I got
it. And it was, it was 91 and 7.9, uh, 9.87. It is in the exhibit number 4, I believe, but I, I, I and 7.98. OK. Because I think, thank you. When we were talking in the
school committee meeting last week, we were um, trying to keep the assessments under double digits for the towns. Yes, this accomplished that. OK. Uh, it's Wenham and they're sitting at about 9.9
I believe, for their overall operating. when you factor in both their operating debt, I believe it's 9.8 9.87, yeah. I remember my question. Um, so
what's the effect of losing 7 teachers on class sizes. Do we know It's a great question. I don't think it would affect class sizes. you know we can't assume they're all teaching positions because there
are so many different positions within the district just even within the union contract, nurses, counselors, direct, uh, some of our, uh, staff that's not directly working with kids in classrooms, so this
there's a wide span, so it would depend on where we could. We, we talked about restructuring some of the things where, you know, we've, we've kind of morphed our MTSS program as we moved along and gotten better and gotten more efficient, so there's probably room in there
somewhere, but it would, it would not like if you look at Bucher, I'd take for an example, you would not lose a classroom teacher in Bukker. We tried to, we're trying to look at it from the perspective of preserving what's in what's going on directly with students
face to face day to day. Thank you. Other questions Then we're gonna move on to thoughts and opinions. Yeah, I just have one more or one
question. Do we have any updated information from the towns as to where they are and their budget processes, their number of shake out. We do Um so if you remember last week I
presented a number, uh, I think it was a million reduction for Wenham. That's what they were requesting , um, which would equal a 2 $3 million overall reduction because it's 2 to 1. um.
Wenham has, uh, looked at it. They've made some reductions, uh , we showed him this as well yesterday and I think they've kind of gotten to the point where they're going. to probably need an override no matter what. That's the feeling I got from yesterday's meeting, although
not finalized, nobody's budgets are finalized, so I don't want to raise any flags too early, but that's the, the feeling I got Hamilton, we did not have the town manager or a select board member in the meeting, but the sense we got is they're not,
they're not 100% sure the number that we originally got was to reduce 1.4 million and they felt like they could manage that so from the original budget presentation, um. I still think we're in that range, that 1 $1.5 million
dollar range to keep them from any sort of an override, but they have also uh announced, you know. new receipts, if you will from the um Gordon Conwell
deal that was just completed that put immediately put $100,000 into their coffers. It's supposed to be, I think over time, $500,000 total plus the increased revenues from taxation, so the, the, there may be an opportunity there but I
don't think they've ironed that all the way out. And I know um Joe was unable to be at the meeting yesterday, but my last conversation with with him was last Friday. so it's I don't think they're there yet. They do, they're both targeting
mid January to have their final numbers, which gives us, you know, it's, it's good and bad where we're we're sitting on kind of still guessing, but I, I still think the the magic number is going to be 1.5 on the Hamilton side, which would reflect
a third half of that to be the Wenham reduction. So I don't know that this would do it. for either town Thank you Anybody else have questions? I
feel like. Hey, how about feedback? I mean, this hurts like I wish we could find everything, but we also don't want the state to take over and give us a one month budget at a time and it
doesn't matter. Other people I mean, I just have to reiterate that once again the um neediest students. or um people that need the most
services, it seems like. are going to you know, get the short end of the stick with the lapis elimination increasing the athletic user fees, um, it just seems like I just wanted to highlight that, but I don't, I don't personally
see where we can go because obviously if the late bus elimination means a staff member stays. I mean, then what are you gonna do? So I don't like the seven FTEs. I
mean, I wish that I wish that that actually would entirely go away. But I'm just not sure how we can how we can show the towns that we're cutting the budget in good faith, but explain.
budget cuts mean actual people losing their jobs and actual services being disrupted because I don't, I don't know. I know that people in theory, understand that, but I don't know if they really do see the effect of these, of these budget cuts.
So I don't know. Mm one caveat in there for those 7 FTEs. Don't forget we use a round number. um of 50,000. It's, it's roughly
60, but we have to subtract for uh unemployment so because we have to pay that out so it's less than 60, so we use that as a round number and when you look at that round number, if you had a singleton position.
and I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna use anybody's position because of people freak out, but if you are a person who has the only person that does this job in the district and they were the person being reduced generally they're probably paid
in the 80 $90,000 range, maybe $100,000 range, so that would be a higher cut reducing the number of FTEs that way. you know what I mean, because remember the FTE is a plan around $60,000 each. for those for those 7 FTEs, so
it's, it's, it's, it depends on where the cut comes from, the reduction comes from doesn't, it's not necessarily like it's exactly $40,418,000. Thank you.
I took my glasses off and $418,000 because it could be dependent on the positions that are reduced, removed. It could be less Um, I wanna speak to some something similar
to what Julia said, um, the I've thought a lot about the lapas and the athletic user fees , um, I come down a little bit differently in that I really feel OK about the late bus. I
feel like I'm OK. I would not be OK with eliminating the late bus altogether because I think it speaks that it, the kids who need it the most need it the most, and it needs to be there and I think it's important and I'm OK with it being one bus for
the two town s and it taking a little bit longer like that feels OK to me. But I also, sorry, I didn't, I didn't want to mean to insinuate first of all that the late bus is not for everybody, it is, but then now I don't want that to
come across, um, but you know for people whose parents work and I'm agreeing with you that like I just I feel like I insinuated that and I didn't mean to. so I, I feel comfortable with the and. like it's OK for us to have differences. I feel comfortable
with the late bus to cutting it down to one. I do want to speak to the athletic user fees. It is as as Vinny noted, it is a small , uh, you know, relative to the whole amount here is not
a ton of money, but I am not comfortable changing. I feel like it's going back on a promise. I feel like we have tried and stated that a goal is to continue to try to reduce the
amount that families have to pay . I don't think I think there should be no user fees at all. I think it's kids should be able to participate in
sports in the musical in whatever all this uh we talk in this district. We talk about the, you know, the 2nd day of school after school all and it and it's real. That being said, I'm OK with
keeping our athletic user fees where it is with holding steady, but I'm not OK putting more of the weight back to the parents. I, so even though it's not a big chunk, it doesn't have feedback on that
um like everyone else, I think everyone feels the same way about staff reductions, of course. you know. of course it's not well anyone wants, but I think this is what at least for me when we
were saying this is what we want to see, we want to understand how to reduce this budget in a meaningful way so that we can show the taxpayers that we are doing that this is somewhat what I expected and
I feel I think it's the right thing to do. I that's not an easy thing to say, but that's what I'm saying, um.
