Oh well, I'm starting to. I do that while I haven't done it lately, but Isabel has those little like shaver things. Hi, good evening. Can you guys hear me? The speakers are not working. Uh
oh, hello I'm still here. Good evening. Can you hear me? OK. Um, good evening. I call to order the meeting of the
Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee on Thursday, January 8th, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. Um, I would like to remind everyone that this meeting is um being recorded and live streamed
. um, also just like to let everyone know we do have, um, one member currently participating remotely. Um, that is Jenar. It'll mean that any votes we take this evening will be roll call votes, um, and it is possible that um Megan Benson
may also join us remotely. Um, Jen, can you hear us? Oh, did you lose 10? Yes, OK, good, great. I hear you guys. Excellent. Um
before, um, we start the meeting . I do want to let the public know some information. um, so I just want to let everyone know that um David Frenkel, um, has submitted his resignation and stepped down
from the school committee. um, due to some health reasons. Um, he, after, um, approximately 4 years of service on the committee. Um, David did share that he wanted to share with the public that it has been an honor and a privilege to serve on the committee.
Um, I just want to let everyone know that, excuse me, and um I think I speak for the whole committee just to say that we will miss having David here and that we wish him all the best.
Yes. Um, first up, um we have Citizen's comments. Um, we will have an opportunity for citizens here in person to speak as well as people on Zoom to speak.
Um, if you do choose to speak, I'll ask that you approach the podium, um, and state your name and please spell your last name so that we get it correct for the minutes. Um, I'll ask Amy to be our timekeeper, um. and we'll have, um, I'll ask you
to keep your um comments to 3 minutes, um, and please note that this is an opportunity for us, the school committee, to listen and for you to be heard. um, and it's not a back and forth, um, but it is an opportunity for you to speak
and value that um Eric doesn't look like we have any community members on Zoom. Is that correct? Correct. OK. Um, is there anyone in the room that would like to speak? Welcome.
Hello, Jeff Austin. Hamilton, Mass Uh, I, I attended both the superintendent's workshop earlier this week and then I just attended the school committee's workshop, uh, moments ago. I want to say, uh, I want to separate two different workshops . First, the public workshop,
the session was built for data gathering. Many residents appreciated it, including me. The format helped surface themes and priorities and gave people a real chance to share what matters now that workshop and the future ones will be useful. Secondly, the work, the, the school committee workshop I just attended, that felt a little
different. It felt close to criticism and more focused on self-review. I heard a lot about what you think went well. I heard too much about consult how consolidation might have worked. I also heard frustration that you could not get consolidation across the finish line, but the majority
did not want consolidation. That is the fact of the matter The job now is to accept it, learn from it, and move forward. If the gold is, if the goal is to rebuild trust, focus less on defending the past and more on answering the hard questions. Many residents did not feel the
process was fully honest or fully real. I heard that in the meeting. Communication was often buried across websites and scattered documentation. People should not have to hunt for basic information on a project of this size. That was also mentioned this past meeting moments ago.
Community engaging engagement is not the public sitting quietly while you listen and then move on. We are repeatedly told the public can't attend, but it's not for us to participate. That is not dialogue. That is a controlled comment. And when the only back and forth happens in
private conversation, it's not transparency. The public should be able to hear the questions and the answers in the open. Nobody should tolerate personal tax. I heard that was a concern as well. But public criticism, criticism is not an attack. A governing body has to accept
criticism and be willing to be challenged publicly. Here's a practical path forward. First, pause any major new building proposals until the current override decisions are finished. Let the commun community stabilize. Second, complete a full district-wide facilities
assessment. Then publish a prioritized renovation plan with clear cost timelines and trade-offs. Third, redo the educational plan with grounded scope and realism, realistic assumptions. Cut the aspirational items out that drive cost without clear value.
The public workshop helped gathered honest input. Now the committee needs to act on what the majority said and build a plan people can support and trust. Thank you. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, 30
seconds. That was it. Not 3 minutes Um, Beth He 270 Asbury Street in Hamilton, um I was just actually thinking about this today. One thing I
really want to encourage you all to do is I want everyone to go take a tour of the Welch school. I heard that the Welch school was not comparable, and yet they tore it down to the cinder blocks and
reconfigured, and I feel like if you were going to represent the school committee and the town, the, the minimum you can do is go see the Welsh school. Number 2, we just saw a huge success in Hamilton, the way the select board, the
pulling board, the abutters, and the seminary had basically a unanimous vote. That should be our goal here We've already set the mark and I'm gonna encourage the committee to come up with a new way to interact.
instead of waiting having um interact and throughout your meeting where people can ask questions or make. comments so you don't get 3 meetings down before you hear a comment. and I think that is part of the
success. It was a 3.5 year project with the seminary and the fact that it was completely not contentious the day of the meeting was really the testimony of the work that was done, but that was because the planning
board and the select board currently interacted even in your meetings. I know that your policy now and I'm asking you to change it. Thank you. Thank you
OK. Um, are there other members of the public who'd like to speak? OK, it doesn't look like there's anybody else in the room. Is there anyone on Zoom? No more, no. OK. Um, we're not gonna close the Zoom link because we have um our school committee
members there, but at this point , um, public comment on Zoom will be closed, um, and public comment in the room will be closed. Thank you for your input and comment. Um so school committee.
um, I was not able to get ahead of some technical difficulties, and I didn't print out the protocols. Um, I have the mission statement. I'm hoping somebody will be willing to be protocol number 8. OK
As elected members of the Hamiltonunarm Regional School Committee. We, including the superintendent, accept 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. Number 8, school committee members will vote according to their convictions, we'll avoid bias and will uphold and support the decisions of the majority of the committee once a decision has been made. Positions will not be used for personal or partisan gain Thank you
Um, I have the mission statement here. Great. Would you be willing to read that top part plus the final bullet, please. The, the first bullet, the final bullet, the final bullet, um the Hamilton Wyndham Regional School District School Committee's mission is to ensure our schools create graduates
with a passion for lifelong learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton Wenham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that is a source of civic pride and municipal engagement to serve the community for generations to
come. Thank you Um, next up, uh, we have the superintendent report. Oh, would you, I'm sorry, um. yeah, if, if the, without
objection is the committee's comfortable, um, we might ask Evie, Evie, right, uh, to go out of order, is that fine, that's great. OK, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Um, I'm Evie Bernard. I'm the senior class president here at
the high school, so I wanted to just run through some um activities that all of the schools have been doing and give a quick update. So starting with the high school um a really big club at the high
school is Decca, and recently on December 10th, um, 275 students all attended the DECA districts and we had a very successful outcome with 107 students qualifying for the state conference, so that was really
exciting. Um, we also had a great, um, winter art and art show. So our arts performed and our um art classes got to present their art, um, the concert band, jazz band concert, choir, and harmony
all performed and it sounded like it went great. Um, the next thing is that on the last day before winter break, we had a really fun opportunity as a student government to kind of plan the day out, so we started off with
an all-school assembly and pep rally where holidays activities took place and we kind of really bonded as um all student body and then also we had Choice Blocks, which was a great chance for each student to go choose something that they're really interested in for the rest of the day.
