Uh now that you've had Godfather for the last 15 minutes, uh in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law, please be advised that this meeting is being broadcast at a later date over the Lunberg public access channel. The Zoom link is in the agenda uh as well as
the um link for the uh public access Facebook page. This meeting will be broadcast at a later date through the local cable access channel and on the public access Facebook page and will be found on the Lunberg access YouTube channel within 24 hours after the meeting. The agenda lists all the topics
which may be discussed at the meeting are those reasonably anticipated by the chair. Votes may be taken as a result of these discussions. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law. Uh so the first
thing on the agenda is pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. >> And the next thing on the agenda is public comment for prior issues. So, is there anybody in person or online that has public comment about things that we have talked about? >> Recording in progress.
Liz, is there anyone online? No hand ra. All right, let's keep moving. Uh, chair's report. I have no report. the students representative report. >> So at um the primary school and Turkey Hill, there is STEM night March 19th
from 5:30 to 7:00 and ReadAcross America March 2nd where they're having speakers come and read books. Um the middle school has a dance this coming Friday, Party in the USA dance. Um, at the high school, the boys and
girls hockey as well as boys and girls basketball make playoffs, hence why none of us could park tonight. Um, I urge people to buy a yearbook. Currently, they're priced at $95, but that price might go up. There is a jazz
concert tomorrow. Um, the seniors won the competitive class plays the week before break and on behalf of the high school student council, they are bringing two concerns to you guys tonight. One, there's been
an increase of vaping in bathrooms that they would like to be made a concern as well as concerns about the budget cuts that are foreseen as they do affect students and they would like to be reminded that you know the classes that
they are unable to take does affect their futures as they will not look as strong on applications as a student who had far more AP classes offered to them and other electives. and districtwide spring sports registration is now open.
>> That was all. >> Thank you very much. >> Can I just say one thing? March 19th, if that's not written in stone yet, we're having a fundraiser at GreatWolf Lodge for the PTO and there's a lot of people who are going to be at that. >> That's a Thursday night. >> Excellent.
>> For STEM night. >> Anything on the student? >> Because there's no school on the 20th. So, That's fine. >> This should not be used today, but it still is. >> Well, I'm sorry. I'm just saying if you've scheduled STEM night, if if it's
really set in stone, that's fine. But there's We sold a 100red rooms to uh Great Wolf Lodge. >> Wow. >> So, there's going to be a lot of families at Great Wolf Lodge that night that will not be able to come to STEM night. >> That is a terrible number of students.
>> Should be fun, actually. I don't know. >> You guys are going to destroy those machines. >> I'm hoping not to have to go, but I'm sorry that was me. >> A casino for kids. >> It is. It is. But uh yes, we Yeah, the Grey Wolf Lodge. We have $10 per room. Maybe we sold 80 rooms. I don't know. We
made over $1,000 PTO. >> Wow. >> Holy. >> Those PTO ladies. >> Yeah, they raised money. Well, >> they're kicking butt. >> Yeah. Um All right. Anything else in response to student representative report? >> Um the specifics about the concerns with
the budget cuts. A lot of it had to do with the AP and access to >> AP classes, electives. Um, students are worried about sports. Um, currently we have a part-time music teacher, which means unless you are in band or chorus,
there's only one elective music class being offered. So, and you need four half-year classes in the arts, which means that students are required to take at least three visual arts classes unless they're in band or chorus. Um, as
well as gym classes, there have been significant cuts and students, including myself, are being put into elective gym classes that they didn't choose simply because there were no other classes to fill those credits
and it's causing like dips in participation among classes because students don't want to be there. >> Can I ask you a question? >> Yes. What is the like one of the things that we've heard over the last couple years is that cutting offerings make
scheduling more difficult? >> Yes. >> Do do kids generally understand that to be true? And like what what's like the like my sister went to Ohio State and there's like one class everybody had to take and sometimes they forced people to go to school for like four and a half
years or five years because the class could never be offered to everyone you needed to take it. It definitely is causing issues. I've had multiple problems being a student who takes band and Latin. My freshman year, I had to independent study my Latin because I
couldn't take it with band and honors bio. Last year, I had to drop honors English because it wouldn't fit in my schedule with other classes. And so, like, it makes students look like less strong of applicants when, oh, why weren't you in honors English? You
should have been in honors English. Why did you drop down to CP English? There wasn't an honors English that fit in my schedule and I prioritized other classes. >> So, what happens when you apply to a college and they're like looking at your your transcript and they're like, "This
person is really good and this person is really good, but one took honors English all four years and one took honors English only three or four years." Is that what you're saying? Like that's a problem. It also I mean multiple other schools allow sophomores to take AP classes, offer more AP classes, and
that's something that Lunberg students I don't think have ever been offered AP classes at a sophomore level, possibly years ago, but not in my recent history. And I mean, it just kind of makes you look stupider than the other kids who
have been taking APs for three years. And so when colleges have to make choices, they're probably going to lean towards the kids with higher academic like >> so like >> records >> for me having you say that it's not that
we don't believe Mr. Santry when he says time and again that the studies support class choices being paramount for students. We do. But I think it it's hard to look at it from a systemic level
and see like the real time impacts for individuals, right? Like the things that Mr. Sentry is telling us are clearly borne out by your experience, but it's one thing to see it as like a data point
in a spreadsheet or like a chart in a you know college education journal and it's another thing to have a student say like I just don't look as competitive to colleges for no fault of my own. And I
think, you know, saying that and putting like a a face to that problem is really helpful. So, I'm glad that you brought that to our attention. >> Of course, you did Latin as an independent study. >> Yep. I took Latin, too, by myself. I was
given a textbook during a block. She had a different class and kind of told to figure it out. pretty sure I kept like a low B in that class and I've had like A's to A+es in every other year of Latin since. But
in order to take AP Latin senior year, >> I had to either do that or drop band. And I would not drop band. >> Can I ask you a question? Another one. When this becomes an issue and we vote on town meeting floor, would you be willing to share your experience?
>> Of course. >> I mean >> I mean I've been here year after year. >> I know you've been here every time. >> Yeah, you've always been here. >> And it shouldn't be your only only your responsibility, but like you are incredibly articulate at making these problems real. And so, you know, if we
have a bunch of old people, including myself, debating like dollars and cents, it's like, ah, but then if we have somebody in your position that says like, I'm really trying and I'm doing
everything I can and I'm still not as competitive as I should be on my college transcripts for no fault of my own. I think that that that makes a difference, >> you know, like it it makes it not just like a can we save a few bucks problem.
So if you can go again, I know you always go, but if you could go again and say what you just said, >> I will try my best. >> Do you have a date yet for that? >> I don't. >> First Saturday. >> Yeah, Saturday. >> Saturday. >> All right.
So, thank you. >> All right. Uh, any other questions or comments for the student representatives report? Uh, we're going to review and approve minutes. The minutes that were in our packet were from the uh January 7th,
2026 session. I would look for a motion to approve the minutes. >> I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. >> A second. >> Second. >> All right. All in favor? I >> Okay. Uh the review and approve line item transfers and warrants along with
donations. Um all we have are warrants, correct? >> Y >> and the warrant is from uh 2326 to 22026. So 216,37146. Um we're going to do the budget presentation and get lots more information. So unless somebody has a
projection, I would say that is not an action item. So, I'd like to move on to agenda item number eight. Is that all right? >> You didn't you didn't do uh superintendent before. >> I don't have one because we have the budget presentation. So, >> sounds good. All right, let's do it. Uh
so, agenda item number eight is the fiscal year 2027 budget hearing and the fiscal year 2027 recommended budget presentation. >> Excellent. Chris, you want to come up? Can I do a point of order? >> Sure.
>> Can you call to order the budget hearing? >> Oh, sure. I call to order the hearing on the 2027 budget. Does that work? >> Thank you, Liz. >> I don't know what we do with them, Liz.
So um tonight we have for you our fiscal year 2027 budget request that is based on the budget that we built ba um given the conversations that we've had as a school committee. This is the
restoration budget that we discussed with one exception. that exception is that we are not replacing a full-time athletic director. There's only a halftime athletic director. What Chris
and I would like to do, if you'll entertain us, is to go through this presentation um so that you can see the different components of the budget, the different assumptions that we made as it was being built and build your knowledge
and the public's knowledge of that. >> Yes. Can I just ask one framing question or at least present to the public one framing question? Um, we have not, my understanding is we have not been given a budget number yet from the town manager.
>> That is correct. The town manager and the tri board are continuing to work and the town I believe is right there at getting ready to close FY 25. We do know, however, that we would
have an approximately um $900,000 deficit. If we cut all the restoration positions on the budget, we would still have about a $900,000 deficit. >> Okay. So, I just think it's really important because there's been some
discussion about an override um when that when we're presenting this budget to the public that this budget is what the school committee wants. This is not a budget that has been agreed to be funded by the town and that's not because the any fault of the town I'm
not that so this budget the town couldn't fund >> correct >> with our current deficit without an override there would be literally if the town gave us >> every dollar of the increase over last year >> that we're getting the 2 and a half%
rise and new growth and and anything else >> it still would not cover what we need for this budget, right? So, this is without a question an override budget, >> right? So, I just think that's very very important because I wouldn't want anyone
to watch this meeting or read in the ledger that we were presenting a budget that was funded by the town, right? Yes. That this budget is a budget that would need an override. >> This is what the school committee believes is the budget that is needed
for our students to thrive and our students to be successful. and it's been worked on a lot already. We will have a full presentation of it as well right now and we'll present to the the um finance committee tomorrow, but this is just the beginning of an override
conversation. This is not a budget that will be funded by the town. I think one of the issues is going to be if we don't ever get to a point where we're and and Dr. Dr. Fortuna has advised us that we not yet talk about what cuts would be at
that point, that $900,000 approximately cut. But I do think it's really important for us to start talking about the fact that $900,000 is a lot of money and we will not be able to do all of these things. And we
will also have to cut $900,000 of extra things, things that we already do today. if we do not get an override. Um, so I'm happy to sit and listen to this presentation, but I wouldn't want anyone who's watching at home or anyone who reads about this in the ledger to get
the impression that this is a budget that the town can currently fund. >> Correct. We will have to make cuts in order for us to present a bal the town to present a balanced budget at the May town meeting. Yeah. >> And we will begin that process of discussing those cuts in a couple of
weeks at our March 18th meeting. Exactly. Exactly. So, thank you. I just want to be very clear. Um, but there's a reason that we believe that this is the budget that the the town needs to fund and that we need to have an override for. Correct. >> Is that >> No, that's perfect. >> Super helpful.