that's my feedback. Other people ? I just want to say I appreciate this breakdown and like the level of detail that you gave us about how you found all these categories or all these lines, um, and just to agree,
like, the 7 FTE is it bothers me, you know, it's hard to think about people losing their job, people losing um certain parts of their day, and it's hard too because I don't, I don't want to know exactly like
what positions they are, but it's hard to say. you know, I'm sure every single one of those positions are important, so it's hard to say like whether, I guess it doesn't matter which positions they are. So it, I just want to acknowledge that it's really difficult, and I
feel, so you're talking about the athletic user fees and last meeting I said something about like, it wasn't about the user fees, it was about um I think the retirement
um, paying their retirement. OK, thank you, where we were, you know, we had made strides like since the time I've been here, those were two things that we had made strides on, so it kind of hurts to slide backwards. I would, I would rather see a slide back in athletic user fees than
you know, if that saves one more person's job personally, but I definitely understand what you're saying about how, like that's such an important thing, and we made a big leap there. So this was not helpful at all what I said I just wanted to acknowledge all of that.
I have a question, um. kind of relating to our conversation earlier about the regional agreement and its approval processes and the change in the funding formula. Am I correct in understanding that there's not going to be any change in the apportionment
formula for this budget cycle. That's correct, yes. OK, so it would be for next year. OK. At the earliest, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, yeah, so not for this year . OK.
Anybody else To Vinny's point, this is kind of our, this is your moment. This is the moment recommend changes, um, normally we do not. um change much after the tentative. Obviously you can change whatever you want all the
way up into the final um but it only it does only gives you one opportunity to see your change after the tentative, um. so now would kind of be that you feel like this is the
number you almost want to move forward with, uh, to town meeting or can I just add, add something. Sorry, I just, I, I think it's important to add something from yesterday's. 5 chairs meeting, um, the conversation we had
where we were talking about override it in both scenarios. I think it was Ben Tyman that made the comment, like, you know , to one thing he was concerned about is that
everybody's doing their part to reduce. the amount of override if that were the case I think that's an important thing for us to remember, you know. this goes to the towns.
for an override. It's roads um, if it fails, then what happens Then we go back we have 30 days to go back. and review
the budget, make changes or not, you don't necessarily have to. There's nothing that says you have to make any changes, but you do have to go back and quote review it and then uh within a 45 day window from that second final boat you need to uh bring it back to the towns for another
vote. so timing is very tight if, if it gets to that point in the conversation I just worry about is this enough to say, hey, we are doing our part, if you will, because I think no matter what in when I
I think they're going to end up in an override situation. I cannot nail down Hamilton yet, but you know I I'm, I'm, I'm not I'm guessing if we're here we we probably are in both communities , but I just be able to be aware of the process. I'm not sure everybody enters the process. When will we
know that Because I mean, that's kind of what we were talking about, like , if we can get out of override territory, that would be wonderful, but without that information, how are we supposed to make a decision. I think it's
especially we're talking about potentially, I mean, it feels like everybody said this, we've we've looked at everything we can except for now additional. death cuts and uh that's a very
difficult decision to make if we don't even, we're not even operating with both sides of the information. That's really difficult decision to make at this point, I feel like. Yeah, frustrating. It's frustrating because we, you know, I, I do, I the last meeting
what it seemed like was if we didn't cut a million for Wenham and maybe 2 million for Hamilton, no matter what we were go and override, right? So that's, that was the information we were operating from And now it sounds like it's
actually completely different, but so I'm, I guess like I'm, I'm, as I said last time and I've said in capital finance and I've said before, I'm OK with pushing for an override. It, because we can't cut $3
million from this budget, um, but if it's something where we cut $45,000 more. I mean, that's really important information to have. So I know, I know it's not either of your fault, but I feel like that to me would be right
if we're that if we're that close, are we close or are we way off? I don't think we know. I mean, I think I mean, I don't, and it's nerve-wracking because I don't want to speak for the towns and we don't know, but it, I mean, it was even in the paper. I mean
it Wenham is looking likely at an override that, you know, regardless, um, but I think your point is a good one. It would be good to know if it was a razor thin thing like, oh, or is it like a million dollars more, but
if it's like if you cut $20,000 more than Hamilton doesn't need an override. That might be good information for us, you know, but I think we're not gonna know that. And the overall question, so I guess
the question here is to, to that like to acknowledge that this is significant from. the preliminary budget. and the most significant part of what is occurring here is
that, you know, it has a 7 FTE. staff reduction on it and that that's real like that like that but I think what Eric was talking about about the town sort of saying that
in order to, in order to present an override that the idea is that the towns will need to see that like they're having to make difficult decisions that we are also having to make difficult decisions that um
so I don't know what that number is, like whether they feel they're going to feel like 7 FDEs is sufficient, but I, I think it's meaningful. I also think, I mean, overall our
enrollment if I recall correctly , our enrollment increased by 37 students, so to say we have an increase in enrollment of 37 students and a 7 FTE reduction in staff to me. says to the towns, right, that's
like this is significant that we are making sacrifices. I mean, that's. Yeah, and those are definitely things you want to highlight along the way and as we continue these conversations.