So we going into winter sports, girls basketball has been very successful this year. They just won their Danvers Christmas tournament, and, um, I heard great things about it. The ski team the boys had a race today
and the girls have their first race on Monday, and then also boys basketball, gymnastics, swimming, hockey, indoor track, and cheer are all off to a great start. Moving on to middle school The Miles River Middle School
has started a student of the week and each um student from each grade gets to move to the front of the front of the lunch line, which is very important on your middle school. And they also had a winter spirit week,
which you can see the schedule off to the side and a successful winter concert. Also, they participate in national junior Honor Society, and they worked on sending holiday cards to
soldiers before winter break. onto Winthrop School, uh, I went through school, hosted the elementary family literacy night on January or is hosting on January 13th at Winthrop at the Winthrop school and they had a
very successful holiday boutique and book fair. Uh, they have an upcoming assembly, uh, with Chris Paolos, and he is a world champion athlete, youth motivational speaker and aspiring author who shares powerful life lessons as
he demonstrates amazing bicycle stunts. I actually remember, um, him coming in when I was in at Winthrop, and it was a great assembly and really like important learning experience. Onto Cutler
they started a play club where kids could go in before school and just play in the front um of the school, which I think is a really important, um, thing for them to do because as such little kids have so much energy, it's great to get it out before
school starts and they also held a winter solstice craft and read aloud night. where you can see the kind of crafts they made and they're also going to the family literacy night. on to Buker Bucher art students have been
busy creating winter paper pop-up scenes and they also went to the family literacy night. Thank you. Thank you. Do people have questions for Abby? Um I had a quick question. Would you be, uh, well, first of all, I just want to say thank you
first of all for doing this work , but also I love that you added a little personal touch about something you remembered. It's so important for us to hear like that that stuck with you for so many years because that's good to know. Like those kids are getting that experience right now and that's really meaningful
. So thank you for that. um, can you just give me, I don't know, tell me a little bit about the Choice blocks at the high school . So we had two blocks after the assemb ly and each teacher could kind of host their own activity. So
for example, like my English teacher always or my sophomore English teacher always hosted making fly fishing like little rod or something. So it's kind of like special to each teacher. One, Miss Poston hosted like brought in her bunnies, so you guys kind of to choose. It's
really fun, but yeah, just about an hour of thank you. You're welcome. OK. Anybody else have questions? OK, um, Evie, you are welcome, of course, to stay and also we know that you might have other
things to do, um, totally up to you, but if you're ready to depart, that's OK. Thank you. Um, always great to have the student rep here. um
all right. Uh, next up is our consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like held from the consent agenda. Oh , I'm sorry, I skipped this. Thank you. Superintendent, thank you. See, that's what happens. I , um, sorry, I skipped the
superintendent's report. Back to the superintendent's report, number 5 on the agenda. Eric, to you, thank you. um. a couple of things on the agenda . Happy New Year to everybody. I know it's past the time when you can say Happy New Year, but it's our first meeting back this past
Wednesday we had community conversations. I want to thank everyone. There were more than 50 people out that that morning in the ice, it was a nasty weather and uh really appreciate people kind of getting through the weather and getting there. Parking was tough and the
weather was tough, so it was, I thought it was a good turnout. I thought we got some great information. I'm looking forward to the next session which will be on the 29th at 7:00 p.m. at the high school. Um , that'll be in the library at the high school. Um, the school start time committee just want
to give an update. We met again Monday night. Uh, we had the community house one a a representative from the Community house come, um, to talk with the group, to answer questions from the group. They were answering questions. We were answering questions for them as well to try and get an
idea of what the impacts might be if times changed, shifted, etc. Um, the group is really making good progress. We're definitely on track to hit the deadline to bring a report to the school committee, uh, in early March.
January 20th, principal of the Cotler School, Jenny Hunt, and I have been invited to go to the State House to receive an award for the Cutler School, The Cutler is one of 55 schools of recognition in the state for their MCAS progress towards their targets. Uh, that's a big
deal. They had some really big jumps in their percentages uh from 24 to 25, so we'll be heading to the statehouse on the 20th to be part of that ceremony . It's exciting and con gra t ul ations to the Cutler school. And then, uh, just a reminder because someone asked
me today, uh, January 19th, there is no school. Martin Luther King Day, so it's just that's coming up really quickly oddly, um, it's coming right up and then that week really marks the end of the first half of school we started to see um the,
the second quarter close and kids shifting into 3rd quarter and pick, you know, at the high school they're, they're moving into new classes, so it's an exciting time of the year for everybody as well. Not at all. Thank you Oh, do you want to mention that the public hearings on the
budget? coming up? We certainly can. Hold on. Um yeah, so we'll, we'll do, we have a couple of public hearings coming up. We have a public hearing coming up next meeting for school choice. um, and then the budget, uh,
public hearing, there'll be one before the final vote on that night. Both of those start at 6:30. People should write that down. So the next couple of meetings will be public hearings for both school choice, which we do annually to determine whether or not we want to have school choice and the following meeting
will be for uh budget comments in preparation for the final budget vote for the school committee and then one thing I forgot to mention is, um, next week is Family literacy night uh, Tuesday at 6 o'clock. and I went last year it was lots of fun actually. We had all
kinds of different activities set up um throughout the building and um gave families an opportunity to see what kids are working on, to learn about some things that they're working on, gain some perspective on, uh, literacy and uh kind of the new science behind learning and
literacy, and I think for us it's it's been a good way to bring parents in and families in and get them talking about what's going on in schools, so we look forward to that next week as well. Thank you Thank you. um, just on the, can we get the, I wanna make sure we have the
dates right about the public hearings. So the um January 22 22nd is the school. That's the next meeting. The budget public hearing number one number one on the 22nd and then the budget 12 February. Yeah, no
, I just wanted to make sure we said I have it in my calendar. I just it's the next two meetings you'll have the hearing for choice, which is fairly brief usually and then the hearing for the budget the first hearing, and then that's that meeting we vote the final night, February 12th will be the hearing for the
final. Those both start at 6:30. People should know that because sometimes people forget and come at 7 and the hearings are over. OK Um, anybody have anything else? on that?
Jan, you good Excellent. Um, OK, does anyone have any items that they would like to have held from the consent agenda. Julia I move that we accept the
consent agenda as presented in the exhibit. Um, that was seconded by Amy Kummberger, um, we will do a roll call vote, um, Kristen. Yes. Julia, yes, Amy, yes, Ana a
yes Jen Yes, and that is unanimous of the five members present and the motion passes. OK. Next up
um, is, uh, launch a strategic planning that is to you, Eric. All right. Believe it or not, the first strategic plan that I created coming in is running out
this year. Um, thinking back to almost a little under 5 years ago, uh, we did a year of kind of the superintendent's entry plan developed the entry plan, then we brought in an outside group the teaching and learning associates to help us to develop our first uh strategic plan,
which, which was a 3-year plan. We kept it 3 years purposefully so that we had, um, the opportunity to get some things into focus before we moved forward because there was so much instability at the time, so we, we tried to, uh , just kind of limited at at
first, so, uh, this time, Jen Clifford, the director of Teaching and Learning, and I will run the process and we will run it based on using the Department of Education's strategic planning frameworks that they have published on their site, but also that
several of us have already attended workshops over the years, um, so we're quite famili ar with how that process works. and in the memo that I have here , it's really talking about the three phases of what we'll do. We'll look at our current contexts, what the data says now , which will be interesting to
compare from the data at the beginning of the first uh strategic plan and then visioning for the future to do some analysis of what that looks like and then creating some of the direction for us and then implement draft and implement implement the plan moving
forward and that will give us a roadmap for the next 5 years for some of the big items that are will be on our plate like MTSS will continue. I'm sure something related to school facilities and building or renovation we'll probably be on that. Um, so really just lays
out the plan for us over the next 5 years and gives us some guide posts, if you will, to help us to plan our budget as well. We have established a meeting dates, uh, they're on this memo February 4th, we'll do introductions and orientation.
uh, February 25th, little data investigation. We're really d ig into data with the whole committee. March 11th we'll look at the different pillars and strategic objectives that will form our plan or under and then develop the strategic objectives
that make sense for our district and then finalize the initiatives and outcomes that fit under each of those strategic objectives as we move forward and then we'll do a final review and, and should have it ready to be publicized in public by mid to late May. Um , once we get it, once we get it
going, and this will really serve as the district in the North Star for the next 5 years, so we're hoping we're going to start putting our invitations out next week, so hoping that we can get just as much excitement as we did last time. I think we had between 40 and 60 people in the room, almost each workshop that we ran, um, and
we'll run them very similar. They'll be in a workshop style where people will be moving. You're, you're not going to be sitting and listening to anybody . It's really you're digging in, you're thinking of ideas, you're contributing to the process, so we'll start putting those out next week and getting some people involved and once we
figure out who's willing to be involved, we'll send out the invites and start this process on February 4th. Questions I think so
Nobu? um uh, thank you for doing this work. I that should be fun. It should be interesting just to be able to give us a baseline. You can also look at where we kind of started , go all the way back to
when, you know, I initially presented this superintendent's entry plan. If you haven't seen it, it's on the website. Go back and look at it and you're like, wow, we did accomplish quite a bit and you take each of the annual reports that we did at the end of the year on our goals . There was a lot of work done.