>> Okay. Good. I just I don't want anyone to leave this meeting with the impression that this is what we're getting. >> And at some point, we will need this is what we're bringing to finance committee. Correct. >> As our as our I don't want to say wants, I want to say as our needs. >> As our needs. This is our need budget. >> As our needs. However,
at some point we will have to do another bal balanced budget because the override vote happens on the same day in the same place as we vote on the budget um as a town. So we also need to present a
balanced budget but that comes later and that will be devastating. So I wouldn't again want to leave anyone with the impression that this we are going through this to this exercise here because the school committee we discussed as a group we truly believe
the town needs we need this budget. Um so that's why we're talking about it as how important it is and and this this our leadership team I mean Dr. Our Fortuna's leadership team worked very hard on this budget which is not a
it is still a shoestring. >> It is. >> Okay. I'm done. Sorry. >> No, that's okay. Should we not get an override, I just want to emphasize the point that it will devastate the school system. There is, in my professional
opinion, there is nowhere more to cut. So, um, let's get on with it. So, we started with an FY26, um, budget summary. This summary does
include the $500,000 of free cash that the town members generously voted to give us at town meeting. And what you'll see is of the FY26 budget, 65.1%
of that was spent on salaries and 34.9% is spent on expenses. So when we look at the biggest driver of our budget, it is our people. We are a
peopleheavy business just based on what we do educating students and we our teachers time and time again have said that they'd rather have the backup and the support in the classroom than the
pretty things that would come with supplies. The total budget for FY26, including that $500,000 free cash, was $26,287,447,000. Our expenses were 9,177,80 and our salaries were $17,110,394.
If we go and look at how we disseminated the free cash, 8,451 went to bolster our health insurance fund. 26,053 went to our unemployment insurance given
the cuts that we did make last year. our business manager salary in order to make that attractive and be able to attract a candidate of qualities such as we have in Mr. McNamera. Um $20,000 went to
raising that salary. Um 22,654 went to um the high school principal office salaries. $69,991 went to general education teachers at the primary school. $97,230
went to elementary school teachers. And I'm reading this just in case people can't see the presentation at home. Um 95,659 went to high school teachers. $87,161 went to special education teachers at
the primary school. 27,384 was applied to elementary special education um teachers. 20,47 was to maintain the part-time athletic
secretary and 25,000 was diverted to athletic transportation. That totals the onetime free cash of $500,000. What this means though is that was one-time money and as you can see a lot
of it went into maintaining as much staff as we could last year. These without that $500,000 increase, we would have lost many more staff members than we did last year.
For our anticipated expenses and salaries, um we are now at 33.7% of our budget being expenses and 66.3 being salaries. This is with the restoration budget that we have been
discussing. And I think one of the things that I'd really like to emphasize is that this budget is about restoration. It's not about expansion. We are not asking for anything new. We are asking for a minimum level of what we had last year
to be restored. Not even every position that we lost last year to be restored. There is one new position due to enrollment and that is for our English our multilingual learner teacher um that
is given and we'll discuss how that enrollment has fluctuated and is spread across our three schools. The distinction is that personnel requisitions are identified strictly as needed positions rather than discretionary enhancements. We are not
being um in this budget. We are not asking at this time for the fizzad teacher for example at the high school to be restored. We realize that that would be something that would be great to have. At this point we're asking for
point 4 of the music teacher to be restored so that we can offer additional music electives um to our students. This is the first year of a three-year plan. This is a foundational year. Our
objective is over the course of the three years to restore what we lost in the FY26 budget cycle. And the primary goal is bridging the gap. We want to return the district to operational stability. And we're looking to stabilize class sizes, reinstate some
critical support services, and meet requisite standards for student success. As we've discussed previously and at prior meetings, we're actually looking at some additional um possible outplacements because the fact that we cannot offer
the students the free and appropriate public education that they need directly tied to budget cuts that we have made and decisions that we have made as a community. Our enrollment has been relatively stable.
Um unlike many districts in Massachusetts which are seeing a sharp drop off in the number of students we've had since FY um 07 our enrollment has remained relatively stable.
So there's some up years and a few down years, but if we look at our enrollment right now, it has not differed um substantially from previous years. And I think that's a very important thing to remember. We are serving the same amount
of students in many cases with less money and less buying power than we had in the previous budgets. Our average class size K to five because it's more difficult to judge at the middle and high school. In kindergarten,
our average class size is 22 to 23 without a par profofessional in those classrooms. Our average class size at grade four is 23 to 24. At grade 2, it's 22 to 23. In grade three, it's 22 to 23.
A real concern is grade four where we're running out of room for desks where the average class size is 2728 and our average class size in grade 5 is 21 20 to 22 students in the classroom. One of the assumptions in our budget is
though our overall enrollment has stayed relatively flat as we discussed which is good where you're not losing a lot of students. um from our chapter 70 funding. What we are seeing is an
increase and a steady increase in the number of our students that are considered high needs learners. High needs learners are students with special needs, students um multilingual learners and lowincome students or students that are any combination of those three are
counted in our high need students. This shows you um the growth of our English language learning population. Right now we have gone from 2021 where our English or our multilingual learners were 1.1%
of our student population to now where they're 3.5% of our student population. And the committee had asked what the distribution of those students were. And you can see it bears out. and our early
childhood enrollment that our multilingual families are increasing in enrollment. We currently have nine multilingual learners in kindergarten, 11 in grade 1, three in grade two, eight in grade
three, eight in grade four, five in grade five, six in grade six, six in grade seven, one in grade eight, two in grade nine, 10 in um five in grade 10, two in grade 11, and one in grade 12. So
as you can see that number is increasing at our primary levels. I think um of note is the fact that we have two teachers covering all four of our schools. And so even though we are low incidents for two people to cover all
three of our schools when it's clear that primary needs more of that support right now um based on current enrollment trends is really in her in task that we're asking of two individuals to be
able to do that in within these numbers. What I didn't get down to is the granularity of what level um of English language learning these students are at, but that also ranges. Um so the work
that we're asking teachers to do and the amount of time that we're asking teachers to spend varies um based on where the students are in their acquisition of English. The number of students with disabilities
um has also been a steady increase. We currently have 174 students that are in full inclusion programs. Now, what's notable about this is you can't just have a general education teacher in a
full inclusion program. Um, they are not s our teachers are superheroes, but they're not super superhuman. Um, and they can't meet the needs of all students. So, they need backup. They need to have that special educator
there. They need to have those related service providers there as backup to be able to effectively meet the needs of our students. Our students in our subsparate programs from FY23 we had 30
students in subspparate programs. Um in FY26 we had 41 students in subsparate programs. So that trend line is also increasing. Our subsparate programs require us to heavily staff those
programs with um teachers and paraprofessionals given the needs of >> that's over 10% of our students in a full inclusion. >> Um that's a lot. >> It is a lot. And special our students with special needs numbers are
typically run a little higher than average. >> That's I wasn't aware that it was that high. That's >> But these are not the outdist placements too, right? >> No, these are not the outdist placements. >> Can you give us a number on that, but or is that I know there's some laws about student privacy.
>> Yeah, we currently have and I'm going to ask Miss Hansum because I know she has a number off the top of her head, which I don't have off. >> No, it's fine. I just think it's good for the public to know as well how much you know >> how many students are out of district. >> Yeah, >> we have 1516
depending on >> Yep. 15 that I'm that are responsible for writing IEPs on it. >> Okay. >> So 15 students I'm just repeating that so the public can hear are out of district placements. >> Thank you. >> And that's outside of >> and that's outside of the subset right
where those of us who are not in education. So, I was having an interesting conversation with someone who was asking about the rise in the number of students with disabilities and what disability
categories they fall into. This next graph um shows that that our students with specific learning disabilities, you can see has been a relatively steady increase. And this is due in a large
part to the change in identification of these students where we have to be much more specific and what they need and we have to be much more thorough in diagnosing what a learning disability would look like in school. >> And is that students this green line
here would that be like students with dyslexia would be in that correct >> that category compared to the obviously the orange is >> the orange is autism. >> No, the orange is health. >> Is health. Okay. They read as autism. >> So we're seeing a slight decline in our
students with autism. However, we're seeing an increase in our students with health related disabilities. Enveloped in that health related disabilities are students that have ADHD. Okay? And are requiring an IEP, are requiring
specially designed instruction because of their ADHD. And you'll see that our students with emotional disabilities at the moment through FY26 was relatively stable. I believe we may see an uptick in FY27 with students with emotional
disabilities based on what I'm hearing when I'm out in the field from our principles and they can address that later. I'm surprised that number went down based on I'm happy it went down a little but I >> Is that because they're hearing about
more people that will get categorized or because they're informing you that the categories the way that people are going to be categorized is going to change. >> They're informing us that there's more students that may need to be characterized under that umbrella. >> Okay. >> And as a reminder to someone who's not
in education again, >> thank you. Um the school No, I have a question. The school certain So this these numbers are students that are on IEPs. These are not students who are on a 504, which is more of a >> I don't know. Explain it. Give us like two what a 504 is.