Yeah, I mean that's significant. I think, I think, I mean. the conversation that we've had with the towns and the numbers they come forward with, I think you're, you're probably leaning into override on both sides, but , but Wenham made it very clear that there they're looking, they, they're
looking at an override, I think no matter even if we came down. to a million, cut a million or 1.5 million. I think there's still in that position. Hamilton not so sure. If we got 1.5 million, would that put Hamilton under an override. possibly. I just don't know
the final of their revenue situation because they do have money's coming in from Gordon Conwell. They also have revenues coming in from the shift of the 911 to centralize it, so. um so
I to be clear, you all have free will. You can do whatever you want. but I guess I'd be interested in hearing if someone is, if anyone is feeling like
absolutely yes, this should be or absolute I guess absolutely no this is not what I want at all. I think it would be important information to provide that. to Vinny so that or if you're looking at this and saying, this
isn't anywhere near enough cuts you need to. cut more. I like I think that that's and again it's your choice whether to speak or not. I'm just sort of encouraging you that that like if you're feeling
like that, I'm thinking that would be helpful. to the administration to know. I mean, I'll be honest, I have concerns about this. It is a 9.9% increase to Wenham. Do you
anticipate that will pass? I think it's going to be a tough sell. If this is what we're going to be a tough sell. I think from both Eric and I we would really need your help to get out into the community and spread the word about the budget.
and because this will be difficult. Yes. and both sides, I mean, I think Hamil Hamilton, if we, we stay here at this point, it'll be difficult. It'll. Yeah, it'll be a, it'll be a, it'll be a lot of work ahead of all of us to to be able to make sure people understand.
the impacts, but I, I, you know, Vinny and I have talked a lot about this. We don't think this is enough. when you start saying, OK, what, what kind of work did the towns do to reduce their budgets? What kind of work did the school district do to, to reduce their budgets.
I think because they perceive us as such a big chunk of their budget. This is, this would probably be to them like, OK, but it's not. We are a big chunk of their budget. I mean, that's and and while I think right and
while I think we. and the elected officials in the town do understand that these percentages, you know, every, I think we all understand about the END and what happened last year and why these percentages
look the way they do It's really hard to communicate about, yeah, why um so uh, if you, if we're looking for
more, I'm assuming that the only places more staff. I mean, you aren't presenting any other That was my question Yeah, I mean, we don't know. we could get revenues. I mean, we generally get small amounts like
Medicare is one of them, but it's not a lot of money, and across the district, I think we have $80,000 in Medicare. revenues approximately. so it's not like a huge number. We we just estimate based on the year previous. uh, so numbers will change into
January but not dramatically. So how many to Jen's point, how is the next staff cut, the one that causes our class sizes to change. It depends where you, where you cut from it it honestly depends
on where you come from. If you look at it's gonna impact kids because you're looking at supports. not necessarily a classroom teacher, but it could be some support personnel. It could be some programmatic personnel.
um so it's hard to say. It's really when we looked at it. from this perspective and again I said at the last meeting I don't want to rattle the staff, but they're rattled. They know, they see this is coming. um, so we're trying to be delicate about
making any grand announcements anywhere, but we we would again try to stay away from classrooms. We really think the district and the people who move here for the schools. enjoy the smaller class sizes, you know, they, they, they'll be
a dramatic shift in some class sizes. I mean, we, we took um out of those 73 of those. are to lean towards the high school. because you know there's a little bit of room there in their class sizes when you look
at their overall, go back to the enrollment reports to start to look to the enrollment reports, what does that look like? But if you go 10 1214, you're going to get into places that affect the kids pretty, pretty quickly.
I guess I have, I have a question for my fellow Wenamites . This is the most we've ever split between Hamilton and Wham and in a meeting ever in my existence. Um, what percentage do you think would be palatable? Other than 0
Well I think there are so many different constituencies, right? I mean, there are people that probably wish they could pay everything the district needs and they just don't have the household budget to do it. There were seniors who are on a fixed
income and want to stay in the community and can't downsize in the community and want are not against the school but can't pay more, you know, and then I also think that um there are other families that would be willing to pay a lot more that they
think of it as a good value for what they're getting for their, their taxes. I mean, I wish that we had other levers at our disposal, like, you know, real estate circuit breaker provisions and things like that that exist in other municipalities that we don't
have, at least not yet, in Wenham. um you know, and I think that this is just a hard economic environment, you know, Beverly's looking at a deficit. I've seen in the news like Linfield, Stoneham, I mean, this is a, this isn't just a Hamilton
Wenham problem right now. I think between inflation, Chapter 70, proposition 2.5. I mean, you have all of these intersecting challenges, right? At the same time, um, I, I don't know. I mean, I think that there's a definitely a
group of people that have lived in Wenham for a long time and remember years of successive overrides and all these issues, and I, I think the challenge in this moment will be to evaluate this on its merits and not like, well
this happened before and you know, I think sometimes it can be really hard and when I'm maybe in Hamilton, but I don't know. I'm more of a one in person, I guess, to. leave the past in the past, you know, to really say like, yes,
maybe 20 years ago, there were problems in the district, or we did have many years of successive overrides, but this year, this is for a different reason. you know So, yeah, no, I'm saying you remember the success of. So I,
so I think there's, for lack of a better term, some like um muscle memory resistance against override because, oh, that's happening again. And I think, yes, the override is happening again, but not for the
same reasons that it happened before. So, and that'll be hard. Yeah, yeah. Just so people are aware, when a sorry, Wenham actually gave us an approximate number they were trying to get their
increase at around 4% and ours at about 4.4.1%. That was what our conversation was regarding like, OK, what's the number? We we didn't get that. same number from Hamilton, but one of them was,
you know, they were hoping 4% or 4% they could probably keep it under. but that's a $600,000 increase, which is. you know, again, cutting 2 out of just the Wenham side which would reflect.
huge um Vinnie, I don't know maybe you know, I don't know if you uh. I don't know how to frame the question. Let me take a moment.
