in this conversation that the school committee um you know nobody emailed the special ed Department children and nobody emailed the kindergarten through fifth grade teachers children and asked them to come to this meeting and so I do think it's pretty unfair that um I think
we're going to hear a lot about how important sports are yet a lot of parents whose kids are going to also be really affected um weren't given a special notice so thank you thank you Ellie zovich 239 South roow Road good evening I'm here tonight to offer
student input on three topics pertaining to the budget the first is the proposed increase on the activity fees the proposed cut Cuts in the athletic department and the impact of teacher cuts on Advanced courses in the high school first at last at last week's meeting the committee mentioned that they would like to hear student input on
proposed changes to the high school activity fee I would like to address that I am very against this proposed change for a fee each for fee for each specific activity in which a student is involved as I think it is a problematic proposal as a senior I participate in many different activities I'm the class
president I participate in the class plays I play basketball and softball and I participated in float for the past four years my participation in these activities benefits the school community and so I am unsure why I should have to pay the ever increasing fees for my participation for example I was elected
into my position as class president why I have to pay for that Ro in addition the proposed changes to the activity fees I would also like to bring up the proposed cuts to Athletics one point being made during these discussions is that Athletics do not serve everyone in the district
personally I disagree with this point as Athletics build a community and that impacts everyone with that said I would like to make the case that the that the district's central office staff does not impact the community or even widespread student achievement as I attribute my
academic successes um to my teachers not the people in the central office half of whom I have never even met my successes and the successes of many of my peers come from face-to-face interaction with teachers PA
professionals and coaches that care that care and know all of us personally a second point being made in the school committee discussion about Athletics is that Athletics would be cut based on fan attendance this is my biggest concern because it does not account for the entire picture of the athletic department for example based on this
metric the track and cross country teams would be the first to go I do not remember the last time somebody went to a cross country or track meet when they were not on the team however despite the lacking fan base what you're missing is that track and cross country have the highest participation rates out of any
other sports at our school it is absolutely ridiculous to punish these athletes who have worked so hard for their season by penalizing them for lack of fan attendance which is something that they have no control over growing up in lunenberg I've been participating in town Athletics since the age of five
I was coached and refed by former high schoolers and I looked up to the community that they created through Athletics I along with many other high school student athletes now referee and Coach the younger generations and we are a role model for many of those younger athletes in our town programs I find
extremely ignorant that you would attribute the lunenberg athletic department to anything less than a community that affects all ages of the students in this town we hold fundraising nights for our youth program and players and many current High School athletic programs are actively working
to include future athletes of lunberg in their activities lastly the third and final thought I would like to address is my comment to the potential cut for honors and AP classes eliminating Advanced coursework for high school students is in effect making them Less
marketable in the competitive world of college applications high school students at all levels need a choice in their scheduling for me personally I am a student athlete I am not merely a student or an athlete I am both please think of how the proposed Cuts would unfairly affect
students like me not only by taking away our valued Athletics program but also limiting our academic Pathways and making us less desirable for the future and now in closing as I watch these meetings I repeatedly see budget slideshows that portray the worst possible budget options I implore you to
think what's carefully to think carefully about what has the most impact on the most students at our community our teachers matter our PA of professionals matter our coaches matter they are the ones who shape the student body of lunenberg every day in ways that the central office staff quite frankly
does not thank you please consider making cuts at a level that will not have damaging and lasting impacts on the student of on the students of lunenberg in a negative way please and thank you need to make sure we put it yes
okay Rond delisia 181 resar Road um I actually as usual watch all of your meetings and I'm in agreement with the approach that one of the board members
um recommended in a pass in a recent meeting which is similar to what a previous speaker said in um this meeting I think we have to look at it
from this standpoint and I don't have a child I no longer have a child in the district but the way that just makes the most sense is to cut things that have the an impact to the lowest number of
students and that's not what I'm seeing that's not what I've seen so far as far as um you know we we have mandates the state defines for us what it means to offer free public
education and any funds we have above and beyond that are discretionary funds and I think we need to be very careful with the funds that we have discretion over and when you look at the budget a
lot of it's going to something that we do not need to have which is Athletics and I can't I can understand raising the fees I cannot understand people being opposed to raising the
fees and but I can't understand why would we keep this whole big entire program when we're talking about cutting teachers and another area that I
feel you should re-evaluate is the transportation fees reinstating bus fees when my daughter was in school we lunenberg paid a bus fee anyone who was not mandated by the
state to be transported for free and the proposal given to this committee included a protection for those lowincome families in the form of a reduction or a waiver so I'm not
understanding how we're thinking that someone's not going to have a ride to school so in another area where I'm seeing a lot of spending is Miss Lucio you have 30 seconds social
workers which we're also not mandated to have I would prefer to see teachers kept over social workers and I don't want to go over my time but thank you thank you
Chad the blank 75 westr Road uh good evening for those that don't know me my name is Chad the blank I've been a resident here in lunburg for 23 years for those which I was stationed in North Carolina I was a 2017 graduate here at
the high school where I played baseball football ran cross country and was captain of the indoor and outdoor track team fast forward eight years I'm now an assistant coach for the sport I love indoor and outdoor track I stand here I stand here tonight to address the need
for sports here at the high school benefits of regular physical activity and exercise goes beyond emotional physical and mental health needs for improvement in cardiovascular respiratory function an increase in
maximum oxygen uptake decrease in heart rate and blood pressure at a given submax bone intensity increase capade density in skeletal muscle decrease a myio cardio oxygen cost for a
given absolute submaximal intensity now for reduction in cardiovascular disease risk factors reduce res systolic and diastolic blood pressure reduced total body fat and
intro abdominal fat improved glucose tolerance reduced blood platelet aggregation reduced inflammation now other benefits decreased anxiety and
depression improved cognitive function enhance physical function and independent living in older adults which this town is 80% made of enhan quality of life improved Sleep Quality and
efficiency enhan performance of work recreational and Sport activities now as a former athlete I can talk on behalf of the student body that is behind me Sports as music is for choir and chor
and band kids is an escape an escape from reality an escape from the classroom it gives them time to be part of something bigger than them something more important than them it gives them a community it gives them people that want to Foster their abilities and want to
see the absolute best in them now in regards to track and field quite frankly I don't think any of myself and the coaching staff and athletes care about how much how many students we have representing them we
care about winning districts we care about winning leagues we care about bringing trophies in to the glass hardware container that effectively has the majority of our trophies again track and field reproduce
the most students going D1 reproduce uh the highest success rate in the school we produce thank you the most League championships thanks thank you Mary foil 985 flat Hill Road I'm here as the Lea President yesterday the
Lea board sent to the school committee this letter I'm reading it most of it here tonight because we think there's pertinent information for the General Public dear members of the lunenberg school committee as members of the Executive Board of the lunenberg Education Association at the appeal of
our membership we believe it is imp imperative to reach out to you with concerns about the content of the Wednesday February 26th school committee meeting in regards to the impact of possible budget cuts we are concerned and disillusioned by what information has been shared not shared or not
effectively shared with the committee and public we are sensitive to the overwhelming amount of items and potential actions that need to be presented discussed and voted upon at each school committee meeting however it was incredibly frustrating and disappointing that in a meeting which spanned almost 5 hours there remained an
insufficient amount of time for our building administrators to speak to the various complex ways of how proposed budget cuts will affect our students staff and classrooms the building administrators and building leadership teams have spent a significant amount of time crafting reports and slides to
explain the way that budget and Staffing Cuts will impact each student body including but not at all limited to student to teer ratios scheduling grade level support and course offerings and challenges unique to each School their voices went enti almost entirely unheard
in the meeting compounding the submission of most building specific information it was stying to members to hear what they felt was selective class-size data following that data staff less impacted by the cuts and staff only recently added to potential
cut lists were given time to speak and present while previously published potential cut personnel and positions weren't given that same level of attention as the superintendent point out pointed out in her recent staff email sent last Thursday evening every position we have matters this messaging
is not coming through to the staff nor the general public in public foring forums though the Lea board does not often hear from members does often hear from Members we do not often hear from them on mass since Wednesday's meeting and subsequent staff email on Thursday we are receiving
much more unprompted staff communication than usual members are perplexed frustrated and disheartened to this end we implore the committee and the viewing public to pay attention to the section of the impact statements which is linked on the current slide 78 of the FY 26 26
superintendent's proposed budget slideshow seconds Mary thanks these slides and their hyperlinks outline building specific concerns that are building administrators and building leadership teams have regarding the impact of each of our sit situations sign the executive board lunenberg Education Association we ask the public
to look particularly at those slides and H hyperlinks to really understand the impact thank you thank you I'll look for a motion um I would move that we wave the 10-minute limit on a public comment I second any discussion all those in
favor say I I all right we'll continue with the public comment um I'm Nathaniel I live at 7-Eleven flat Hill Road um I'm a student athlete here at lunenberg and I've been participating in high school sports in seventh grade consisting of baseball indoor and outdoor track football cross
country and soccer and they have shaped me not only as a athlete but also as a member of society uh Sports have done things for me that I've never been able to do um they've also allowed me to create bonds with people that I
otherwise would not have connected with in school and just just in the classroom and Sports in in general have just shaped me as a person and allowed me to become the best version myself thank you thank you thank [Applause]
you L Jordan Yates 120 robs Hill Road good evening my name is Lily Jordan Yates I'm a senior here at lunberg I'm here to urge you to protect funding for our school sports programs even as you navigate difficult budget decisions sports are not just extracurricular
activities they are essential to student growth well-being and success they teach discipline develop skills that last a lifetime and Leadership for many sports provide a motivation to stay engaged in school maintain good grades and develop healthy H
habits they also create a sense of school spirit community and bringing students families and staff together cutting Sports funding would take away opportunities from students who rely on these programs for physical mental health scholarships and a sense of belonging I understand budget
constraints but I urge you to explore alternative cuts that don't take away these vital experiences from students investing in sports means investing in our future thank you for your time and consideration thank [Applause] you good evening uh Laura bruan uh 3d9
mpus Road president of the M uh the lunenberg music eaters and mom of a nth grade uh student uh I'd like to take a second for you to hear something that silence that is the just 12 kids that
would not have played in the marching band last year over the course of the football season last week I heard them referred to as just the 12 there are 12 amazing kids in the in the Marching Band program that have
fought through the co years through three different band directors in three years one day of band camp not a week we have over a hundred kids that will be participating in the spring band
concert in may we have a 100 kids that have gone to the trills and thrills events that the busing that was going to get slashed or was on the list last week on the left column side that was getting cut um our band has received the highest rating for
the past two years our aquire has received the second highest rating for the past two years UMass band our 12 kids participated with over a thousand students and played the halftime game at the UMass football
game we had a 100 kids go to a free field trip uh 80 kids correct my number um we've got five of our kids going to Central districts uh three of our kids five audition three made it we have five kids going to the Lions Club
uh All State ban on Saturday April 26th 140 kids will participate in the spring band concert 107 of them will be on the stage at the same time that includes our fifth graders Mr balar had four students last year at the beginning
of the year he ended with 32 he has 20% more this year even though the fifth grade class is 20% smaller than it was the prior year I encourage you to please look at
what the program the entire music program the good that it has for all of the kids that participate and not just the 12 thank you thank you I'm Landon B I live at one great Palm Road sports have been a big part of my
life I've played football and baseball for almost 12 years these Sports have helped me create Everlasting bonds and have helped me contribute to my mental health Sports isn't is an escape from things I'm dealing with mentally and
it's helped me build up character not only that but I've been able to learn and I've been also be I've been able to become a better person I've learned how to take responsibility for my
actions and I've learned how to become a man at such a young age to restrict or hinder my athletic experience would affect not only my mental health but also my educ educational experience thank you thank
[Applause] you hi my name is Evelyn maven and I live at 120 Island Road um I've been on the I've been on three different varsity teams for six years and I've also been taking APS and honors throughout my entire High School experience so I'm
here on the behalf of my fellow student athletes who all deserve the opportunity to succeed through AP classes and Varsity Sports I think to cut AP classes and sports team and attempt to rectify the current budget problems would be detrimental to the prosperity of our student body as a whole if our student
committee is truly interested in the well-being success of the lunberg students then I hope them by all means necessary they ensure the preservation of athletic and academic programs that are essential to Our Success my achievements as a student athlete um are
a direct reflection of all the programs I uh participated in during my time at ludenberg high school as a current High School senior I have been able to utilize the programs and set myself up for future success in F further my education and even though these budget cuts that are proposed um will not
affect me I'm here to advocate for my fellow classmates and teammates who all deserve the opport opportunities that I've have been given thank you thank you any other public comment from the public think there's a hand on on Zoom
yes thank [Music] you my name is Tatum Ferman I live at at 754 West Street um I'm sure as students now we all understand that there's going to be some pretty major Cuts in the lunenberg school district I also understand that some of these proposed cuts are going to
programs for the students such as Athletics or music programs and while I understand that some cuts are inevitable I urge you to think about what you're cutting when you decide to cut these programs I'm a junior at lunenberg high school and I would say I'm a pretty well-rounded individual I take honors and AP classes I play softball I hold
multiple student council positions I've done mock trial and many other activities serve my in the lunenberg school district these programs have shaped me into the person I am today and have given me lifelong bonds you're going to hear these words from a lot of students tonight because they've been given these opportunities to become a
well-rounded individual they've been given these opportunities to find their passions at the school taking that away would only hurt us whether their passion is sports music or academics everyone can find something and they can only do that because they're given the
opportunity to I don't have a concrete solution to the budget cuts nor am I trying to present one but I would like to urge you as my fellow peers have to be thoughtful about what you decide to cut lunberg Prides itself on producing well-rounded students who are beneficial
to the community and who are passionate about the things they enjoy taking these opportunities away from students will not just hurt those participating now but will hurt the future generations of L high school thank you thank you uh
any other Public public not seeing any on Zoom go ahead hi my name is l Santa I live at 27 wiland drive and I'm here to talk about the elimination of our athletic trainer Dave growing up in sports I never had a trainer until a few years ago when Dave
started working here I'm a student athlete and I play track in basketball this past season um I gained a level three Sprint on my right ankle which is the highest possible degree I was unable to walk for about a week the doctor told me that I wouldn't even begin to playing to start playing again for about a month
but with the help of Dave I began to get back to basketball games as soon as 3 weeks and with one month and at the one month Mark I could play with full confidence again I don't know look like it could be interesting even now I'm working with Dave after school every day to regain my strength and I feel that without Dave
many student athletes would not be able to get back on the field thank you thank you you [Applause] I know you cara harowitz 165 Gilcrest Street I know you guys have heard from
me many times and it's always about the same things but this time it's actually not I I did cheer until 7th grade I then got injured and could not continue that is when I started dedicating myself
fulltime to the other things I did that same year I won first place in States for Science Olympiad the next year I was participating in all state band opportunities and the year after that I was already the section leader of the marching band it is not that Athletics
are not important however they are not the only things that are important and what happens when the athletes get injured they cannot participate in athletics anymore we cannot only have Athletics moving forward and I know that that's not something being proposed
right now but it does often seem like they are seen as a of the other activities they provide no more for individual students than music does I mean like as far as the team building and college
applications they're pretty equal so I don't think we should be putting one above the other thank you thank you LZ 239 South roow Road just 30 seconds I want you to look look around at all of the students that are here sitting in front of you I'm a senior
Lily's a senior Eve is a senior we all sit up and talk to you and this doesn't even affect us if you can't see that what you're doing is severely hurting the community that you're having seniors who aren't even affected by these Cuts come up and tell you that this is
something wrong that that is what we want you to look at we want you to look at the people who aren't affected by this that still know that this is the wrong thing we want you to look at all of the kids that sit in these chairs before you who don't have the courage to speak but come to represent the cause that they stand for this is important to
them this is important to me and although it doesn't affect me this is their life they should have the opportunities that all of us had thank you any other public comment from the public all right seeing none we're going to move on to public comment from the committee
uh Mr scol so uh first of all I want to say all of the kids were amazing you all did a great job the gentleman who is the football player oh where did he go he he was incredible so tell him he did
an excellent job good job um I I just want to say a couple of things first in looking through this I've spent hours days weeks trying to figure out how to make this work and the only the only way that I can think of how to do this fairly is to try to figure out which
costs or which Cuts we can make that have the smallest impact on student achievement and the biggest Financial impact we've talked about this before no one has proposed any other different way to go about doing this I think it's also important to note that when I'm trying
to make these decisions I'm trying to do it regarding the positions and not the people I don't want my own personal biases or relationships to come into play I also think it's important to note that we need structural long-term change not
just in the school but in this town if everybody who was here tonight voted and came to uh town meeting we would have a different town we cannot win if we fight against each other we have got to go to
town meeting every single one of us and tell them that you all matter you P each other against each other and everyone loses if we all go together at town meeting if we explain the need for an override if we explain
the need for other Revenue sources we won't be here in the future but if we don't we're going to perpetually be stuck in a cycle of nip and Tuck Cuts until we ourselves we need a long-term plan and we need participation
in things that increase Town Revenue the next thing I want to point out is that after some research and discussion with people at central office there was a slide in last week's presentation about class size I think that the information and Dr bookas please correct me if I'm
wrong I think the information was a little inaccurate uh it was a claim that there was negligible impacts on student achievement based on class size having talked to Dr bookas and other people having reviewed peer-reviewed
empirically validated studies I think it is an inescapable conclusion that class size does impact student achievement especially at reading with reading and especially in the prek through third grade level we need to prioritize those
things while we're looking at Cuts because reading is the fundamental skill of learning it is the meta skill of learning it unlocks all of your other skills of learning and we have to focus on that I think that we need to make sure that as we go forward we have a
clear budget and that we have clear costs there are things in our budget that are in the district's budget that are not in any other Town Department's budget that make our budget look larger than it is and especially the health care cost that cost is something we have
nothing to do with and we are burdened by it when we do our budget every year I think that we need to prioritize student facing positions if we are making cuts and we're going back to the rule about the biggest bang for our buck the biggest bang for our buck as everyone
has said here are student facing positions we need to consider solutions to busing I know that uh the bill to make busing competitive was uh submitted this week uh we need to consider I think a transportation fee we also need to
consider purchase of small buses for athletics the Athletics Transportation costs are outrageous and those costs in one year are more than the cost of a of a Class B or Class C bus which is basically $80 to $120,000 a year we need
to coordinate with the boosters so that boosters spend money on things that everyone in this room cares about would you rather run your events go to your meets play your games or have an extra piece of chicken at the banquet at the end of the year those are the kinds of
things that we need to do as a community every single one of us and we need to do it together we need to think about hiring a lobbyist it is clear to me that citizen Outreach to legislative delegations for this town are not effective if you go to mass if you go to
Beacon Hill if you go to conquer in New Hampshire if you go to Washington DC you will notice one thing that effective Advocates do they have a lobbyist we do not have a lobbyist we do not employ a lobbyist we as a town need to think about ways to make that happen we also
need to figure out a way to address outof District placement costs these costs are shocks to the system every year and we cannot change that without changing the law and finally we need to have better data collection I asked for information about Athletics I needed
crucial data to make my decision and that data did not come if we don't have the data it is difficult to defend saving any position everybody here needs to take a haircut everybody in the district needs to take a haircut and then we all need to March as one down to
the auditorium on town meeting day and tell them that you all matter if we don't do that we're going to be back here the next year and the year after and the year after that we need to change the way this is done M brazowski
everybody in this room who's wearing something that says lunenberg on it stand up all right that's going to be important later you're all representing lunenberg I think that's important to note for the sports I know the band kids
have stuff that has lunenberg on it I just wanted everyone to look around and see how much representation there is of our town tonight and that's I didn't tell them to do that I haven't communicated with them that's just This Is How They present themselves so you
guys can sit down thank you um so I'm frustrated tonight um with this budget process I got this budget less than two hours
ago the final numbers this is supposed to be our budget hearing we didn't get this budget before tonight I haven't had time to review this budget I am I am very frustrated with this process I don't think this is great
governance I don't think that this is the way that we should be clear and do clear and transparent and honest communication I don't think that we're showing good stewardship of the budget and I don't think that this is the way to be making such incredibly difficult important
decisions in Massachusetts school committees have three main responsibilities and one of them is the budget I am extremely frustrated because we are dropping the ball we are we have to make incredibly difficult decisions tonight and I need the full
scope of information in order to do that we didn't get a full list of propos cuts until about an hour ago I printed it out but I haven't had time I I've seen it cuz I pulled it myself out of the PowerPoint presentations and I've
been trying to match up prices of things this is not a takedown this is not a takedown of our District administration this is not an attack on Dr Burnham I I want to be really clear about that Monday night I was up until 1:30 in the morning working on my spreadsheet of the cuts and the impact
statements to to put everything in one place and I was up that late because Dr Burnham was also up working on it too alongside me answering my questions until 1:30 in the morning and when I had got up she had added more to it I I
don't know when you sleep I don't um I'm worried uh we are a small District we lack the amount of central office staff that would normally be putting this work into the budget and I think it is very important that we all recognize that no matter what my complaints are or our
complaints are we do not have the resources that other districts have because we have been running on such fumes for a long time but whatever my complaints are it's not because Dr Burnham is not fully committed to this job so I I really want