>> So a 504 is a student that has a disability that substantially limits a major life activity. >> Okay. >> So um for example, were I to need a wheelchair and accessible instruction
Mhm. >> Um I would be on a 504. >> Okay. >> If I need specialized instruction, that requires an IEP. >> Okay. >> So, um that's really the defining line
between the two categories is >> just good specialized instruction. >> So, >> so the 504 may need access, >> okay, >> to education, but they don't necessarily need specialized instruction. a student on an IEP require specialized
instruction. >> So like if somebody had ADHD, what would they get? >> It depends. It depends on how the ADHD is impacting them and whether they need a specialized instructional program in order to overcome ADHD's impact on their
educational. So, some children that I know of who have ADHD may have a 504 and may have >> just, you know, more focused classroom instruction, um, the opportunity to take a walk if they need it, you know, that
kind of stuff. Tony, that I mean, I know that is a is a way, but there are obviously some children who have ADHD who need more than than that, I guess, is what you're saying, and could be on an IEP, >> correct? Okay. our school choice enrollment trends. And it's usually in the spring where we have
clearer data about where students are school choicing in and where our students are going. We have to um by law we send a letter to um school districts um various school districts and they have to report back to us how many
students they have in their school. And that's something that usually comes into clear focus in the spring. and we all start sending letters to each other. >> We have to send one to every district neighboring district that we could
potentially have a student in. So we would send them to Liz. Do you know who we generally send them to? I would assume Air Shirley and North Middle Sachs. >> Although in recent years it's even stretched out farther. We've sent them
to Mayor who we've sent them to all different areas. That's not something the state can just keep track of because they keep track of the money, >> you would think, but they don't. >> Okay. >> They actually ask us to report. It's one of the things that we are required to
report to the state in the spring. >> Seems kind of crazy. >> Backwards. >> It does. And uh I'd like to point out yet another thing that we are paying people in our school department to do >> that the state should be handling.
>> Yes. So >> and these are those little tiny unfunded mandates that just really start to add up. >> Yeah. >> And these are students going to other public schools, right? These are not students. So they >> these this does not include our students that going to charter schools um online
schools or private schools. um our students it doesn't include our students that are going to want to attack either that's not considered school choice. >> Okay. >> Yeah. This this chart is interesting because I know that in the tri board we
had talked about school uh receiving being a receiving school as um a revenue generator. Yes. Which >> there's a net loss here. We are sending out far more students than we are taking
in. We also lose more money from the state than we get back in. So the financial difference between the aid we lose in the chapter 70 versus the
$5,000 we get per student who come in is it's a this is not a good revenue generator. Looking at this chart, it's pretty stark how many more we're standing out. It >> It's interesting. It's going down, though. >> And some people may say, and I I've
heard this from different community members, that why doesn't the school committee vote to open more school choice seats. And I think a perfect example is the reason why you listen to our principal's recommendations on this
is what happened in grade two this year. What happened in grade two this year was a perfect storm. So, we opened up elementary seats >> and then we had a large influx of students that moved in that started to
bump those grade 2 classrooms up. And um it with the profile of learners that we have um accepted and that have moved in, it makes the teacher's job much more
demanding. Where at the high school, it's easier to disseminate those seats between grades 9 and 10 and own those students through their high school experience because we tend to have in
some instances, as our student representative was pointing out, we in some instances we have some smaller classes such as our AB classes that students would be really interested in taking that it's easier to schedule them into. Yeah, it lets us offer more at the
high school level without increasing class sizes at the primary school level. We were just we've had issues in the past with once a student's established in a district, they don't want a school choice into Lutenberg >> for high school, which I don't know,
maybe at some point we could talk about the middle school. But the general trend among all school choices, the earlier the grade, the more demand there is for a spot. >> Correct. >> Like no one's school choicing in senior year. >> No, that is true.
>> And lots of people would be ch school choicing in in kindergarten because then they get to stay with the same cohort the entire time, >> right? Did we fill all the school choice slots that we opened up last year? >> We did not fill all the school choice slots. Um, we I believe still have some
open school choice at grade five. I believe grade two is full. So it was 25 and I believe you still have some spots at the high school open as well. >> So like this idea that school choice is this wellspring of money that we are
somehow ignoring is not what the data shows. >> That is not what the data is showing. And I would be worried if the sending number keeps going up. That's where you really that's where you begin to get concerned and that's where you start to see students school choicing out in high
school because we're not able to offer the robust offerings that other neighboring high schools may be able to offer their students. >> Yeah, that would worry me. So, I am glad honestly to see that this sending number has has not gone up. >> Yes. >> Right. Um because that's money we're
losing that and that's more you know. >> Absolutely. >> We're so for the public to know right we're losing we have to pay $5,000. >> Um it varies. There's a formula the state uses. There's a school choice >> but we also lose their chapter 70 money. So any money the state would pay us for
that student doesn't come with them. >> Right. And it's after three years we eventually you lose the full poor people. >> Yeah. So it is it's a >> what >> after 3 years we eventually lose the full core pupil. >> I didn't know that when voting
>> to open up to >> No, no, wait. Cuz we're not >> No, they're students going out. Students students going out. >> Okay. >> Cuz coming in we get $5,000. >> That would be way worse and I understand what you're saying. >> Yeah. No, no, we get a >> disaster. Yes, that's
>> we have 5,000 to come in, but we're not getting there. >> Yeah, that number gradually decreases over time. >> That was that number was set by the state Yeah. legislature years ago and they have never revisited it. So, we're just stuck at the 5,000 >> even
I think it chapter 70. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Because those numbers >> spending is far higher than that. >> Yes. You were thinking that we didn't get the money until after Okay, >> that would like >> That's not a good deal.
>> That's not a good deal. I mean, I think the $5,000 is not a lot, especially when we're looking at less than 20 students coming in. That's not It's not a significant amount. This is not a driver of revenue. And that's the point I wanted to make that this is not it's not
a good source of revenue to lean on. Correct. And again, I would not advise the school committee to open more seats at the elementary level because that right now we're at the level where we would be hiring more teachers to serve more students.
>> That doesn't make sense. >> And we don't want to do that. >> So, we basically be spending like, you know, $60 to $70,000 to get $5,000. >> Correct. >> No, that doesn't make any sense. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Do all school districts run into that problem?
>> Yes. eventually >> like when you were at Brooklyn, did you have that same? >> We didn't offer school choice in Brooklyn. >> Oh, >> yeah. At all? >> Nope. >> We just offered, matter of fact, for employees, it was an employee benefit that your student could go there, but we
charged a materials fee for students that came into Brookline. So, the employee had to pay money to send their students. Yeah, we had discussed that as a perk as well to attract teachers, but you don't get any compensation for that
and that makes it very expensive. >> But I do think it is nice when teachers children can go to the school they teach at. >> Yes. >> Can I ask you a followup question about that? >> I mean, Brooklyn is the number one school district in Massachusetts. So, were they not school choicing because
they didn't need the revenue or because they didn't have the slots? Well, if you look at their budget right now, they actually could probably use some revenue. Um, but they're facing um a significant budget shortfall as well this year. I think they were very
concerned about class size and protecting their class size. >> What's their class size look like? >> Um, it's very similar to ours >> in the fourth grade. >> Yeah. Um, no, not in the fifth grade. I mean, not in the fourth grade. Our fourth grade class size outsizes
anything in Brookline. Yeah, it outsizes anything that I saw in Hudson as well during my time there. Do you as an educator have a ideal class size? I know that we got a lengthy presentation last year about how class size doesn't matter
>> that >> I didn't buy that. I don't there's re there is one research study I believe it's the star study that found that class size doesn't have a large impact on student outcomes. I tend it's more
what happens in the class. I tend to disagree because you can do more of that good teaching if you have 20 to 21 students in a classroom than you can if you have 27 to 28 students in a classroom. I thought that the star study had an
upper limit. It basically said, you know, class sizes in this range do not have appreciable impacts on student achievement outcomes, but above I forget it was 28 or 32. Then they were like, all bets are off. >> Yes. I don't remember what the upper limit was.
>> Okay. But it it did say there was an upper limit. >> Yes. Brushing up against where we were. had the teacher cook the classroom cuts which was an interesting argument. >> But the star study has not been reproduced to my knowledge by and it's over it was in the '9s.
>> Yes. >> So it's over 30 years old and it has not had its data reproduced. >> Correct. And has not looked at schools and I am not using COVID as an excuse. The world changed with CO. Our students changed with CO their needs. shutting
schools down for a year at all levels change students and I I'm not blaming CO I it's just a fact that we are dealing with in each of our schools right now that depending on what level of
development students experience that shutdown their needs are different than they were prior to that even the kids coming in now that are like born >> they're the baby co babies >> co babies I'm really surprised by that the lack of think of the lack the
socialization you did as a young mother and to have that laugh. You were you were home with your child. Your child did not have that opportunity to socialize even with other babies to build language and to to just build
those developmental skills that happen. >> Yeah, that's really I don't know how parents did that. I my hats off to them because that was such a challenging it's hard enough being a young mom but still >> being like a hermit as it was. I can't imagine doing that during co >> Yeah.
>> All right. So this next slide is my favorite. >> This next slide I like this next slide. So what this next slide shows is comparison data from October 1st, 2025. Um
this compares us yeartoyear with the number of staffing. There is a narrative out there that our staffing levels have not decreased. The red line shows our staffing levels in FY 2024.