Um No, I think what Kristen said is important about just thinking about it is a really diverse number of reasons that people could have for being either for or against.
it's very important to remember that that there's not just one reason, and that's and I think that everything you said applies to both towns there's nothing, yeah , um, Jen, what would happen if we just didn't replace the you
said there were 3 teachers retiring? we just didn't hire somebody new . I don't think that's feasible in some of them. You have like a 3rd grade teacher with his already a bubble at the school it would make your class size enormous
for that one instance, I'd have to look at what the other ones are a good example to look at it from the where we're building the teacher retires in now if you say right we're not gonna add that, you're down 1 3rd grade. Those kids he need to go
somewhere. They can't necessarily be split up. in that building. They might have to go to another building, which would be weird to, to say, OK, we're gonna take one class in third graders and spread them out in Buker and Cutler. So that's what we were talking about thinking capital, we might have
talked about that, like what is that restructuring look like when you put grade levels in each building like pre-KK here, 123, I had Cutler 4 or 5 I went to, I'm just this is
just random numbers, but something like that allows you more flexibility, but you're still gonna bump your class sizes up because we do have bubbles in many of our so we have 7 and we have some pretty, pretty good. you know, numbers in some of our classes that you'll be looking at going from an average of 19
to an average of 23 or 4. at your elementary level. I was just thinking if we did have to replace staff. the people who are retiring are obviously at the higher end of the scale. So if we didn't replace those 3
we're saving more money than if we got rid of 3. towards the bottom Yeah, but we look at it like you , there's a number in there. There's a
savings number of 54,000377, which is basically taking those top salaries of if I'm retiring at 90, we would say to the principals, you got to bring somebody in below Masters 5 is generally the target we give them. So that's what we come up with
that 54,377 number um sometimes we have to be careful with that because a specialty position like a a school psychologist. they're, they're super educated, so they come in high on the salary scale automatic and you have those are problems, so it really
depends on who's who's not coming back and who's going, who's retire, you know, if somebody's retiring as their their classroom teacher and they're the top scale. We're pretty good there. It just , it really depends. SLP or or hard to hire positions like a physics teacher
you gotta keep your doors wide open because, you know, currently in the state, physics is a great example. There's not enough physics teachers for the high schools in the state. So we're fortunate to have one and those, those, those are things you want to hold on to, you know
. So this is, this is, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to phrase this question accurately, but if I'm looking at the top, top, top line of everything our operating overview.
the, the change year over year is 5.93%. Correct. That's gross. Right? Gross. Yeah, no, I know. Uh so
I mean I know it gets like I wanna sort of think about, I'm trying to think about a way to think about the END and the way that this is really more about messaging, I guess, like that.
like the increase I don't know. I, I, I don't know , that's more of a messaging question. My other sort of kind of question is, I I guess, yeah, I I wish we had sort of more another step in
between because on some level, yeah, I'd like to see what it looks like to try to pare this down maybe a little bit more. at the same time, I'm hesitant to say go and do that.
because the next thing we're seeing is a tentative budget that we're gonna vote on. um but I I, I, I guess I'm torn because I agree that I, from a town
perspective, it's, it's, you know, especially when you're in that 9.8 9.9%. increase, which again is really because part of it, a major part of it
is because of what we adjusted last year, but I don't know. I guess I, I'm torn because in some ways I see that that making some deeper cuts,
showing a good faith effort to the towns, showing the people that we are really tightening our belts and really making some difficult decisions to lower those percentages. I seems like the right thing to
do at the same time, I'm sort of scared about any override. I'm fearful that any override might not pass and it. like I don't know that reducing
that percentage you know, a small, like, I don't know that that's going to get us where we need. I don't like, in other words, I don't know what the magic number is, but I, I sort of think that there's the biggest hurdle is
people being willing to vote for and override. and then the secondary hurdle is how big is that over ride? Like I I'm right So yeah, I think we should try to make it as, as low as we can.
and I guess I would like to see what that looks like to be lower than this, but I don't think it's reasonable to try to pair I like I don't. I guess we're also going to be trying to get the roof through
too. I know, I know. That's 5.8 million. Yeah. And I do think for people that are hoping that there would be some sort of for lack of a better term, progress on like school
renovations and things like that . I mean, that hasn't even really beyond the community conversations that are in the works really is not even on the radar for this budget cycle. You know, um, when we have a tentative budget just as a new
person, I just want to make sure I understand. So, that we vote to approve a tentative budget at our next meeting. and then that goes to the towns. Yes, the tentative number goes to the towns, but you can still
adjust, we don't they go that's we send it to them, we send the number to them. Yep. At least notifying them that kind of this is the number that we're generally gonna be in by our final budget, but there
is still then we meet with the town with the quintuple board meeting on January 20th, I think . Yeah. And then you vote the final, I think, at the meeting after that So are we not likely to have a full picture of the town budgets
until that quintuple board meeting as well. I mean, are we all sort of triangulating around each other like like if when I cuts its municipal budget, are they concerned we raise our budget, you know, are we all sort of trying to kind of balance like all the competing needs of
everything, you know, so yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we had , we had conversations just the with the town manager, town administrator, their business managers about trash how they're moving money around to cover the huge increase in
trash, the trash expenses, um, which it seems to be a big, a bigger number in Wenham. It's, it's sounds quite pricey and one of them, but the um insurance is the other thing we usually see the towns go up almost double what ours is.