to be upfront and clear about that we are trying some of this is a resource issue but at this point I don't know what to do I wanted to put on the agenda tonight to talk about bringing on additional
accounting help I still want to talk about that I am only one person I am not the chair I'm the most Junior member here but I I want to talk about that tonight I want to talk about bringing in extra accounting help especially if we are going to continue talking about an
override we have a lot of very tough very terrible decisions tonight there is no clear path there are no good choices none of these choices are good all of the choices affect our students none of the these cuts are fair not a single cut we're going to make tonight is fair I am not happy we're here again this is going
to hurt every person in this room every person watching this is going to be unhappy this ultimately affects our main priority our students and their education and this brings me to my next point which is an override last year the only reason we were able to get an override was by being transparent and
forthcoming with information so far that's not happening this year I don't see how an override can be successful unless immediately commit to full transparency I think we can get there last year's override was never meant to be a long-term fix we have said that
many times My Hope was that this year we would see Pro progress an increase in state fundings a shift in the town's approach to finances because this was not just about the schools it affects the town side of things my personal Hope was that there would be a larger
approach to this from the town side ress on a master plan commercialization of districts in town an increased focus on economic development encouraging business growth and an actual concrete very difficult decis conversation about a substantial override that would correct the tax base for years of
proposition two and a half not keeping up with inflation they are not politically easy conversations to have but they're incredibly necessary something had to give changes had to be made lunberg needs to commit to invest in our future that was my hope and that didn't happen
happen this town has a very frustrating history of being reactive rather than proactive the schools are a department of the town we get the money the town gives us the town gives us what it has available to give we are not a wealthy town we do not have a strong commercial
tax base so the brunt of the tax the the brunt of property taxes come from homeowners who live in the community it's not as simple as just raise taxes so I'm not sure of a path forward every one of these cuts hurt every one
of them is a real loss our teachers are amazing our staff is amazing every single one of these cuts hurt our students so I don't want to focus on the emotions the frustration and the anger I don't want that's not going to get us
out of this are going to hurt the students as said so I don't want to get loog down in tribalism or teams the school versus school or Sports versus town or band or school Department versus school department I want us to remember that we're a community we have one main goal we have one Mission which is
getting our kids the best damn education we can for the money we have I want to focus on action and I want to focus on a path forward I want to figure out a way we can invest in lunenberg future and I want to find a way forward so we can again take pride in lunenberg
schools thank you Mr beardmore well said well said I'm going to give our legislators a break tonight because I'm not sure that our students who are here care much about
that um but I I am going to cover a little bit of the topic of funding but before I do that I want to address a few emails at least one call that I got today and a point that was made by an earlier commenter
we've had I believe this is our fifth budget meeting on this year's budget and Communications were put out to the entire school committee to entire School Community before each meeting last week we had about a 100
people on the zoom at one point so I feel pretty confident felt pretty confident that the community would was pretty well aware of what was going on but at last week's meeting there were a number of new cuts
that were proposed to deal with things that the school committee had fed back to the superintendent saying we don't want to cut that on that list were sports cuts and without a lot of information there were things that were said here on at this table that I just disagreed with
I had a meeting yesterday with the business director in the ad we covered some topics I think that some of this information is becoming forthcoming and we're getting it it's too late but I got to tell you yesterday I also looked at
the responses to the transportation survey that went out and what I learned from that is there are a lot of parents in lunenberg
who have no idea what's going on here none and that scares me I'm the chair in addition to being one of the more junior members of this committee I serve as chair of the athletic advisory committee and when the proposal
for um fee increases came up with the ad I scheduled feedback meetings that a number of parents attended and most of the members of this committee watched those feedback the recordings of those feedback meetings unfortunately between last week and this week I did not have
time to schedule a meeting there are there are posting requirements to do that and I have a full-time job and as I read those comments yesterday it occurred to me that there are substantial cuts that have been verbally supported by at least one
member of this committee that most parents probably have no idea about and so I put together a letter that I think is the reason why most of you are here tonight wonder and it lived on Sports
view for about 30 minutes yesterday before somebody told the ad to take it down and that's fine I apologize to nobody for doing that I think it's very important that people understand the
value that this program brings and parents and students both have an understanding of what is being proposed osed now over the course of the last several hours as Laura has just outlined we received a budget 54 minutes before this meeting
started and I can tell you that by my reading of that budget there is one C the current proposal is one cut to the sports program the uniform Replacements now I don't know if that's going to stick the school committee owns the budget not the superintendent but that
is the current state of The Proposal so I just want everybody to be aware I would have told you that but yesterday the information that I shared was the most accurate information at the time and it was true okay last Point around
funding I've been I've spoken every week for the last um weeks about Chapter 70 funding funding in my my opinion that we are getting short shifted by the state and that our legislators are not doing enough to fix it let me just share some
some statistics with you in the FY 26 budget fitzburg is going to get an 11% increase on a per student basis an additional $1,426 per student next year lemonster 9% 700 uh
972 Garder 9% 1,79 lenberg 1% $75 let that sink in enrollment this year in fitzburg up
168 enrollment in lemonster up 113 enrollment in Garder up 47 lunenberg down 30 so it isn't just the per student
funding we're being shorted on but because we're funded on a per student basis and our enrollment is decreasing our our funds decrease as a result of that right I hope people understand that programs like this programs like band the effectiveness of
our academic programs are what keep people in lunenberg and hopefully attract students to our town and make families want to stay in instead of school choicing out and instead of going to Charter Schools this trend cannot
continue and and part of my reasoning is that I consider Sports to be as large we discussed yesterday part of our brand in lunenberg you are part of our
brand and I consider it compulsory for us to continue to show up as best we can from a brand perspective and I understand the fact that there are people who are going to say but what about this and what about that and what
about two dozen other things we've been discussing at that table and all of those questions and points are totally relevant I get it if you've been following me for the last three years you will see or you just go back and watch the recordings
this isn't the only topic that I've locked on to in the last three years I'm an equal opportunity offender but this is important to me and I think it's important to lunberg thank you for your time thank you Miss
Areno my comment would be that everything about this is difficult everything that everybody brings a piece of them to the table all of you have brought a piece of you here
tonight we have huge cuts to deal with my position has been everybody shares a a piece of that pie We're All in This Together nothing should be desent nothing should be wiped out
nobody should be left without a home but nothing should be untouched completely and that's hard that's really hard we're going to do the very best we can to preserve everything we
can but it's not easy thank you uh next L on the agenda is uh the chair's report so I have a few items uh there was some public uh we did receive a lot of public feedback um on
all topics uh but one specifically I wanted to address was uh an override question uh wondering where the override money from last year um if we lost it if we have it still this year so just to reiterate some numbers so last year's
budget the FY 5 um we had passed it for about 23.9 million the override was about uh just under $1 million so with the override uh the current school year totaled 24.
approximately 8 24.8 million in the the special town meeting in the fall we did receed the extra Chapter 70 funding which gave us an extra about approximately $30,000 which again bumped our budget right around $24.8
million now for this year's for next year's budget the town manager recommended a 3.63% increase from last year's budget so if you calculate 3.63% of last year's 24.8 million it
comes out to about $900,000 that will go on top of last year's budget for a total this year of 25.7 approximately 25.7 million so just to be clear the the override funds did go into
the budget for this year um to give us that 25.7 million total additionally I want to uh briefly address a recent issue regarding the use of District resources for communication this week a message from
an individual School Committee Member was distributed through a district resource while open communic ation with the community is important it is essential that the district resources remain neutral and are not used to distribute messages from Individual
committee members moving forward all official School Communications should come from the superintendant or designated administrators individual committee members should use their own channels to share personal messages or
opinions this ensures fairness consistency and the proper use of District res resources I ask the superintendent to take down the post and also to reinforce this expectation with staff and if policy adjustments are needed we can
discuss them as a committee thank you for your cooperation additionally I've been working with the select board chair um to set up a joint meeting uh to talk about schools um after talking with the select board
chair we decided to put a focus on this year's budget we had a lot of items recommended for the discussion but the main uh driver is the budget for this year and for the future so that will be our Focus we plan to meet on March 11th
at 6 p.m. uh there was discussions about potentially uh discussing options to use free cash as an option as well and also discuss uh override additionally I met with a group of 21 uh districts as well as
representatives from the legislature um there's for those of you who don't know there are 2111 districts and now 232 districts that are in the same position as lunenberg where we are hurting for funding especially from uh reduction in state
funding uh at that meeting uh there was talk about proposals um both short-term and long-term uh one proposal is to include money from the millionaires tax from this year they were very conservative
and they have money left over uh and also again for next year as well to try to increase the millionaires tax um funding for public schools um some of the some of the proposals don't work for lunenberg but again there's 232
districts so not every proposal will be for every school so just to highlight some of the areas uh one was a circuit breaker increase which would hope a lot of schools as well as lunenberg uh circuit breaker increase instead of covering 75%
covering 90% uh there was also an increase to Regional School transportation which would not affect us uh an increase to mckin vento homeless student transportation uh an increase for outof district vocational student
transportation an increase to rural school aid which would not affect uh supplemental funding to the msba capital supports uh covering uh buildings there was also a proposal to
reconvene the K through2 funding review commission uh which would adjust the Chapter 70 formula over time uh also to inflate the Chapter 70 formula to better match recent cost growth to increase the minimum per pupil
Aid up to $104 and they gave us a letter that we could share uh but the big thing they recommended is everybody has to really come up with a unique letter um so that it's not the template that they're just going to look at and and toss so I think
we we will the the committee will be sharing some information about this and we encourage people to reach out to their legis Lors and Leadership throughout the state um to try to get some of these proposals to pass in the legislature but again some of these are short-term goals and some of these are long
term and that is all I had next on the agenda is the student Representatives report now for some lighter topics uh there's no school March 14th and with February break being over it means a start of mcast testing for grades 3 through 10 I
believe yeah um the elementary or the primary school just celebrated Dr Seuss Week and read across the world day was Monday March 3rd um the turkey elementary school has a stem night on March 26th I believe and for the Middle High School um we are halfway through
quarter 3 the 8th grade DC trip is coming up soon um the Lions Club is running a recycling challenge you can drop off donations for that in the front office NHS is offering peer tutoring on Tuesdays yearbooks are available for order for um middle and high school
winter sports just ended with spring sports starting March 17th and last week the was the comp the competitive class plays um with the class 2027 winning that is all thank you uh next item in the agenda
is to review and approve minutes I don't believe we have any minutes no no next I in the agenda is to review and approve light item transfers warrants and donations the warrants from February 24th 20125 to March 3rd 2025 total
$92,000 $494 there is a line item transfer but it's specific to capital projects and that's a separate agenda item so we'll get to that when when we get to that item on the agenda thank you next item is the superintendent report great
so uh a little bit of good news um we actually uh did receive the green communities grant that will uh allow us to continue uh phasing our um installation of Mini Splits at the
primary school um so uh I'd like to thank the members of the green committee that worked so so hard with us uh to be able to submit that that report the request um and we're really excited to be able to keep
moving on uh with that project um I had also wanted to um reiterate this message had already gone out to All Families but um the department of Elementary and secondary education the Office of Public School monitoring will be conducting an
integrated mon monitoring review of the lunenberg public schools during the week of April 14th um each School District charter school vocational school and Virtual School undergos an integrated monitoring review every 3 years it's our turn um the areas
addressed during the review are organized into two groups known as group a universal standards and Group B Universal standards uh and we will be going through the group a uh monitoring review that focuses on special education
student identification and special education eligibility timelines individualized education program development uh programming and support services uh procedural requirements for suspensions and equal
opportunity so we have another another review coming our way um lastly some calendar reminders um the next school committee meeting will be on March 19th at 6 :30
hybrid from the middle high school this week uh March 6th 700 p.m. our finance committee uh presentation of our budget at Town Hall and also March 6th tomorrow night at 6:30 p.m. the
pacal meeting that's a virtual meeting via Zoom some reminders that March 14th is a no school day it's a full day professional development day for staff and March 28th will be an early release uh for um professional development for
staff um that's what I have for you this evening thank you uh to add I did post a school committee meeting for tomorrow so all of us can attend if you wish to attend for the finance committee meeting any questions or comments from the committee on the uh superintendent
report okay seeing none uh next item on the agenda we have presentation we do not have a presentation tonight uh new business action item initial grease trip approval so we invite uh Mrs York uh World Language teacher from the high school to
present her request for a field trip hello thanks for having me tonight so I'm here to ask for initial approval for a trip to Greece in April of 2026 over vacation it would be April 17th through the
25th um let's see some key things U this one's all Greece I've done I've Led Led three previous trips over the years and and chaperon three before that and they've always either been Greece and Italy or just Italy I decided it was time for an all gree trip so this one's
all Greece it starts in Athens I think you've got the PDF with the itinerary so I won't go through all of it but it starts in Athens um two nights in Athens where we do the typical things there the Acropolis and the parthona cruise ship to go um from
Island to Island um seeing obviously um important things in Greek and Roman history there's actually a lot of Roman ruins and Roman culture there as well um and then ending up back in Athens for the last night um before we depart um some other key things uh the cost is
obviously these were not they're not inexpensive trips this one is just under $5,000 and that is well it's $ 4,927 and that is with an early bird pricing that the company has been nice enough to extend for me a few times since I started looking at this trip so that is
good if we get it approved and students start signing up and putting deposits down by April 1st um I guess in some good news I know that in recent years there's been discussion around equity and making sure that students can afford these trips and so something that I wanted to mention is
that I do have rewards with the company that I used last time which is acis which is who I'd like to use again so I have enough for three individual scholarships of $1,000 each um and then the company has said that they will put
out an additional one for 1,000 um as long as we get a certain number of students signed up by a certain date to be determined um so that's good news there that's what we can do obviously there's no way we can fully afford to you know to pay for students but I was thinking we could do something like they
would write if they wanted to apply for the scholarship they could write an essay explaining what you know why they thought they deserved you know the scholarship what they would get out of the trip that sort of thing um probably putting together a committee of teachers and maybe administrators to choose the recipients of those scholarships um
that's rewards with acis that I've got because I used them last time uh the cost I think as always includes everything um well mostly everything it includes the flights the hotels breakfast dinners all the admissions all the transportation while
we're there it just the kids have to pay their own um their own way for snacks and souvenirs um things like that um I think that's the basics I don't know if you have any questions or if I missed something thank you what questions do the committee members have SBO I do have
some questions um why Greece um so like I said I've done I've done all Italy I've done Greece and Italy and every time that I'm in Greece it seems very rushed and the students that I have a lot of them are really interested in Greek history mythology and things like
that and so we do get the Roman side of things too as a Latin teacher and as a lot of Latin students would be expected to go but it just it seemed like there was so much that we were missing when we would rush from place to place so it just gives us a time to be fully there yeah the academic tie-in is is what I was
concerned about because we don't offer Greek right you know I can see going to Italy you know with the Latin but yeah so it's more the culture the history the mythology um piece as well I mean obviously when we go to Italy you know
we don't offer Italian either and we're not walking around speaking Latin there but they're seeing the same type of thing I find in in Greece there's just as many connections to things that I teach in class as there are in Italy so and I do have a question about the
political climate in Athens I was there few years ago and we were not allowed to leave our hotel in the evening without escort okay what is it like now well we were there in 2023 we didn't have any issues
like that there weren't any restrictions we was very safe we were walking around in the evenings um you know near our hotel and actually a few students in the room were there with me they could probably tell you the same thing um no we there were never any issues I do know I further in the in the past I remember
on one of the trips when I was there uh our tour manager telling us you know there had been some things going on but not the last time we were there and I don't currently know of anything right now okay Mr beardmore I just want to acknowledge um
just for the benefit of those who don't pay attention and watch the same bad time every two weeks um I have traditionally voted against these trips and and the reason why I voted against them is because and I attended one of these trips as a high school student in lunenberg so I think I went Mrs York
back um is the equity issue and and the enormous expense even with a$1 th000 scholarship it's still nearly a $4,000 cost that you know based on the survey
results that I read earlier today I think that there are a lot of families that um that are just really struggling and uh and and can't afford to do this and I have difficulty resulting that in my great deal of difficulty um that being said this is the first such time
that we've seen this level of creative thinking to address that issue and I just want to acknowledge that and say that I personally really appreciate that uh to the point that I am probably going to abstain from this vote um but uh but I really I really do
appreciate your efforts to to try to make this less unaffordable thanks Mr skull Bry is there any cost to the district no okay no no cost to the district so I I think I talked about the the cost and what it covers like I said
the things that they have to pay and then in addition the students would pay for the bus you know to the airport um some years we've done fundraisers for that some years no but no it's not there's no cost to the district Mr Bowski I am I want I did want to say thank you for the price one
of your students was telling me about the trip and she's talking I I was like that sounds really cool oh my God how much is this going to cost like dreading it and then uh this hit our packet and I looked at the price um I mean this is what N9 days this is it's it's it's a
good deal for 9 days of travel on the GRE Isles it's it's and that's a lot of history so um I do appreciate it's obvious that when you were planning this you you put a lot of thought uh into keeping the price down and that was a big driver um I wouldn't
say it's affordable but it's certainly more in the realm of possibility than previous trips sometimes were so I really appreciate that uh it looks like a lot of fun thanks and education it does look very education I mean they are educational
trips I mean that's what these companies do so it's all it's like non-stop history y so thank you yeah I would agree uh thank you for your work on this I think it's uh just another great opportunity where students can take advantage of uh
opportunities at lunberg thank you I'll look for a motion motion to approve the Greek trip to Athens in the aan uh April 17th through the 25th 2026
I'll second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed abstain I thank you motion passes thank you the next item of the agenda is an action item Capital project transfers and I invite Dr Gilson to the
microphone so I'm requesting a line item transfer and we're going to uh request to move money from the capital um security upgrade projects to the exterior door projects um the doors don't lock
consistently they need to get repaired we have been working with the contractor who's been very good to us and hasn't charged us anything for the repairs he's come out to do um I would like to get them under contract um ASAP
and that will take the it cost about what the amount was like $23,000 to move into the um from security to exterior doors and to go forward with that project it puts it in
a position where Ezekiel Ayala can certify the project the town manager can sign the contract and we can get that going so Safety and Security is important and we'd like to get that going this is the tur tur Hill yes Turkey Hill okay y any other additional
questions or comments from the committee Mr beardmore can you bring me up to speed on the primary school security upgrades and are we not doing it or no we will be doing the primary school security upgrades the contractor the proposed
vendor for the security upgrades um the the cost of both projects um is not going to exceed those line items when they're combined is it the same vendor it's the same uh well I have two V two different vendors one vendor is for the both security projects and the other
vendor is for the doors okay okay um and just procedurally I believe obviously we would need to endorse this but this is actually the town manager's decision procedurally is my understanding to transfer I talked to
Mr aella and he said that we would be able to authorize based on a school commit transfer of funds um and one school committee approves it he can certify and we can get the contracts going okay we have a new head of finance and a new town manager so I'd like
somebody just to make sure that the town manager has the same understanding of her responsibilities as I do and if there's a disagreement on that would somebody please in inform me fine okay thank you okay thank you
any other questions or comments from the committee all right then I'll look for a motion I'll make a motion to approve the line it of transfer as described I can second that any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed the motion passes thank
you and I'll just invite Dr Gilson to stay at the microphone you have a few uh reports yep so next item on the agenda is action item on the business and HR reports are there any questions about the business and HR reports from the
committee no all right thank you for the report so I'll look for a motion I just can you give me just one minute here yeah yeah I see the Personnel one there's an update on facilities and grounds and there's an update on personal oh on the ground okay
facilities yeah okay uh I don't want to belabor it tonight given the time but I would like to have a conversation with you and the superintendent on um the track and field program as soon as possible happy to do that do we anticipate that that is going
to be discussed at tomorrow night's meeting with the because we have a placeholder warrant item pertaining to the track and field is that in scope for tomorrow night or is that part of a different finance committee
meeting do we know I don't know that there's a specific placeholder um but I think the focus is probably the school budget but might bring it up but sometimes when it's within the department say these are moneyed articles and would you like to speak to these so I I think I'd like to
speak with you both before that I had tomorrow okay sounds good thank you do we have any updates on the CSS Turkey Hill study the Turkey Hill study yeah we're supposed to be getting periodic up it's it's on track to be completed and
um um it's they're working on it uh I don't have a recent update no okay they were supposed to be giving usort monthly updates I don't think we've gotten one in quite a while okay so I will call the person tomorrow and I
will talk with the architect and we'll schedule one um soon or they can how would you like the update presented she's willing to come in person man okay sounds good thank you thank you I'll look for a motion make a a motion to accept the uh
business and HR reports as provided I'll second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed the motion passes thank you all right moving on we have old business action items um final Spain trip
approval we'll invite M Radford Another World Language teacher from the high school good evening we never get pictures after good evening I can send you some from last year we have some pretty good ones um thank you for having me here tonight um as uh we just said I'm here for the final
approval for our Spain trip uh which is due to depart in April I I think you have a pretty extensive packet of information which I'm scrolling through right now I if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them I think it has all of the information you need not much has changed since I was here uh last
time when we were talking about the changing of the dates uh which did save families a lot of money so thank you again for that um we have 13 student Travelers we have two parents coming with us and myself and another staff chaper room thank you what questions or
comments to the committee members have no good luck thank you so that was four adults four adults total yeah two are not chaperons they're parents who are paying to attend the trip with their children okay wow that's DB do they act