Um for that October 1st report that we submitted, I'm sorry, that October 1st report that we submitted in October of 2025. This is our most recent October 1st data. And here is where you can start to
see the cut down. Like you see that we lost some administration. >> Were these both snapshots of the same time? Same time October 1st. >> We've gone through this with some of the staffing where you say how much staff you have this year. And >> yeah, our staffing is very fluid and I I
think people need to be aware of that. We are not, we cannot run like a corporation runs because of the business that we're in. We're in the business of educating students. Students develop needs. We need to add a pair professional. Um, our
class size gets too big. We literally can't fit desks in a classroom. We need to hire a teacher mid year. If we have a significant if we had a significant number of moveins to grade four this year, we would have to consider hiring
another teacher because it would just be impossible for our teachers to handle. >> Okay. So these numbers are a snapshot at the same at the same day at the same time of year to year. Important just to note
>> and you have to report this to the state, right? So this is sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. But I think it's important to just to note that like when we talk about staffing levels, >> if you ask us on October 1st, that's different than the answer on June 1st
because >> for example, we have more power professionals now than were reported on October 1st. That is because Mrs. Squire did an amazing job of hiring and making sure that her positions were filled. So this also represents the unfilled
positions that we had at that point in time. The blue bar represents unfilled. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, it takes into account the unfilled positions with us assuming that they would be filled because they need to be filled >> and we still lo we still have gone down staffing wise even considering the
unfilled positions. >> That delta would just be smaller. >> So, one of the things that I I think might be useful is a comparison to other entities that run people based businesses. Like if your job is to
generate graphics chips, you know, as long as the graphic chips are being made, everybody up to including the CEO is fungeible. >> In a peoplebased business where relationships matter, the fungeability
of employees is greatly reduced. And so like you know when people ask about this like I was going to Hannahfords a couple days ago and somebody asked me about this and I was like well think about it in terms of like your baseball team like
how many transactions do the Red Sox have in a year because that is a people-based business where the relationships between people determine the success of the operation. >> Yes. And so like there's only, you know, 25 major league roster slots until
September. And so even in that small of a group, there's a ton of shuffling all the time. >> And like the other one of the other boards that I'm on is the public defender in New Hampshire. And there we have comeings and goings for each board meeting where it's like a bunch of
people because again it's a people-based business where the relation the success of relationships determines the success of the organization's outcomes. And whenever you have that, it's really hard to compare, you know, like the school
district to like widget graphics cards manufacturers and, you know, like >> Yeah. To take that analogy one step further, I was once at a conference and we were talking about a yogurt maker and
he got a shipload of blueberries. some of the blueberries to make his blueberry yogurt weren't to the standard. So, taking it with your chip analogy, you get a set of bad parts, right? We can't
send our students back. >> Not only can't we, we wouldn't. >> We wouldn't. We are required to educate our students. Parents are not hiding other better students in their closets at home. We need to deal with these
students that we have in front of us. That requires us to consistently shuffle people around and move chairs on the deck in a strategic way to meet the needs of our students. Yes. And I also
think I always tell people that government can't be run like a business because government isn't a business. Businesses don't have to serve everyone. government and schools have to serve everyone which is why we have government and we have schools. So that's how I
look at it is that when people tell not just I just in general in the public sphere not even in town just in general people talk about government running like a business >> they have that is a very shallow understanding of what government actually does and what schools actually
do right is serve every single child regardless of when they walk in this door and our educators do that. And this report that we use to create this graph is public record and we will place it on
to our website um in a PDF format so you can see the categories yourself and the numbers that make up these categories. >> May I ask will this whole slideshow be available? >> Absolutely. >> Can I can I ask you one one followup question
>> and maybe Juliana could help on this. If we had a student that moved into town that had a a special need that we had never dealt with before, we can't just be like, "Sorry, we have to go find something." So, like, I know that Liz, you did a lot
of work with blind students, but we currently don't have any blind students. And so, you know, the the machines that we had, the educational programs, and this work you did, that's different. You know, like we don't do that right now. But we can't choose to not educate
somebody based on like you know some special need. >> No, I wish we can't and I wish people would understand that we are required to provide for every student that comes through our door a free and appropriate public education >> and we should be required to do that and
we should pay for it. >> Correct. Right. >> And I wouldn't want the public or anyone to think that we don't want to. We >> that is why our teachers are here to serve every child >> that people exactly that we are not
>> we're not educating the ideal child. Yes. We're educating the kids in front of us whether or not >> and that changes dayto day that that is a definite I think that's a and that's why it's hard to build a budget that is and to
build a staffing model and all those things that you have to do because they it changes for example we've had five moveins to out of district placements I had that number correct right Juliana >> six no we've had six moveins that required out of district placements
already in out of district, >> right? So, it's not someone that was already was in a >> an in district position because once they go once a child goes out of district, right? >> It's difficult to get them to rebuild program, >> right? It's very very difficult. >> We don't have the ability right now,
>> we wouldn't even have the ability to rebuild program >> to build programming because of the budget issues this year. >> It depends on what kind of programming, but >> we've got we've got good programming in district to meet a lot of needs. >> Y there are still those outliers.
>> So Juliana can't say when a new student moves in that has an out of district placement, "Oh, we're not going to serve you, right? We don't have that ability. We must serve that student and continue to provide them a free and appropriate public education even though it's in an out of district setting."
>> And an IEP is a legal document. It is a legal binding contract and you can hire a lawyer to enforce it. Correct. So >> I I just want to say this and I know we we're all on the same page here. I just think it's important to talk about this stuff though, Tony. >> Yeah. No, no, I know what I was going to
say is like I do not think that we should view as ownorous the obligation to provide a free appropriate publication. >> Not at all. >> Every study that I have ever looked at from Juliana, the ones that Juliana sent
me, the ones that Mr. Santry sent me, the ones that the previous director of teaching and learning has sent me, they all show that there is a market improvement in student achievement by having integrated inclusion classrooms. >> Yes. >> And so this is not just like us being
like uh progressives who want to give money away. >> This is about actual nuts and bolts in impacts on student achievement. Mhm. >> We produce better students when our students have a variety of needs. And so
providing a faith for everyone is a benefit to everyone. >> And I'm sure those studies show that it is a benefit to our students that do not have an plan as well to be in inclusive classrooms. >> Yep.
>> Uh by being proactive. I've found in this district by being proactive with accommodations, we can avoid more expensive >> things. Um, just one example, one of my children, I thought we were going to
have to look at maybe ADA, ADD, ADHD things. Um, but it turns out the classrooms here are very inclusive of needs and it has never been an issue because the classrooms starting in
kindergarten have already been inclusive on dealing with students with that and it's just okay there's a wiggle chair there and you can use it and this is how we do it. we take movement breaks. So, it benefits everyone and not that this is the reason why, but it also benefits
our bottom line because that avoids more legal documents that that need to be fulfilled. We love all of our students and we care for them all. And I think that our teachers and our administrators and everybody here in Lunenburgg, that's
one of the things as I navigate my first year that has so impressed me is the love, care, and attention that each of our students gets. And that's one of the reasons I'm proud to be the superintendent here. I'm proud to work with this team and I'm proud to work with the teachers and the power
professionals and the custodians, you know. Um, I'm sure we're going to talk about custodians later and I'm I'm just in awe of the people that we have here in our district and none of this would work without no without people and
without them. So now I'm going to let Chris take over and I am sure he's quite ready to explain to you what these accounts are and what I mean for all the emails. >> Mr. Sandry, do you have an update on the
boys game? >> Thursday 18 and a half >> for uh Lunberg or No. >> No. >> Okay. >> Do we need to take a quick cheer? >> Yeah. Do we need >> No, no. I want No, I heard the girls won. So, >> girls won by like 45
>> and I'm sorry, it's 3120. We're down three. >> Oh, okay. Thank you. We do need to quit. >> Sorry. Nothing against you, Chris, in your spreadsheets. I just needed to know. These are all the major revolving accounts for the school district. >> Thank you. This was my request.
>> And the revenue is >> so with a revolving account, things come in and out. >> So what does >> So for example, for the the biggest revolving account we have is school lunch. >> Yeah. >> And we have money that comes in from the
federal government. We have money that goes out to pay payroll um for the cafeteria workers. And like so for example, the other revenue for this I'm assuming is school lunch receipts from the children.
>> Um and what else we have? >> They don't pay for lunch here. >> Oh >> it's free in Massachusetts. It's free. It's reimbursement from the state. >> So what was the other plan? >> They get a second lunch. >> Yeah.
>> Sometimes they go those hungry or more. >> Yeah. You can buy snacks. >> Yeah. By >> when they're going like full Hobbit mode and have 11 Z's second lunch. >> If they don't take the full balanced lunch, right? If they're like, "No, I just want one." Correct. >> Yeah. They can't get the milk. I've got to take the whole
lunch to get the milk. >> And >> if I want or otherwise, I got to pay for just the milk. >> This is an impressive amount of rules for the lunch distribution. >> Have you looked at how she does it? She is amazing with a piece of fruit. >> You have to take a piece of fruit for
your lunch to be free, but no one wants the fruit cuz it's normally all squishy and gross. So, we take fruit and then throw away our fruit so that we don't have to pay for our lunch. >> Should have a fruit bowl or something. >> There is a lot of food being wasted. At some point, they were talking about having a bowl where we put the fruit
that we don't eat. >> But that means you're having kids take an apple, hold an apple, then put it back in a bowl for other students to take that apple. not only lost like oh we can't do >> there are other reasons within the federal government guidelines that we can't do this
>> sangria Fridays for teachers >> um the only question I have for this is the >> transportation funding which I know >> nobody loves but I was wondering how much money we made on it last year >> 50,628 >> Oh god >> it's the other
>> it's the other school choice it's It's an account within school choice. >> I know. It's too much. It's so much money. >> I know. I >> This is how drug dealers get you hooked, though. >> I already ranting about this because it's enough money to pay for a physician.