Our staff has done unbelievable work towards implementing new curriculum, getting things targeted for MTSS, putting together data structures that make sense for our kids and for our staff, um, so there's, there's a we've made huge momentum and mo tion in those areas, and I think it's important for us to continue to do that. So much so
that the Department of Ed highlights us has highlighted us several times in not only a video that goes around statewide . People view around the MTSS process, but also um our people are going to start presenting publicly and a number
of schools have visited us and several more will be coming to visit our schools to see our programs in action like our math and our our literacy programs and action, so that's pretty, pretty exciting and looking forward to growing some more, and this is one of our.
identified district goals for the year to do the strategic plan. So that's great. I think I may have missed this, but who is on the committee, the strategic Planning Committee. I know you're chairing it or unless it hasn't been so what we , we open it to anybody in the
communities, so we try to get students, staff, administrators, parents uh business people. uh senior citizens, anybody who wants to, to come and be part of the process. We invited last time and, and it shifted each
meeting. We, we had most of the people there, so it's an average of about 45 people there last time. So it runs, we try to keep it in 5 sessions so that people can get to the sessions, um, but we really want to open it up because we want ideas on what
that strategic planning looks like because the opportunities you miss are the opportunities of, you know, are, are where you didn't invite the the right people. So when you're looking at it from the community per s pect ive somebody might come out from the community and say, hey, what if we did this that somebody from the school side would have never thought of and vice versa so it makes for a
good dialogue and it makes for some good back and forth around where people see the direction of the schools OK. Thank you Thank you very much All right, very good.
OK. All right. Um next up is, this is really just informational, um, but um, Eric, can you pull the town, um, in election information up this one, yeah, so both, um,
we've both exhibits um, provide this this. similar information but for the for the two towns, so both town clerks compile and create um information regarding the town meeting, town election calendar,
and um and we put post them here. The important thing for us to note, um, if you, I don't know if you want to scroll down. Well , first of all, we wanna just make, this is just one more opportunity that this gets put
out by the towns and it'll be but one more opportunity for the public to see. These are the election dates, um these are the, if you're interested in running for school committee, but also if you're interested in running for other elected office, this will tell you the nomination dates. Um, so
nomination papers are available beginning on Monday, January 12th, and your last day to submit nomination papers are February 26th, um, do you know that if you um want to run for office, you do need to get your nomination
papers from your town clerk, and then you need to, um, collect signatures and your town clerk will give you the specifics of that, um, school committee is, um, does require um more signatures and those signatures can be from either
town. All school committee members are all school committee positions are open. to, uh, they're all at large. They are voted, they are open to everyone, anyone from either town. So I do want to just address, it is a little bit
unusual this year, so I do address the school committee specifically just so that people from the public and I wanna say to the public like if anyone is listening, if you're not clear, please contact your town clerk or contact us, contact me. I'll be
happy to be clear because it is a little bit different than usual. So, um, there are 4 positions open or to be run for on the school committee. Two of them are for
3-year term. 2 of them are for a 2-year term. Um, that is not the normal way that this happens. This is due to resignations and people that were appointed. So those two-year terms typically will run for 3 years, but those
2-year terms are um because there were resignations during those two. We just spoke about David Frankel, who's just um stepped down and Kristen Noon has been appointed into a seat, and Megan Benson has been appointed into a seat.
If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer them about why it's structured this way, but I just want everyone to know everyone is open. If you are a citizen who's registered to vote in Hamilton or Wenham, you can
run for any of those terms. Questions about why it's structured that way or who to contact. Got it. OK. All right Just wanted to make sure that people have that information.
All right. And now,
to the budget the Um, I don't know because we don't have anybody over here with it how I mean, can we, I don't know if there's any way to tip it so that they can see better, but I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, I can see
it and that's good for and I'm feeling like Eric's probably got , got it and Jen can see it, right? or you've got it on Ben starts talking, OK. I'm sorry if I didn't make you. It's OK. It's fine
Uh, I gotta do this though. Hold on Yeah. Let's see if Mike joins us right . It'll show if she jumps in and
tell me. OK, thank you guys for joining us tonight. Uh, we are obviously here to review the superintendent's 20 tentative FY
27 budget request. So just to give a little brief overview and agenda. Uh, we have two minor updates tonight. The first one is around our operating revenue projections and another minor update to our operating expenditures. Uh, once we update
you on those two numbers, uh, that brings us to what we're calling our tentative budget, and we're gonna go over kind of a high-level view of their overall tentative budget and how we arrive at the town assessments and then if it's OK, I'm gonna kind of do the last two out of
order. Uh, we have to vote on the tentative budget and then review open items. Uh, the reason I'm kind of flipping them is in case you guys want to review the open items and kind of make a decision on those before you vote on the tentative budget. Uh, you obviously don't have to, but I at least wanted
to give you the opportunity to either kind of end the discussion on the few open items, uh, or leave them open or finalize them and not include them. And then the last thing will be to vote on the official tentative budget. Um, so at the
original preliminary budget when we presented it, uh, to the boards. We had an overall net assessment budget at about 10.3%. Uh, from that meeting, we received some direction from the school committee that they wanted us to reduce that overall
number. Uh, there wasn't a complete clear number, but we came to the conclusion it was about around a million dollars. Uh, from there, we gave you guys an updated budget recommendation that dropped it about 680,000, uh, and what we received from
there is we really you guys really wanted us to meet that kind of $1 million number. During that meeting, we kind of advised you that to meet that number it's really gonna be reductions in staffing. Uh, tonight I'm kind of pleased to report that we were able to
avoid uh more staff reductions with this update in revenue that we we received from the from the Mars. Uh, so just to get into it , uh, MARS stands for the Massachusetts Association of Regional School Districts, uh, Eric and I attend some of their
meetings on a quarterly basis. Uh, the meeting before the last meeting, a lot of what they were stressing was the fact that the state was not meeting their benchmark in revenues and there was concerns about 9C cuts. Um, I'm very open about how I budget. I am usually
very conservative, and when I heard things about 9C cuts, I was extra conservative on our revenue estimates. When we met with them in December, uh, they notified us that the state kind of reversed what they were saying and they were meeting their benchmarks for the second
half of the 2nd quarter and there was no longer uh concerns about 9C cuts, at least not 9C cuts that would affect school districts. Uh, as a result of that meeting, uh, we really felt more comfortable to increase a lot of our state
funding numbers that uh that involve our circuit breaker and our chapter 71. Uh, as a result, we were able to increase our revenue projections by 256,000. Uh, and when we do this, we do not offset this by any expenses, kind of what we do
with END. Uh, so the result of this was a complete drop to the town assessments. So we increased our overall revenue, which means that ultimately, uh, the town ends up paying less, less of an assessment that we have to raise. Um, so happy to report we were able to come
close to your uh requested number without going too much further into staffing. It's not moving OK, and then in terms of our operating budget, we do have a
minor update in terms of, uh, what we are requesting tonight. So what happened here after we met on the preliminary budget and then we gave you the updated budget. We incorporated a 7 FTE reduction in order to meet that
kind of $1 million reduction. Prior to presenting that to you, we met with the leadership team and kind of warn them that we were looking at a 7 FTE reduction and spend the next couple weeks trying to figure out what that would look like within your building. After we met with you guys and presented
the updated budget. We went back to the leadership team, uh, and pretty much warn them that this is probably what we're going to move forward with. Uh, so we all met as a group and kind of walk through what these reductions meant. Uh, we went through each building, one thing we were getting hiccups on was at the
high school. So if you recall in our preliminary budget, we already incorporated a reduction of a half-time special ed teacher, and then when we, uh, did the updated budget, we incorporated
a 3.0 additional FTE reduction. When you, we combine those two items, we were facing a lot of difficulty up at the high school , uh, completing scheduling, uh, and meetings students' needs through their IEP Through the combination of both
the 3.0 and the original 0.5. Uh , so as a group, we kind of all try to uh figure out the solution and all we could revert back to is removing our request to reduce the 0.5 special ed
teacher, which we were using to purchase a 0.5 psychology at the district wide level. Uh, so our tentative budget tonight reverses that, so we're adding back in the 0.5 special ed teacher at the high
school and removing the 0.5 psychologist at the district-wide level. This ultimate means a reduction of about $8000 because we were planning on our psychologists coming in at a much higher pay scale. They usually come in with doctorate degrees in our step 12
So we had them at the top of the salary scale where we have our, um, special ed teacher a little bit lower. Ultimately, uh, again , savings of about $8000. There is a minor update to our professional development. um, just because we, we budget a
certain amount per FTE, the additional, uh, halftime at the high school meant an additional $75 just a minor update. So through the combination of our revenue, increased revenue projections and this minor update in our
operating expenditures, we were able to reduce our updated preliminary budget by about $265,000. Uh, when you compare that to our preliminary budget, we are $950,000 lower than the
preliminary. So just under that $1 million mark, uh, while still maintaining that same reduction in FTEs at about 7. That brings us to our tentative budget, but I just wanted to give you a time to ask a question about either of those two items before I dive into it. Yep. Yeah, um, so I had a question specifically
about the um uh reduction of the uh or I guess not a, it's a flip of the um going back to the psychologist, so not getting the 0.5% psycho district-wide psychologists, what do we anticipate or how can we
judge what the cost because that's the that's a psychologist is a potential outsource job that you might have to bring someone in and pay. and that's more expensive. So that seems like that's a risk.