as Sheron NOP they have no responsibilities whatsoever they because they're paying to come on the trip so they just come and they want to spend eight days in the Spain with their kids and they're able to do that and school committee members yeah I think that's a question for Mrs
York yeah it is um okay no that was my question this is very very thorough any other questions or comments from the committee no want to thank you for putting this together and uh giving again opportunities for our students thank you thanks for having I'll look for a motion I'll make a motion to
approve uh to provide final approval for the Spain trip I'll second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed abstain abstain the motion passes thank you thank you all right
um I would like to ask the chair if we could put the bus fee ahead of the recommending the budget because passing a bus fee may make a difference in the budget can you make in a motion I would like to move that we
move the bus fee discussion to before the recommended budget second oh any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed the motion passes all right so the next item on the agenda is the bus
fee uh so we did send out um a survey to families we had a very robust response um which I appreciate greatly um the intent of the survey was to gather some information that would be helpful to the committee as you consider whether or not
to implement a bus fee and what the bus fee might be should you choose to implement one um there are comments that some respondents made you have access to all of the comments um that any of the
respondents made and you've had time to review those I did um but for the benefit of the um the audience both here and uh viewing from home uh there was a question as to
whether or not um parents would have their children riding the bus if there were a bus fee implemented at a dollar a day and 51% said yes however when we increased to a125 a day
that uh percentage dropped down from 51 to 36.3% and then when we asked about a150 a day again that dropped down a little further to only 30.9% saying yes that they they would
pay the fee so um you're you've got a 5050 essentially resp um it's fair those who say that they would pay the fee and those who say that they uh would would not so all right so I'll open it up to the
committee for comments I don't think we've discussion I don't think we've ever gotten this many responses from a survey it was 414 or 43 responses total I've I've never seen responses like this and every person
left a almost every person left a comment some of them lengthy colorful um I no I appreciate it I I think it's honest and a lot of people talked about being stretched thin and not being able to afford it and some
people talked about wanting to pay more to help out the school but I I I think it's pretty clear um there were a I don't know if anyone else read through all comments but there are some people who
who will be going through very tough times if this is enacted and I I don't know how you read that and then thank you Mr bmore um yeah I I it was I'm really glad
we did the survey um I I have not gone and actually annotated there were some cases where people filled in very negative comments but did not actually vote Yes or no on part one two or three so I suspect that
the the percentages if you if you extrapolate those out may not be quite as precise as they were briefed um and there were some that the comments didn't match what they voted for too which is you know I I think people kind of rush through these things uh I know I do when
I fill out online surveys sometimes um that being said I I do want to address one comment that was made earlier on this topic which is you know if you're if you're doing a waiver for people who qualify as low income and
in lunenberg the way we do that is basically the same calculation that we had traditionally done for um free and reduced school lunch it's basically the same calculus the the problem is that there are a lot of people that are on
the bubble they're just outside of that and you go from a sub a sizable reduction to no reduction at all and and I with the current proposal and even I can't even imagine how you would slide
it and then administer this in a way that is not impossible to do um look I I've said many times I believe in a free and public education and all the nickel and diming we do is the opposite of a
free public education um but the situation is the situation is the situation and the decisions we're making are impossible decisions um I I would support this if there was a way
to more accurately make it means tested and and I don't think we have a mechanism to do that without creating a massive administrative overhead to do it um and and so therefore I I'm still kind
of I don't know as I was a week ago I'm curious about yall's opinions but but I think I'm leaning against this for for those reasons Miss Aro um I agree with Peter and how there's one every once in a while every
once in a while um I do agree with Peter but that being said we have done this before I know there are very few people in this room but a few of us are here that lived through this previously and I believe it was only one
year because people were not happy with it um I I this is not a hill I would die on but I definitely feel like this is a tax on people that can't afford it because a
lot of people who are able to transport their kids during the day could probably afford this and lot of people who can't afford to transport their kids back and forth to school are the ones who can't
so um I would most likely vote this down Mr scull B I would vote to support a bus fee provided that there was a reduced cost for siblings A reduced cost based on student L uh school lunch status and
then some way to appeal to the superintendent or some other person in central office if they don't qualify under the current formula and have you some sort of uh sort of safety valve so that they could apply and explain their
particular situation I think that the problem is that you know again we only have so many ways to generate revenue and this is a lawful way to generate revenue and while the comments use lots of swear words which is not
impressive uh it makes it clear to me that the people who are saying things like our buses should be paid for by taxes don't understand how the taxes work like the municipality only has one way of generating revenue and the revenue that we are generating is
limited by Statute to 2 and a half% we will never catch up and this is something that we've talked about before and any way we can catch up that's legal I think we got to try to do it and I I hear the concerns about people on the edge but like again everybody has to
take a little bit of a haircut everybody has to feel a little bit of pain and all that we've heard from every single person is don't cut my stuff but no one is addressing how do we get to the Finish Line if no one's stuff gets cut everybody needs to take a little bit of
pain here or we're not going to make it if everybody's stubborn no one makes it so like we've got to figure out a way to do this together and I think that having a bus fee well you know like does bus fee do bus fees save you know a an extra
band member do bus fees save a sports team do bus fees mean that we can keep an extra teacher for AP I mean those are the balancing tests that we have to do and the comments to the in response do not have any way of addressing that and
so like I'm really I'm really sensitive to the cost increases but at some point we have to make a decision we did not raise the participation fees enough we did not raise the athletic fees enough we've got to find the money and I think
that we have to do this I don't want to do this I I I called for ethical guidance today and I it is very hard for me to say I think we have to do this but I don't see any other way of us making
it and no one no one has presented any meaningful Alternatives right like when we had the budget task Force we asked for the Public's feedback we had no meaningful Alternatives we've he heard from students here today we have no
meaningful Alternatives we got to raise money or cut costs somehow so I would be in support of a bus fee with a pro with a means testing safety Val Mr chair thank you Montana could could I just we don't have a written
proposal that meets what you just described right Tony yep no that's right I think if there if there was one that meets what you just described I would I would be more inclined to
support it um but I that that was not in my head right of having some sort of you know appeal um uh buffer or something along those lines well again that could be an emotion if that was U okay um uh so my
feedback um I appreciated the survey uh I I think that was very informative uh just Gathering some data I felt like the community responses to the bus fee revealed a strong opposition rooted in concerns over Financial strain the principles of public education uh and
broader implications for families many parents argue that education should remain accessible to all emphasizing that charging for transportation undermines this principle the responses reflect uh Collective frustration with increased cost of living and the expectation that taxes should cover all essential services like school
transportation uh parents Express worry that the bus fee could exacer exacerbate through all your existing challenges for families leading to increased absenteeism and additional logistical um as part of our agenda or
our potential agenda with the select board I had actually considered uh encouraging the select board to increase sidewalks because the town does not have a lot of sidewalks and I have concerns that if the seventh graders through 12th graders are walking to school
because they're they're close enough in the winter it could be a little scary so I I do have concerns um that with the impact on families no no so no again just everybody's just saying their peace that's all and then we can talk talk it
through um so I have concerns about that um but I also have concerns that if we don't have a bus fee then that that could be potentially a couple teachers so there's there's a big dilemma that we're going to have to make these cuts and we got to get creative with
fees um and even by having a bus fee you're reducing the number of students who are taking the bus which could reduce an actual bus and I think that is beneficial um the concern I have though it is a Band-Aid and we're going to be in the same situation next year and it's
increasing fees only on certain numbers of families and I think big picture it should be the town that that has the burden of those fees and I think that's where it comes back to an override to help the school budget so I would not
support the bus fee at this time any other discussion I just wanted to say with the we had been calculating prices of things the $75,000 if we implemented a bus
fee but if people aren't going to be taking the bus then I guess we wouldn't also be using buses I mean but we've got 30 31% saying yes if we're charging what we calculated would get us
$75,000 so that would be you be a teacher can I can I just yes Mr scull one of the things that we talked about be 30% of $75,000 cuz we wouldn't be getting the whole busing fees that would be 30% of
75 okay I think the data is also incomplete too that you're missing a lot of like Mr bmore presented that a lot of people just did answer as well and some people didn't even answer the survey but some people didn't say yes or no yeah one thing that I think that we we've got
to consider is that in planning for the future one of the costs that goes up every year and we have no control is busing and the reason it goes up is because we have no leverage we have one bitter we have had one bitter for Dr
Burnham a decade at least one bitter this is not a free market we need to scare them and say we are you are not going to be able to out bid or up bid us every time and if we have some way of reducing the number of buses we have
more leverage in negotiations with them we can't keep doing this because they have all the control now there are things that we're going to try to do to make them bid competitively but that requires legislative action until then
not only could we generate some Revenue but we could also gain some some leverage in negotiating with the bus company they have us on you know like we're handcuffed to the bus radiator right now and they're driving down the road going faster and faster if we do
not figure out some way to push back on them it will get worse it is a monopoly any other discussion I just I feel very strongly that if we are going to require children to come to school our responsibility to get them to school
I understand that we all need to take on the BR of the cups I do this hurts the most vulnerable people it's going to hurt the people who can take it on the least you cannot opt out of going to school if a family can't afford to do
after school sports or after school activities or the things that we're charging extra fees for it sucks but you can tell your kid I'm sorry we can't afford it and you can make that cut in your budget but if you have to get up and go to work and your ninth grader has
to get themselves on the bus cuz you live 5 miles from the school but you have to be at work before school starts you can't tell your kid I'm sorry you can't go to school or I'm sorry you have to walk five miles to school now that's
not an option you have available to you so what's going to happen to that kid are they just not going to buy groceries is it going to come out of the grocery budget is it going to come the electrical budget where is it going to come from and I think that we sitting up here as people who have the
ability to take this much time on our Wednesday nights off from our jobs and have other people watching our children we are in a privileged position what honey and there are other people who are not in that privileged position who don't have child care or someone to
drive their kids to school and I think that we really need to consider that so what if we had Mr beardmore any additional uh comments I don't think we have the votes to pass this tonight so I think you know I'm just mindful of the time I I think maybe we should table this no I think I think we're good I I just want to get last comments and I
think we're I just want to make sure it's equal equal from everybody gets a piece all right so I will look for a motion then I would move that we table this for um further uh I think work and review I think we have a majority that we oh you
think okay all right well I think well if Tony suggested something that I I think I mean if you guys are against what Tony suggested then I think you have a majority and you can vot we can vote yeah if you're not you think you can be persuaded that there's Middle
Ground here then we should table it and come back with a more refined proposal I mean just just for a point of comparison and Miss Peterson please say say if I make a mistake but we had when the busing problem happened in terms of
getting kids on the bus and we had the the bus questionnaires there was a lot of hand fine-tuning to who's on the bus where and I think that that experience could inform us with having some sort of
safety valve if you don't have economic qualifications to get free or reduced busing and I think that if we do that and we have wise and responsible people administer that program it will it will work and it will address the concerns
we're going to put that on a brand new superintendent we're going to add that to a brand new superintendent's plate could be there's somebody smiling in the audience I think she probably probably knows it's going to happen well so my my idea from last year last time this even came up
was do a small fee so that it gets people to either sign up or not sign up so that you can actually potentially reduce a bus I like that well can I just make one other comment that if we do table this for another time which I am
willing to listen to what a plan would be um I would also want that information to include what kind of time is this going to take from the administrative people that have no time to do this you
know so if we are saving if we were looking at saving $75,000 on a bus 30% of and we get half those kids let's be you know so we have
$37,000 worth of of income coming coming in and it costs us $10,000 worth of somebody's time then I don't know that that's a good decision to make to upheaval everybody but um I would want
that included in the discussion I would oppose tabling I feel like this decis decision should be made uh and we can always again bring it back up for in the future for even again another year or twoo so I I instead of
table let's do this I will make a motion to have a bus fee where it is $1 a day with reduction for number of kids in a family reduction on a reduced or free lunch status and then a safety valve that allows parents to address concerns
that are not captured by the calculations in order to implement the the bus fee it's not specific enough yeah I think it I I think it lacks the specificity that would be needed from a sort of okay a $1 a day bus fee as
proposed that's not $75,000 how much was that I don't have the again that would be after the motion we can have discussion after so the the $1 a day the reduced or free lunch status the reduced
cost for multiple children and then a safety valve that allows for administrative review of bus fees I I I think that the problem is is that the safety valve requires a degree of specificity that we we we're not going
to make up oh right I know I mean like there's no way to make a safety valve language that would incorporate like the point that Laura made last time about you know somebody that she had experienced there's no way we could we could prepare for every and so we just invest somebody with the discretion to
say you're good all right do not have a second is there any other motions I can't Motion in the negative you can that was the idea Oh I thought I couldn't Motion in the negative you can
yeah I motion that we do not have a bus fee we Stu could I there's no second could I motion yes could I my turn could I motion that we look
at the bus fee in the practicality of it if if we're saying we're going to have um well this isn't in the case of a motion you know my motions turn on 12 days um but we have to specify in a
motion you know exactly how much the the I have four kids I'm not doing $4 a day you know what is that discount you want to specify A reduced lunch what is that discount I assume a free lunch is free
um so my motion is I would like to table this until those details can be worked out second any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed no no the motion passes 3 to two
who's taking Civics this semester okay y'all should get some extra credit where is this look like what this look like all right moving on we have action item FY 26 recommended budget here we go this is that everybody
pay a good night have a good [Music] night and I'm going to have to ask um Miss Peterson if she can screen share because the host of the meeting can't screen make
me oh again popping in oh no what are we looking at now oh okay that's that's my [Music] oh she's [Music]
com okay I'm I'm looking hold on summary this one summary I think nope sorry wrong one all right um Dr bernham can you tell us what's the name of that one uh TM budget
TM budget oh bottom bottom on mine the last one yep do we have a line item budget we do okay holy Jesus can we make it
bigger can we make it any bigger on the screen can we tell the kids this is I don't think you know they're losing it's very hot in here one way is that as big as okay all right um
this this document is also posted on the website correct yes so anybody who's watching from home if they want to see this um a bit bigger if you go to the district website go to the school
committee link then go to the meeting agendas and minutes link and then scroll down just a little bit you'll see today's date and then documents for today's meeting are located there so you can open it
up um on your own computer oh so just a thought this has been um not a typical budget cycle last year's budget cycle was not
typical either but the thing that made this particular budget cycle this year different um was the fact that we had the turnover of an interim Town manager to a new permanent Town
manager um we typically get a number from the town manager even in December but definitely definitely the very first week of
January we have a number from the town manager this particular year we did not get a number from the town manager until January 29th that essentially shaved off four weeks of
our timeline to to work on a on a budget for the town manager Target budget Additionally the finance committee for reasons that are completely understandable needed to move our presentation of our
budget forward by a couple of weeks so essentially our budget cycle this particular year uh was abbreviated on both ends by about 6 weeks time in
total so I completely understand the frustration um that everybody's feeling just looking for numbers wanting to get documents um I appreciate the grace that's being given uh Dr gillson is new
to the district new to the role of Finance um so there's been a little bit of a learning curve coupled with an abbreviated budget cycle none of this is ideal I wish I could have given this to
you four or five days ago um this one page sort of gives you the the highlights if you will of three different versions of a budget so for the benefit of everybody who's been paying
attention the January 22nd version of a level service budget was based on numbers that are not real anymore so we're going to set that notion aside there's an updated version of a level service budget here tonight we'll go
through that in a minute there's also a needs based budget that's a different number than what we saw on February 5th and I can talk about that and why it's different in a minute but what we what
we did was identify development of the Town manager Target budget as our starting place we have an updated number the revenue that is being uh
allocated for the school department budget for FY 26 from the town is $94,900 that number we had for you last week we knew we knew that was the
number when you take a look at that number and add it to the total budget number that was approved at our June 5th meeting after the override
passed plus the additional Chapter 70 monies that were allocated to our budget in November at special town meeting and then add this new money for next year the town manager's Target
budget is 2,787 474 now I estimated for you last time that that was about a 3.5% um but we've tightened up all of the uh formulas in the budget documents
Etc and the the the figure is actually a 3.6 um per increase now what is in that budget and you you do have line item for each of these versions of a budget
all of our yes uh cbas our contracts with all of our uh Union employees individual contracts so on and so forth everything that we're obligated to in those contracts is in this budget it's also in the other two versions the
needs-based budget and the level service budget we have um Personnel reductions we'll get to that in a second I'm going to pass over that for a moment we have have the health insurance figured in here at the
14.84% which is the the locked in number now the total value of that line item in the town manager's version of the budget is 3,661
463 all of the um the offsets are in this budget as well um they are in every version of the budget the needs and the level service we have applied title monies we have applied um special ed
Grant monies we have applied some offsets from our revolving accounts as an example there's 71,2 47 applied from extended day as an offset in the budget um there's 25,000 from facilities as an
offset in the budget and based on your vote last week to eliminate the part-time athletic secretary that money her salary was paid for through the athletic revolving and the
recommendation if that was an option that the committee wanted to pursue was that that money from revolving would then be applied to offset um the trainer or the ad um salary in the budget so all of that is applied did we
vote on that last week I thought so there there was a vote on that you can you can resend that vote if you wish okay I I thought we did vote I thought we did we may have it was long night late nightend I didn't get when I was tracking the votes on the spreadsheet I
didn't get that far because it was a very long meeting okay okay there's also um an outline here in this sort of overview document um of Transportation costs so our dbus service that's our general Ed
transportation that line is going up 7.6% that is the equivalent of $69,500 Van Pool for next year that's our special ed Transportation their annual rate increase is 7% that applies to
their Vans it applies to their monitors it it applies to every charge they have across the board the Total Line however for special ed transportation is increasing 27% but that's because in
addition to the rate increase we're also adding monitors and bus and vans so that's why that that line is up the Athletics um we made a little bit of an adjustment
um possibly uh that would take down athletic the athletic line but we may not want to make that we can have more more conversation about that but we could we could reduce the amount of monies that we're putting into the transportation athletic Transportation
line but we started digging in based on questions that the committee had when we met uh with the athletics department over the last couple of days um and we started digging in and um we we're concerned as to whether or not we can
actually reduce that line based on additional information that can talk about uh briefly later um the out of District tuition line in the budget has been adjusted um based on changing
information uh that that informs our projections for next year for outof district uh placements so we're reducing that line by 310,000 and that is a line
reduction in every version of the budget utility increases um the electricity line and I did mention this in a prior budget presentation um we again underfunded
this year's electricity line uh under the advice of the Town manager last year that she felt that that line was over budgeted and since last year was such a tight year for us as well we reduced that line but um we we were we actually closer to
being on spot for for what that line should have been funded at so there is an increase in that line um for next year it's not it's not so much that the rate the the electricity rate is going up as much as
we need to properly fund the line um we we've been looking into this a bit there was some news about you know natural gas rates going up at this point we're we're not feeling like we need to
increase that line um stay tuned new information can come and that may may change things however our water bills have been increasing so there is an increase in that line but we're not confident that that increase will be
sufficient um therefore we may need to be uh applying some revolving offset as the year goes forward if that proves to be insufficient I just want to put it out there in case next year you're looking at a jump in that
line I I'm foreshadowing there may need to be a jump in that line for 27 um but we don't have anything concrete to to make that projection on at the moment we're still looking for some additional information on that can I ask a question yep for level service adjusted you did
not include the proposed 15.2 2% increase or a gas increase or no that's not even there but for the level service you did not include a projected increase all right are we still on the
same table right there or are you in the line on utility nope I'm looking at level service adjusted under utility increases yes no okay right above gas where it says FY 26 there's no projected increase under level service adjusted
oh so you what you're saying is it's not referenced in that third column it's not okay it it can be added to that third column is it uh not going to in the budget in the number for level service adjusted is it in the number for level
service adjusted did it just so in the line item budgets yes yeah I didn't have time to look at it otherwise I would have okay so it's just it got left off the spreadsheet yes this is kind of like the the summary no I appreciate it this
this is really good it's a really good um uh rundown of what's in it I'm just yeah and you do have a notation there too as to the actuals for our electricity line and why we're feeling that the line needs to be um bumped up
okay okay cuz it's yeah it says under FY 26 no projected increase so the line item for level service adjusted in the orange column is actually the 265 2 million I can't there's no commas
it's it's 265,000 265,000 yeah we're not spending 2 million on that's too much um so to be clear under level service adjusted yep for FY 26 is that electricity for
electricity how much do we have budgeted we are proposing budget $265,000 um and and that's based on um
the line funded um we had um an actual FY show that hady back into the line the line actually 26289 okay okay that's so level service
I'm just I just wanted to verify that level service had the increase and that it's not going to be too low I do believe that the line for electricity in all three versions of the budget is at 265,000 okay I just yep thank
you okay I'm going to skip over the expense cuts for a moment and come back to that as well um each of these budgets there is a salary Reserve number for our pending contract negotiations um
however the numbers are not exactly the same across the town manager budget the needs budget and the level service budget and that's because in the needs budget there are some positions that are restored therefore there needs to be more money in the salary reserve line
there are even more positions restored in the level service so however um yeah we've made the adjustments so that there's more money um in the salary reserve line depending on the version of the budget that we're looking at the
chapter any money right now is the governor's budget number and um that number is the same across all versions of the budget um circuit breaker um at 75% um again that number is consistent
across all three different versions of the budget if you take a look again we started with the town manager budget and then we built back we added positions back to get to the needs