>> I hate this. >> I wish it wasn't that much. I'm sorry. That was my idea. >> The worst. And then one other um thing to note is that the fund 1301 chapter 658, that's athletics. Um
It's just always been chapter 658. So >> I couldn't find that. That's not a chapter. >> That's the fund number is just the munness code. >> Is that where the athletic fees go? >> Yes. >> And then that and like the receipts at the gate. >> Yeah. That's why it's a revolving fund
because it's constant. It things come in and out. >> Just be helpful if I could if we could see what went out to. Mhm. >> Um because I revolving funds are hard to I can see what comes in.
>> Yeah. >> But I'd like to see what we're expending too. For example, I'm pretty sure for and it doesn't have to be I know very busy getting ready for stuff. >> Um it's that uh things like athletics. I know we went way down on that. Uh
>> yeah, there seems to be a lot of money in that after we were allegedly in the negative. >> But well, this is revenue, not >> that's just revenue. That's not the balance. >> Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, thank you. We're not just sitting on >> my accounting. Yeah, this is what came in my account my lack of accounting mind.
>> Um and then the after school activity fund that's the money like the PTO gives money there. That's like where they use for and the fees come in for the after school things and stuff. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. This is too but not
I'm not going to ask you to do that. >> No, that's fine. >> Right away because you're And then for this 50 this grant the 2640 that's the special ed circuit breaker. Correct. Correct. And the transportation. >> Special ed transportation. >> Special transportation.
>> Yes. I would have to double check and get back to you on that. >> Isn't that a line in the budget? There's a line in the budget. >> Do we get reimbursed for that? >> It's like total total value of all the revolving accounts. >> Yeah. >> Less than a million dollars, right?
>> Yeah. I can actually >> Well, it's over a million. Sorry. It's over. I see the 800 and the 600. So, it's like less than $2 million. >> Yeah. Since they're the town's closing out FY25, I should be able to send you a revenue and expense account with each balance soon. Um I have it right now,
but they're just still finalizing it, so I don't want to send it out before it's ready. >> No, that's okay. Um Yeah, cuz we're not This is not the amount that we're just sitting on. No, >> this is the amount we brought into the accounts but >> suspended >> by
>> Okay, I keep forgetting what it is. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you for this rundown of it. Um, yeah, school facilities use is not as high as I thought it would be. >> Uh, that's because we have ridiculously
low rates that we charge people for >> Yeah. >> school facilities uses. I mean, it's like >> it's a pittance. It's kind of >> I know, but >> I'd rather do that than charge people money to ride the bus. >> Yeah, Mrs. Hansum, do we get reimbursed
for special ed transportation? >> We do. Um, but the percentage has been variable since they've instituted it a few years ago. So, it's tacked on to serve breaker and then whatever money is left over from circuit breaker, they allocate for special transportation. So,
you got like almost 75% I think reimburseed and then it dropped down to like 46%. So it's not anything that I've counted on um in my numbers because it is so it fluctuates so much and just to repeat that for the people at home the
number we do get reimbursed the number fluctuates so it's not something that we can count on for budgeting purposes. The number fluctuates. It's not something we can know until after we set our budget for the year. >> Yes. Correct. And some years till the fiscal year has started
>> that they pass the budget. >> Yes. Because the state does not usually pass their budget till after July 1st and then it's a percentage. So there's always a lot of discussion of it. Um >> be a lot easier if it was set. >> So Chris, in terms of the revolving
account, it's about $2.2 $2 million, but the vast majority of that is state provided. So like the stuff that the revolving accounts are generating in house is not >> right. >> Yeah. It's not um what's the word I'm looking for? It's
not >> robust. >> That's material, I guess. >> Yeah. So like if you take out the $835,000 and $68,000, one of which is federal and the other which is a state allocation, the only other thing that's really large is
another state allocation and then the extended day revolving account and the the athletic fund. But even >> we expend those. >> Yeah, those all get spent way below like athletics is not self- sustaining. Extended day is extended day self-
sustaining. So extended day for FY25. It looks like we did expend more than we did take in. >> Okay. So all all of the major in-house generating accounts are actually losers >> with the exception of school choice.
>> Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, but that's only like 50 grand and that's like a rounding error of $28 billion budget. >> Yeah. I think once you see the spreadsheet with all the expenditures, you'll have a better idea of what the winners and the losers are, I guess.
>> Okay. So, on school choice, that 106, that's what we get from students choosing in that 5628. That's the bus fee. It went into the school choice. Correct. >> Good. Am I allowed to ask a question? >> Absolutely.
>> So, if this is the FY25 budget, the busing fees didn't go into place until FY26, right? So, how are we seeing >> Great question. >> The busing fees were in 25. >> No, >> it's been two years of busing fees. I thought >> last year.
>> That's a really good question. >> Yeah, I'd have to look. >> Or is that something else and it just happened to be? >> No, it's labeled as busing on the >> We started taking in bus fees in May. >> Oh, I was
so >> sorry about that. Don't don't apologize. Ask questions. >> No, that's a really really great question. Never apologize for asking questions. Way too many of these. >> People told me that when I joined >> We regret that number
total for bus fees is higher. >> The total we brought in for bus fees is higher. I >> higher than what >> 5628 or did we just put it all? >> It could be. Um, >> right. >> It depends on when they paid. I guess it's the most people paid fiscal year
was collected. >> So I just think just for you to know I think that that's a commitment the parents made to um the schools last year to fill in some gaps and I just think we should make sure that like obviously it it's not what we all want but it is
something that when we're talking about um the town funding and stuff for the school, right? Like we >> parents bearing the cost >> parents are bearing the cost of that there. So we should know that and use that in our sort of speaking about
>> that was a really good question. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, if we could look into the bus fee and get the total number, I think that would be useful. Although it's >> I mean it's not a ton of money but it's >> it's a lot of this we're relying on the
town for and given the transition that the town is undergoing it it might take a little bit for us to get that involved >> that's fine it's good to have a general right >> yeah um our next slide is our federal entitlement grants and I want to be
really clear about calling these a revenue source there's a very strict rule that they teach you from when you're a baby administrator is that these title grants are to supplement not supplant
the budget. So if it is something that your school district requires to have in the budget for example a math interventionist if that's something that your district can fund in the budget
that should not be in a title one grant. If it's something that aligns with the strategic priorities of your district, it should not be in a title one grant. This is to supplement, not supplant, our responsibilities. And each of these
title grants has with a perfect uh reasonably perfect rules that go with it. Um, title one is really designed to serve students that are lower income um students. That's how our funding is
allocated for that based on census data. Title two is allocated for teacher professional development. And title four is advocated for safe and supportive learning environments. And title four, there's something unique. It can be
folded in to title two if you wanted to do. Um so a district can choose to add that money to professional development funds. um the professional development funds in title two to give you more buying power. I think um you all
remember the grant presentation that I gave where we talked about how our funding levels have been rather um static and that our buying power has decreased with our grants. We were told to expect a 30% cut in title one for
FY27. So that's why you see um our anticipated um went from 209,522 which was our award for FY26 to 146,665 which is our anticipated um amount for
next year. Our title 2 went from 35,276 to 24,693. Title four went from 14,616 to 10,231. And the only other grant that I held steady was our 240/260
grant which is a special education grant >> and that we feel will be funded at similar levels to what it was funded this year. This is a federal grant. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Um can I ask a question about dispersement of the grants? That's
>> do we get cash for that or do we expend the funds and then ask for reimbursement from the government? >> We expend the funds and ask for reimbursement from government. >> Okay. So there's a time delay and if the funds were suddenly disappeared but we had expended the money already. We'd
have to find room for that in the government in the >> Okay. >> We don't anticipate that happening though once there's a grant award. >> Okay. I just was curious um do we have to write grant proposals for these grants or is it come to us
automatically? They're very extensive grant proposals and they the state can deny them um based on what is in them. >> Okay. So the state disperses them. >> The federal government awards the state and state disperses them to us.
>> Who writes these grants? >> It will be Dr. Softi moving forward. >> Okay, >> that's good news. >> Yes, that's excellent news. >> Very much like your other proposals. >> One of the things that I really appreciate about Dr. Softy is not only is she an excellent grant writer, she's
also an excellent grant manager. So, she will keep us from getting in trouble for when these grants get audited, which I think. >> I don't mean to laugh, but >> yes. >> Okay. >> So, these are federal grants that come through the state. The state decides how they get dispersed by by towns or is
>> based on census. >> Okay. So, it's a formula based on our population. It's not >> Okay, that's good to know. >> And then it's a reimbursement grant. >> Correct. What's the time on reimbursement? About how long does that take? Well,
this year it there was some delay in getting our grant lines posted um in Munice so that we have been charging things to our general budget and we haven't been drawing down on the grant but that's
been rectified so we can now start reclassifying and drawing things drawing monies down from the grants. >> Okay. Excellent. Sorry, I just was curious how that got dispersed. Our student opportunity act grant is um
was $100,000 this year. We know that this is the last year of the award. You may recall when I first started, I startled you all with letting you know that we hired um a reading coach with this money. However, that literacy coach
has since left and Dr. Sari has presented you already. Yes. >> With the plan to reallocate um the funding for this grant. >> Yep. >> So, we are not expecting any money from
this grant next year. Is the state still offering this grant or was this the only time? It was a two-year. >> It was a twopase grant and this was the second phase of that two-phase grant. >> Okay. So there's no possibility of applying for more. Okay. No.