Am I correct? Uh, it is a risk, but we currently have, uh, the special ed department currently has, uh, contracted services funds that we're paying for now for outsourced psychologist services, Our attempt was to bring somebody in, you get more
services with the current with the staff member, um, not only might you save a little bit of funds, but you actually get more time for students, uh, so that was the idea. If we still have to outsource services in FY 27. Uh, if you go back to our original preliminary budget.
there is additional funding for psychology services that were not there in 26. Uh, so we believe we still have coverage if we need to outsource those services in 207. Did I answer that question or not really? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm, I, it's, these are hard choices. I'm not, I, I guess I'm just, it
just feels. it's, it's a little bit of an unknown as opposed to like a special education teacher 0.5, we know how much that costs because that's how much it costs , whereas not having a service
that you might have to pay for. on from outsource it's just a it's just something I'm thinking about that it's a risk. Um, let me add to that to Vinny's explanation, the reality of this budget, we're reducing
the budget. We went back and said what we said in the beginning to all of our budget holders do not add any new positions. So I went back through and said, OK, this is a new position technically. It didn't exist in the budget. Yeah, we were going to try to kind of steal from Paul to pay
Peter, but um it just didn't make sense when you're starting to reduce that number of positions across the district. I also look at all the other school districts in this area and I compare um positions across different sectors like
special ed is one of them like, OK, how many, how many school psychologists do we have? We currently have 2 full-time school psychologists. Most districts in this area have won. So we're looking at it from, OK, what's that need? What's the projected need? Is it a now
thing or is it something that's just going to continue to rise in the future. You never know, it's up and down and up and down depending on the kids you get each year, the number of kids you have to be tested, so I think it's something we can put on hold for now and look at it in a at a different time when we're,
you know, when we're cutting the budget, it doesn't make sense to bring in new positions. I'd rather try to work within what we already have. That was very helpful to me. I think that's helpful information to know how we compared to other districts. I think that's helpful. So. thank you
OK, so just to review our overall changes from the budget, uh, starting with our debt service year over year in terms of our expenditures, we are, we are seeing an increase of roughly $13,000. The major two components here is the fact that we have 3 projects that ended in
FY 26, are borrowing was finally paid down for the Winthrop sprinkler, uh, the FY 2021 capital projects and the first authorization of the Cutler feasibility study. Uh, all three of those ended this year in F Y 26. That's why they're all 0
and FY 27. And then the second thing is the second authorization for the Cutler feasibility study and the athletic complex up upgrade project, uh, we're both converted to long term notes this year and will be the first pay down in FY 27. Uh, so those
numbers are updated here. Overall, those two moves again increased our debt service budget, uh, expenditures by roughly 13,000. However, when you look at the revenue side, uh, because of that conversion in the short term to long-term note and because of
the way uh we designed the new long-term borrowing to be premium neutral and ultimately lower the overall principle and the overall interest that we would have to pay. Uh, we are seeing a reduction in the premiums, as we will no longer
be receiving them in FY 27, uh, dropping our revenues by $18,000 . So you wrap these two items together. You have our increase of 13 00 $0 from the expenditures and a reduction of 107 in the revenue. Our overall net debt
service assessment is increasing by 121,000, uh, which means a 5.9% for Hamilton and a 7.86% for Wenham. Uh, move on to our operating expenditures, uh, here in front
of you is the summary by school or site location, uh, year over year from FY 27 to FY 26, uh, our tentative budget, we are requesting an increase of 5.9%, which ultimately means a
$2,755,000 increase year over year and again this does incorporate the reduction overall of 6.11 FTEs. Uh, so just briefly, we've discussed these in-depth prior, but just to briefly go over them , our biggest year of a year operating expenditures are
obviously around our personnel. They're mostly our salaries and our benefits. So our two biggest ones, areola and the FY 27 step increment increase add up to about 2 $1.3 million just from
those two, salary items alone. Uh, in addition to that, our health insurance premiums are incre as ing at, uh, abnormal rates along with everyone, uh, probably across the country, uh, in addition to our premium rates increases, the district did
dedicate an additional 2% uh to offset the employee cost of the premiums, uh, all these factors combined, we are estimating an increase to our health insurance of just under $600,000. Uh, the next two major increases that we are seeing for FY 27 is
the new investment in our building maintenance and repairs in our capital stabilization fund transfer. The building and maintenance repairs for roughly $550,000 covers anything from additional supplies and materials, uh, additional
contracted services, preventative maintenance, uh, and funds to replace some of our aging equipment and enhance, uh some of our security features across our five schools. Uh, again, we are requesting a capital stabilization fund as
well of roughly 316,000. Uh, on the reverse to meet the need to meet the uh the direction received from the school committee to lower our overall assessment. Uh, we are anticipating a reduction at this
time of 7 FTEs, which I am estimating will save approximately 418,000, uh, just to be fully transparent. This is an estimate. I'm using a baseline of roughly $60,000 per staff member. This does incorporate unemployment costs.
Uh, when this actually comes to fruition, it could be a much different number than you see here. The actual person, uh, that might be reduced could have a much larger salary than $60,000 just as an example, I'm using $60,000 but if it happens to be
someone who's a doctorate step 12, they make 115,000, there would be additional savings, but we won't know those numbers until this actually rolls out, and we know what positions and what staff members are reduced. In addition to that, you could
have staff members that find a job the next day. so they have no unemployment costs, or you could have a staff member who has full unemployment costs. I've incorporated full unemployment costs on every single one of those employees. If some of them go on
unemployment and some don't, there would be additional savings, but at the least, we have all of our liability covered. Um, just so you're aware, it could be additional savings next year if it's any different, yes, are we set up as
reimbursable with a DUA? meaning, meaning like if someone files a claim, we pay the full claim amount. We don't, OK. That's correct, yep. We don't pay a percentage of everyone. It's just when they apply. Um, the next item is around our salary savings. This is our
normal attrition rate. This is people that we budgeted for in FY 26, then ended up leaving and not staying with us for FOY 26. We're seeing salary savings of roughly $212,000. Uh, normally, we also have savings from
retirements. So this re ti re ment number you see here is both retirements that happen mid-year this year, and retirements that are planned, uh , for June 30th of this coming year. So it's a combination of both, you're saving roughly $185,000 year over year.
Uh, next, we've removed our cybersecurity upgrade funding of approximately $55,000 and last, we have an athletic user fee, uh , reduction of 35,000, then I am gonna briefly talk about a little bit more in a moment.