They're at the like 1819, 20% increases. So they're talking about their health insurance, yeah, so they're trying in smaller numbers of people, but still it's a big jump on, on your budget, and I think that's part of the the conversation where the three entities are trying to find that balance, like what's the dance
you do to make the pieces fit. I think one of them has conceded that it, it's not going to work this year because you know that they're they're in a tight situation, even, even before that you start to add in any increases from the school
side. The Hamilton side has been a little harder to get a look at. They've told us about new revenues and things like that, just not, you know, the, the number that we were given that 1.4 million. That's you know, that's
remember, was it 2 years ago and they said cut a million and because we were all standing, sitting in the same meeting, so it's, I'm not sure yet on Hamilton. It's, it's hard to make this decision right now to say, you know, Hamilton needs to be at this number and not to be
an override that's not, and they're saying mid January by the time they get their numbers, that's what they told us yesterday. I, I somewhat agree with Dana that the biggest obstacle is just the psychological idea of the override and that the actual
amount of it within reason. is less material because I think the amount everyone's question will be, what is that for me? So I think until you kind of know how that filters through to your individual tax bill, it's hard to make a decision on that
almost, I think if you're just a voter, because it's like, well, how, you know, oh, if I, I, I'm, I, I'm, I'm just making these numbers up because I don't know what they'd be, but it's like, oh, well, for another $300 a year, I could just keep all this and I would be like, sure, you know, I mean, it's really hard to there's a big difference
between it, right, being, it could be 10 times that and and it's like $3000 a year, or maybe we can't do that, you know, so I think it's very, it's a kind of a very abstract question that I think and that's kind of why I'm wondering and I know the town of when I'm at least with the
school consolidation and other things they have really tried to sort of break it down for people of like if your house is valued at this. This means roughly this for your tax bill, and I think that's kind of, that's the question. It's like, and and I
do think that we would all happen, but you're right, it happens after and so and then we have to sell it, sell it to everybody. the hard thing about the override number is even though you're handy and say
, OK, when I'm, I think it's 1.2 . 1.29 million is the increase. They may still be able to absorb some of that money, so they override it's not the full 1.2. It's could be 900 or something, right? It just depends on where
they're where they're cut out office for the overrun. I mean that makes sense because obviously they always would anticipate some inc I mean in other words, there's always an increase, right? It's just how much of that, so the
whole 1.2 is not a lot will depend on whether the town's roll the school budget into their regular budget. cause sometimes they do and it really it can, like you said, reduce the percentage. but if they don't, we're looking
at the 9. I think they typically put it separately, I think the last couple of years they've rolled it in at least in one. Yeah, yeah cause we haven't asked for overrides in 21, I think one of them had 11 of them had one in 21, yeah. So
I mean I don't, I don't know how helpful we're, I mean, I like now I'm looking at the not this page but the the um the
superintendent's updated budget recommendation, combined operating and debt service town assessments both inside and outside. It's the one that's got Hamilton and then Wynham and then the total, but and that was where we were just talking about the 1.2 is Wynum's portion and the overall combined
assessment. including everything and including the debt service and all that is is 8.56. And I guess I sort of feel like maybe we should
yeah, that's what I'm looking at . I guess I, like I, I, we're trying to do all these things to look at each different thing individually and maybe we should just be looking overall and saying like, OK. you know
that's the combined assessment there, is it , it's an 8.56% increase. I don't know what the that increase would have been. if we hadn't used the END last
year. but I I don't know. I about 5.5%. Well , that was gonna be my point is that like we did that. Everybody knew we were doing that select boards,
we knew that and if we're, if I wanna look at it and say like, OK, we'd be at 5.5. Maybe we're hearing that they're shooting for more like 4 or 4.5. So maybe this needs to be a
percentage point lower. I don't know if that's true. I'm just trying to like think about it in a not like, oh my gosh, it's 8.5% because that's, we knew that it was gonna be very high when we use
the END 7.5% is going to be better like in people's minds. I just, well, this is what I'm saying is that I think in the, I actually think that we're. Kristen's point, there's a whole diversity of people we don't know. Everybody's gonna have a different point of view, but I do think that the elected
officials that have been on this journey with us all along and knew what was going on with the END and understood. might, it might make a difference, I think for them and it's important to Vinny's point about us and other elected officials communicating to the
public. That's a fair point. And actually, Dan, when you put it that way and when we use the combined number I mean 8.56%, right? That's the roughly $3.3 million. That's roughly the
entire operational budget for Bukar. And when you put it in terms like that, right? If we put it in terms like that where we're saying we want no override at all, then say goodbye to all of for, for like just hypothetical scenario, but that dollar amount is equivalent to
this entire school going away. And so I think when you combine it and you talk about it in those terms, to me that's, that's kind of a scary prospect to think about if, if that's what if taxpayers write some taxpayers want no override at all. That's what it would take to get
there, and that's, that's really hard pill to swallow. Right. I think that no override doesn't mean no. increase In other words, some amount of increase can be absorbed. But what I'm saying is like yes, I hear what you're saying. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I get it. I know. I think I think like that kind of high-level messaging is good because I don't feel as worried about all the elected officials knowing what's going on. I'm more worried about the casually
involved voter who's not really paying attention until, and I shouldn't say not paying attention, but just does not you know, able to or is not engaged in the process until close to town meaning, I think the other piece of this is that last year we used savings to
balance the budget. We don't have that savings this year, because I think all of a sudden if you're like, we need $3 million to keep Buker open. That's I'm concerned how that will translate then people will be able to go, how of a sudden, why are all of a sudden there were 3
million in the hole, like, here we go again, you know, like, so I think it has to be not too layered and nuanced, but like we had savings last year. We don't have it this year. We have to have revenue.
you know, and just keeping it as simple but accurate as possible. I think it's important to message it we use savings last year, or not we had it. We're not gonna use it like that that that's
right when you have savings you want to use it for things that are one-time things, not for your operating budget. so I, I think this could go on forever, but I think we need to sort of give a little bit of
direction and then we need to move on. I don't know. Well, you , Vinny, you and Eric were saying you think we need to cut it even more. I mean, and you don't want to, but you're thinking from an optics perspective and from the, the percentages. whether it'll pass or not. I'm just and I'm concerned about
that too. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Nobody, nobody wants to cut. No, of course. Oh, no, no, no, no, I didn't mean that of course is about
40,004,430,000 or 390. I OK. um so I have my idea, Dana, maybe we should work backwards like
is our goal to get it passed? That's our goal What does that mean and what will that take? I'm not sure is that I mean, obviously, yeah, but I'm just saying like what, what are the what increases the likelihood and then maybe we can , I don't know, go for it. Well,
I don't know what would increase the likelihood. Um other than having no override, but I don't think that's possible. So I, I think we either need to be comfortable with the fact that there might be an override or we need to say absolutely not.