>> And then we thanks to our delegation, our legislators are really I have to give a big shout out to Representatives Scarsdale and Senator Cronin. They did an amazing job securing us $370,000
in earmark funding this year, which really helped us. However, the problem with earmark funding is you don't know what it's going to be next year. So, we can't count on that funding for next year. That's why there's a dollar sign
and a question mark. I am sure our delegation will continue to fight a strongly for us. But, um we just don't know what it'll be. >> Yeah. for the year before. I think Lunberg as a whole got zero from our
state delegation, which is last year was lovely and very surprising because previously Lunberg had gotten zero just because the way the districts worked and >> yeah, we're working this year to look at I'm working with the town manager to
look at some things that weren't funded in our capital appropriation um to have those funded through earmarks. That would be fantastic. Yeah, if we could come up with specific ears for you, non not so specific ear marks
>> um or word them so they're not so specific. >> Yes, as we know, we've been discussing that one that we did this year. >> Yes, because I think the flexibility is important, but also having projects ready to go and ask what is the timeline
on that? Um Jen um Jennifer Warren our town manager was meeting with the delegation I believe yesterday. >> Oh okay. So it's now Yeah. >> Yeah. So the later >> the budget um the ways and means budget hearings are starting. So um it kind of
is like the before the house the house always debates their budget the week after April school vacation week. So by then, you know, >> and then last year, you're right in your memory. Um, last year, Laura, it did
come in the spring. We all got calls from our state senator because it happened to be in Brooklyn asking us for one-time fund projects that we funded. >> That was Yeah, that was much later in the >> There was some extra money that was
student um millionaires tax. It was like a big overage group that they allocated last year and that's where we got that second mark. >> All right, Chris, I'll let you take over. >> So for FY27
for our budget assumptions, these are all contractual. For the teachers, they're getting a 3 and a half% increase. pair of professionals, three, secretaries, 4%, and then we have cafeteria and custodial that are both up for contract renewal right now.
>> The cafeteria is similar. >> No. >> Um, and I also want to add here, and we should add it to the slide for tomorrow, remind me, is that our administrators are getting a raise equal to the
teachers. So, they're getting a 3.5 as well. um the gap between teachers and administrators was rapidly narrowing. Um so we wanted to make sure that we're paying them a fair and at least slightly competitive wage.
>> Can we take a pause one second? Um we're going to have two contracts up for negotiation. It would be helpful if somebody like I don't care who does it but at least the idea would be to have
everyone do one contract and then slowly work up to I mean the teachers contract is the most complex contract. >> Yeah, we used to do teams of two because I think >> Yeah, we do. So have one person that's done the contract or a contract and then a new person and then that person will
shift up into a more complex contract until you're at the teacher contract. So I know Laura has done it. Mandy, you have not done it. >> Yeah. >> Which one do you want to do? >> Oh, I don't care. Whatever Whatever you want for. And you got to do the the you and Emily need to do the the training.
>> You have to do the st That's why you have to do the stupid training. I know >> it stinks. >> But the MASC training, which everybody's required to do, >> it's got to get done. Well, it's got to get done before May. Um, >> what what what happens if I don't do it?
>> You can't you can't you can't serve on the school. >> You can't serve on the school. And then >> it's maybe this is such a pain in the ass. >> I mean, just for the public to know, it is an 8 hour class. >> Awful. >> On a Saturday that is not anywhere near here. So, >> and you have to watch it on Zoom and
they not Zoom. It's in person. I have to go in person. >> Do it on Zoom because of co >> I have to go in person somewhere for 8 hours on a Saturday. >> Survive out to the baby. >> It's awful. >> And not to sound dramatic, but like you know my kids have sports. Like we all have lives. It's it's a horrible
horrible setup. >> I signed up against the >> and it's another reason I know MASC is not watching this but they are terrible. I've emailed Ricard. This is a legislator. MASC lobbyed the legislature to make it be a class so that they would
have a role and they revenue stream. >> Yes. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. I wrote them three emails and told them I wanted to be on their committee to help with budget like and I have heard not one not one reply one not one no one has even acknowledged my
emails and this is over the last six months. This is not like in the last week. So again, >> I'm sorry I'm banging my hand on the table. You >> pay for the class, >> but they are off. >> No, the So the class >> I think you pay We the public pays for the class. We pay for it as >> Yeah. So don't
>> your taxpayer dollars are paying for it. >> We belong to it. We have >> there's no other option. >> Um yeah, the the >> Sorry, I got up at 3:45 this morning. So you're lucky that I am not out of Florida cuz that's why >> I am so raging about this. Um, so there
is one March 7th within like I can't remember if it's east or west, but I did sign up for that one. But >> why are you going again? >> Because I wanted to touch up on it. So when I took it I took it three years ago. >> I three years ago
and I was there's so much information coming at you in those eight hours that I was reading through my notes on it and I'm like I think I would benefit from again but I am going to leave early so I can't offer to carpool. Um because there's a thing we're doing there's an off book signing we're doing later that day. Um so I'm going to go to the the
morning and part of the afternoon part. Um but it's I think it's March 7th and it's only like an hour away. But they >> they cover the contract negotiations which is I think if we're going to start getting into contract negotiations then it's important that
>> it's in Petersham. >> Where is Peter? Oh, they're offering it. >> Wait, is that >> They're offering it June 6th in Fitchburg, but >> Oh, that's new. >> By June 6th, I mean, I'll be I'll be illegal. >> Yeah, >> I'll be an illegal member of this committee.
>> It is the worst experience. >> Thank you for Thank you for making it so much better. >> I'm just telling you it is terrible. >> It's It was certainly interesting. It was interesting enough for Laura. She's going twice. I'm saying it's interesting
how very it's not taught by professional teachers. So I'm used to through school committee now talking to teachers who are really good at explaining things and this whole thing I'm like this is not the PowerPoint slides with teeny tiny fonts and it was um >> more stories from old people.
>> I wanted to touch up on stuff. >> I get a dispensation >> unfortunately. No. No. But if you're going to be doing contract things I think it's >> No, I get it. I'll sign up. I'm working on it. >> It sucks so bad.
>> It's one day, >> Tony. >> I think they feed you. >> When I feed us, >> it depends which one you go to. I went to one at a tech school and the tech students came in and made lunch for us and it was catered and it was amazing. >> I have been regretting or not looking
forward to telling you this for a very long time. >> You got to go on Zoom. >> I know. And it was still awful. It was still awful. They didn't even let us take a bathroom break. >> Wait, what is this? >> High school. >> They're allowed to have bathroom.
>> So, if you want to pick a contract thing, we're going to do it in teams. >> Okay, just pick what you want me to do. I'll sign up for the thing. I'm fine. >> We need to >> Let's move on. I got it. >> But yeah, the point is that we want to train people in the contracting and kind of start. Yeah. >> So, there's not just two of us who have
done it before. >> Excellent. >> Um, so either you and Emily can divvy it up. >> Okay. Let's move on because we haven't even gotten to the budget. We're still in budget assumptions. >> Oh my gosh. >> For our next budget assumption is for
health insurance costs. Uh we got a number, it was 9% increase for FY27, which is much better than what we had originally projected for. Um the FY27 number includes
the restoration of the 10 positions based on the fact that if they took the most expensive family plan insurance possible. Um, so the budgeted amount is actually more than 9%
over FY26 and we are I look just looked at it a second ago and we're on track to spend out the FY26 3.7 million. >> To go just to spend it out, not go significantly over. Okay.
>> Wow. >> Yeah. 9% still sucks. >> It's better than 20, >> but it got it got to down to 9% because all they did was cut coverage. They didn't like >> they weren't like fiscally prudent.
>> No, they basically are not covering. >> Yeah, they're these are insurance companies. They're they're designed to make money no matter what. >> I don't understand how this is an efficient way to do healthare. >> Okay, keep going. The next budget assumption is utility costs for the
electricity and the heating. Um, you can see they're both going up from FY26. Um, for heating and FY24 and 25, they were down years. So, they were actually much warmer winters than
FY 25 and 26. >> Yeah, this one is very dependent on the weather outside. So, I'm scared to see the the heating bills from this winter. >> Okay. >> Um so, we'll see um once those come in.
>> And then for FY27, the electricity um electricity just keeps going up. Um there's really no way to I guess plan against it. And for the public who are inevitably going to ask,
yes, we have solar panels on the roof of Turkey Hill and we have solar panels on the roof of the high school. >> Yeah, >> it comes up every year. >> They got on fire. >> They're on there. >> Yeah, you should definitely know we have them on the >> They're And they're on the roof of
Turkey Hill. And yes, it offsets some of the cost. >> Yeah. And the 316,000 is based off of the FY25 actual. So for FY26, I don't think they budgeted it quite enough. >> I think that was a mistake we made. >> So >> sorry.
>> Yeah, that's why the FY27 number looks like it does. >> How much have we Where are we on electrical for this year so far? >> Give me one second. to the generator. >> Sounds good.
>> Says I have to bring a notebook and a writing utensil to this event I'm going to. >> I got a free pen there. Okay. I got a free pen. >> Uh Chris, can you check to see if your mic's still working? We just I just got text messages. >> I don't think it's working.
>> There is some batteries. >> He's got them work. >> So actual expenditures so far for the year is 205,000 already. >> That's awful.