Um, so that was our expenditure side, moving on to the revenue side, uh, year over year, we do, I am, uh, painting a bleak picture here for you. Our revenues are dropping year over year. We have talked about this before. Obviously, everyone knows the main reason for that
is our excess and deficiency, and this is the prime example of why you do not use your excess and efficiency to supplement your operating budget in case the following year this happens, we are short $1 million in revenue uh because of the choice last
year that we made to use excess and efficiency to supplement our operating budget. Uh, one thing I wanna show you though is what happens when you remove it. We have revenue increases of 11%. I have done 14 budgets for
Hamilton Wyndham, and there has never been revenue this high. Uh , this is extraordinary and it is a little bit, uh, sad in my mind cause if we didn't do the excess and deficiency, we would be talking about a much different budget right now. It looks like we
would have additional funds to work with. It could potentially lead to uh more time for students, uh, more services, however, going back to it, because of that END, it's the complete reverse. Our revenue is
dropping year over year, which means direct increases to the assessment and direct increases, uh, to taxpayers. So uh, again, the major increases obviously outside of our uh reduction in END is circuit breaker, which is coming in at
38%. Uh, that might seem great to everyone, but I just want to remind you, you only get circuit breaker money because you spend money. Uh, so we spent additional funds. They reimburse us additionally. So yes, we are receiving more revenue, but it only means that we spent more money, uh, so although it's a
good thing it's not necessarily, uh, when you look at the numbers. So again, just wrapping all of these together. We have our increases in expenditures of 2.7 million are decrease in revenues
, which goes in as an ad, again, because it's a decrease in revenue means a net change to town assessments of 2.9 million, uh, which is just under 8% for our net operating budget. This
translates into a 7.28% increase for Hamilton in a 9.25 % increase for Wenham. Um, when you roll our debt service and our operating budget together. Ultimately we're requesting a
$370,000 increase, which is a 7.21% to Hamilton and 9.18 to 1. Just to kind of paint the picture of where we came and where we are right now when we originally presented our preliminary budget, uh, we had Hamilton at just under 10% in
when I'm just under 12% our updated budget drop that number by roughly $680,000 or dropped all three entities roughly 7 at 1.7%. Our tentative budget now
reduces that by another 265,000 Uh, ultimately bringing us down roughly 950,000 from when we originally presented the budget. Um, that also translates into a drop of about 2.5% and for my opinion, although 2.5%
doesn't seem like a large drop. It does translate into a million dollars. It is 7 people that will, uh, potentially not be here next year. Um, it is reductions, uh, in bus services for late buses. It is increased
to athletic user fees, uh, although it is a $35,000 sequence for us athletes will see an 11% increase in their user fees for FY 27. Um, so although again 2.5% may not sound like a lot. It was very
difficult to get to that million dollar number, uh, and there will be a drastic uh reduction in services for next year as it stands with our tentative budget . So this is the budget motion that I'm going to skip over for the moment. I can easily uh
change out any of these numbers, uh, depending on, uh, if you want to make any decisions on my open items, uh, this is a technicality. I have a summary by DEI category. Uh, that is what the motion, uh, it drives upon is how the categories are
broken out deci-wise. In terms of our open items, we really just have 2. It's around our athletic user fees. So during our, um, updated preliminary budget we incorporated a 5%
user-free match for reduction towards athletic user fees. I took away from that meeting that you guys weren't entirely um OK with that reduction or not. So one question and one open item I have is what do you want to do
with athletic user fees. The current budget, uh, that is on the exhibit, the motion that is written in the previous slide, incorporates the reduction of 5% . If you do not want to reduce the user fees by 5%. The numbers
I just presented to you will increase by 35,0087. That is the kind of only open item at the moment. Uh, other than that, it's, do you want to do anything else with athletic user fees. And ultimately, do you want to do anything else to this budget
before our public hearing. Uh, so our next steps next week, Eric and I meet with the town administration, uh, to get their feeling on our tentative budget, the following Wed ne s da y we have the chairs only meeting and then the Wednesday after that, we have
the quintuple board meeting. The next day is the only meeting before the final meeting that we vote on the budget. I will obviously do whatever you want. I will change that number all the way up until the final vote. But if you ask me, it would be
great if we could set that final number on January 22nd and the only thing we really do on February 12th is vote on it and we don't change anything. However, I'll repeat it, I'll change it all the way up until the day. um, we vote on it. So really,
this is kind of your time to request any changes or any additional information so we can prepare it and present it to you at the next meeting because that is the only meeting before the meeting we vote on it. Uh, this is the last meeting before the
public hearing. So if there is anything you want changed before the public hearing, um, now would be the time so we can develop it for that public hearing. I think that concludes everything. So I will go back to the motion slide and you can ask me what you need. So did I spell
something wrong? No. OK. You say that last part again, no, no, no , I just, um, I, I'm just want to make sure I understand what just procedurally like, do you want us to make the tentative motion or do you want to hear
feedback. OK. In case we want to change, right, so does anyone have, let's just as usual, let's just start with anyone does just a question for Vinnie Yeah, go ahead. I, I think I have two questions. Um
on the slide of reductions to the expense budget. There's that 55,000 dollars-ish cybersecurity upgrade. I am wondering if that is a situation where we're just basically delaying that expense to a future year, I would assume
we have to do that upgrade at some point. So I'm just wondering, um, basically, I guess how long we can delay it. So that funding was requested as part of that uh as part of the FY 2 6 budget request and was one
time funding to beef up our security upgrades. So we're doing that this year. Therefore, we don't need to we don't need to do it again for next year unless, um, society changes and we need to beef it up again, but we're conducting that right now. OK. All right.
Thank you. And then my second question, just to make sure I understand and I'm sorry because I know we've talked about this bunches of times but I just want to make sure I've got it, is to sort of, for lack of a better term, clear up
the excess and deficiency issue. We would need effectively an override from the towns. Um, it seems as though that would be correct. OK, we don't I'm sorry to jump in. It's OK. We don't know that's up to the town. It's up to the towns to
determine that, but the feedback that we're getting from the towns is that it is would be likely given these numbers. that, and, and we got more definitive feedback that is very
likely from Wenham and less certainty that it might be likely from Hamilton, but it's up to the towns to decide, and they're still working on their budgets and OK, thank you. That is a more precise way of wording my question. I guess the question behind the question is
do we want to resolve that in any way, shape or form. at some time, I guess that's part of the feedback I think. I mean that and I, I mean, if you have feedback and, well, it's compelling like the slide that shows like what the revenue picture would look like if we
didn't have that. So I just, it's hard because if this were your own household and you felt as though you owed money for something you could come up with a plan to say, well, we'll pay this much this year, and this much last year, and it's so much harder in this environment because of the intersecting budgets and
the approvals required that it's , I think, hard for the committee to be proactive in that way. or I mean, we could set an intention, I guess, that we would try to do certain things. I'm just, I'm just asking for the group like, if I may, and I,
and Vinnie, I'm looking to you to make sure because the END is so complicated and you know I guess I just wanted to, this is not, this is sort of my just making sure that we're all agreeing about what occurred
. We did use END to, to fund the operating budget for the current year, um, and we , but we, and not bought but and we did that in consultation with the towns we did it publicly. It, it wasn't
like an error that we did accidentally. We did this was intentional just to sort of that that END it's the equivalent of that money went into our budget and
the taxpayers in this current year. did not have their taxes raised that much, that money was not raised from the taxpayers in this year, right? So it's in the budget, but the taxpayers did
not raise that right? I'm back and and so what happens is it looks like you're going from here to here, but the budget actually went to here. It just didn't get drawn in FY 26. I just want to make sure people understand it.
It's not that we lost the money or it's, it's that we used it in in an intentional way, knowing that it would look and feel to taxpayers like this large increase, but in
it. you know, if we, if it had, we had gotten it from the taxpayers , it would have gone up some in 2026 and some in 2027 and in real and so. I. it's real and it, and these numbers are real, but I guess I just want to make sure people
know this wasn't Yes, and I did not mean to imply that. So I just, but I just want to make sure I understood. And just to clarify, this does not clear up our A&D issue. We are still supplementing
3/4 of a million dollars with END which is left over from, from COVID and ultimately this could hurt us next year if all goes well, you'd then make your plan in the FY 28 budget to say, OK, how do we start to reduce
that 773,000, um, because it's like, it's like using a credit card to buy groceries every month and not paying it off monthly. You just can't ever get out from underneath it if you don't start targeting it. um, so I think that's that that would be an important conversation we'll have next year, the intentional conversation about how do we
reduce the END down to 0, which is really the place we want to be or, you know, 1000 or 200,000 , but I think, you know, and it'll be a little out of time. It's hard to make a big jump. like that because in you're cutting, you're basically
dumping your revenues. so it looks like a giant percentage point loss, but it's it's really a one-time source so just just for planning for the future, it's just trying to figure out how to land that plane slowly.