budget we added positions back to get to the level service budget so when you take a look at this the it we indicate for you what the Gap is from the town manager budget which is the green
column over to the uh needs budget the needs budget is a 99.9% increase budget over this year it would be a 99.9% increase from this year's budget
number but compared to the town manager's number the the money that we have committed from the town that would give you a gap of 1.5 um if you go over to the level service the
increase from the current year fy2 is an 11.32% with a budget gap of a 1.9 now you might recall last year when we were talking about a level service budget we were in the vicinity of an 11.8% right for level service a year ago
um so we're we're in the same ballpark uh essentially now if you wanted to break down on grants applied so on and so forth there's a link you can go see the detail there but
if we go back to the Personnel reduction in the town manager's budget there's a link there if you open [Applause] that there's a list there's a list of the cuts that are
included now if you go back to that list that we started with on February 5th they're they're very very similar the two lists if you scroll down this list when you open this list you'll come across some yellow highlighted positions
those are the positions that the committee voted to cut nope that's not the one that's not that's not what we're seeing that's not the right file we want to do personal Personnel Cuts TM budget file yeah
hlinks on Google dock to deal with I know they turn whole te we looking for a Personnel it was in the orange line I can switch it over to you oh was that you no it's Liz it out I got
go I got sick trying to tell look got I was just hoping she didn't make changes right before can I just say that our students are very well behaved they are and they're very well spoken yeah oh you
guys are great and passionate and what came through to me is that they have very much enjoyed and appreciated all that their school committee has authorized as opportunities for them so good work school committee okay made the most of it too um yeah we have over 130
people on Zoom too they're being very well behaved too I think not for the most part sometimes they got to beet themselves not quite as well behaved I got all right we are ready continue here we go so there we go you'll see that there are as you scroll down there are a
couple of highlighted cuts that are in the town manager's budget that you have tonight those are the couple of positions that you voted last Wednesday so I had asked last meeting and at the February 5th meeting if we had rough
price tags attached to these cuts which I know is difficult because of bumping rats but if do we have can we zoom in I mean only only in as much as they're in the budget lines they're cut um like it's it's difficult to give you a price
tag again when we look at these right as an example just for the complexity no okay when you're looking at classroom positions grade 1 2 3 4 5 those teachers hold a license
typically licensed Elementary Ed 1 through six however they all have different seniority hiring dates so we have to take a look at that and they all have different backgrounds in education what step they're on what
Lane they're in are they in a master's a master's 15 um are they taking Insurance are they not taking insurance so it's it's really complex when we get down into the price tags attached to the teacher positions I don't need an exact price but a Rough Guide it could be
anywhere from uh 63,000 up to 10 one or three yeah okay and that includes the insurance some of that doesn't include the insurance throw some insurance in there could be some do I
mean but do we have an average if you add up the problem is the bumping rate it doesn't work that way right which is why I can't move these things on the fly in real time some positions I could non because it's not as complicated yeah but for for the teaching positions it's much
more complicated okay if you continue to scroll through that document I think we're down here let's go keep going you get on to the second page and these are the positions
highlighted in yellow here that were removed from the cut L keep scrolling you can scroll further down to the second page the yellow it's not scrolling for some reason are these in addition to the list above
these are the ones that are taken off the list that was on the list on February 5th okay okay these are the ones that are going back in so they they're not cut okay in the budget that you have before you the ones that are above are the cuts are the cuts and these are from the principal's
priorities list they are but they're also largely from the school committee's priorities list there you okay is there anything on here that was not on the principal's priority list I didn't get to compare no I
don'ts yes mtss special inclusion oh the secretary the secretary yeah the secretary I'm just so it was a secretary secretary social work hold on what was it can can you come up to the microphone
can you come up to the microphone please so the lmhs social worker position was on the February 5th [Music] list Tim sry principal lber Middle High School the question was um is there a list from the priorities that the
principles and the administration created to what the list is tonight my answer was I believe the what the lmhs social worker did not make that did not make that cut thank you yep thank you for sorry for making you come up thank you for answering that question I didn't
inclusion teacher special inclus so we got a little bit creative enough because we've seen some changing numbers of specialed students that have ticked up a case load not only
at the middle school but at the high school and at the Turkey Hill as well so one of the iterations that is on this budget and again we got a little bit
creative there was a cut of you have somebody zoom in I think people are having a hard time seeing I'm not sure that anybody can zoom in on that because it's a shared Zoom screen oh can you blow the the students are all showing us how to do that in the file yeah you can hop
on no the file itself who's the person who's sharing the file can we zoom in three dots in the right corner if you click on it can you guys by the come to every meeting just zoom in from the 100% in
the top left give the computer to the kid this happened to me the other day in the third grade oh my God and I said I don't know if I and they said no no just do this somebody told me we so smart thank you thank you there we
go all right we all learned something can we scroll down a little further I think they knew it I think they did too I think that's it yep just scroll down 1 two three four one two three long ones oh there's two more the special
education we can just tell them if she can't make it go down well there it is thank you okay so we we weren't able to restore all the positions that were on the principal's
list and in one particular circumstance we had a we had on the cut list we had a Turkey Hill special education inclusion teacher position we
also had on the cut list an mtss teacher position and given the shifting numbers of students on IEPs and the case loads that the teachers the special ed
teachers would have we got a little bit creative and we're only cutting a half an mtss and a half a special ed inclusion teacher yeah and because the special ed inclusion teacher is highly skilled enough to be filling the role of an
mtss yeah position position as well so we we cut half an mtss and a half a special ed inclusion um so that we have one position that would be in this budget
the town manager budget there's there is a staff member who would have responsibility in part for a reduced case load for special ed but also provide intervention mtss
support for Turkey Hill students Additionally the central office is moving to Turkey Hill if the coach positions Remain the coaches are capable of providing intervention support as well and
therefore they could supplement the mtss halim replaced position because I know the mtss positions coming back were important to many of the members of the school committee so essentially keeping one position we get the expertise and
some case load for a special ed we also get mtss supports for gened students and we will also have in the building coaches the coaches who can also provide direct intervention supports for
students which combined give you uh uh a pretty decent level of support for both special ed students and gened students who who are struggling other than that one sort of modification to the list of priorities
from um the principles um we we tried to restore what we heard were priorities from members of the committee which were largely classroom
teachers at the K5 level um mtss supports um and special ed supports so we prioritized those so Mr sry is correct there was not enough room remaining to
restore a social worker at the Middle High School therefore he'll still have one at the middle high school that could be used to support grade six through through 12 the social worker there still one there
y all right for for a little bit time we thought we might actually be able to get that position back and all right there just wasn't enough enough available money again um
the things that are not being cut in the town manager budget that you have in front of you we are not cutting kindergarten we are not cutting grade one grade three grade four we are not cutting a uh mtss position there were two at the
primary we're we're not cutting one there will be one full-time mtss at the primary we're not cutting half of a position of mtss at Turkey Hill we're not cutting half of a special ed teacher at Turkey
Hill um you see at the primary school and and um Turkey Hill we're not cutting half of a social worker in both places so essentially what that means is that they have a full-time social worker at
the primary now they will keep it they have a full-time social worker at Turkey Hill now they will keep it before they were going down from two positions across the schools to one so it would have equated to a half position cut in both
buildings can you talk we are not we are not cutting the middle school special ed inclusion position and we are not cutting the the high school special ed inclusion position in the town manager budget you
have in front of you tonight what does the M what does that do to the Middle School inclusion numbers I know there were for Middle School 29 to 19 not cutting it it's still we we're
still going to have we're still going to have a 29 No 19 I I will ask um Mrs hansum to come up to the microphone on that one I had a note that was a concern so I wanted to and she can speak to the case loads that we're seeing at Turkey
Hill as [Applause] well so currently um with two special education inclusion teachers it would be 29 for case load so if we increased it to three I think did the math it was 18
18 or 19 for the for each of them okay so this gets us back this gets us back on track okay and by restoring half a special ed teacher at Turkey Hill at Turkey Hill takes it from 25 to 20 which
what our Target was when we first started this but then numbers blossomed up over the last couple of months okay all right there just more kids getting picked up I mean not all right but better and moving in 29 it it is
that that was way too much yep okay way too much for two people to handle changing the color of that okay so these are the positions that are not being cut and again largely consistent with the feedback I got from the members of the
committee as to the priorities not to cut so I don't know if anybody has any additional feedback relative to that so what questions or comments to the committee members have Miss Aro um the only comment I would have is that I was
very glad to have the list from um the people with the boots on the ground so um I I the things that I might think of obviously you think of more because you see what goes on so I'm glad that we got
that list and that adjustments were made I think that's important um I I would still like to find two more positions somewhere okay I'd like to get another Elementary grade two and maybe maybe um Miss Squire has a
different idea what should be put there and I I I think we should try and find money for the um for the Middle High School social worker that was on the principal's list that yep we were not able to do I don't know if we can do that but I I
think I think that should be a goal okay we can talk about options to get there yep yep okay Mr scull brini so I count on the list 15 positions related to special education I count on the list
eight classroom teachers I count on the list list one half of a full-time equivalent to Athletics zero central office staff and one building assistant principal this is not everybody taking a haircut this is
not a proportional budget it targets classroom teachers and special education teachers and Par of professionals it has nothing to do with Athletics it has nothing to do with central office staff I cannot support this budget everyone
needs to take a haircut if we don't do that this is a path to mutually assured destruction we must spread these cuts out more it is bananas to me that we are cutting second grade teachers when we
are not doing anything about the $140,000 we spend on athletic transportation fees it this is not a fair budget this is not a balanced budget it does not spread the cuts across everybody I would love to keep every one of these positions and I would
love to keep everything untouched but Athletics and Student Activities need to Bear some brunt of the cuts that everybody else is is taking the this is not fair Mr beardmore I've asked this question
multiple times and it still is I I I'm not even sure it's been explained to me so I I can't say that it hasn't landed because I don't think it's been explained can somebody please explain why we're tracking
106% line increase in athletics when we're cutting a half a position and $10,000 in in uh that's a great point I don't see that in stuff yep so I would just offer this for context for why you
have what you have in front of you tonight um last week there were several other admin uh cut options right central office positions um other iterations of building
Administration um we did want to take another look at um all things Athletics in a larger context those were the conversations that happened at the end of last week's
meeting where you tabled several of those things I didn't presume to go ahead and put something in here that you tabled that said to Mrs Ash shambo's point we could revisit things that we
tabled last week you could decide to cut things that we taed last week and then and then we can make an adjustment you're not answering my question all due respect nobody has proposed any
increase in our athletic programs whatsoever but this shows 100% 106% lying increase it's the line increase in the budget for athletics no transportation for athletics and it was in revolving now it's in the budget okay
all right which is the explanation for the line increase it's just the the it's not to your point I think the first time we showed this back in January it's getting late again for me right we talked about and you said well the Athletics transportation is not increasing by that much no it's
increasing by the 7.6% that the dbus is increasing by but it's the budget line that's gone up that percent because we under budgeted we nope we can't we can't the revolving can't support that full
cost anymore so so let's let's let's go with that conversation for a so athletic Transportation costs are going up We Believe 7% from the current year to next year we have we're running a deficit in theol in the revolving account yep which
is nobody's fault except ours yep um we've just just increased our athletic fees albeit not as much as Tony would like to and some other people but we have increased them yep do we remember where's the offset
here Dr gillson why don't you come to the microphone okay so we're continuing our discussion internally on the transportation but um the realization was that if the athletic revolving um
offsets includ include officials um a $20,000 offset and the transportation the transportation that we're kind of tracking was Far exceeding um the $40,000 that were put aside in the local
budget and so the continued expense of the transportation plus um the the 7.7 uh 7% increase in transportation and so um with the collection of user fees
coming into that account we weren't getting um if the collection of re revenues coming in is about $136,000 if you add up you know a $20,000 offset for either a secretary or
an ad if you order um if you offset um Mr AEL and I had started to talk about budgeting for the revolving account like setting a budget of specific things that would actually be used for that um but our transportation amount we were really
concerned because we were only setting aside $40,000 in the local budget and our transportation costs like a figure we calculated today if you add up both of the accounts was coming out to be
$150,000 for a transportation cost so um that we were trying to draw that from um choice we were trying to dra you know and so we we just weren't making enough ends meet why are these different okay so I I I think what I understand is
that we this has been an underfunded line for quite a long time and we've been backing transfers and and and um revolving accounts and the revolving accounts cannot sustain that
we are leveling the line yes it's just it's very important that we're having to app conversation in terms of our cost because there is a line in this budget that says a 231 38% increase but because it was moved from a different line right
okay go ahead I have a followup on that so if in the whatever this first one is Town manager budget it goes up 106 then in the needs based it goes up
to 24% so that was we were um so where were you getting the extra money to fund the fund the transportation taking a Gamble and at the end of our conversation um we
were hoping we could fund with 55,000 more for transportation out of the revolving account but B Ju Just um $50,000 from the revolving account but as it um as we looked at the
possibilities um in terms of looking at the data for what was really coming in for um for uh and being multiple revolving accounts are being used to fund that line so we're trying to put everything back to write it up I I think
I can why different then I can speak to that Carol yeah if if it's best budget practice I I think in our minds the town manager budget is the realistic number that the town can support right the other budgets are here
because there was some indication that there might there might be some interest in having a conversation about what an override may do so that's why in the needs budget and the level service
budget we didn't take that that offset we can um but we didn't know if we didn't know how you wanted to to look at those other budgets relative to the possibility of an override conversation
that said we can still reduce those lines in those budgets I'm not worried about those budgets I'm more concerned about the town manager budget CU when I looked at it that kind of a a difference did not exist in the lines the lines
were only off by like eight grand correct right so why so this number this percent you are correct this percent is not reflecting the change that was made at the 11th hour today we
originally we were originally looking to offset with $59,000 which but what ended up in the line is only offset the 9,000 and that comes back to what we talked about last week if we cut huddle which is currently
paid out of the revolving and take that money that would have paid for a huddle and apply that to the transportation line we can reduce it about $99,000 so the conversation that we had the other day about reducing this line is null and void because we would based on the
actual numbers that we started pulling and finding okay but some of it was paid out of choice and some of it was paid out of the athletic revolving and some of it was paid out of the local budget you can't the numbers the numbers that we're looking at we're a little nervous as to whether or not even with some of the
ideas that were discussed when different members of the school committee met with the athletics department around raising revenue in other ways right we were we're a little bit worried as to whether or not we would actually be able to
increase enough Revenue stream pathetics are we in a position here with this funding Mech I have a number of questions still but with with this funding schema for athletic expenses and cost in general um but with the
substantial inre increase to the transportation line what do you think is going to happen with the athletic revolving account over the course of the next year do we think it's going to go up or do we think it's going to go down so we're still operating that is still in a deficit so we need to get back up to
zero and then get on the plus side we're in the whole map are we allowed to run yes yes but so so to be clear we are not going to backfill that deficit this year we are going to recoup funds that we are spending this year
through an increase in fees that we that we uh approved last week so it it really largely won't be backfilled by the increase to the fees because it's it's much more going to be backfilled by the the possibility of running um athletic
camps through the summer and bringing in some Revenue that way um as one example um we also as the committee had conversation at the last meeting about amending policy to drop the no
advertising policy so that could generate some Revenue we talked about um the possibility of a sponsorship program that could also generate some Revenue um so there were several ideas discussed
between last Wednesday's meeting and the last couple of days that we were thinking we might be able to generate some Revenue bring that back up towards the zero right but that we're we're not backfilling with the with the increase
to the to the fees that was much more about moving forward trying to have a reasonable offset to some of to some of the expenses thing was our fee increase basically kept the percentage the same at 26% so our fee increase generates no
Revenue none that was just not enough of a fee starting right but some of the other things that we were talking about might we're saying that but we're increasing the transportation line by nearly 300% I agree right like we're still we're spending more money we have
made no subsi of cuts so the other thing that another conversation that was had in the last handful of days and it's a conversation that I've actually had with the ad a few times over the last two years that he's been here the idea that um you
know we could purchase Vans passenger vans and therefore reduce the challenges and Mr beardmore knows this better than anybody we had the purchase of one of those vehicles in our Capital plan for several years and it never it was the last I think it was
the ranked the last on the on a long list and it was nowhere near ever getting to that funding line so a couple years ago we just took it out and put other things that the the town needed the district needed to be investing in
capital that said in the last year um we have had a conversation about the possibility of leasing these passenger vans we are getting more information relative to that however we that's a
conversation that we also have to include the town manager on because these are going to be Town vehicles with Town plates insurance so on and so forth so it's an idea that may still come to fruition and save us some money in
athletic Transportation costs but I don't have a concrete number for what that could be right now so it's not it's not in here so we put the money back in the line that doesn't mean that in the next week or two I don't find something
else out about the the the vans that we might be able to reduce that line and put the money elsewhere so I I'd like to change subjects for just a few moments um so and forgive me I've done as much
reading as I could to over the course of last week with the materials that were presented I read a lot of impact statements I it does not make for good be Beach reading good thing wasn't on a beach I don't want to mean make light of it but oh my goodness um one of the
things we had talked about last week was we had gotten a lot of feedback through email a lot through email I've seen a lot on social media we heard feedback tonight about central office staff mhm and I asked last week can we
take a more creative look at for example curriculum and see if we can share some of these responsib responsibilities across building administrators or the coaches themselves or those kinds of things
um I feel as if you know the the modest cuts that we've made to the district office which some of which are directly related to moving out of TC pasos I think that there's a public perent perception that is well
founded that those comments are are falling on deaf ears yep and and they're not falling on my deaf ears I feel like they're falling on my deaf ears so again I would take you back to the K I made a couple minutes ago as a committee you you voted
to table some of those yes Cuts so not wishing to preempt your decisions around which you would prioritize as a yes or a no they aren't in here that doesn't mean however that
we don't go back to what you tabled and have discussion and make a different decision and then decide based on that cut are we reducing the transportation line based on that cut are we restoring
a a second grade teacher or or a social worker right again where you you started to have the conversation but tabled them and maybe maybe that's the next route that we take start going through some of
the proposal serious I want to go through the position we serious yes so let's do that so why don't we turn the page and do that so the the other thing that I would say is that you have a a LinkedIn document for the expense
cuts um I updated the sheet you have um actually we did too um we were working on that while you started working oh sorry um it's okay um let me make sure
so you have uh cost associated with the list of expense cuts that were uh presented on February 5th yep still and you also have um a list of the expense cuts that
already had prices attached to them from last week's meeting and then um something that um we considered and and put on the bottom of the list is a a proposal that
um I guess sort of was tabled um at the last meeting relative to the high school advisors the stipend for clubs um based on the number that we built into the
budget that was based on all of the stipend that are in the contract the number in the budget reflects that however when we take a look at what actually has run historically it's a much lesser number and that's why we
felt we could throw that uh dollar amount in and reduce the high school activity advisor stipend and it will still leave enough money if all the clubs that run this year run again next
year there will still be enough money in the line for that so that is a new reduction it it's actually a reduction on the salary side of the budget but yeah um that's a that's a new reduction it's not a complete elimination of the
line no no but but that reducing by that value allowed us to put the positions in that we put in um and hit the zero to get to the town manager's number so for what it's
worth yep as I look at these if we could find additional savings in central office yep before we start working our way down the principal's
lists I would restore all of the music lines on this list um we find additional particularly Transportation I I'm just as I'm as I'm thinking about this and I'm hearing what I heard today how much was the the amount of money we're putting relative
to these things like in my mind band transportation and some of these music expense lines are relatively small numbers and I think are important for us to be able to sustain that
program so what I would like to do is go through positions that people would like to bring up for debate all right this SK breed the football team has five coaches there are 32 players on the
football team mhm that is a 6.4 to1 student to coach ratio that's not you have inaccurate information is this information inaccurate the students we can hear from the athletic director not from the students okay we can but we also can
hear from Dr Gilson as to what is in the budget so in other words there might be that many coach positions in the budget but this year not that many coaches so how many coaches do we have for football can you five coaches yeah okay
so that is correct I was referring to the roster we have 40 kids okay so but the number that we have on Mr Bigelow's data is 32 children correct we're going off fy2 24 because fy2 data is complete because uh spring
okay so at the very best we have an 8:1 student to coach ratio in our classrooms in first grade second grade and third grade the best we have is a 20 to one these are the years that we teach kids
how to read we give them the fundamental skills to do all other schoolwork we cannot sustain that kind of spending on something that is not reading related this is the year these are the years
that we have to get these kids able to read we have a learning deficit because of covid we cannot sustain five coaches for the football team it doesn't mean that we cut them all but everybody needs to take a haircut and Athletics is taking no haircuts they have a half
full-time equivalent that is going away and the uniforms and the uniforms but like that's just not that is not what a school can do we are not a school if we don't have educational priorities and a
an 8:1 student to coach ratio on the football team is not sustainable in a town this size if we get more money if there's more Revenue then we can bring them back but we've got to focus on classroom education we are already out
of balance and these Cuts do not bring us closer to balance it has to happen there's got to be something that changes and there's tons of other places where we could save a little bit of money but if we have this attitude that these things are off limits that they are
forboden then we are just guaranteeing mutually assured destruction we cannot sustain that what's the price I need to know the cost so what wait are you leaving tomorrow okay Virginia assistant coach $2,700 coach I know a question is
he R the airport so I I'm going to jump in here on Athletics so I did reach out with some questions um and I don't know if there was other questions from other people
but I had asked about the number of uh surrounding towns in our league basically the the league teams that we play against the Midland watus sit schools um whether they have indoor track because I feel like not every