I, that's what to me what I think the decisions are. I maybe I guess what I will say is I, I, I, and I again this is my impression. This is just my impression. My impression
when we were meeting with the uh chairs was that they wanted it to be less than this. Mhm
but I didn't feel, and I'm not putting words in this is just my impression. I didn't feel like anyone was saying. uh you know, just like level funded from last year
. Cut it all. I mean, I think I think there's a real, there's a, there's an understanding. I mean, we've been messaging this for a year that like this was likely to happen, so I guess I feel like to, you know, that
like maybe there's more that can be done. It can be pared down. but we're still gonna have high numbers. I do think it's a good faith thing to try to pare it down and I, I'm sorry that I know you tried to get us back on track about
like no but you're looking at the goal. The goal is to get a pass. The goal is to get the support of the community and what will, what will that take? based on our while still presenting something that, oh, that we're proud of
and we want to fight for its true to our values. I don't like, in other words, you know, we could present as you know. 0%. Right, no, that's a good point. something that we're be
proud to fight for and tell people about it and something that would not compromise um services and it would be I wish the timing were different so that we had a clearer picture of where the, what the towns were having to do, but that's just the way the timing works out. There's nothing.
that's always been the way and there's not much we can do about it. Yeah. um And I think too, so going back to something Eric was saying a long time ago about potential class size changing, you know,
it did really weigh out the effects long term of you know, our reputation as a district and what that could mean for enrollment, you know, 10 years from now or whatever, if we end up kind of dramatically shifting the way our classes feel. So
that's another thing to consider . Oh, can you speak into this um I don't know, like the override piece, I mean, I hate to ever ask for an override, but I feel like the way things are for everybody, nationally, like
there's should be some understanding about why we would need an override, just the way things, everything is costing so much more money. It And I think we would be looking at it, it sounds to me like we
would be looking at an override even if we hadn't had the END situation last year. It sounds like what we're saying is that even if we were at 5.5, at least in Wenham, it looks like we would have. I mean,
break it down for Hamilton, but So you know, I guess it would be oh sorry I'm just clearing. Somebody say something and then I mean I think some of these
wrapped this whole thing in a nice bow. I don't know if I can do that, but I remember the 2021 town meeting because we were outside in the tent in Pingryfield. And the override passed then.
And I think that the feeling was that you know, like Eric made it really compelling presentation of like, yes, we're asking you for money, but we also have made these cuts. And so I think
that people it was a credible appeal that the district had done. what it could do to bring the number down and then the people said, fine. So I, I think the question is, is, are the changes that we've
proposed to the budget enough to kind of get over that hurdle this year. And it and it sounds like it's, it might not be, you know, I think from what Eric and Vinny are saying, and I think none of us, I don't want to cut anything, you know, I don't my
kids are elementary school students at Buker, the small class size has been great for them. I'm not saying that that would change E Euchre, but just, you know, I don't know that the amount that we're reducing is going to be high enough to get over that kind of hurdle, and I don't
like necessarily sort of bidding against ourselves to say, well, we've already caught this much, and now we're going to go back and cut more without any further feedback from the towns. I think that's what's hard about this is that it seems like there should be a a step of a sort of a counter from them of like, well,
we're here and you're still here , and then it would be easier to come to the together and I, I, I , I did again, I, it makes me nervous. I don't want to put words in there . I felt like Wenham was saying we were
in the like that they were seeing that we were making a good faith effort and that we were not it was they wanted to see more cuts , but I didn't hear them saying like you need to
like that that's what I felt like as they felt like this was good and like a little bit more would be. that that was my interpretation, what they were saying, and I think again Hamilton just has they, some of their people
weren't there, but also like they just are not far enough along. They have a lot of news, a lot of new things in Hamilton to calculate. They're trying to navigate a lot of things at the same time but you know, still
complicated so when we first talked and gave you very vague guidance. that number that we were talking about, Vinny was um, we were saying
sort of show us what a million dollars cut from that preliminary budget . might look like, and then there was a lot of people, including myself, saying like, I don't a million seems too much. So
right now we're at what 700 you 756, 90 6690 690. So 3 I guess what I'm saying is like, is it really, I think that I, I know I gave that feedback
that I felt like a million is too much. but maybe we need to know what that looks like. I don't know if you guys know that off the top of your head. So an overall, an overall cut of a million? right? Like that was the upper
limit of what we talked about at our last meeting. over and I know some of it goes to, I understand that some of it is revenue, some of it is. So to get another 300 we've.
exhausted a lot of our nonpayroll options. Yep, right. So It's payroll we're looking at so it would be 5 people, 5 more, 5 more teachers from or 5 more 5 more FTEs. 13, yep
maybe at 13 probably, right, roughly. And it's dependent on 12 and uh something else is added that's not, but. it is it is staff And I know this is in the
materials, but so putting, uh, but I'm not gonna find it super fast. But putting it in the context of the schools and the buildings. I mean, how many FTEs do we roughly have? 300 approximately 300 under 300,
yeah we're cutting 3 basically 3 . 3 to 4% of our staff. to get that up to a million. Again, with increased student population, not decreased. Some of those some of those staff may be
non-professional staff, so then you're looking at 2. Right. And I'm just gonna use an example I'm not calling anybody out, but ESP position. they don't, they're making between 20 and 30. So then you might need 2 to make up right, right. Generally how we look at it in the budget
depending on what positions we're looking at. So it could be more FTEs just not all. teaching Oh counseling, nursing positions, things like that. I, I don't know. I'm really torn
because to be honest, this is, this amount of money is what I was looking for that last meeting that's sort of where I was landing. I, uh, and this is about 690 we said, right? I was looking for 700 like I so.