>> Okay. Um >> what? >> Okay. >> For electricity. >> Yep. Thanks. >> Like is happening with everybody's home bills rising >> exponentially. It's happening to our
bill as well. >> Yeah. >> The next budget assumption is transportation. Um so transportation we budgeted up again. Um so this is contractual but we're still waiting to hear from DEB bus. I actually called them on my way
home today because they have yet to give us the rates that were in the contract. Um, and they said they were going to be sending them to me. So, I'm wait I'm actually waiting on them right now. Um, but I projected for a 15% increase. Um,
and that's for just general transportation, which I met with other business managers and I think that's reasonable, but it I'm thinking it might be a little low. But I just wanted to be very
I I guess stringent with the money. >> When you say reasonable, you don't mean that that rate of increase is reasonable in general. You just mean that it's the same across the board. >> This is the same across the board for >> It's almost like they engage in price fixes. >> Um >> don't make it.
>> No, I'm just I'm just saying it seems odd because there's no competition. >> So this number does not consider offsets from the busing phase. Correct. >> Okay. I just want to make that clear. We know there's a busing fee, but that's not how accounting works. >> Yep. So, for the revolving fund, the bus
fee, the bus fee that the students pay goes into the revolving fund. This is the general fund. So, this is separate aside from >> Okay. >> This what we pay, this is what we pay for the general busing. >> Okay. Finance committee is going to point that out. We could apply that revolving >> fun.
We could apply it to this. I think that it's good to have a clean spreadsheet that's all expenses >> that shows everything. >> Do you know what I mean? And then our revenue is separate and then we can it's all >> cuz I think in the past we have actually
just shown the number >> like that the N number Dr. Fortuna and that can be really confusing for example when we used our last person who was in Dr. Sar's position like some of it was funded by grant and then the public thought that the person
got a 50% raise which was not true but just that was 50% on the public but you know the public budget. So I I just wanted to make it yeah clear that this number not consider the busing fee >> as an offset here because that's not how we budget.
The next budget assumption that we made for technology was a 3% increase per year in subscriptions and an 8% per year in tech and equipment. And that is from our third party vendor that they told us to project for
for FY27. And then the the next uh budget assumption is supplies. So originally we had uh projected a 12% increase because of the tariffs, but now we're at 6%.
Um so that's where we're at for the tariffs right now. >> I think it may have gone up to 10%. May and you'll see that when you look at the budget um for the most part I'm sure you have seen that our supplies are level
basically level funded level funded which means we're going to be buying less supplies how correct >> how long for the principles how long can we maintain this because I know starting my first year like two years ago there was a lot
of making do with the current supplies we had and uh trying to use up supplies or get away with less. How long can we >> maintain this? >> Realistically, >> yeah, >> we can't because we've used up all of
our supplies and we are at >> like bare minimum. We have to order supplies right now to get us through to the end of this school year without asking parents to continue to >> donate the Kleenexes.
>> Sharpie. Yeah. >> Because we have because of over the years in cutting we have really depleted. There is no stock. There's no hidden stock. We've gone through all of the closets. No hidden stuff. Nothing's hiding anywhere. >> All right. I wanted to point that out
too that we've been asking the schools to do the principles and the admins to be doing this in each school since I started three years. This is the third year we're asking everyone to just scrape the bottom of the barrel one more
time. I would like to make a joke about us paying tariffs, but it's just sad at this point. So, as of 220, or I should say 2:25. So, since we posted the original budget online, um I think it was posted about a
week ago, me and Dr. Fetuna sat down and we looked at every possible reduction that we could possibly make and we've cut 28,000 from the budget. where
>> uh I would I could give you >> just a just a generic rundown. I know that I I believe we went from a full-time athletic director to a half. >> That was one. Um, office supplies and materials, art supplies,
>> science supplies, general school supplies. >> Okay. It was a lot of trimming everywhere. Yeah. Where we could. Okay. Um, and this was in response to >> this was working with the tri board and
>> it's in response to working with the tri board and trying to really get to a position where the restoration of the positions could potentially be more feasible um for an
override scenario. Okay. This is a delicate balance. It is >> because we want to keep our override ask to be reasonable. >> Uh however, if we cut too much even from
an override budget, then there is not as much >> incentive incentive for citizens to vote for it. If we're still making massive cuts and we're not restoring >> for parents, I think >> for parents, I think it makes it a lot
there's less incentive if we're still cutting a lot. So, this was a delicate this is a delicate balance to strike. >> And I I think I want to reiterate kind of circle back to where we started. We in order to submit a balanced budget,
we have to cut approximately $900,000 more on top of this 200,000 >> on top of million. >> On top of a million. Yeah. And I' I've been saying this for two years and I'm not
we're so lean there's no more to cut. Correct. >> I said it last year and we are feeling the effects of the cuts. to cut that much from the budget. We're cut and bone now. >> And is that what we want for our kids? I
just hate to be, but like it's not I don't think anyone in this town I'm not blaming anyone. I don't think anyone in this town wants that for our children. So, we have to we have to figure out a way to make this work like this override work. That's my my fervant belief and
hope that once people realize how devastating this will be for our educational system, they will really have a firm comprehension of what it is that we're trying to accomplish.
>> Yeah. I just think we need to get to the point unfortunately where we can describe some of it because I think that that is going to be key to getting people to >> Well, I know what she's saying, but like saying >> she did that. That's what she just said. >> It's got to be a multiaceted,
>> right? But she's talking about like we're talking about what her >> very valid concerns are is for a budget that is level level services. And we aren't even talking about a level services budget. So just to get the
situation we're currently in, we need $900,000 more. >> Chris, how many FTEEs roughly? And it would be more because of um the way that the contract works, but approximately how many FTEEs do you think that would
be? >> So the average teacher salary is about 97,000. But based on >> plus the healthare >> plus the healthcare but there's a union. So you would have to >> the bumping rights would be
>> the bumping rights. So there would be more FTEEs because it's different than a corporation cuz if you want to get rid of $100,000 in a corporation you can just lay somebody off. You can lay off someone who makes $100.
>> When we're unionized, we would have to go through seniority. We would have to go through >> the layoffs would be at our lowest paid employees gener generally speaking. >> So there would be more than 10 >> 10 12
>> probably about 12, >> but we're not there yet. And I I'm hoping we don't get there. And the reason I'm saying this is because a I have faith in the community of Lunenburgg, but b the fact that I don't
want our teachers to be hearing this and start to flee now for other jobs. We cannot afford to lose any more of the talent that we currently have. >> Yeah, I agree. Last year we and the year before we have
lost some fantastic educators. We can't we just can't sustain them. >> And the ones we have now are wonderful. We need to keep them. >> I'm going to fly through the next piece. We all >> because we've talked about this.
>> Yeah, we've talked about the literacy. I just want to um bring your attention to we've updated this with the middle of the year data. >> So um you can see what that is. The MCAST is all the same. This is mostly
for um finance committee tomorrow night. You know our justification for interventionists. Um so the new staffing requests for the restoration budget is to add a 1.0. We have it here as an interventionist. It may actually have to
be a special educator based on rises in case loads, but a 1.0 teacher um either an interventionist or a special educator at the primary school. We're adding one kindergarten par profofessional and
we're reassigning the existing MTSS par profofessional to a kindergarten classroom. Does that number consider the health insurance cost? >> The 72441. No, the 22205. No, >> but now insurance is broken out on the
side. It's on the side on the left side. >> Okay. >> Oh, yeah. Just making sure. Yes. So, boys are losing by three with one minute left. >> 36. >> Sorry. >> Okay. Our new staffing request for Turkey Hill is to restore a 1.0
interventionist. Our new staffing request for the middle school is to restore to um add 1.0 interventionist so we can have a true intervention block. Yes, ma'am. >> Just to clarify that
position would restore halftime interventionist that was cut >> and a halftime special educator that was cut. So we go back to the two full-time positions. >> I just want the people that are listening to >> to hear that not >> Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's important to
note that when we say new we are restoring Yes. positions that were cut last year that we are very much struggling with without uh this year. And the scores show that and our
students are struggling and this is these are not us increasing staffing and getting anything new and fancy. This is us restoring some of what was cut last year. Not all of it. some of what was
cut last year. This is us placing our failed brakes on our car. That's what this is. Yeah, we tried driving >> with no brakes this year. Didn't work out great. >> The students are suffering.
So, we're going to try adding back in two out of four of the breaks this year >> because that's what we can afford. A 1.0 0 interventionist at the middle school. At the high school, we are looking at a
1.0 world language teacher. This isn't necessarily a cut that happened last year. This is a cut. It did happen last year. Thanks, Tim. I thought it might have happened two years ago. Um, this is the restoration of a cut. the our decision here if we don't add this is we
either have to cut a language or not offer a language to our eighth grade students. Um so that's the choice um that we are making here. A point for music teacher as I alluded to earlier to
increase the number of music electives that we can offer to our students. Arts are one of our requirements for graduation. Um it's one of the mass core requirements for graduation as well. Um to restore the 1.0 bridge program
teacher and to add a PAR professional. I had some questions about whether that would be possible to do without the PAR professional and just do the teacher. And it would not given the inclusionary needs of the students. There needs to be somebody that's in the classroom for
students that need to be there all day as well as somebody that can travel to classes with students that are able to have more inclusionary needs. >> Can I ask a quick question about slide 40? >> Mhm. >> Um can you explain the positions cost
the 101417? Some of that is already in the current budget because 28 976 plus 30 >> we just carried that over from the slide before. That's a mistake. >> Thank you for noting that. >> Can we just Sorry.
>> No, >> I should have earlier. I'm sorry. >> And um the bridge program, this is at the high school, >> correct? >> Okay. And we currently do not have that and our students are really feeling the effects of that.