school is indoor track I'm a teacher as well and the school I'm not in the Midland wett league but my school does not have indoor track I think of that is a unique skill a unique team that isn't for every school in town and I was
surprised to find that almost every school 23 out of 26 schools in the Midland watusa have indoor track um it's incredibly popular here and it was just tingbo west Boyston Tanto didn't uh I was also concerned
about Middle School sports maybe there's not a lot of I'm I'm a high school teacher maybe there's not a lot of middle school teams and there was uh a large list of Middle School field hockey teams and a large list of Middle School cross country it didn't give me a total
large list of middle school girls and boys basketball and also Middle School track and field and then I looked at the list very closely and if you look closely you will also see Hawthorne Brook School and you will also
see miss sisit both schools middle schools in North Middle sex which is having a very very hard time with their budget right now and I cannot vote for cutting any sport because all of those all of those
students who play sports if you get cut those kids are going to look for other surrounding towns and go to lemonster and go to fitzburg like Mr beardmore had said and they're going to increase their sizes and the $177,000 approximately per student that we get for lunenberg is
going to go to those sending towns so you're going to see if if you cut especially High School sports kids will go to different high schools to play sports and we're going to lose those students in our communities like this is not something that other surrounding towns are even considering you see it
North Middle sex has had massive cuts and they're still having Middle School sports I cannot support any cuts to the sports Mr beardmore Ton's not wrong I mean we all sat here at the beginning of the year and
said student achievement is our top priority right so I I mean we all have to be honest with ourselves here like you know these are as we talked about last week these are the least bad decisions how do we find those right
we've we've had a conversation in the last week about reading in mathematics it's primary and Elementary School levels and we've restored positions in those spaces I'm I tried to express last week this
whole idea of it's really not the primary school or the elementary school or the middle school or the high school it's the lunenberg schools because we want a kid who starts in kindergarten to graduate from lunenberg and in my and we have historically we
have always as has every other school system in Massachusetts spent substantially more in the high school than we do at the Elementary School grades it just it costs more to educate a high school student period end of story and
Athletics are a part of that education and they're part of that experience and they're part of the brand that we talked about earlier I want to offer just one more thing because you brought up coaches you want to talk about Revenue
sources those guys work for a fraction of minimum wage we underpay every single one of them and I can't think of an hour for hour benefit that
is greater than a coach in our schools based on the dollar value that we I'm going to say that teachers are better but we are paying that is what we do we are paying on an order of magnitude probably 25x
on an hour for hour basis so I mean it I agree there's no winner to this argument here right like these are but but but it's not black and white Tony it just isn't M brazowski bu
it is nope M Aro um what I I understand how all this is all put together and such and and I still agree with Tony that everybody needs to have
something cut unfortunately I wish it didn't have to I had a couple of thoughts take them or not I maybe a minority opinion but that wouldn't be the first time um one of my thoughts was
we seem to be cutting like a fourth or a fifth of all classroom areas maybe we cut a fourth or a fifth of all coaches leaving it up to the the expert in the field which would be the athletic director to determine where those cuts would be that's
fair I'm not an expert at that I'm not going to sit here and say we shouldn't do ski or get rid of one of the football coaches or whatever but I would leave that to the expert that's one thought I have the other thought and I know it's
not popular and I'm very sorry is the athletic director and so I did some research chch there are a fair amount of communities our size that run without an
athletic trainer trainer or director trainer director trainer I mean trainer sorry I keep saying the wrong word for that I'm talking about the trainer I do not think we should cut our very accomplished athletic director sorry that keeps
coming out of my mouth um he had they had to correct me at the meeting we had like four times and I started Ed by saying I would not cut Mr Bigelow's position at all I but the athletic trainer there is not one at Brownfield
there's not one in mid there's not one at Murdoch there's not one at nanet there's not one at Tanto there's not one at West Boon do I think that's good no I don't think that's good do I think
it could cause a problem with the athletic um schedule yes Mr Gigalo explained that to me the other day that when you can't find a trainer for a certain activity that um for a certain game then
you end up having to cancel the game or forfeit the game or a reschedule and it's very difficult can I just add that some of those schools that you mentioned don't have football or hockey can you can you come to the mic please that could be that is very important that's important to know that's important to
know that was not on my question the list but some I think it sounded about half of those schools that you just mentioned have football or hockey and then the other half might be looking for a trainer and just can't find one Tanto doesn't and um Brownfield School definitely does not correct I can tell
you there have been circumstances such as narraganset when games have been delayed because there's nobody on the sideline and everybody's kind of looking at each other do we do those are that those are the situations that that's the
situation but it's just in my and I appreciate that correction cuz I did not ask the person I was talking to for that piece of information C can I also we we're talking I've heard everybody's got to take a haircut when we're up here and I think I said in our meeting you know
one-onone that it's just apples aren't apples and you just said you know not everything's black and white or whatever the euphemism was that you used um you know and it was asked what do you suggest we cut right I heard that multiple times over the last week and I said I don't have any I have those
revenue streams and other you know proposals that I had but you know it was brought up Middle School sports and at the end of the day and you know Brian you just touched on it but at the end of the day after user fees came in and what we spent out
that's $6,500 in savings so to me to have a third of our middle school students 107 to be involved in Middle School sports and to say is $6,500 worth it did that it depends on what your parameters are but to me that would be
no did that include the transportation correct yes they don't get they don't have the same Transportation have the same number of so so I wanted to add that again we talk about everybody's got to take a a cut we did raise the athletic fees the athletic director is
looking at reducing costs for transportation through Leasing and potentially hopefully another Capital plan uh of some buses maybe we can get some data and get some Capital plans on that but I think and also the advertisements I think a lot of this is going to be put on the shoulders of the
athletic director to be doing advertisements at the fields but I also would say that the parents of the second grade students would pay $325 a year to have the teacher absolutely Mr Bowski not based on the feedback that I read this week again
let's try to make sure we have some balance in our discussions um I also want to point out the athletic department has lost an Athletics secretary as well it's a three-person department so I do want to take a vote on that too so that's clear too okay well they they might lose an athletic
secretary who does a lot of important work and that's going to fall in the athletic director I would also add that that would you know as far as bringing in those fees and collecting those fees and then you know that would have an effect on that yep so I do want to say I
actually I I agreed I originally thought we should cut the athletic trainer and I looked into it the health and safety of our students is one of our primary goals and and I I the concussion thing the
fact that we have trained professionals who watch for the concussions who watch for our students health and safety I think I think the athletic trainer is important I hate it because it's expensive it seems like an easy cut but I I really don't think it is I I think it's important that we have it I think
with we have a lot of sports that involve physical contact and I think the athletic trainer is the best way to mitigate for us to mitigate those risks to our students all right I think we're getting close is there any other final comments before we start making some motions I
stated what I wanted to State okay then I'll look for a [Music] motion What specifically are you looking for anything to try to move on from Athletics motion we move on or wait should we talk I would make a motion to to cut Athletics across the field across
the board and allow Mr Bigalow to make decisions equal to Carol's proposal but they take a fourth of coaches yeah one one quarter of their budget be cut is there a second they one quarter of whose budget Athletics athletic coaches yeah
one quarter Athletics or just athletic coaches I either is fine but I think I your motion I only have consensus to do the the the coaches I'll second the coaches all right any discussion once again we're about to make a decision with no
data we asked for it well what no because you're saying you want to make a you want to make a percentage cut but you don't know exactly where those cuts are going to happen we have some sports that have one coach we have one that you pointed out that has five if we if we go
25% then are we going to cut or from football because there's not cutting Mr Big needs to cut cuz he knows once again well it's not going to pass okay well then any other discussion stop wasting our time so that's why I let's go all
those in favor say I I opposed no the motion does not pass any additional motions On Athletics votes I would like to motion to cut the athletic secretary is there a second I second any discussion I I think that this is going
to have a um substantial detriment on our ability to run this program um given the conversation we're having tonight I wish I had a cost this well it's basically it's $20,000 which will
be 20,000 and and we'll we'll backfill the the ad cost and will be absorbed by the by the rot by the revolving fund um this is a this is going to have a substantial effect on our athletic department it's not going to have the
the the type of effect that cutting 25% of our coaches would have or or cutting the ad or cutting the trainer um but it's going to have an effect I will vote to support it given the conversation that we're having tonight but I do it with a if we do it it means no camps lot
of reservations it means no camps because she folks we got to cut something like the budget is due no we got to cut stuff we C going to be a revenue stream and why does that mean camps maybe we can invite Mr bigo up
again to the microphone I didn't that when we had a conversation I don't know that it doesn't mean no camps I'm just right I don't I I don't know that it doesn't mean but it it does mean it's harder we take a hit in compliance as far as you know
athletes um in compliance number of ways academically uh physicals um all that stuff that that information that comes in at the beginning of each season uh it also has an enormous effect and this is where you know
tracking down the the user fees so it's all great that we're going to raise the user fees fantastic but if you know we yield 15% less because we don't have the time to track down those user fees what is that equal or whatever the percentage
is I don't you know we we don't have a number on that but if we yield far less and then we raised fees and at the end of the day it was all for not thank you so we had we had talked about sports camps in the summer as a revenue
stream is that something that you can do uh ye yes and I think with other coaches involved and I think did you get I had a quick proposal that I put together in a 4- we um you know summer
programming I think was going to net on just even $25,000 right so that doesn't any other discussions I I I think it's challenging uh but I do I do know that not every school has the secretary and every like
we said everything has to take a hit and this is everything hurts sadly where I think we're going to land any other discussion all right we have a motion on the floor I'm going to do it um and we'll do a vote um all those in favor say I in oh do we have a sec I think we have a second yeah Carol second can I
ask something first though does this get Revisited if money if like these numbers and we're talking about data and having correct data so uh yeah I will uh I will add to that so again if if the town gives us more money if the state gives us money more uh we can revisit all all
positions to see which ones we would reinstate got it we're we're chiseling here but we're not voting on a final budget tonight I don't think probably not probably not I I'd also suggest that if the camps are particularly successful
in generating revenue and we see Revenue coming in from advertising or sponsorships the revolving account might get to a healthier spot and we might be able to come back and reinstate of course the
part-time secretary to be paid once again out of the revolving account if we can get some more revenues flowing into that account y thank you Dr Burnham I'd like to focus all right we have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I opposed abstain the motion passes
unanimously thank you any other athletic proposals motions I would I would like to talk about the transportation fees for athletics yes one of the problems that we have is that we we
pay the bus company to sit at all of our athletic events we should authorize Mr Bigalow and other coaching staff to try to start discussions to reduce the incredibly far
distances that some of these events are and the incredibly long time spans like my son is in track we go to Reggie the bus sits there for 11 hours but we go to Reggie five times uh a season and it's like everybody in this area is having
these budget crises everybody in this area has money that they are leaving on the table because we can't go race it Fitchburg or some other closer track we need to do something to coordinate where these events are across the league to
try to save money I am not going to try to propose that we make any cuts to anything else it is clear we will lose we are going to fail at this but we've got to have some Revenue savings somewhere and compelling them to try to reduce the number of far away Meats is
something we need to do it's just too much money I think Mr Bigalow has uh some good direction from the committee it seems like we're done with Athletics let's move on what other positions would you like to uh discuss oh actually I was going to say I'm okay with
transportation fees for athletics but we should move on let's go to central office yes have we discussed the curriculum director no yes we have not we can I don't think we any of the
positions so my my takeaway from our discuss question last week was that we were going to get some feedback on the request that I articulated and what was your which was
that we look at re we take another look at the curriculum office together with the coaches and the other folks that report into the curriculum coordinator and see if there is a way
that we can economize particularly on that role and we went many years in lunenberg without a curriculum director and I think we paid the price for that yes we did and I I acknowledge that on the other hand this is one of those things where in the corporate world you
invest in a thing that you're deficient in you get it up and then you focus on something else that you're deficient in and you're you're you're you know it's it's a um it's it's that sort of uh whatever the game is where you're whack them all right like that and I I I
acknowledge that that's what I'm looking to discuss here is a game of whack right so let's just put cards on the table that being said given all of the points that we've just talked about in terms of what's worth a coach or a teacher or a custodian I I think that this is
something that we need to have a thorough analysis of Alternatives yep that could include a shared responsibility across the team responsibilities on principles I I don't know what this is
way out of my area of expertise but once again back to my earlier point we're getting a lot of feedback and it's not just from you know that percentage of people that are completely uninformed it's from our Union that is saying look at central office and and I feel like we
are not we are not even fully vetting those options at least that's my my my personal op so I don't know if that takes a vote on our part to say please go do this you you had a proposal okay I have not read that so um no it was in
the slide deck from from the last meeting so which page was that we do actually that's a good thing to look at because a lot of these different proposals were on that slide deck yeah which slide deck title the impact
statements or I wonder what slide I was I'm looking I'm just trying to find it there were many Nest so much stuff this is in the 226 meeting yes it is yep yep 226 okay so if you look
at you could take a look at slide 61 61 what's the name of the deck compl compl FY 26 here we go yeah all right there slide 61 just going to close them how I could have possibly missed slide
61 I don't know out of 94 there we go so it does mention eliminate director of teaching and learning position it did not mention any coaches nope but it talks about I want to know what happens if you if you the notation there is that if you eliminate
the director of teaching and learning position um you have some potential savings about 125,000 you would have to add um Title One coordinator role to one of
the coach positions and that person would have to be paid a bit more money to take on the responsibility of uh submitting uh and managing um the the title
grants for the for the district that said you're they are not going to fully fill the function of the director of teaching and learning they will keep the title grants going um but the essentially the
um it it'll go back to the model that existed when I got here minus the title one coordinator because that wasn't even here when I got here um so the the responsibility for professional development days would fall back to building based Administration they would have to develop that curriculum
decisions again would fall back to the principles were the ones that were making those decisions I think the committee and I I'm trying not to speak for the committee but I think we want to also explore the option of keeping the director of teaching and learning but then eliminating the coaches putting more of that responsibility on the
director of teaching and learning coach one coach so if you were to eliminate the coaches one coach one coach one coach would you prioritize keeping the math coach or the literacy coach I would I would keep the coach
that Dr bookas if if Dr bookas is his background is more Ela I would keep the math coach okay what is Dr background I because because the director of teaching and learning would need to step in in some of those
areas okay I would agree so if that's if that's the model that you want to explore um losing one coach um which which is fully funded with um the title Grant right
right would then you could then apply the money right to one of the mtss teachers that's been put into to the budget right which would then allow you to restore a gened teacher right or an M
or a social worker or an mtss teacher be something well because we were going to use the special coaches partially as we were going to use the specialist partially as
mtss yep teachers so if we're if we're if we're getting rid of them I don't want to have to have the Dual conversation of we're going to cut this and what do we fill it with though I think my concern is that if we're cutting above the specialist and we're cutting below the specialist everything
has now fallen to The Specialist and they're they're having to serve as the Director of curriculum and they're having to serve as the mtss coaches and we have put so much on this middle collapsed level and that's just not possible they can't do three
different my ask is not to build an orb chart my ask is can we FL this out a little bit and bring back a explanation of what that would look like yep and I we need to have a fully flushed out
explanation for you to consider it right if you if you keep the director of teaching and learning and they keep doing the work that they do but then take on a little bit of the coaching role they still
can't be filling the gap of this is everything the coach used to do and this is everything I used to do right so there's going to be some level of of impact one person's word right so there'd be some level of impact but your net gain right is that there'll be a
Coach position not being funded with Title One money the title one money has to be applied in a certain way the way to do that is to pay for one of the mtss teachers which then frees up their salary to to restore a different a
different position right yes right yes I understand all those mechanics what I don't know is what's the impact right like the effect on how we're running things and I I I honestly don't I have no idea but I feel like that's what we have to
get to so I'm wondering if um I don't think we can do that tonight yeah I was to say there may be some information in your impact statements um because I know that the um the entire office worked on the roles who's doing what um so we might be able
to to parse out some of of what's in there but I think you have a good direction of the committee at this point okay let's move on to another another position um the number four here eliminate Director of Finance and administration position
not that we want and add HR Consulting contracted support potential savings 55,000 just for the Public's sake too that's a lot of money not once again it's the least bad things to do so
um thoughts on that Mr scol brini so one of the things that I talked about with my very good friend and official toy Peter is to we are actually good thing we're in a meeting oh no a you
said that like your enemies we are actually friends I like I called you and asked you this I didn't know is instead of reorganizing it this way what I would propose is that we take off some of the reporting requirements from Vice
principles that we eliminate the cost for outside counsel and that we eliminate the HR Services we hire a general Council to do all of those jobs and then we have an accountant in the business manager position that way we
have an accountant who does accounting and a lawyer who does legal and we are saving money by eliminating Vice principles by eliminating business manager and by cutting the costs for outside Vice principles do a lot with the students I'm not sure that's fine
but like we we got like folks we are I'm not hiring a lawyer I'm not hiring a lawyer that's fine but like we're $1.5 million away but I think this proposal of going to an accountant and then supplementing with some additional HR
Consulting and legal that works that saves us $555,000 but the problem is we're spending that much plus the outside Council for other things and that's the cost of an inside lawyer I don't think Mr beardmore I can tell you that is again we want to try to balance
the conversation here Mr beardmore so Tony and I did talk about this at some length last week and my feedback to Tony initially was having been around a little bit and watched attorneys land on Executive boards in lenberg invariably
attorneys want to change something when it comes to council uh representation um and we usually make a change and then four or five years later we change it back and the reason why we change it back is because firms that specialize in
education law or Municipal law generally require more than one expert it it's a it's a pretty large breadth of space and when you have a firm on retainer you need that breadth of expertise and and we've gotten ourselves in some legal
Harang Ms over the years because we have not gotten good advice from local Council um so that being said I'm open to creative ideas right like I I don't but but just a word of caution I've seen this movie and and and and that's why I
call my to yeah um one question that I have for you Tony is number one what do you I mean because I I think there's some disagreement here number one what is the actual cost of doing that as you just described in terms of hiring somebody because I don't know what the
market is for a staff attorney so here's the thing like the person the experience that I'm thinking of happened in the Manchester district schools in New Hampshire and it was a person who went from the public defender where they did almost exclusively juvenal work so they
had a sense of what the law was in that area they also had some special education experience and they moved from that job into the Manchester job that person and you can look up the salary for these people that person was making less than $80 ,000 a year a lawyer yes
that is what people do not understand the vast majority of lawyers why did you interact with them as a lawyer all right let's to stay on I also worked at the public def were they getting no no I worked at the public def okay yeah all right Miss Areno Mr bore you still more
one one additional question on this which is given the scenario that you just described yeah and and I I'm very interested in the fact like for example every time that we run run an investigation and our VPS and HR folks are running investigations all the time
yep those investigations then need to go in front of an attorney which we are kicking up to our retained uh in the circumstan that you just described how frequently do you think that would need to be those sorts of
Investigations would need to be reviewed or we'd have to kick up for additional outside so they the last year Council I did seven interactions with the Manchester in-house Council of those
zero were sent to outside Council she knew what she was doing I was her opponent and I did not appeal anything and maybe that's because we did good y but I think that like if you hire the right person the cost savings can be huge and people think that lawyers are
much more expensive than they are one one last question um the difference between hiring a person versus retaining a firm to do the work is that the firm can't quit for the most part correct right and and so when
you're when you have an individual doing that work um and it's all being done sure by one individual unlike what we currently have which is we we do have a spread of people doing a lot of this work yeah um and so there's some
the there's some elasticity or or fault tolerance when somebody quits or gets sick or something along those lines um what do you think the potential impact is in that sort of circumstance so what I would say is having been both a consumer and provider of legal Goods the
current people we have we've only had minimal interactions but when we are on policy subcommittee we had a real problem getting answers to things in a timely fashion and so when you have a lot of people everybody can pass the buck so I think that you're right that having all your eggs in one basket is
risky but the other option has also has drawbacks that we encountered on a pretty regular basis but we adjusted I mean I'm just going to say this like there was a lot of stuff that we teed up for them and did a lot of work to get a
yes or no answer because we couldn't get anything else but we have a new firm I know we have a new firm we have a new firm now because of that like that's no longer the only other the only I said just one other thing is I am worried about as I said last week and again I'm
open to considering this and fleshing out a broader conversation about it and even looking at the Hard numbers and turn if this turns into a proposal with dollar value attached to it um I I am concerned about the disruption to central office MH because number one the
thing we just got done talking about in terms of one major part of central office um we have a new superintendent that we'll hopefully be hiring soon um and we're about to physically move our central office to another space so now
we have no we have no practice currently that conforms to the the approach that you've just described I think it I think it makes sense but it'll be a situation where everybody's new and nobody really knows their job and I I am concerned
about that given the the resource constraints that we're operating under the you know like with next September could be a really tough month yeah and I I just I'm I'm worried about that that level of impact if we go and make that change two things that I want to say in response to that the first thing is the
practice of law has changed dramatically and especially after covid like I am very rarely in my office and it doesn't hamper my ability to do the work I need to be there to meet with clients but everything else you're just driving around the second thing that I would say
is this position would do one other thing it would help help offload the work that we currently pile on our superintendent and make the new superintendent's role less arduous we could have that person step in at
certain meetings so I think that while it would be a lot of new stuff at the same time we're going to have that to a certain degree anyway and the the practice of law has changed pretty dramat dramatically Miss AR B um I'd be
interested in looking into that all right I would say I am very concerned I have the same concerns Mr beardmore had and I would be hesitant to do that I just I think we're a small town and I would be concerned if we