I but again I hear the concern that it's just not going to be enough from the towns. I don't know in a perfect world, Vinny and, I think this is also to Eric,
where do you want it to be? Where would you like that final number to be? I mean, I can give my opinion, but it would be non-overri in Hamilton, but I don't, I don't like what happens to the
school district after that, so. I will leave that decision to you guys. Sorry. No, I know, I'm just wondering, like Yeah, I think I, I said it earlier. I think you're looking at 1.5 million Right So cutting a million from the go
back to 3.8 and some change, so another $800,000 basically. Yeah And I know we're only we're talking that's, I mean that's still because I'm still so we're all still so unsure about Hamilton. I'm does that keep us in an override
situation? Because some people would argue if you're going to go for an over, I'd go for it, you know, but other people, you know, they were pretty clear. Wenham was pretty clear yesterday like we need you just to do a little more work, you know, I think everybody understands it and then it becomes messaging. What's the message? How do we message it together?
It's the three entities. but it's a, it is a hit for the district. So what? $1.5 million is a hit for the, for the district that will hurt. And does that happen again potentially in the next fiscal year because you have increased
salary costs and things again where you're still just I wouldn't be doing my job to remind you that there's still 770,000 in END that is still offsetting this budget that will still be a problem next year and the year after until
yeah, until we pay it off to reduce it a little bit next year and then the it a little bit. It, it, it becomes as difficult as trying to pay off your credit card with the minimum balance. You just never get there unless you take a big chunk of it, so. well, I mean,
I, I do like I, I know you're looking for an answer. We're obviously not giving one. I for me, I think people should say what you really think. I mean, for me, I hear what you're saying.
I I heard what I think I heard when I'm saying like you're on the right track, a little more and we're there. So I guess what I'd like the tentative budget to be is
some cuts from this. but again, I just asked about what getting up to that million dollars where it looks like and it's too much. It's too much, so it's all staff, right.
So I guess what I'm saying is like think that we can squeeze this a little bit tighter. but I'm not so I guess I'd expect that the tentative budget is going to be
lower than the one before us. but I think we're realistically not serving the students if we don't present a budget that is meaning are the values that we stand for and if that means it goes to an override, then it's
up to us to ask the towns for what we think the students need, what we know they need. that's where I stand is that I think it needs to be, we need to really be as tight as we can and it should be
cut more but not. you know, not a lot Like for me, I would, I mean, I, I hate these cuts, but I would not vote against this if it was
brought to a vote, um, but I would really have concerns if it went to 13 FTE. So I can't say if I would support it or not . I'd have to see it. I'd have to weigh everything. I'd have to , we'd have to get the numbers from Hamilton, um, but that
gives me serious pause, but I do want to say that the work that you did here, while really, you know, it hurts. It's really thoughtful , meaningful, intentional, and good work, and there's nothing there's no cuts that are good,
but I think if we're, if we're gonna move forward in good faith , I would not vote against this. No Well, I mean this feels close to like level services as we could
possibly get seriously with trying to achieve some savings even though it does unfortunately result in staff reduction. And I think if we go, if we're cutting 1314 people. When does that really start to materially change the district
for students. you know I don't know It's difficult. There's too many moving parts here. The two municipalities plus us. It's too many moving parts.
It's hard when we're such a large percentage of the budgets different communities, you know, it's a 2 to 1. when you start looking at the levy limits, you know, the, the, the levee limit Wenham doesn't increase by a million dollars every year. It's less than that
every single year. which makes it a little more complex, and then all of a sudden everything we dealt with in the last two years with inflation and trash going up and the water , all the water issues that both towns are wrestling with, um
you know, the there's no way to get it from when you're I think Wenham's carrying 98% of . of their revenue, I mean their um expenses on on 98% of their residential houses. That's, that's a big
percentage. I mean, that, that's a tough one and and Hamilton is not much different. I think they're 95 or 96% dependent on residential taxes, which puts them in a really difficult situation, and I don't see any new growth. coming.
not at least from the Wenham side. I maybe down the road, but . that's not gonna impact this budget or the next budget or possibly even the next budget. So when you start to look at those increases over time in each of the communities. Hamilton generally has higher
increases. across their revenues and their receipts, but they, you know, when you, when you start to iron it out, where's it going? is the question. So, and then, you know, they, they're, they're trying to maintain what they think is important for the community as well, and I, I get
that. I, I get that argument as well. So it's, where does that Where is that fine line of where we all kind of meet in the middle. I don't know that it will be that easy this year. And if you get an override, it might be a lot easier next year, but this, there's still a lot of
factors you don't know about, including insurance and things like that. negotiating new contracts in the next two years. I mean that's sort of one of those things like I don't, I was person was referencing like whenever that was 20 years ago
when it was back to back to back to back to. I don't really, I mean, I was a voter, I was a parent, I don't know but it is now that I'm here, it is sort of like hard to understand how did that happen year after year because it, it seems like. this if you were to get an override it puts you in a better
position for future years, but. we saw that that wasn't always true, so I don't know. I, and that's not to rehash the past, but it is to sort of say, you know, um, I wish it were more
realistic to sort of say like, OK, this is the 3-year plan we need to get from spending at this level to spending at this level. There's going to be 3 overrides. We're gonna clear the END, you know, I wish it were more possible to kind of really plan and strategize that way. And I think
it's so difficult. It seems to me even as a new member, it should be proactive in that way, because you have all of these other interests to balance that you are you're basically it feels like we're basically trying to
invest in our budget, you know, it's, it's almost like what can we get away with this year as opposed to like, what do we need , you know, and I'm not saying that that means we should just, hey, go for a $3 million override. Clear the three END like, I mean, I would love to like have one really bad year
and clean it all up. But I don't think it will pass. That would be my wish. Like I'd rather have one really bad year then like 3 years of pain. So, I get what you're saying though, because this feels re act ive and we'd be nice to be incremental and reactive, like
what we can do in the future. OK. So I think I've heard what I needed. I can't imagine I I can't imagine that I I can't imagine that I I can't imagine that that's true, but thank you for saying that so kindly. I know.