Um, the other question, uh, yeah , just want to make sure other people have questions before we get to, um, the sort of opinions and feedback on this budget. I don't have any questions. Jen, do you have a question? I do. I do. But
Can we go to Slide 12, please. The year over year changes to operating revenues with Audi&D. Yep, that's this one, I think. Yep, he's on it
So we have a significant decrease in special education, tuition in . and school choice and preschool tuition. Can you comment on those? Yep, so. Is this estimates or those solid numbers
? They're solid. We, we do have 3 less school choice students this year. So, uh, there's, it's $5000 per student, so we are receiving, uh, at least $15,000 less. Now there is a special ed increment that we will not know
about until the end of the year, but we are definitely 3 school choice students lower. Uh, in terms of preschool tuition, that 99,000971 is the
exact amount of revenue we received in FY 25, and at this moment we have not increased our tuition rates and we have not increased our enrollment. So if everything stays the same, it would pretty much be exactly $99,000 that we receive, uh, in
that year. I do have a request to review our preschool tuition rates, uh, but at the moment, they are the same , so I carried forward, uh, the exact amount we received in the prior year. uh, in terms of our special education tuition in we currently have a, uh, 5th grader
tuitioned in from another school district, uh, in FY 27, they will be moving up to the middle school and we do not have the staffing or the capability to bring them in in 6th grade, so we will not be taking that student in in FY 27. Uh, so as it currently stands, those
3 are pretty, uh, actuals. Thank you. Of course Um, other questions All right, let's do it. Let's
give our feedback to Vinny. Um, I would just say thank you. You really took into account all of the conversations leading up to today, the weeks of conversation.
um, and our concerns. So I, I don't have any questions, but I just, I really you know, I think this is the budget that we had asked you to present and whether we, you know , whether it's ideal or not.
um, I think you did a great job to, you know, to get us to where we had said that we wanted to get. And you cut quite a lot out of the budget. So, thank you for that. Other people
Mm. 0. No, she's good. OK, um, I have some things to say Um, I think I wanna say so what Julie said, you definitely did
what we asked and thank you. I, I think it was a complicated conversation that you had with all of us, and I think it, you guys definitely did what you asked. Um, I don't know exactly how to word this, but moving between this
budget and the final budget. in my opinion, I think it needs to be lower than it is now Um
I don't know that we can get to Kristen's point. I'm not sure that we can get to a point where there is no override because I don't know that we know exactly what that number is
um but I'm looking at you know, when I'm looking at a combined increase of 9.18%. Again, I think it's really important that the real increase , you know, is that our actual
is that 5.91 is the actual increase. I, I. understand that, but if you're a citizen I think it's going to be difficult. for people to vote for that. I
think it's going to be hard even though I really do understand that we're looking more at that the the 5.9 number is. our actual increase and I so I it needs, I think it needs to be less, um.
that's my feedback. I, I will say at the same time you're the only open item that you put there on the end is that $35,000 in student athletic user fees. I spoke pretty that's really actually pretty
important to me, and I, I guess what I'm saying is that I think we are going to have to make really hard choices here. I don't like, we've, I think that that's really wrong to ask our students, our families to pay that. I think there are
students who will not be able to participate in athletics because their family will make a financial decision that they can't afford that, and I think that is not right At the same time, I think I need to, I need to look and see like
we're making hard choices throughout this budget, and I'm saying that it needs to go down and so I, I guess I need to entertain the idea that maybe those athletic fees have to be a part of that conversation
something. So the last meeting, you said that we the only way really to cut the budget is cutting positions. That's the only thing left to do . You, you can nickel and dime it. You can go through and take 2%
of every single line item, it, it would. it's not going to make a $100 here, but your substantial reductions. are, are in positions. I mean that's, that's the highest percentage of our budget is positions. Yeah, I just, I
want the public to know that. Yeah. So the two we had $256,000 at the very beginning you highlighted the $256,000 in increased, um
revenue from that just because we weren't sure what was going to be happening at the state level and that that is coming our way, um. honestly, just not sure, but I would like to know what the budget looks like.
this budget without that money. Like if we hadn't gotten that money. what would need to be cut? which is 25600 $0 obviously. Um I would that be similar to what
we saw last time. It would pretty much be what we saw last time because if you were to remove that, we're only about 9000 different than the last time, so. No. So we'd be kind of be back where
we were for the updated preliminary right in terms of what it looks like, but in terms of the cost, it's be positions. 00, yes, yep, saves us 3 positions, 3 FTEs when you
roughly, I mean you're looking at I guess that's what I'm just looking at, I mean, when I sort of when I sort of did and this has not been an easy process. When I sort of uh you know, I've reevaluated several times and I looked at that. The very, the initial budget, the
initial pass, and then we had a we've had more than one conversation. I kind of I, I, uh, you know, I, we initially talked about a million dollars and I, the more I looked at it, the more I was looking at maybe it needed to be reduced like 102.
and you're looking so I guess that's where I'm kind of looking at this 256 and saying like, well, if we live, if we that would get me got us close to where I, I understand it means cos like I, I, I understand. I'm
just putting that I don't know. I'll stop talking. That's my feedback. Are you saying like use that as a model for how we can use more.
You, you, you're better. the right moves to use the rabbins because they're gonna fault the END. I wasn't saying don't use the I'm just I'm not saying that if you chose to go in a different direction, just make the straight cuts so, no, I , I really was not trying to say that. What I was trying to say
is I was like conceptually, we have, we have $256,000 that we didn't have in like, uh, so no, I'm not saying in December $256 right, I'm, I'm not, I'm in no way saying that. I'm just saying
like that was just helpful for me to sort of get my head around , OK, we didn't have this revenue before. Here it is. What if we you know, included that but didn't used it to pay for what existing things rather than.
It's, it's 1.2 though going to bring these percentages down a significant amount. Like it's 9.18 can go to like 9.1 or something. Pretty much. You're only talking another 250, which is less than 1%. yeah.
But I mean anything helps. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really looking at that initial budget passed, the very first budget that we saw um. and thinking like where did we need to go from there
and uh like I was basically the 4 million was the first pass. That was the 4 million 4 million increase and I guess I'm 3.07. Right, so you've taken a million and I guess I'm sort of saying when I did that, looking at that budget, I was looking to
get down. about 1.2, so that would be 0.2 more other people can say something different. I'm just, that's me saying what I think. I mean, that's what we want to
hear if you want it to be 1.2, that's what we need to know right now, right? So I guess what I'm really saying is I want the overall budget increase to be 2.8% instead of 3. and, and do I know that that's
gonna prevent an override? No, I, I'm just you know, it's hard to say. We had conversations with Jeff Soulard and Steve Pulos and one of them and they were hoping that both the town and the schools would be right around a
4% increase, and then anything beyond that would be triggering that an override for both town and schools, so we're much more confident that you could probably reduce this another million dollars, and I think one of them would still
need an override, um, Hamilton, I'm not so sure about that we're still working with them, um, to try to figure out the numbers, but it's it's pretty inevitable on the Hamilton side given the current numbers I mean the one I'm sorry , excuse me, given the current
numbers. even with another. 2% reject uh 0.2% reduction. and we were saying if you remember our last meeting, Vinny and I were both saying 1.5 million is a good target. and that's a hard number. That's
a hard number to swallow because that's 8 more positions if you look at it from just FTEs. There are other things that you can go after, maybe, but what do you, you know, like but then maybe you're still down to 7 FTEs. Like I, I'm, I guess I just think in the budget there's not
a ton of other places to go other than the, the staffing budget, right? And we may, you know, as Vinny explained, when you're looking at FTEs you're, you're basically taking one standard number and applying it to people across a chart of you know, 70 to 60 different
numbers or something, 70 different numbers. So you just never know if you reduce somebody who's making $90,000 then you get a little bit more in the on the plus side if you get, you know, what happens in union situations is if you caught a position, then
you start to look to see if that person's position uh can plug in somewhere else. Are they certified or licensed to work somewhere else or would they be able to bump somebody else, which is generally someone lower on the salary scale. So that's why we use that 60,000
number because we we have to add in, we have to add in, you know, the insurance piece and the the, um, it's, you know, it's there's a little bit of savings here and there. It's just hard to go in and start to, we did it 2 years ago I think we did, we
took 10% off of every single line item that didn't get completely spent. and we started our budget process like that a few years back, just said, OK, let's look at everything that wasn't completely zero and take 10% off of that total if it was there to take. and that's how we start our
budget process that particular year and it worked out fine. Everything kind of fell into place and some, you know, there are times along the year when you make some moves, some transfers, but you know, don't forget you also have a fairly substantial number in maintenance that we would not
generally carry. It's almost $800,000. No, it's actually over a million dollars in maintenance total. but an $800,000 chunk of it is things like. replacements or sprinklers and you know really school safety stuff and we want to make sure that stuff gets done. So that's
built into the budget. You could take some of those items and bring them out and make them capital items. It doesn't change these numbers because you're still, you're still asking for those amounts of money just in a different in a different way so.
is there an ability to offer like early retirement to teachers. I mean, I know the teachers are eligible or also run more experienced teachers, you know, but I don't know if that's possible, uh, so can't do it as a community because it's a
Massachusetts state-run retirement system, um, there is a bill in the state House that's making its way through right now that might offer people who don't have retirement Plus. um to go early they'd have to buy back some time, but they
could leave early. I don't know how that's been sitting now for 18 months and uh in the, the process, if you will, it's kind of kind of back and forth. It does have some momentum, but I don't think it would hit in time for this budget, and part of part of that problem is
when you're looking at it from the perspective of specialty positions. no matter what, like a school psychologist, if a school psychologist retired, you're not getting a school psychologist for 60,000 they automatically come in with usually 2 master's
degrees or master's and a doctorate or at some level of credit way above everybody else. So those types of positions are dangerous, you know, positions like chemistry, physics, they're really hard to find special education teachers, hard to find , so that's when you start to say, OK, what do we losing in turn for what we need.
um, because there's an offset there. If you said get me a first grade teacher and put an ad out, I'm gonna get 35 applicants if you said, OK, I need a special ed moderate teacher for our program. I'm gonna get maybe 3. So those are, those are the differences and
that's where the salary changes pretty dramatically in those types of hiring scenarios. So I wanna just be clear about what we need to do, like, do people feel like
they've given their thoughts on this like, do you feel like you've given 1.2. which they didn't say I did, so like if you're comfortable with that, I think you need to like, you know, like. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't
know where else we can really go . We wanna, you know, garner public support, but we, of course, want to do what's best for the students and the teachers too just, it's like a rock and a hard place every year.