didn't have that position filled um that it would be an issue so we can have more discussion but I would look for a motion too on the Topic at hand Director of Finance Administration well well I wanted the
accountant idea at least that make a motion I'm not sure how to I think you do that independent of having a general counsel just replace that person with a and then keep the model we have now um how would I phrase that do we have an impact statement we do it's
linked to in the in the my uh Slide Five on the I it's linked to in my sheet here let's go that's why I linked them all here you want me to read it yes please impact restructure Director of Finance
and administration position no dedicated person to ensure that state and Desi School Finance regulations are followed no dedicated person to ensure accurate end of year reports grants management and Desi compliance all CR crucial for State funding and audits no dedicated person to ensure all purchasing and
contract follow Massachusetts procurement laws finance and administration and HR responsibilities will fall to other central office Personnel including superintendent risk lack of financial oversight and collective bargaining teachers pair professional secretaries custodians Food Service weaken long-term Financial
Planning and capital Improvement strategies um and then there's a link to even more detail which I am not going to click on now that you say it that way um maybe we but I and I also did put that our Director of Finance and administration is our procurement
officer as well um uh however I am still it it would be really great to have an accounting person in this role with a firm handle on accounting after this week it would be very wonderful to have
someone to have if we could have an accountant on staff it would be fantastic so that's what I'm so if I could just offer this thought too right hm um you can still post the position as a business manager position with the
primary focus for their responsibilities connected to accounting function right um not the HR stuff that Mr Cassidy used to do limit it to the finance piece um we can post the
position requiring the Desi license or what sometimes happens when we're hiring if somebody doesn't have the license but they're working on it we indicate in the contract that they have to obtain the
license by a certain time or or their employment is done um so there there are ways while it's listed here as an accounting we you could still post it as
a business manager position requiring the license and and we know that there aren't a ton of them out there licensed right now with the state it it's a shortage everywhere however if you if you're willing to bring someone in and have them commit to working to obtain
the license and you give them the support and time to get that work done um you can mitigate some of the impact that that was outlined any other
questions or discussion Mr good more absent a complete overhaul the way Tony's described it I'm uncomfortable with this I I just think that the disruption is going to be too great and exceed the cost savings um I'm mindful
of capital projects that we have in motion the Turkey Hill project that we have in motion the track and field that we're hoping to get some momentum around and I'm just I'm worried about our ability
to the the the continuity um there and and I I now if it's a and for for $50,000 of savings I just I just think that the impact would be too great given some of the things that we have got to get accomplished
over the course of the next you know couple of years um the that said I I think if we fles out Tony's proposal and can look at this on a little bit grander scale I'm I'm open to it I'm just I'm not comfortable saying we want to take the
position save $50,000 and pair it down and and deal with those those continuity impacts but wouldn't the chasing down the capital projects pending we do find one and and he said go to facilities
then isn't that just being done by Finance cuz we have no facilities yes that wasn't supposed to correct that wasn't in the job description I don't think but we we have not I mean the reality is is that let's say we hire
somebody that's awesome in that role which given recent I know but there's always hate you know I'm not I'm not willing to at this point dice on that optimism full optimism and there's still the Handover
there's still the institutional knowledge still the You Know M pki oh God I don't remember it's late it's like 10:00 at night well we we may have to table this if we don't get a motion so move on yeah I'm I'm Pro Tony's idea but not
this year absolutely not this year I think it's too many changes this year but I I want to talk about it next year but as far as this I'm I don't know how to make this motion you make the motion that's there you can revise it I move to table this until we can't
keep tbling stuff again he can make a motion that's fine anybody can make a motion I move to table all right seeing no second I will uh can I I I motion to change the Director of Finance and administration
position to um a accountant Position will come up with a title uh for a savings of $55,000 and a cut at The District administration level I'll second that motion any
discussion so so the option is we do that that would still fit into your plan of what you're thinking of so I'm okay with that unfortunately my only concern is we're going to leave ourselves exposed for a
year and I in the sense that like all of these compliance issues will now be attended to by no one so like again back to what Peter said for $50,000 in one year I don't think it's worth getting rid of I mean it we the problem is we have to
make some cuts and we're not making any cuts to anything else so like we're coming down to this point where we're saying like we want to cut a compliance person who does legal matters which is like the single greatest risk of cost increase to the school district outside
of out of District placements it's it's a suicide PCT we have made a suicide pack tonight any other discussion all we have a motion on a second all those in favor say I I I opposed i h no motion fails 3
to two all right any other positions this is this list has been covered I think it has unfortunately you've voted no on anything else that was on this
list so are we ready to move on on the [Music] agenda so it is an action item for the are we 26 recommended budget and then the public hearing is next okay so so what we have done with this is
to table an ask for a report on how to reorganize teaching and learning that's what we've gotten out of this discussion is that am I keeping score correctly that is that yeah the only thing that we have done we have no Cost Cuts it might be helpful to me to know what it is
you're looking to restore if that cut can happen because did you get a price for me for the price for what the music teacher
Tes my initial thought second grade yeah for the M second grade is not on the principal's priority list I mean I'm all for it cuz but it's not on the principal's priority list I just I did want to point that out well I would do second grade of the
social worker at the middle high school because that that was the principal's request my my thought second grade sets you for the year and then I'm expecting additional Chapter 70 funding don't know how much maybe even additional Town funding and we can fill
in social workers later where a second grade you want that consistency that's a good for the year well that is a good point Brian yes practical like we need somebody in there yeah the social worker is on the priority list yes so that's why I said
that but but that does make sense because chances are we will get more Chapter 70 money usually you do get a little more as you go along even if we could put a half a social social worker position in afterwards I think looking at last year's we had that fall town
meeting I think it was right around 30,000 and I think right now the legislators are trying to get us even more so that would be the thought is it's going to be bigger than 30 Chapter 70 is a hot talk topic but you never know what's going to come down the pike to so can I get that price on the THS
music teacher I'm getting it for you right now this should be information that we had available before this meeting well the the challenge is though like I said if bumping there's no bumping for this there is not oh
no yes we should have had this before this is do we need to recommend a budget for the superintendent to take to the finance the cost between the8 and the 6 is $1,630
we're cutting fifth grade band for $14,000 because we did not cut it because we don't have if we could find that someplace else that would be a place to put everyone of vote an hour ago
um so what what happens tomorrow night if we are still stalled out which should appear as we are we are done we just go and say we're still stalled out my thought was that we would recommend the super super intendent bring forth the town
manager's budget I I can't I mean I think so many people that are classroom teachers we're just we're but what should she present to the finance committee we have no consensus cuz we don't we haven't cut anything well I don't think we're recommending a a
budget but I think we want to have the superintendent present to the finance committee and what budget do we want to have or present I I think what do you think having been yeah I mean look there was past practice before I joined the finance committee that the finance
committee got what it got and I attempted to put into place a program whereby the finance committee was hearing a budget that was supported by the school committee such that they had something more substantive to go on as they were writing the report town
meeting that was back in the day when we were doing that presentation on the 17th 18th or 19th of March and the whole thing was delayed part of the discussion that we had here a few months ago about
this timeline is the risk for exactly the situation we are in right now and that was known like we said we intend to be able to land a budget but if we can't we can't and we will give you a status report and go through all the ins and outs as was presented tonight and I
think the superintendent has a lot of additional color commentary by the way there's more than one member of the finance committee that's watching this meeting as we speak so like you know I I think the best we can do is give them the best information that we have and and they and and if we need to go back
in a week or two after this conversation is further developed then we do that I agree but I think the public should know what the expectations are with the town manager's budget if that's what's presented just because I feel like the other departments I mean we are unique but the other departments are all
presenting probably the town manager's budget right proposed budget oh I I I I think that's the expectation particularly after some of the debacle that we went through last year that that that's the expectation um and I'm okay with starting there
right like this is what's currently in front of the school committee we made some decisions tonight make sure that that reflects those decisions as best you can and here are the things that are in motion right but but you start from the town manager's budget cuz that's the that's the real istic place we're at
right now so do we want to table the FY 26 recommended budget I what we're thinking I think we have to yeah so let I'm looking for a motion then I move to table the FY 26 budget uh recommendation I shouldn't we
be doing that after the public hearing yeah I think we have well we do have after is the FY 26 budget hearing I think the intention there was more about what's the endorsement what what is it that you want me I think you we have to have know where we're at I don't think we even need a motion yeah we don't need and
then then we can say let just move on to the next agenda item then um but I would also point out that the night that the uh finance committee was expecting to hear the town manager's budget she didn't have it either it wasn't her fault she had just started she was in
like 10 days and I mean that delay delays us too and and I think there is an understanding that things are a little up in the air I it would be nice if we could but I don't want to do something just to do it
on time and I for what it's worth though I'm not excited as I said earlier tonight I have no apologies I have no apologies for where we're at right now like this is the this is the ugly business we're in ladies and gentlemen it's ugly yeah and here we are and this is why it's it's a it's a
budget season you can't just do it in a night it's it's you get updates you make changes and we're going to keep moving so just for clarification were there any things on the expense line cuts that you you want me to take off can
because at least if I know that that's a solid support then I know that we're not looking to try to restore something there and juggle something else have we put huddle on the cuts yes huddle is on the cuts because we're applying $9,000
from revolving that used to pay for huddle to offset some of the transportation line okay and I wonder if because we are not cutting any athletic Transportation which is what I thought we were going to do that we should restore at least half
of the music Transportation yeah so we're not cutting we're not cutting oh my God we're getting in the opposite direction guys I know but I I thought we were going to have a cut in athletic Transportation well I think we are potentially having some Cuts in the athletic Transportation
if they to lease the vehicles there will be some savings I'm just saying I think we should my my position is again since we're not going to land a budget tonight I'm okay with the with the cuts as proposed I have a list in my mind of the
first things I would restore ifap that's best the way to I think that might be the way to come at that's probably the best way Tobe a survey of the members yeah something like that yeah and get get priority priority list of what to bring back we won't that way you'll have the data but I don't want to want to restore anything tonight given where
we're at yeah I think having at least the survey and having the superintendent know our priorities okay uh so moving on the FY 26 budget hearing this is my first budget hearing as chair so feel free to help me out open the budget hearing so we're going to open the uh oh
make a motion or just do I open it I move to open the FY 26 budget hearing second all those in favor say I opposed the FY 26 budget hearing is officially open open so at this time uh members of the public come up to the
microphone if you're alive and speak your peace about the FY 26 budget fisc year fiscal year those acronym question yeah fcal year because the school year starts ask question June
or July 1st the year starts July 1st so we go by the last part all right welcome hey TJ Laughlin 207 Rolling Acres Road uh just a line item question I was talking to miss Gilson about the budget line item for health insurance lists
16.6% increase for Town manager budget the level Services is 21% just curious how that makes sense is it the people being restored
yeah okay there's an actual headcount so some some employees take health insurance some of them don't it depends on the positions that are in the budget out of the budget so then when we say on the
presentations that it's a 14% increase that's the cost of the insurance not the actual line item not a line item increase right gotcha a little bit it depends on the it depends on the head count that that are carrying the
insurance that's part of why every time I ask her how much does a position cost she gets so like it's like I can't really tell you that's why it's so hard because it's it's not because it's not even just a flat rate for the health insurance right it's are you on an individual plan which plan are you like
what what program are you are you in so I I every time we talk about a position I've got to go see where they are on steps and lanes and then see what what they have for their insurance or not so so so the party line is a 21%
increase in the health insurance line line yeah but the thing is it's not even Apples to Apples because the when you compare that to the FY 25 line that was the headcount of
enrollment as of June last year it's not even like what it was in January last year because we after the override went back and voted lines and made adjustments and we counted in what was at that time our known enroll
so it's a moving Target we we're never going to be able to compare the line I don't understand this exactly it literally the enrollment changes every single month sometimes it's up sometimes it's down no doubt it's just I guess it's just a presentation of the
information the athletic percentage was the line item percentage corre some other percentages listed were line item percentages but the health insurance was listed as the the cost can you go back and check that too a little it's a little suspicious when
you're told that the health insurance line is what was it 15 we'll double check it 14 14.8 14. all right so let's say 15 we're going from a number of people today at at 3.1 million and we're
going to less people at 3.8 million and we're going to a 22% increase I'll have high take rate between our current year and next year it just it math wasn't math as TJ liks to say also you say it
too though there's like pres I just heard him exactly like when TJ comes up and says that's not working yep so we'll check look there is precedent for that car three seats available on school committee by the
way go ahead um just to be clear this is like questions right okay I want to make sure um I know you guys have had a lot of people coming at you recently and I just like to say that is not my my plan
um but what is the plan moving forward cuz this has been years and years of kind of the same thing every year and I know a couple of committee members did address the fact that like this isn't going to
end so what is the the plan for hopefully ending it the plan for ending it is number one we need to organize a townwide override
one more Town rde override number two we need to pass the CPA and we need to in hit the ceiling oh the community preservation act which does which allows the town to raise new revenue and then
there are matching funds provided by the state Prov did we spend 10% of the funds on three different buckets and then the 70 the rest of the 70% we get to spend as a town as we see fit those are the only possible solutions to this problem
if we do not do that we will be in Nip Tuck mode until the economy turns around and then we will repeat that cycle when the economy stinks again that's what the adults should be doing and that's what you should tell your adults to be doing and then my one other thing is with all
of the special education proposed Cuts Like what does that actually mean for like the daytoday of students with special needs because I mean I know my brother always had a PA with him he was in special ed classes and like I
wouldn't want another student to be lacking that cuz I know that he needed that to succeed we are cutting a ton of Paris because we are not willing to cut anywhere else can we have Juliana however yeah yeah students that have an IEP that indicate that they have to have
supported classes will have supported classes we still have to the challenge becomes scheduling and placement and those kinds of things and it and it's easier when you have more Paras to to provide that um it's it's
not unlike Mr sanry's challenge with fewer teachers coming up with a schedule and getting kids to where they need to be with every option that they want to have in their schedule it's a logistical kind of a thing and it's just another layer that Mr santry and his team are
going to have to look at to make sure that he can get kids into the classes that they need and get Paras Andor specialed teachers into those classes to provide the support for the kids who
have to have it on their IEP we we we're obligated to do that we don't have a choice okay thank you but it's it's just going to be trickier can I answer that too MH we need to come up with a 3 to five year plan we need to do that uh next week we
are meeting with the select board and we're going to talk budget and hopefully some longer term things as well we we need to come up with a longer term plan we are a department of the town we get money from the town a lot of This falls
to the town there's not as much we can do to increase I can't increase the town's commercial tax base that's not under the purview of the school committee I can't make us come up with a master plan or Economic Development
things that's under the town so we we need to work on that and we need to start agitating for that um but we do need to come up with better budget projections and we need to start focusing on that longterm
um starting earlier I really think that we should have been focused on this uh earlier I know the amounts of this were a surprise but the fact that we were here again is not a surprise yeah I I think we should have
been complaining I'll use that word I think we should have been complaining earlier or making noise about it earlier um be because this wasn't a surprise and I know a lot of people were surprised by it and kept saying why you talk about it why we've we've been having meetings
about this since October like we've known this was going to be a rough year we talked about it last year but that doesn't help if we're not doing something about it but a lot of it is the town side because taxes haven't kept up with the inflation rate and we haven't had a large
override uh but there's only so much we we as the school committee can do short of cutting our costs or looking for small Revenue sources and the other Avenue I spoke to this last meeting was the the state uh if we can change to the Chapter 70 formula uh five years ago it
was changed and it negatively affected lunenberg we weren't keeping up with inflation with our Chapter 70 State funding so if the formula can get changed and we can actually get appropriate State funding annually year after year that will help too thank you guys thank you thank you
that was a really good question asked last year thank you more answers this year than hello hi everyone um movement my name is H Lombardo I live at 78 West Townsen Road I would like to start off with saying I'm a senior here at lunberg high and while no decisions have been
made about the athletic trainer I'd like to say that I work with our athletic trainer Dave and I have a con conf excuse me um Dave and I can confidently say that he is much more than just a trainer I have learned how to be an independent person through him and I have watched him for his connections with students including myself where I
find that he becomes a home away from home Dave has become what I like to say a parental figure in my life as I move into the next phase of my life where I'm looking to become an athletic trainer myself this internship and relationship and many others have built in this astronomical interms of how Dave has impacted my life therefore in conclusion
on my behalf and many of the other student athletes in this room and who were in this room earlier he is more than just an athletic trainer he's a mentor a teacher a friend and a parental figure he's there to protect us emotionally physically and mentally protecting students should be your main priority Dave does just exactly
this I would hope that you you can take this into your account when making your decision thank you than you excellent we did make that decision hi again Laura brouge in 389 mpus Road um couple of things I wanted
to just comment on I think you guys made some really good points you're dealing with tough decisions there's no way around it um I would absolutely encourage you to look for General Council in house it absolutely as speaking as a CPA I can tell you it saves it pays for itself for what you
pay for outside fees on the accountant side I would say having someone a CPA or an EA an enrolled agent those are great alternatives to finding someone help you with the budgeting my head hurt listening to some of this so um but I've got to imagine that the other groups in
the town like we're you're talking about hiring an accountant or general counsel for the school committee for the schools School the whole scho school for the school district but you tell me the police department isn't looking at contracts and looking at you know at hiring things
or something like across the town we've got to find ways one of the things that we do when we talk to businesses and we councel a CPA councils a business is you've got to find ways to save across every group in the town needs an accountant the town needs accountant you know all of those things there's got to
be cost-saving ways talking to that with the select board about how collectively we can consolidate things as a town and then cost share things as a town you talked about it a couple times with the health insurance why is that a line item here it's across the town these are
things that you can save by consolidating any consultant would come into your business and tell you that's a way to start cost savings consolidation consistency as well and you talk about L you know litigation exposure everything else HR isn't different here than it is
for the police department so that would just be something I'd look at and I will put this out there the musicator group again speaking as president's musicator you pay for the uniforms all the marching band uniforms we have a kitty set aside for that town doesn't cover that we clean them we repair them
we hem them we make they're sitting in the back of my car right now because they went to the dry cleaners okay and so did the banner that they carry um we will do more of that we're happy to do that without uh you know not asking my Treasurer tonight we're talking about $8,900 of Transportation budget for the
band yeah okay 8,900 bucks yeah we now have a band of X number kids we'll have 100 kids like I told you earlier we'll have 100 kids going to trills Thrills and trolls are we not going to have Safe Transportation for them how are they going to get there so the music Gators
will assist with that you're looking for ways that we can help we will help with that so I will talk to my treasure we'll see what we can do but I think there's got to it's we're talking little dollars on some of these things and you know crossing a line item out completely when
then the kids can't go anywhere so I just I put that out there that we will we can help with that we also help with U-Haul rentals registration fees the music those kinds of things I mean the music gors will continue to do that and we're thinking of ways that we can raise funds too so we can help but um I just
ask you to reconsider at least half of the transportation something to help us out and we'll see what we can do to get the rest of it because I know the kids are committed to raising funds as well so thank you thank you thank thank you for all you do
[Music] um hi um Isaac scull brini from 92 Bill Street and I I think I want to start off by I don't really have anything written but I'm just going to like go off with what I was thinking I want to thank
Mandy Gilman because last year kind of got us out of like a temporary mess with the budget and she led the override so I want to thank her specifically and I believe we should do
another override I I think well obviously I don't know the data not as well as any people in this room but I think every single student and every single person who came up here has made a good point for a completely different thing and if they just it we have too
many people pulling in different directions and like um I don't remember who said it but if everyone fights to like against each other nothing's going to happen and we're just going to stalemate and this is what happened today we had like three table what
tables you table it three like I don't know there was a lot of those and I and and it it's you're right and it it's not any one of you guys' faults is these are tough decisions but if we fight together we can get more done than conflicting on
little and little things and I don't have anything written down but I I Weston they did do a lot of overrides and I you can make an argument that overrides aren't the best option but I feel like nothing is the best option um
but I just I think override is the biggest thing and I went to the O I went to the town meeting and I talked at the override when I was in eighth grade I talked about Middle School sports I'll come back and I'll do another talk I will I I'll will keep coming back I'll keep coming for sports I don't personally take in music but I think
that should stay I think art should stay I think we have so many good opportunities in this school and I I want to keep that the way it is so um thank you thank you thank you there are so many generations of
school and brines running this town hello uh LZ 239 South ro road sorry you have to hear from me again uh I just want to reiterate something that I said before I implore you to think carefully about what has the most impact on the most students and our community at large
our teachers matter our pair of professionals matter our coaches matter they are the ones who shape the student body of lunenberg every day in ways that the central office quite frankly does not please consider making cuts at a level that will not have a damaging and
lasting impact on the students of lunenberg I have heard minimal discussion about that did not get tabled about cuts to the central offices PA professionals teachers and coaches have shaped me personally you all talked about student achievement and
how that can look different in so many ways student achievement for me for Heather for Savannah for eeve for Isaac for Caren Malone student achievement has not been shaped by central office workers student achievement has been
shaped and put into me by my teachers by my coaches by the par professionals by the Vice principles the people that I see on a daily basis the people that I interact with they are helping me get toward a better student achievement that
is where the cut should not be made I I implore you to think about the cuts that you made and what they can be switched out with and I understand that that is an extremely difficult topic and I understand that I cannot offer you like nearly a as much advice on this