Um, all right so we will, uh, be here next time with a tentative budget, uh , hopefully it'll be a little different than what you saw and I mean in the in between time, I mean,
you know, if you think of something right after this, please like go directly to Eric and share more thoughts. Powerball tickets. Powerball tickets Yes, yeah. Can we make
like a little if I win, can I donate? Donate to that. How does that go through the ED fund? Yeah, probably. Um OK. Um, thank you for all of that,
and I'm sorry that that was so long. This is a hard thing. It's um, all right, let's just move through here. Capital finance reports, so we did meet, we obviously discussed the budget,
um, but we also looked at the capital projects list and decided not to add anything new. off of the list on to this year's budget because we're already looking for things to cut, not things sad. OK.
All right. Thank you, and that's more information about things that we that you have on that list that we're not addressing so thank you Uh, policy, uh, we haven't met since we all last met, uh, but we're
meeting on January 26th. Excellent. Um there's only one thing to do. The only one thing on that agenda. OK. Um negotiations, so we had a
productive, uh, meeting with the , uh, ESP, um, union, um, that the goal of that meeting was to set up ground rules and set up
um our initial meetings and we achieved that. Great. So, um, and yep, so that was good. Um, and we have some meetings, 2 meetings scheduled in January. um, to continue those negotiations. Did I miss anything, Christian?
I think that's it. Yeah, thank you. Um, secret report I think you did a nice one last time, right? Yeah, so do you have more? No, well, um, I want to celebrate Capital Finance. We have all our minutes in
Not necessarily proved all yet, but in it, so that's amazing. And then I have 2 missing minutes for policy, but I think you said that Dave Plio had written those, or the, the 200 and I'm honestly
just looking at 2004, 2005. Yeah , if we go back to 2017 you can't, you can't do it. So, um, there's just two from policy I can send those dates to you again. Negotiations, uh, I don't
believe have any missing from the last two years. Nice. And executive session and I'm 100% sure this is probably me. Has like have about like 3 or 4 missing. So I have to executive
session, you have notes on things that are like Janelle has a draft, but we, Julia drafting or um draft OK, because the same thing like we can't approve executive session minutes until we have another executive session, but if, but Janelle could hold them
in a secret box. OK, and also I haven't updated the spreadsheet yet either. OK, OK. All right. OK. Yeah, so that's, so that's a good way to start the new year. OK, thank you for that. I appreciate it. I appreciate you being on top of that, Julia.
Sure, thank you, um, I don't know that would you have any in your inbox report. I have no in our inbox report. It's been very quiet. Um, thank you for that. Um, so uh I was gonna say a couple things
in the chair, but I'm mindful of what time it is. Um, Eric, can you just remind us all of the community conversation dates. I think I have my calendar. I just want to remind people I have January 7th.
At 10:30 and then the other one is January 29th. Is it at 7 o'clock or OK we kind of went in the middle of the ground there. OK, so I just wanted to remind people about those conversations , um, and, um, I encourage
obviously anyone and everyone to come but also I encourage the committee to try to think about people that you know in the community that are thoughtful um, people with diverse opinions like it would be really great if
you could think of someone and I just as a personal note, I would encourage you to think about someone that you maybe hold different views from, but that you have good conversations with , that would be a great addition to like, so the first ones at the library, but the second
one's at the school, right? Correct. OK. It's at the high school um right, anybody else mailings went out, which is a yeah, the mailings did go out. I got mine today. Excellent. All right.
I did not, but I live here. Do you I, it probably makes sense to post those as public meetings only because, yeah, so I think it, and I can think about what the agenda should be, but I think just to be safe we should post them as meetings so that if
a quorum of the school committee shows up, um, and again that we would, there would be no votes, no decisions made. We would mostly just be listening, yeah, it's a workshop, um but I don't think it should be, I mean, that's just a legal
thing, and it's not really billed as a school committee meeting it's just legally if we're all there participating, it, it needs to be posted, so. um, the only other thing that I wanted to say, um, is that I have been trying to have conversations in the community
and reflecting um particularly, uh, with people that have different ideas than I do and one of the questions that um a couple of different people have asked me and it's, I think it's a good question. It's one that I've been reflecting on is, you know, as a school committee member, when you're elected and you said here, do you feel like
you represent the students or do you feel like you're represent the voters who elected you and I really thought about it and I've been thinking about it a lot and I've been answering that question as, you know, in a kind of a nuanced way, like, you know, I really feel like I represent the
students and the students are part of the community and I wouldn't, wouldn't want to represent students out of context. I think the conversation we just had really represented that. But the reason I bring it up is because we all got this funny little MASC calendar in the mail which is
somewhat hilarious because it's a paper calendar. But in the back, it does have the MASC code of ethics and I found that it was really helpful, so I'm just gonna share a little bit about it. I've read this before, but it was nice that they sent it out. Um but one of the things I thought
that was helpful to answer that question, like I said that I have been thinking about because I think it's a conversation in the community is that the code of ethics delineates three areas of responsibility for for school committee members and those are community responsibility,
responsibility to the ad, the school administration and responsibility to other committee members, but what was interesting under Community, which is first the listed first responsibilities to community is that the first item under responsibility community is that school committee members
school committee member in their relationship with their community should number one realize that their primary responsibility is to the children. Mhm And there's a lot more to this. It's a longer document, but I, like I said, it's been something
I thought about and to me that spoke to what I was trying to communicate that like it's within community and the primary responsibility is to children, so anyway interesting. I you document that you all got in the mail you this, so I
actually recycled it. There are nice large spaces to rent I debated keeping it. I don't use a paper calendar. No, no one does. My check's in it. Yeah. What
drinks? Exactly. Anyway, that is, um, I think that was very funny. That is all I have. Um unless anyone has any questions for me. Um, does anyone have any topics for future meetings? No
No just more budget, more budget. Emotion. I move that we adjourn this meeting at 9:41 p.m. Alright, uh seconded by Jen Carr, all those
in favor. and uh oh sorry I sected by Kristen Noon. Excuse me, and all those in favor, yes, and it is unanimous of