Um, does Jetta have anything to say? I'm still concerned it won't pass. Yeah, well, so am I. So I'm interested in like, what do you, I mean, do you have thoughts on that, like what you'd like to see or what you'd hope that, I
mean, you don't have to, you don't have to speak, but if you do, if we cut more positions, which is really what we're going to have to do. When, at what point in time do we start affecting class size
and student learning. this round coming up. going from here to the 1.2 or 1.5. Is that impacting some level of classrooms. You can look at your FTEs
differently. You can I don't want people to think specifically teacher FDEs. There are FTEs and administration or FTEs and administrative assistants or FTs and ESPs, those are all
different kind of costs if you will, so you can, depends on how you look at your reduction in FTEs and where they come from, you know, if you say, OK, I'm gonna um redo somebody out of central office that's not necessarily a
direct impact to the classrooms, but it will be an impact, um, we're running on pretty limited groups there, but we would do that if, if that's where the the committee wanted to go. I agree with Dana. I think we have to cut more.
But Jen, I don't think because we don't have the numbers from the towns, we don't know how much to cut to avoid an override because we do not have the final numbers from Wenham and Hamilton , but we won't have those prior to the final vote
anyways. We have to think of our budget in terms of us being able to get our budget passed both towns. And I don't think that a 9.2 is enough of a cut. Well, what
percentage do you think? Yeah, so I mean that's, yeah, what do you think needs to happen? I think it needs to be between 1.2 and 1.5. So I think we should listen to Vinnie and Eric . So, but that's not going to
get us much below the 9.18. Well, I mean, the thing is that so like let's say not to say don't do it, I'm just saying I don't think it's extreme enough. Well, we don't know, right? In other words, what is, what if we get down to 1.5, which would be a budget increase of about 1.
which would be a budget increase of about 2.2.2.5, excuse me. 2.5, so a budget increase of 2.5 . What is that? Do you know, Vinny, what is that in terms of Hamilton and Wynham. I'm just
going to not get my number wrong . Give me one second. Yeah, no, no, no. Uh, but reg uh and while Vinnie is looking up whatever that number is, like, it is entirely possible that we would get down to that number and still need an override that is
absolutely possible and I'd spoke to this last time, like the major, the biggest hurdle is the override itself. right, like regardless of the amount like the concept of like being asked to vote for an
override is a big deal and we don't know, but I think like I I appreciate gen saying she thinks it needs to be
up to 1.5. I, I don't know how able or how much work it is, like in my mind, I'd sort of like to see what the difference is between the, you know, increase of you know, in one, you know, 1.2
to 1.5. Like I, I mean, I understand it's just it's positions. I understand that, but it's I, I'd like to, and in some ways , I'd like to see that here, what that means, the 1.5% reduction, like what it looks like.
or what it impacts like uh it's probably a percentage point more reduction. overall because a million was 2% points, 2.1, I think, and then the, the, the hard part is when
you now distributed across the town, it is reducing, I'll just use 600,000 for a round number. 600,000. We're going to reduce the budget by that. Well, that saves Hamilton $400,000. That's pretty good, but it only reduces when 200,000, so that's where it
gets dicey, where you're like, oh, OK, we're not really making the impact we thought we would by cutting. this larger number. I'm trying to remember that slide that you had several meetings back that had the boxes on it where it was like if we were going to cut, it
was like trying to tie together our budget with the towns and it was like you know, if we cut the amounts that would make a meaningful impact on the municipal budgets. It was tantamount almost to an
entire elementary school. That's what I was going to say and I can't remember what that was, but I'm right because in order to get that, you know, because of the way, I mean, just because of the way everything falls, right? The amount, the percentage of between the two
towns, the current situation in each town in order to get one of them to wear, you know, they likely would be under that. threshold. It's it would literally be the entire budget of one of the elementary schools,
um, so it, it's a, and again, it's and at that time that didn't feel realistic, I think, because there was that other slide with like the 5 bullet points of options, which was like do nothing. And the other thing, the other big ticket items, item
is maintenance, which we have heard loud and clear from all segments of our community that they do not want us to cheap out on cheap out on maintenance like we've heard that from
everybody, everybody on all sides of everything that like that they don't want that and it makes sense it's the same way that you care for, you don't want, you know, that is a if you don't maintain things
then on the road you pay unexpectedly more for things that and like that's just I mean that's, that's my opinion . Other people might have different opinions. So to get to 1.5 we would need
about another 550, which that's what it would end up being. I'm sorry, if you reduced by another 550,000, which gets you to that 1.5. It would make Wenham, uh, I'm sorry, Hamilton 5.8 and
Wenham 7.74. still gonna feel high to want them. It's maybe still an override. but it does sound a lot different and it is a lot different than the 9. uh
we're at 11. Well, they were at 11, yeah, they were. I mean, in other words, I, and we can make the point to the towns that we went from, we cut 4% almost 5 Say that again
As we can make the, the point to both towns that from our initial we cut 4% from 11 to 7. yeah, well, and it's, I mean, that's for Wenham, which is
you know. but even Hamilton's 3, isn't it? Wasn't our original number for Hamilton around 8. I don't know. Uh, I believe so. Yeah, I think so. I was on that charts. 9. But I just, I really think it's
important to remember the 550,000. Those are people, not numbers on a spreadsheet. Those are teachers, and that will affect class sizes and services to pupils. I just think that's very important to
consider. I'm not, you know, I mean, I'll take a look at the one.5 because what can we do? But it's really important to remember that I know, you know that Vinny, obviously. I just want to make sure that, you know, that I don't
know, everyone understands that. I just want to put a pin on that . I think it's important to know and people made it clear the community, I think. understands and wants class sizes to remain where they're at , would probably be the last place we would look like the last place I'm looking for a K
to 5 teacher. even if we were 2 million down because our class sizes would go crazy at the elementary level because we're we're seeing that that's the place where things are rising. you know, we have some ability
across other places that may not be classroom teachers, but they still impact how the system works. um, and that's sometimes just something we gotta get used to, you know, it's not, it happens in lean times where we if you go back to 20, when was it 20 or 21
when we cut 1.2 million. um because of the state was going to reduce the budget IC cuts and that never actually came to fruition, but those cuts were made and it took us 4 full years to gain back what we had reduced
. In our curriculum, we cut our entire curriculum staff. everybody who was working in you know, any curriculum based position, it wasn't classroom facing was cut. including the director of curriculum at that time, so.