as you need but I implore you to think about how this affects the student body and at every level the primary school students that need special ed behavioral you you all said it they're learning the fundamentals of how to live life they're
learning how to be a human being they need PA professionals they need extra teachers those cuts can't be made when you're learning how to be a person and then so that is my Spiel I would also like to speak on behalf of one of my friends who is not here
tonight but she has asked me to ask a question please explain how will how we will be in complete IEP compliance without the amount of specialed teachers and specialed peras that are being proposed to be cut 10 special ed peras
cut in tonight's proposed budget to be exact will the literacy and math coaches act as oneto ones Dr bham the literacy uh and math coaches are not going to act as oneto ones to
um in the same way that a specialed teacher uh Services an IEP um that said um it's a little bit similar I guess um when you talk about class size if you
cut classroom teachers and then there are more kiddos that are in a class um when you have fewer special ed teachers um that means that the number of kids that they each support increases that does not put us out of compliance there
are no regulations relative to um a student to specialed teacher ratio on any of that um it won't be a compliance issue we do however for compliance need to be sure
that the kids who have supported class time in their IEPs are in classes with support so um that that's the compliance piece all right thank you for that response I just I would really like you
to think about what I've said and seriously consider cuts to the central offices instead of the PA professionals teachers Vice principles that I see on the daily that shape me that shape the student body think about the people that have
all of that face-to-face time with students they are the most important in student achievement thank you thank Youk you we're going to switch over to zoom we have uh Lauren perilla hi Lauren hi yes thank you um I wanted to mention
you know just wonderful conversations today I did want to reiterate I know the board had mentioned maybe if they were going to be able to save another position or two prioritizing the grade two and I just want to kind of echo that I think that that is a very wise decision has been mentioned already
really that grade K through three being critical for fundamental years um so I just want to reiterate that I also want to kind of voice support and the idea of maybe looking at the Coach position um
cuts again at the central office cup and I I think Laura also brought up though that that may cause there was some conversation about using those coaches at Turkey Hill to support the mtss team so I think that would potentially not be able to happen if you were to cut the
coach but maybe that could be reinstituting another mtss tutor in place of the coach um just a couple real quick questions from the line item budget I did see and this may be due to the shuffling that was talked about with
seniorities there's a 177% uh sorry a 15.8% increase in the elementary school principal assistant principal line item and I didn't know if someone could speak to that um we have two brand new uh
administrators at the elementary schools so that the people in the positions prior and the salaries attached to those positions prior is different because there are two brand new um people to The District in those positions this year so
would that mean that if you cut an assistant principal I think it was at the high school level that was budgeted that that person kind of seniority would replace an elementary school princip no no um
the seniority uh typically um is seen in the teachers contract um there is some mention uh in other um employee groups contracts relative to a reduction in force which this is um and whether or
not seniority is a factor when um we make decisions about which employees actually the one to lose a position versus the position being cut um that does not apply to the administrators
they are not part of a bargaining group and there is no bumping rights uh based on seniority for administrators so that 15.8% is just a strict increase in salary of our current assistant principal and principal at the
elementary school she talking I'm I'm looking at my uh Team who has eyes on that budget and yeah so that's just that is a straight increase in salary for them is what yes okay so so that you
know kind of I question that um and then my other kind of just comment is also again a 17.4% line item increase in the executive secretary line item and I didn't know if you could speak to that can can you hear
me hello so it's the you're looking at the executive secretaries in the superintendent's office line yes yes is that one person salary is that is that multiple there are multiple people in that line and so that's not new positions
that's just the current positions and is that an a a union position uh some of some of at at least one position in there is yes okay again just something maybe I mean that's about $20,000 that
line item increase so just a couple things that I notice as um questionable that I would be again non-teacher positions that might be worth looking at from the um School committee's perspective so thank you why is
that uh I'm going to do one more Thomas's if you just state your name and address please you muted sorry Tom Woodward at 221 lemonster Road um first I want to applaud everybody uh
everyone that showed up everyone there tonight I think it's great that we're we had Max at 155 people participants on Zoom probably 50 people I could see in the St um in the audience um I'm going to talk I want to talk to
say a couple things briefly um I think an override is probably the best thing for us I don't I don't understand technically how it works all the way so I'm still trying to do some research on that um but seems like an overrides would be the best for us as a community
and probably opposing Communities going forward um one thing I would say to anybody listening um that's about 200 people tonight looking at it um we can all make a stand we can get communities
around us we can make a stand that way and we can get to the state house not state house we can get to the legislators if we all start working together we we have it's very easy to blame people in positions like the school committee um the superintendent
anybody that isn't in those positions but we all got to kind of look at it as if we're not a smooth running ship we're never going to make it as a town um uh the things I just want to say is just we need to just band together I think an
override figure out if we can get an override how we can get money from the start like if we if that gets accepted or however we figure out the budget we need to get the ball ball rolling 365 days of the year for years to come and
stay on top of it and just not kind of get into an effect that we we got into um and second of all um talking about Athletics um Athletics is probably one of the most important things you can find in life um mentally stability um
people making friendships it's very very important um I don't want to see Cuts in in sports I don't want to see Cuts in anywhere but sports are huge I know you guys said something about coaches earlier five coaches to a football team that's not and a lot of coaches it takes
I come from a program with probably 65 kids maybe 70 and we had 10 plus coaches it takes a village to to operate a sports team if you if you think about it and you want one or two people running a
sports team it'll never be successful you'll lose kids like they said earlier it's very important in kids' lives and so is music and so is that but we need to ground on how we can make our community stronger and surrounding
cities it's time for us to take a stand as the people of Massachusetts and go after our legislators go after State reps and it's just not over email text or emails we need to get out there and show as a community as one that we're
willing to get out of work and we're willing to do all this stuff but get out there and do the do the hard work the boots on the ground like we all say we can be in front of the town but we need to go out there and do it that's what I have to say thank you normie Von principal of Turkey Hill
Elementary School over there um and I've been looking at this meeting through the lenses that I currently wear and lenses that I used to wear um and I heard the committee kind of saying that they weren't sure what
decision they were going to make tonight um and I can certainly understand not wanting to approve a final budget with the discussions that we are having but I know Le a sense I've got is that you and all my colleagues and I'm sure the community uh will leave frustrated
without some decision from tonight's meeting so what I'm hearing and I think I heard Mr beardmore say the town manager budget is our base it's where we're starting from the bottom line there
is the bottom line unless the town decides they're going to cough up a lot more money um that's where we're working from and the discussions that we're having are around the pieces within that to get there um I I think it would be
helpful for us if an endorsement of that bottom line that town manager's budget could be made today you don't approve your final budget you continue working on the pieces Within it's I I think some of the
cuts we were talking about are not to change anything that's in the town manager's budget but we're to make additional cuts to save additional positions and or to rearrange line items so those line items you can continue to
discuss and change um it gives us some peace of mind us a little bit of finale to be able to go back to our people and say okay we know this much so far and things may change as we move forward with additional um positions
restored and other it's sounding like more administrative positions or line items cut um to make that happen I just encourage you to consider that um this evening um as a possibility for your action then the superintendent can go to finance committee tomorrow with an
endorsed bottom line say this is the bottom line we're going to be working with um and then the finance committee can do their thing and then we as an administrative team along with with you the school committee can continue to work at the individual pieces within that budget rearranging the pluses and
the minuses to keep that bottom line to get exactly where we want to be thank you thank you thank [Applause] you me again Cara Hertz 165 Gilcrest Street um I would just like to mention
that although some central office cuts are probably needed you can't run a school district with no central office cuz it's great that the people who are facing us trying to keep them but how can we have them without a central
office it you can try and make it work but it's just going to crash and burn CU then there's no one enforcing anyone anything no one like getting the bigger things done it's great that the teachers teach us but they need a curriculum to teach us they need people who tell them
go teach them um so I just I don't think that fully cutting central office I mean some positions yes but you can't say keep every single teacher keep every single Pera and cut half of central
office it just wouldn't work everybody needs a haircut thank you thank you can I ask a question sure yeah this a budget hearing in the budget online 4400 networking
telecommunications networking contracted services went from 7200 went from $21,000 to $72,000 I asked about this a uh few weeks ago and still haven't gotten an answer there should be something in the folder okay
um hold on 4,400 263 line 263 on the uh okay yeah I'm looking at line 263 networking contracted service oh no I think it's not it's the expenses on
the sorry um so when we took a look at that um that's where the Comcast um that's where the Comcast is in the budget um was Comcast the T-Mobile
T-Mobile hotspots are in that line um and the Comcast service for the district is in that line um not in my folder where would it it is it's in the uh the subfolder for the budget oh is it the budget questions
from school committee yes oh am I the school committee okay you are all right sorry that was added you just you just disclosed everyone that you asked these questions no you named her in one of the answers
um um is use we get a reimbursement on that line this yet to be applied but I'm told coming this is the e e rates applied to some of this stuff and Y so that's the the
$32,000 that's 32,000 um you know e what I am told um as I watch that line um we have a eate consultant U we applied all the necessary papers but it takes some time
for the money back into be reimbursed so the application for next year actually um isn't the deadline is at the end of this month I signed it today was it that way last year too it's that way every year so it's just that
sometimes there are things that we might fund out or reimburse with with different monies or pay out of different accounts at one point will that line Comcast had been at least partially uh funded with Choice revolve funds so the
the the cost is fully in this line which is why you see it jumping up and we'll have a since uh in April um how much e rate if our if our application's been approved and what can be applied and
that's entirely Comcast uh and the T-Mobile hotspots that we have um we have can I jump in for uh sure Jordan hello is our it manager thank you're looking at the uh
4400 Network contracted Services correct yes yes so that is a mixture of Comcast that is our backup renewal software so we have data data backup for all the servers um that was added last year so the the cost the cost of the yearly
renewal for that is in there plus we're adding Bit Defender antivirus um to all the windows devices in the district so um you know adding some antivirus to the servers and staff Windows devices that we have in the district so it's not just
Comcast it's not just no so that that whole line 4,400 uh Network contracted Services is not just Comcast okay is it possible so that's the 72 the 72 158 is for those three those three items is it possible for me
to get a more detailed breakdown of that budget line just that is a huge increase yep and like I like said in the past the Comcast bill has not fully been paid out of the out of the local budget line so that's being moved in there so that's
part of why you're seeing some of that increase I actually answered that question she sentem she wants more information about everything else everything in that line no he just talked about networking data backup
yearly renewal and that's not in the answer okay all right yeah I can send you I have that all right at this time we're going to go in person and then after that we'll go on Zoom with [Music] Sarah hi my name is Evin mabin I live at
120 Island Road and I just wanted to sort of advocate for the special education program on the bias that I personally think it's sort of flawed in itself right now um just on personal experience um I think in kindergarten
second grade I was tested within the school for dyslexia and they both came back no and then again in nth grade after years of trying to deal with it myself again came back no which we were like that's crazy and then my the second my mom brought me to an outside source
of the school um they were like this is very very clearly a yes and I'm just uh diagnosed with disc calculi and dyslexia and on the waiting list to be tested through the school that was like a 3 or 4 month wait for me because um EXA I
forget who told me this was like a few years ago that there was a list and I was at the back of the list because my grades were high which I think is also sort of a flaw because I feel that everyone should have an equal opportunity to get the help they need
regardless of the fact that I have all A's and um I think that sort of going forward we could consider the quality of the programs we're cutting from as well because even if we're cutting like 10 um
PA professionals that I think is a lot because I don't think the quality is high enough for us to cut that many thank you thank you thank you so I'll just throw in Just for information just for the public um in
more recent years there have been some uh requirements for the Department of Ed to screen for these um uh dyslexia and disc calcula um we do have screeners that we do for math our um math specialist brought those in a couple
years ago so we are able to identify and pick up some of these things and intervene without special ed being required additionally again just as an FYI for folks once once there's um a request for an
evaluation we're on the clock to get that done so it's not we don't have we we can't just push things off indefinitely based on a wait list we're on the clock for a compliance issue so um just again just a piece of
information thank you Sarah hi Sarah call 11 Easter Brook Road um I keep going through the line item budget I have lots of questions and I feel it's extremely vague um but with that being said trying with the idea of
getting creative um and saving money I keep going back to the line item of the Librarians for some reason and they have that librarian every school those four positions cost just over
$200,000 we do have a library in our town so I feel like if we're going to be cutting double digits of classroom teachers and proposing one bcba for four schools we might need to start looking a little closer at these lion items and
getting a little more creative and I have one more thing um listening to all of this talk of changes and cuts I haven't heard much about preschool and I know both preschool teachers in our district were cut so I'm
curious are we having a preschool program next year okay there is a preschool program the preschool classroom teacher positions were not cut um what I think you're referring to is
people being bumped out by people whose positions are being cut but those people have more seniority than somebody in another position so individuals might be bumped out of those positions but those positions are not cut
we we still have our preschool program with no no modification plans and it will be exactly as it is this year okay so they'll be just moving different staff into the preschool depending on the cuts that
happen elsewhere and bumping uh so on and so forth potentially yes if changes are made to positions then some people may not be bumping those individuals out this is where it gets really comp complicated but the positions that the the classrooms and the teaching
positions are not cut the program is not cut so for example if we were cutting say a first grade teacher or a second grade teacher they could then get bump to if they had seniority and they had the license for that position they
could yes thank you we're not making any cuts to preschool we are not and preschool lies outside the local budget because no the preschool lies in our budget um it's the tuition for the typical peers they come to school they they are in our
program the tuition that those typical peers pay goes to the general funded Town yeah we don't get but we pay for the teachers and the Paras and the materials the class space okay the cost of the program is
ours okay that isn't okay all right uh thank you Sarah we're going to go in person next and then we'll go to zoom with uh VN Brown after so a couple weeks ago I spoke about we have
6.75 proposed cuts at the primary however it impacts 11 individuals for the sheer fact of the bumping so one of the things you know our concern around the current budget the deficits and the potential impacts we have sat here last
week and again this week and our voices have not been heard as building Administration we have spent countless hours with Dr Burnham in the administrative team so I think um as we navigate the challenging Financial constraints we want to take a moment to
highlight the thoughtful and careful deliberation that the administration team has made when identifying which potential position to prioritize um the process of revisiting and evaluating our staffing needs has been difficult and emotional
one for all of us that are involved we don't want to cut anyone however we've worked tirelessly to ensure that the decisions made are not only financially responsible but also in the best interest of our students success and well-being we've weighed the budget
deficits the priorities have been maint um taken the budget deficits in the priorities to maintain what we provided for our students learning and support as well as those that provide essential services to our most vulnerable students we understand that as a
district we are facing difficult choices however we urge the committee to consider the long-term effects of the decisions on our school Community each position plays a critical role in fostering an environment where students can Thrive and our staff who would be
affected by these cuts are deeply committed to the academic social and emotional development of our students the process of adding positions back based on careful prioritization reflects a deep commitment to maintaining the Integrity of our
educational programs we have considered factors such as student enrollment special education needs social emotional supports as well as core academic services in determining which positions are most essential for sustaining the high standards
of Education that we have worked hard to establish I've heard Dr Burnham talk about what it was like coming into this district and I worry about the future of where we're going so as we continue to work together to balance the budget we respectfully ask that the committee give
thoughtful consideration to the collective input of our Administration team and consider the long-term impacts of any decision made in relation to Staffing and programming our students depend on the support and resources these positions provide and we firmly
believe that maintaining these critical roles will help ensure that we continue to provide an enriching and Equitable environment thank you for your time and consideration thank you thank you very nice job and I just really quickly wanted to
say um we've heard a lot of discussions I don't envy you in your choices um we've heard a um a lot of talk about the importance of reading the science of reading positions coming back it seems we default to second grade or third
grade I think Mr Leon said it best that if we cut Athletics we're going to have students looking elsewhere to go to high school I think you can say the same thing about our high school choices that we provide to students we are making significant cuts at the high school I
don't want to have um our students be at a disadvantage to other students uh that have different offerings at different high schools so I just want you to be aware of that I wanted to talk to you about that thank you thank you are we G to go on Zoom Miss
Brown hi uh Vian Brown 118 Whiting Street um I have a question about Athletics um specifically about the transportation cost I'm wondering um why or if we could set up um you know
I I witnessed the number of parents that drive to and from games all the games pretty much and um can we set up some sort of car pool uh to transport kids with all of these cars going to and from
I mean I followed buses home um and what would be the kind of the logistical hurdles of establishing something like that uh to help with the transportation cost for
athletics so the concern that that members have brought up in the the past and the I think in the past meeting was that you could have students elect not to participate if they didn't have the transportation that they might not rely
on car pooling as an option okay but we do it at the middle school level don't we and kids still participate address this I'm going to ask the athletic director come to speak to that was the question that we do car
pool at the middle school level or carpool in general help the and in the Middle School trans yes car pooling in general that that's not a practice that that we do all the time I mean it does happen on occasion where you know basketball this winter went to air for a
tournament we save some cost by having the team meet there um over break some times that does happen but on you know on the regular it does not the Mia does you know recommend I'm sure you know
that you do take uh School transportation bus transportation um I'm sure that there is some waiver that could do that but that again you know on any given day we could have three or four teams going somewhere to another community so
that that would be a full-time job trying to figure out who is going to transport what that car pool looks like um yeah yeah the logistics would be challenging anything else Miss
Brown no that's it thank you thank you all right we're going to go in person next and then we'll go back to zoom my name again TJ Laughlin uh 207 Rolling Acres Road uh so I started with the easy one before
uh I want to ask some harder questions now um so I definitely recognize the six week offset um there were few options that you discussed on the table to account for that one was adding meetings the
other was focusing meetings did either of that happen did you add meetings add school committee meetings for what purpose to get ahead of the budget conversations that's what you guys talked about
potentially so you knew you were up with strict deadlines and you knew you were behind because of the delayed budget for the town manager and one option was we can focus meetings to be pure budget to get ahead
of it the other option was add meetings so that we could focus on what was needed or either of those options taken no I think uh and members can speak for themselves as well but I think the the challenge was getting the budget
completed from the the school district and then getting proposals um so that we could discuss them so I feel like last meeting was actually our first meeting where we could actually get into the the thick of it and we spent too much time on a presentation so we didn't get as much of those conversations
done anybody else I've been asking to add meetings I I'm all for adding meetings if we need to have these discussions I hate that these discussions go on till 11:00 at night I make I think that more meetings is better than massively long inaccessible meetings nobody wants to watch a four or
five hour meeting it makes them inaccessible it makes governing inaccessible to people so I would be for adding meetings but I also agree it was difficult to have these discussions because we did not have a budget until 45 minutes before this
meeting so it makes it very difficult to have discussions without concrete numbers what I mean professionally what I found is when you give somebody a deadline they meet the deadline right and soine is meeting however we did not have it at the last
meeting or in January yeah right which is when we originally asked for a budget uh so the next one is probably a harder one that I think people in this room don't want me to ask um so I think when I was I was trying to do the calculations myself CU I've asked for
the data and I I didn't get it um a few times is I think the single biggest item for the budget deficit is the increase in teacher contract salaries is that right I believe so if
not the biggest it's close it's one mhm yep yeah so and you say that out in the public and people think like what do you not want teachers to get increased in salaries but um so the the interesting thing that I found even last year when
we were discussing this too was what that student uh was asking is what are we going to do what's the plan moving forward right and to me it seems like and I I haven't been involved in the school stuff for 10 years so I don't know what the strategy was but it seems
like a strategy of not giving our teachers raises that not help us and while we continued hiring we weren't giving them raises and so that seems like a strategic decision so moving
forward how do we not do the same thing how do we make sure we can meet the needs of these teachers so that it doesn't hit us with a 700 this year increase 700,000 increase next year
what are we projecting for next year right so I think the challenge and any other members can jump in too I think the challenge is projections it is hard because a lot of budgeting for the next years is also retirements like you you
have a teacher that's maybe making $100,000 retire and then you hire a teacher for $60,000 there's savings there that it doesn't make it as big of an increase I don't know if we saw that many retirements in the past few years but that is definitely one of the factors um
health insurance is covered for almost all of our staff so that's a huge bump too and when we're seeing these huge increases that's connected to the staff so again our biggest percentage driver in our budget is staff so it could be challenging Miss Areno I I don't think
there was ever a strategy I mean I've been sitting here for seven years and and my husband taught in the school district for 28 so I don't think there was ever a strategy don't give the teachers money I think
there wasn't any money to give them now Mary is shaking your head saying I'm wrong but but I when I sat here I don't ever remember saying I don't I want these teachers to be the poorest paid teachers around cuz clearly they were
and are that that I don't think from my perspective that was never anything any body planned to do from when I sat here oh maybe they did before and but but
when I sat here we went through covid where we didn't know what in the world was going to happen and the teachers very generously did not go after a lot of money at that time CU they knew we did not know what was going to
happen this negotiation round we knew we couldn't put them where they deserve to be we worked out a compromise to bring them up a bit um but as far as where that's going
to go next year according to contract they have a 3 and a half% increase that that's not a lot really as far as personally when you get the paycheck it's a lot when we're
paying it but um after that I would hope that we would continue to build on that so that they wouldn't be the poorest paid teachers in the area they're good people they work hard they do their job well and and they
deserve that since I've been sitting on this committee I never sat and said we're hiring people I don't want to pay them anything Mr beardmore I think you had something you want Dad he probably has a different perspective it's getting late and I'm
not sure that solves anything I mean I I'm I'm I I I don't know yeah hopefully we answered your question oh can I yes Mr I'm not going to yeah you're right the the increase a lot of it is fueled by the teachers contract and salary
increases but like Carol said we had to pay them we have to pay the teachers what they're worth and they're still we're not doing great compared to the comp towns I'm I'm not I hate spending money I hate spending money
unnecessarily and this had to get done we we had to do this um it it just had to get done but it yeah you're right and we should call it out it's just I also don't want to blame teachers for this because this is not a blame issue and
this is not a point fingers kind of thing this is a trying to get it where it needs to go as far as how we keep it from happening in the future we just keep our eye on the ball and keep focusing it was a three-year contract so yeah I agree do I have time for one more question so the other question that
I I see a lot of this and for what it's worth uh I'm a product manager so this kind of like what I do is is adjusting ratios of things like this whole conversation tonight is about the ratio of everything the ratio for instance of
Athletics to academics right and like what I've calculated and I hope it's right but I don't know where to pull the numbers from often times but the ratio of Athletics to academics you know 2% % of our budget is Athletics so you know and I challenge Mr
beardmore to if you know academics or Athletics has a priority and academics do 98% definitely means we're in a good ratio with Athletics right so now go back to the Equitable concept and and Tony's right to say like we need to trim
everybody's hair when you start Athletics at 2% now you're trimming off of ratios that are smaller right and the same thing goes for music ratio for instance um you know what percentage are we spending on that and so the
conversations about Equitable equality are interesting because we actually are now talking about like a bang for the buck not Equity we're talking about dollar per kid which is a very different concept than Equitable right and so I'm
just going to challenge a few of these ratios that I see um I it's hard for me to see when I see the list all the time I saw it last year a list of cuts I have no idea how the ratios are changing with those cuts I know I know you give the student ratios
overall like per classroom per grade level but there's so many more ratios that impact life right so um like I can't tell if you cut four pair of professionals what ratio that impacts like how does that impact special
education specifically in first grade second grade whatever it might be um and then some other interesting ratios I was challenging the select board at one point and I calculated the total square footage and total value of all the school related buildings and I
came up with based on um whatever MLS or whatever it was at $40 million total value you probably know the number more than I do and I think I saw in the budget that it's we have $250,000 Building Maintenance budget
like is that a good ratio you know it's 224,000 Square ft and we have a $250,000 Building Maintenance budget I think the challenge there just to respond to that one is that we're trying to educate the
kids and sometimes the building gets left off the list because we want to have a teacher or have a pair of professional and I bring that up because we have a $22 million building project listed partially for the schools too and so as a taxpayer it's hard for me to
believe we're going to take that new square footage and allocate the right ratio of operational maintenance budget to manage that right it's like right there um and then and then some other things that I've been challenged by other people on other
boards in town is like do we have the proper staff ratios like do we have too many staff do we have two to the need right are we overstaffed in certain areas compared to say expense um and then the last thing is
um uh I think I just want to ask so it's 20 the the town budget is 28 ratio conversation done I don't know if you want to comment to that but uh 28 FTE but do we have a headcount on how many people we're asking like the difference
in in human beings that will leave the district CU I think FTE is numerical not human based right it could be it is correct but I think if you um take a look at the positions there's somebody in them I I can get you the
number of people yeah just just looking for it just yeah and like the secretary is a half right like that that's a whole person it's just a part-time job yeah so for every that's why I listed every single one of them out so those are all people those are all people gotcha so
that and that won't match the 28 FTE that'll be a different count that's a there are more people count okay yep okay thank you thank you next up we have Sarah can I respond a little yes if you sorry Sarah one one moment sorry I want to hear what Sarah say um so I I think
when we're talking about the ratios um and the cuts and the unfairness of it TJ's right but we also have to consider the immutability of some of our costs and our ability to cut some of these costs I cannot I I cannot cut there
there are certain costs that are fixed costs and we cannot cut I I cannot cut things that we are required to spend money on I cannot cut costs I'm looking through the budget there there are certain line items that just cannot be cut and so there are places that we go
to because they are more and I'm going to say easily but they are not easily cut but they they are they are more easily cut we cannot just reduce teacher pay across the board we have a contract we cannot suddenly stop paying for
healthcare because we have to pay for healthare and it's ridiculous not to um we we can't just decide to not have a building or not cut the grass there are costs that we have that we have to have so I think that needs to be considered
too when we consider the fairness of things but there are no easy cuts thank you all right next up we have Sarah on Zoom hi Sarah call 11 Easter Brook um back to Athletics for a minute I
don't know why uh Mr beardmore something you said earlier is sort of sticking in my brain of your letter being taken down can you speak to that a little bit yeah I would defer to the person who
asked to take it down I guess so I I can speak to that I was I and by the way I understand why like I'm not but yeah so I was uh notified by the superintendent uh of the uh the posting and um
the the school committee should not be using School resources to or school committee members should not be using School resources to disseminate uh their their opinion or their [Music] information
okay my my earlier comment still stands I mean is what it is so you know Stephanie on Zoom hi thank you Stephanie algarin 1112 Mass app um I first want to say you know I think this this year has been
challenging last year was challenging as well and I appreciate everything the school committee has done so far to date um and the parents um I think one of the questions that I have is if we're trying to itemize or limit some of the cost I'm looking at some of the line items
like materials and by no by no means do I mean like get rid of books or anything like that but you have like for library books you have like a total of and I'm going to go high of $5,000 you have some workbooks and things like that is that something for this school year that we
could pop or for sorry 2026 school year is that something that we can look at and reassess and then maybe the following year put back on the on the the list thought we did cut
that so I I'm just looking for clarification are you asking for library books to stay in the budget and cut them next year so for we would make the cut for FY 27 no 26
sorry so we are cutting the lines with with library books for next year to z z yeah just so everyone's aware we are cutting the book the line for library books in every building yeah library books in the building two Z Kate I think
the thing that might be confusing for some is the different thank you I think that I think that's one of the areas where like by no means you know should we cut but if we have to some of the items to cut maybe doing PDFs or things like that that's all my suggestion thank
you maybe doing what I didn't hear what she said I I think what she's principal Squire is trying to point out that there are different versions of the budget and in some versions of the budget they are th those lines are not cut it's the town
manager's green green budget that those those lines are cut to zero so she might see it on the orange or the yellow but the green is the town and that's where it's zeroed out so if we do needs-based and level you'll see there is 46 like I
can talk the primary 4600 for library books but on the green so this is where it gets a little confusing when you have multiple budget sheets the green is our budget that is the money we have available from the town that's how much money we have the yellow and the orange
lines are if we magically found uh $1.5 million or $1.9 million uh if you know if we imagine Al I don't know let's play the lotto Stephanie did you have any other further
questions no thank you thank you all right I will look for a yeah go ahead I just wanted to say that I am so proud to be a part of a community and to work in this town that supports special education as much as they do here and I
think that's been very um transparent with the students that have come up with the teachers that have come up with the school committee members that have come up with a little glitch here and there with on we're putting Ace but but aside from that it has been it it warms my
heart to hear that support and I do want to reiterate though to everyone that as a special education the special services director I do take into an account all of the needs of the IEPs and when cuts are put up it is through careful
consideration of making sure that those needs can still be met and as m Mrs Squire had said earlier along with Mr Sandry when they were up here it's after discussions multiple discussions as to what does it look like now what is it
what would it look like then can you do this with scheduling can you not do this with scheduling what do the class sizes look like next year for some of the sub separates do we have students aging out there are so many different factors and there's so much with confidentiality that I cannot get into specifics right but I just wanted everyone to know and I
wanted the community to know too that I do advocate for that and the other administrators Advocate too for the needs of special education students um to make sure that those IEPs are met and followed um and I think we it's so fluid right because at the very beginning of
this process we had many more cuts on because we had thought that we could manage that but now over the course of two months we've s we've seen some numbers increase they've been first on there to put my special education inclusion teachers back in the budget um even before some of their other
positions so I I just wanted to make sure that the town realizes that I am advocating for for all the students um and to make sure that the IEPs are being followed when we when we put these Cuts up but sometimes there is a little bit more behind the scenes that I can't get into thank you that soundful for the
public to know next up uh we have on Zoom Matthew osgod oh hello how is everybody doing tonight [Laughter] sorry uh this is Matthew oos from 275 Reservoir Road um earlier tonight it was
said a kindergarten teacher position is being restored um what is the expected kindergarten class size and uh what is the expected kindergarten class size for the inclusion room as well kindergarten is an estimate for next year we estimated
117 so can so 117 is the estimated projected enrollment so 20 about 23 kids one class will have 24 you can't put a point4 somewhere so 23 kids in kindergarten
right now our class sizes are 24 23 or 24 and right now they're 24 okay thank you thank you uh next up on Zoom Tom Tom woodw at 221 Lem road I don't know if the athletic directed there or
someone can answer it but I know we talks about advertisement and um I don't know if sponsorships is on there um who will be advocating for that like I know we talk about Transportation being like one of the highest costs in
athletics but who is who is it to say that we can't find a company that wants to sponsor a bus a couple of buses and have their their names all logo logoed all over the buses I just don't know who would be advocating for that and trying to jump on that uh and second have we
figured out anything for a grant writer or anything going forward on that like someone that's just full force like looking for Grants and looking for any type of money in any single way every day possible so regards to the the
advertisements we have a policy currently that uh does not allow it but we are um having our policy subcommittee look at that policy to bring it back to us to make those adjustments potentially what who who makes that DEC
so when you go um and see if you can get that policy reversed who who does that go is it uh is it a vote with you guys or is it a vote with someone else the school committee would it would come back to the school committee and then the school committee would have a vote on it and then the School administration
would then take over the likely advertisements okay um do you know if that will be on the agenda going forward because that's just such a big cost to be to be helped with in every way if people are worried about Athletics is so
so so once we hear back from policy then we will have it on our agenda perfect thank you that is on the next policy want to speak to the to the grant committee's agenda so relative to a grant right um our administrators at central office
um are our grant writers my director of special services takes care of any special ed related grants but it's my director of teaching and learning that pursues all the other grants and at our next meeting as a
matter of fact we have another request to pursue two additional grants these are not grants from the Department of Ed she is pursuing grants that are competitive that are not you know coming
across through a a department of Ed announcement um so we well they are not dedicated grant writers um they pursue the grants that make sense for the work that they um have oversight
responsibility for um our athletic director pursued an opportunity to bring in some um it wasn't really a grant but it was an opportunity for a donation of of funds um and it was competitive in
nature and he did pursue that back in the fall we did get a little bit we didn't we didn't get the big prize but um all of our leaders um they want to be able to fund the the work that we're doing and they
are the ones that are watching for for funding opportunities through grants or any other means um so I I I don't I've had experience in an in another setting where there was a dedicated grant writer that had a salary
and quite honestly they did not bring in a single Grant uh they didn't even bring in a grant enough to cover their salary so I think for now anyway um the model that we've got uh is working
is there a number of how much grants we brought in in 2024 like what the exact number was of like how much we brought in for a town yep well it's not for the town it's it's these would be for the school department yes those those numbers are available uh
they're available in the slide Decks that we had for the last meeting they're available in the slide decks for last year's budget presentations um it hundreds of thousands of dollars perfect thank you so much thank
you just a bit of beard more the the town did fund $50,000 for grant writing services last year um and my understanding was that with the town the previous Town manager
departing um I'm not sure that that ever really got traction this year uh and and I don't know if it's up for Renewal this year or not I I honest don't know um but it is something that the finance committee had uh considerable interest
in pursuing and um we actually had a couple of conversations at Capital planning as well about uh potentially offsetting some some Capital request related costs with with grants but unfortunately that particular thing has
been a little bit difficult getting traction on and it's mostly due to that theme that we touched upon a little a little bit earlier which is the disruption of changing Personnel thank you um anything else Thomas no thank you thank you all right
seeing nobody at the mic and nobody on Zoom I would look for a motion to close the public portion of the uh hearing I will move to close the public portion of the budget hearing second any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed the
motion passes the public uh portion is closed thank you um M AR could I go back to the comment made by the principal of the elementary school that could we endorse that the bottom line of without an override and
without extraordinary um means that we are planning on using the bottom line of the Town manager's budget I think I was I was thinking the same thing in my head but I was worried I think that's more of
the bottom that's like the minimum right and it could go higher cuz the the town or state could give us more they if they need the it's not going to go lower it's not it's not going to go lower but my my observation on this is that
tonight for the first time we had what I believe is a reliable number around the the needs based and the level Services budgets agreed and part of the you know
the it's been mentioned a couple of times tonight and is this whole idea of an override and the the override that we proposed a year ago was a little bit different situation
it was the desie or the the Esser minus but it but you could think of it along the same lines as that needs line that we have today and you know we heard multiple times tonight about overrides and the
need to go for an override a town override versus a school override and and I'm not going to belabor my position on this because I'm very frustrated with what's occurred over the course of the last year with respect to our Town's leadership on this
topic that said if somebody wanted to go for an override I would encourage them to look at the middle column on those sheets and say that's the number why do we keep making Cuts let me finish if we go and
endorse that number today the the the town manager's number today I think it will be interpreted as and and by the way I'm okay with doing this but it will be interpreted as we're not in the business of overrides this year because the school committee is
good with the manager's number um so I'm I'm throwing that out there as a you know like you have to look at how this will be interpreted and I understand that there's a degree of finality here that that that it brings to the administration and the staff but at the same time it also potentially
closes a door now I heard a lot of commentary tonight about our leadership both as a committee as a town and as Administration um and and and I I'm I'm
thrilled with the passion that in particular our students spoke with tonight but really the community as a whole um we live in lunenberg Massachusetts we don't live in Weston Massachusetts we have neighbors who are
struggling and with the macro economic things that are going on right now there's a great deal more uncertainty in the world that we're living in and people's in comes and there was even a year ago or the year before that for sure and we also live living in
lunenberg Massachusetts we are at the butt end of the state's priorities and I've talked a lot about that over the course of the last several weeks as well and I'm not going to belabor that but we are getting
hosed by the state of Massachusetts 100 ways from Sunday we can't do anything about that here Tony's right I mean our options are limited but the options that we have once again back to the least bad
scenario an override is something that I am hearing over and over and over again that people cannot afford I will tell you that if an override goes to the ballot I will vote for it I will vote for it why because
like everybody else I vote my wallet I can afford it and I think our kids need it but there are a lot of people that are not in my position who can't do it who don't have the luxury of sitting here tonight at 25 after 11: because they got to work
tomorrow um but I I just in my mind like I until we get some sort of unanimity between the schools and the town and the town is honest with itself about its expenses and the cost of running the town over a
long period of time we cannot answer the question that we got multiple times tonight which is what's the long-term plan we cannot run this alone we just can't and and I think this year we're stuck I I just and and maybe it won't be
that way next year but this year we're stuck Mr brazowski [Music] I guess my point was why why go for the middle one because I'm why I keep making cuts the school system's smaller now
than it was last year because we did an override and we still made Cuts last year we cut the supports last year that the kids needed we just keep chipping away at the school system year after year and we're losing the stuff that's
making us lunenberg and we we've been trying to build it up and then these things happen and then we just start shipping it down I these Cuts stink and even though we have added back
in we we've added back in quite a few of the more dire ones these Cuts stink I don't know like I hear what you say about an override but at the same and I I'm not sure
people will vote for it but at the same time it's not great for our kids this is not the best is this the best best education lunenberg can give its kids is this even an adequate education for lunenberg to give its kids is this what we want for our
kids so I don't know um but if this if the principles are telling us that they need certainty we have to give the principles what they need well if the principles are telling us they would like certainty and they would like well I think I don't
know if we need to vote on but I I think they know that the bottom is that 3.63 it doesn't get any lower than that it's just we're hoping to get more and we're going to get more and we'll try to do that and that we're meeting and and to see what we can do yeah we want more I
don't think we're I don't think we're giving up we're not done yet yeah oh yeah we don't give up that's not no and just you know for the select board and anyone else listening we get a lot more annoying I know you guys learned that last year yeah this is like
Baseline level it's all right okay anything else on FY 26 budget hearing says action but I think we're not ready for action yet next item is a discussion on superintendent search a quick update uh the masc rep has uh
worked with us and we are setting up a meeting for Monday at 5:00 p.m for the screening committee the superintendent screening committee to have uh orientation with the masc rep right before the caucus if anybody wants to run for school committee here you of the
caucus there were a couple kids tonight that I'm sitting there going man I hope you guys are like registered vs if you're still on board you you might as well any questions are we on track we're still on track yep the the first meeting was planned for next week and we're having it on Monday the we're still on
track great question thank you yeah I'm going to try to keep it on schedule I appreciate that all right next is uh reports I would look for a motion on this one I would move that we skip reports tonight sir second any discussion all those favor I opposed
motion passes uh next up is public comment a public comment from the public sorry sorry uh Mary foil 985 flat Hill Road speaking as myself um within this moment um I just wanted to take a court view something that I've said at quite a
few meetings uh in regards to the big picture I know we're in the weeds of the budget and we have to but as some people brought up too you know what is our what's our plan um how are we moving forward in the big picture and though and I've said before our state could do more and I know our state could do more I was on meetings with some people was
it just last Monday um where we did look at that um and and we need to do more work there but I still cannot divorce myself from the idea that lunenberg has to be really honest at how it got to this spot and what it's going to do to avoid doing this in the future um just
doing some quick Googling uh back there and this is from 2022 data but um luneberg's medium dual medium income household in 2022 was $4500 and when we say things like lemonster gets more money if Fitchburg
gets more money fitchburg's was 65,66 lemoners was 75,6 120 and gardeners was 56,7 that's why those communities are getting more money they have a larger need do we still deserve some more yes
was the Millionaire's tax a bit of a sellout for us yes I don't disagree with that but to compare ourselves to town to other towns and not fully understand or not fully consider the needs that they have that maybe the majority of the people in our community don't have I
think is just taking a shorter look at it thank you thank you thank you any other public comment from the public seeing none on Zoom none in person I'll move it on to public comment from the
committee I'm commented out I would just remind people that there are three seats available on the school committee and the caucus is Monday at 7:00 p.m. at the lunenberg midddle high school auditorium it's really easy just go and have someone nominate you be there be
square and if you're listening you care about the schools you should run all right uh topics for future discussion I think we're full of topics for future discussion I have something yeah do so um in a conversation with the superintendent last night um just kind
of brainstorming uh it it struck me that we kind of owe our best answer to the question that I just said we can't answer which is what should we be thinking about and what should we be doing over the coming
years and I I say that because three members of this committee are leaving there's some institutional knowledge that's going to go with us have a superintendent that's leaving and and and I I think that as I was talking to the superintendent and
watching um our regime leader last night on TV on mute while I was speaking with her um it occurred to me that I think we need a state of the union for our schools and it should be a practice that we perhaps do every year but definitely
this year um it used to be a practice that the school committee would publish a pretty extensive report in the an annual Town report and that has turned into something of a proforma that nobody reads and I don't think anybody actually gets or reads the town report anymore um
but it struck me that again from reading the survey respondents responses and just the lack of information that people have that there really needs to be sort of that Touchstone document that says this is where we believe we are right
now is good or bad or indifferent so that there aren't the surprises or at least you could say we published that we sent an email to everybody we asked for feedback whatever it is and I'm not exactly sure what the process is but I think that that's something that we ought to
consider um especially since given the circumstances that we're in we're not going to go through a review of the superintendent cycle prior to the election maybe this is something that we could potentially do and it it would be an exercise similar to what maybe the finance committee does for the warrant
but maybe a little bit longer form anyway just a thought thanks uh I had uh an update on data from the the fees on the clubs we could follow back up on that yeah we're scheduling um some listening sessions the students they're having a meeting with the student
council tomorrow 15 a.m. and um yeah might as well just go right over there now Tim and I and I ask that they do one for um parents as well has a date been set for that yet for the parent listening session on
Student Activity in process and then uh I would like to see and I don't know about the other committee but uh possibly an impact statement on Librarians uh one of the members of the public brought up the Librarians I think that might be something worth looking into we we can do that um they're
already shared across two schools so any reduction there would um be impactful I think the commenter thought there was one in each building I don't think she realized okay yeah we have two in the district and they're
covering four buildings right now so I would like the fy2 24 actuals so I can let you know that I have asked Dr Gilson for those she's going to need to um connect with Mr aala okay um last week
they were really busy trying to Crunch the town manager's budget for last Thursday night um and then okay this week she was busy trying to get this done for our meeting tonight um but they definitely are
important and they need to be done cuz yeah if fi23 is the last actuals we have it makes it hard to make comparisons I I don't think we actually have 23 actuals because they the endof year report
was not fully completed when Mr Cassidy left um so I don't think we have actuals for 23 or 24 can I get the FY 23 actuals as well then please so um any of the topics for future disc any any thought
about would it be helpful to move this all along to I hate to say this but to gather again next Wednesday evening anybody have any thoughts on that three meetings in three days caucus select board yeah fine well do we
did all last budget season was three meting so I've been holding out on trying to call a capital planning committee meeting which the town manager has asked me to do and you want to make it Wednesday I was hoping to make it Wednesday but but if would you like a joint meeting with the school committee on Wednesday this would take this would
take priority in my mind but but so whatever I think we need to decide as soon as possible or I think it makes sense to have another meeting uh before the 17th so if we're going to talk on the 11th we should probably meet on the 12th to follow whatever comes out of the
conversation yeah and then if there is thoughts about an override then we have time to get an override number to the select board before the warrant closes I think it makes 12 then maybe we just make it budget okay we can work on that
yeah just budget and possible override and nobody send any messages over the nobody invite anybody can I can can I blast out information to the parents that there'll be an extra meeting to find some
creative way do it all right I will look for a motion to adjourn at 11:37 p.m. motion to adjourn at 11:37 p.m. all those in favor say iOS the motion the meeting is a Jaren thank you everyone have a good night before midnight