there are places to go that are not going to directly impact classrooms, but there is a there's a point in this next group where you're probably going to be in classrooms at some place. There is more play. It's a secondary level. because those class size reports , I mean, that's why I put them
out there so that we can look at , you know, where make those comparisons of class sizes across groups of kids or grade levels of kids. Remember our grade levels are still average 130 kids. across, across grade grade levels we're not, we're not
expanding dramatically. We had, we did go up in numbers this year, but not, it was like 2%. It wasn't like we gained. 150 kids, so. although I will say I do think it is important. I think
it is important to say although it's not dramatic, we have in FY 27, we will have more students and less staff. like that's important for people to hear
like in other words, if, if, if even with this budget or whatever budget we're presenting, we are having more students and less fewer staff. there are ways to offset that, and this is a delicate dance and
it's this is just something that you you you think about when you look at it when I first came here there was a lot of conversation about choice. There were over I think 160 choice kids or something in the secondary levels when I first got here. Now you're looking at 55 across
the high school. If you were, say, in January, I say, OK, we're not going to take choice kids anymore, and this I'm just putting a scenario this is not real folks just if you said, all right, we're not going to take choice kids anymore. You'd wind that down over a few years because anybody that's in
stays in by law. And then he said sibling that they have comes in by law, so you're still kind of trickling people through . It would take you 4 years. to recover while you're losing those revenues every single year . So it's one of the questions we,
we were playing with to say, OK, what if we stop taking kids from um from school choice and I just looked at 9th grade, you say, oh , there's 130 9th graders. 12 go off to the te 4 or 5 go
off to private schools. Now you're down to 113 kids. What does that look like when you're looking at class sizes, so instead of having 7 sections of English class, you're gonna have 6. So you, it's a little bit easier to play with, but it takes 4 years to get to 0 and it
it's in the meantime you're revenue you're revenue losing revenue each year, you're losing another chunk of revenue, so it's, it's, uh, you know, that it's a it's an interesting dynamic, but something to look at to write quote right size the district, and I think it was 43 or 4. It was before COVID, actually, I
think, um, Manchester Essex did that. They stopped taking Choice kids and they kind of right size , but now they're back into the take the Choice kids for revenue purposes. because of the reduction in in students, so. there's there are things you can talk about like ways to make
some savings they wouldn't be immediate. They may and they may not be even substantial, but they, they would be taking it down over time. I just want this conversation you guys, you guys are in charge , however long you want to have
a car, but I do want to make sure I understand this evening, the tentative budget motion that we have before us. If we were to move and vote on that budget that is again just the tentative budget.
and that our, I just want to make sure this is what you're looking for, that if it, let's just say hypothetically that were to pass this motion in front of us. But you've gotten this feedback. I mean, in other words, is that how this would work, Vinny? Is that you would pass this with
the feedback that you've just received with the anticipation that you would come back with the final budget would incorporate the feedback that you've gotten so that when we presented this tentative budget to say, other elected officials or the public, the answer would be,
here's the tentative budget that was approved and the feedback was X. Is that I'm just making sure I'm getting it straight. If you approve this, we would probably go into the, uh, quintuple board meeting, I would present the TE tentative budget
but say to them, you know, tomorrow I am updating because it'll be the next day is the school committee meeting. We're updating them with a reduction to whatever you're telling me. And again, we haven't, I know that we haven't, but like the, the committee is looking
for, you know, X amount further cuts or the committee is demanding, you know. $2 million more in the budget. I don't hear that here, but I'm, um, you know, but OK. Please don't do that. Well, I haven't heard that, but I'm not trying to, I wanna make sure
everyone's willing to say whatever they want to say. That's important. Um, so I, I guess I'm just separating out that like the tentative budget is just tentative. It is just for now and that if we like we've accepted that this is you and I
think Julius said it well that you did what we asked you to do and it's been presented to us like this was the initial thing that we were or the, I guess not the initial, it's the tentative thing that we were looking for.
Um, what's some new info? Yes, what's some new tentative is the one that triggers the communication to the towns, both the tentative budget, we extend it to the towns. That's where they start to say, OK, let's look at this. It gives us 2 more, 2 more meetings to do anything we want to do.
I think this is a good discussion, like a good point. to move, to talk with. for the quintuple board meeting Excuse me. Not gonna be able to speak for a
second. Don't worry, um. OK Um, I'm sorry, Jen, are you, do you have more to say?
Oh I can't see her I think she said no. I said no. I thought you. I, I did say no. I thought you were I was waiting. I thought you had, I thought you were thinking. I'm sorry. I'm also choking, so.
Are you OK? Thank you, Eric. Um um, let's get, um, if you're willing, let's get a motion. We can still have, we can still have discussion. OK. I move that the Hamiltonyham Regional School Committee approved the tentative
fiscal year 207 General Fund expenditures budget of 47 million653,295 dollars. This amount includes general fund operating expenses after offsets
in the amount of $45,692,031. and general fund debt service expenses after offsets and the amount of $1,961,264. Furthermore, the gross operating
expenses of the district before offsets have been allocated by the DESE defined chart of accounts according to the summary by DESE Category chart included in the budget presentation and as detailed in the exhibits. Do we have a second 2nd, second by Christian Noon.
Um, all right So any further discussion on this motion. OK. Looks we're ready to vote. It needs to be a roll call vote
because we um have a remote member, uh, Jen. Yes, Amy, yes, Julia, Kristen? Yes. Dane is a yes, and that is unanimous and of the um five
members present and the motion passes. Um Vinny, thank you, Vinny. Um, do you have I'm gonna repeat it to make sure I'm clear. We are leaving athletic user fees the way it is
presented here and you are requesting an additional 500,000 reduced approximately. Does that sound accurate to people? I'm gonna do what you wish, so John, did that sound
accurate to you? Yes OK Thank you Thank you
OK, um committee reports uh capital finance. Jen, due to the, uh, due to the plague going around my house, um and around a couple of other
people's houses, we did not meet this week, but we are scheduled to meet next Monday at 1. All right, Capital Finance, not feeling well. OK. Um, thank you. uh, policy, uh, we're meeting on the 26th, um,
we'll be approving minutes and reviewing policy JFABD, which is about enrollment rights and services for unhoused students. Um, OK, great. And then, um, we have not seen that as a first. You're, you're looking at it and you'll bring
it to us. It's one of those. That's great. Thank you. Um, negotiations I should know. off the top of my head, but I don't. When is our next meeting
Anybody can help me out? No? Kristen, we?, our next meeting, I'm looking in my calendar I'm trying to like February 4th, right? It's, I was gonna say it was January
Feb. I don't I see it. I'm looking at the wrong calendar. Hold on, we do have it . not. January 22nd. We have a lot of meetings that
day. I think January 22nd, which is a very packed day for some unknown reason with lots of, um, so yeah, that's our next meeting um I will say, um,
that we um I, I will bring it to the um committee, I guess next time we'll need to, um, given David's, uh, departure. We
will need to look for someone who is interested in joining the negotiations subcommittee. Yes. Um. so think about that and we'll bring it. Um do we have a secretary report?
Um, no, I, we're all up to date, um, Janelle and I have been working on the spreadsheet, so I mean up to date like the 24th and, no, things are, I mean, I think things are looking good. I would be interested in or I guess hoping that the next
time we have an executive session, like we can all be on board with getting all the whatever we have together and approving. Um, so that they don't get too far behind. We'll just type them up like as we go. Yeah, well, we can prove and hold them so like
that they're approved and they could be held if they still have outstanding executive session topics, but they can still be approved and so some future. candidate could release them if they need to. Um Amy, do you have anything for in
our inboxes? Inboxes are quiet. OK. Um I don't think I um, don't have much on the chair report other than I did want to, um, I know Eric mentioned it, but I did just want to say that
the community conversation, I know we had 3, school committee members. there, um but the community conversation yesterday was um I felt like really productive.
It was I know Eric already said this, but given the weather, I was not expecting. I mean, it was horrible out there and it was really great that the room was packed, um, and I felt like just
about every table had a um a divi diversity of viewpoints, which was really good to see. Like I feel like people got to have um diverse conversations. I think that was the point, and I felt good about it, so.
I'm hoping that the 29th will be will be what twice as many twice as many and just as good in terms of a wide spectrum of thoughts and ideas and views from our community. Um, can I
just add, um, that session was recorded, so if you didn't get a chance to go or you're interested in what the format is like. You can see it's on the HWAM website, um, and also the workshop that the school committee held today before this meeting has also been recorded
and is already up on the HWAM website. So, um, and that was more of a debrief postmortem of the project rather than looking forward so just right, they're different, they're different things, but people might be interested in
either or both, yes, um All right, um, anybody have any questions for me? Mm Topics for future meetings I don't see Jen. Oh, there she
is. Um OK Can I make a plug before we do that? Next weekend is Annie Junior from Bowser River Middle School. Miles Middle School, Annie Junior. Awesome. Friday,
January 16th at 7. Saturday, Saturday, January 17th at 2 and 7. Fantastic. That's great. I love Annie. Always um, all right, unless anyone has anything else, I would entertain
emotion. I move that we adjourn the meeting at 8:49 p.m. 2nd, 2nd by Amy Coomberger. um that I can do that one. Jen.
Yes, Dana's yes. Amy, yes. Julia Kristen? Yes, and we are adjourned at 8:49. Thank you all. Good night. sketball in