>> Correct. Um, yeah, this is one that I very much feel strongly. I mean, all of them, but this one especially, I think we're struggling without this, in the long run, will save us money. Um, I I do believe for that
district placements. >> Yeah. And this keeps our graduation rate up and it is so much better for students if we can just get them back in the classroom with the supports they need. they are feeling the lack of support that they have currently
and that's bearing out in their actions. >> Oh, >> I actually asked in class the other day, I spoke to Warren Stevenson's class the other day and I asked the students if they felt that there were more needs in the high school that there was that this year
they felt like there was less support and teachers, not necessarily for the students in the classroom, but just in general. and they said yes. They felt like there was more which I know Mr. Santry has mentioned >> and I had talked to Mr. Santry about
what we're doing right now without this program and the answer was the administrators are taking on a lot of it which is especially hard because we added this on to them >> and we took one >> and we took one of them away
>> half time and that's I think very unfair. So, thank you for doing that. Uh, I think this one is really important and I'm I very much regret that being a cut last year. I know we had to make a lot of painful cuts. I think this one
was difficult. One of our district needs, which we've already talked about, is adding a 1.0 English language teacher, multilingual um language teacher. um restoring the assistant principal at
the high school to a full-time position. Um that needs to happen with Mr. Santry being the principal of both the middle school and the high school. um and not
having that second assistant principal at the high school, we're really starting to notice um the where the lack of student support. We're aware of the lack of student support that's happening.
Um central office restructuring, what we want to do is gain more support for Chris and his office, what he's being asked to do. and I have to say accomplishing but at the risk of great risk of burnout. Um is again we're
asking him to be superhuman I think and so we're looking to add a position um reorganize central office a little bit. So we're going to take um a position that's currently funded by a grant because we're trying to move all of our
positions off of grants right now given the volatility of grants. uh moving that position, excuse me, back into the teachers contract. And then we want to um we currently have
somebody that's doing the job of accounts payable and she's our district data reporter. What we found is the district data reporter is actually its own halftime job that somebody needs to concentrate fully on um through just
through human error. For example, it was shown that we only had one person complete massport requirements on our data submitted to the state. >> And I don't fault the person that's in the position. I think that she's just
doing too much. So, separating out that data piece and uh creating an assistant business um manager piece for Chris, I think, is important. >> Question. Um, I very much
agree with this move. Um, not because I don't think Chris can do it. I just think that, um, like you said, the burnout and also resiliency and redundancy in the position. So, that should Chris ever wish to take a day off
or take a week off, but there's someone else in the office who can at least assist. Um, and you guys can have each other's back, which I I think is very important. I think we need a little more resiliency and redundancy and the way we
do things. The problem is we've never been able to afford it. >> Chris, do you mind if I share a story about the day off you took and how I commented your day back? He took one day off. You would have sworn the man who got on a week's vacation. He came back
the next day looking so re rejuvenated. I want him to be able to continue to do that. Maybe take two days off >> um or use his vacation time, but I I do think that this is a necessary position
and I think just with a little bit of restructuring, it can be done for minimal cost. >> Looks like 4,000 additional dollars. >> Yeah. This is an absolute I just and even in the cuts budget because it only
costs $4,000 extra. I would still like to look at moving that because it's not actually adding >> No, it's just restructuring. >> It's restructuring central office. And I I just I very much worry about um when there's
one pivotal person who can never take a day off, right? If it gets dicey, maybe two days off. So the estimated total cost of all restored and restructuring positions assuming hiring level at master's six and all positions
take that high masters five. Why do I keep doing six? at M's 5 and including that all um people assuming that all people take the highest um level insurance because that's the safest way and most conservative way to budget would be
$979,842. I do want to >> that's a bargain >> that my concern is >> sounds conservative >> and that we are not adding back in everything that was cut last year >> and that now we have more of a deficit
to make up because of the challenges and struggles of this year but I understand we have to balance that against the financial realities of what we're up against. Yeah, I really think of this um Laura as
there's only so much pie, right? And we we were talking a lot about pie at these tri board meetings, but it's such a good analogy. There's only so much and the needs of the town are so great that we need to make sure that our proportional
piece of the pie isn't exorbitant. Right now, it's about 57%. Um, with this number, it's about 57% of the town budget, which we are always the biggest part of the town budget, but to be over
half, >> you know, I I think our goal is to keep it around 53%. Um, so that's generally what we've tried to do. >> So, I I think we have to be mindful of what we're asking residents to do. You
know, Tony's stories about the person deciding between paying their heating bill or this or taking their prescription pills or or this really are true. We do have people in our town that this will be a real decision for. And I
I'm really trying to be mindful and strike that balance with this budget. Mhm. I think one of the things I'm concerned about is just I mean I'm concerned about a lot of things, but the idea that
we this is a one-year fix. >> Do you know what I mean? So that to me just is are we asking residents to vote for this o this override to fix it for one year and then we're going to be back at the drawing board. I'm not saying there's something better to do. I just
think that's something we need to be prepared to kind of maybe not answer, but >> um >> I think that some of it is that an override is a release valve. It's because we are bound by Proposition 2
and a half. But they the legislature put in this release valve so that in times of increased costs and increased inflation, you can use the override which I think in this town we have
treated it as a once a generation fix of every 20 to 25 years will exercise it. However, I think the past three years financially have been somewhat
unprecedented in my life, my adult life. Um, as as far as the increases in costs, um, which you also have to balance at the same time, which is our costs are going up
as a school committee, then my costs as a citizen are also going up. So asking for increased taxes puts even more of a burden on them. >> Yeah. And I think as a personal member of the community, I think and Tony and I have talked about this not in our school
committee roles at all, but just in general, the idea that we want to that community needs to really look at who we want to be because if you don't, >> this is in our conversation about complaining about no Dunkin Donuts. >> Yes, this was our no Dunkin Donuts
conversation. Um, and so we were just talking about no Dunkin Donuts and just how that is a and I I we said this publicly at the committee meeting, the no Dunkin Donuts thing is insane because if Dunkin Donuts was there, they pay more taxes. That
money goes into the town coffers. So if people don't want their property taxes to go up, we need to have a way to have more industry. And I'm not saying we should put a Walmart in the center of town. I already have a Walmart, but I'm not saying we should put, you know, like a huge conglomerate in the center of
town, but there needs to be a release valve there, too, because the other way to bring more finances into the town is to um increase development. >> Increase development. And I wish Emily was here tonight um because she was on
the master plan committee and a lot of the feedback from residents concerned keeping our rural character, keeping development in check, keeping the trees and the forest and the rural look of the town and the farmland was very important to people who responded to the master
plan. But the problem with that is that's lost revenue. those farms. >> Let's be clear, they have already built the building that the Dunkin Donuts is going to go into. >> This is not chopping down one single plate of grass.
>> Oh, >> do you know where it was going to go? >> Yeah, it was going to go where the banks were very excited about. >> That building has been there for longer than I've been. Like, it's not harming any trees to put a dunk in there. >> What I'm saying is money because it's walkable to students. This town has an
issue with development and we don't like it as citizens because we like the way that Lunberg is. But the problem is >> you have to pay for it. >> That costs money and you cannot have it both. You can have it both ways, but you're not going to have good house, good schools. >> You can't have it both ways.
>> Your your home prices will fall. But the fun part about your valuation falling is that everyone's valuation falls and your taxes are still going to go up two and a half%. even when your housing prices tank because people do not want to move to a
town where the schools are bad and that is a very hard reputation to come back from. So I would like to keep Lunenburgg schools excellent. >> So I I just wanted to make my comments
on on the the the amount. So first of all I think that the amount is reasonable. I think that it represents a very strategic use of a scarce, precious resource and I also think that it it indicates to the other
parts of the town that we are all rowing in the same direction. Um the $979,842 reminds me of something that my grandfather used to say all the time, especially when I was a kid and I wanted something a little more than what he thought I should get. and he used to
tell me that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. So like don't go back for that second dessert. Don't ask for way more than you need. Ask for what you need and things will work out better for you. Um but the number does indicate to
me that we need to not have a tiered override. Have a prudently sized override. Not one that's way too big or way too small. and have an override that is a unified one for
the entire town. We are not the only ones in this in this position. And so working together rolling in the same direction would be better for all of us. So if it were up to me and I was picking the shape of the override, I would want one number that would get us through the
next three years and it would be for the entire town. And I say the next three years because it's clear that this disaster of finances is self-inflicted and we are not going to have any sort of help from any entity for a long time. I
think that the federal government is essentially nonfunctional and the state government is doing what it can to fill the gaps, but the gaps are so large and the haphazard manner in which the federal government is retracting from
its position as a reasonable and responsible broker in society have been so dramatic that the state cannot handle it. This is going to be a problem that we as a town have to solve ourselves. And until there is, you know, regime
change in the federal government, we are not going to get any help from anyone. Um, you know, like looking at just the tariff numbers, this is a self-inflicted wound imposed upon us for no reason. And
you know, like it's it's just a tax. We've had a massive tax increase sold to us as something entirely different. We have been lied to. And so if we are going to fix this problem, we have to do it ourselves. The last thing that I want
to point out is that while the percentage of what we represent in the town budget is consistent with other towns, we are not using the same accounting methods as other towns. So my guess is that if you compared our
percentage of the budget minus our health care costs so that we were comparing apples to apples with other desic compounds that we actually represent a smaller percentage of the overall town expenditure. And so if we're at 53%
including our health care costs when we would give them back to the town like they are in every other town we'd probably be less than most of our comps. I don't know if that's true, but my guess is it has to be true given how large the health care costs are.
>> Look at our next slide. That brings us to our next slide, which breaks out our health care costs as a part of our total budget. Our health insurance is 15.3% of our total budget. I believe it was 13 last year,
>> which I still found really large, but that's gone up our as the percentage share of the total budget. It's increasing. It's eating up more of the budget. So looking at this, you can see that our expenses are 18.4%
and again our salaries are 66.3% but we are a people business. >> Yeah, >> we're a school, we teach, we need teachers. So, we've condensed some information for you. So, you have the budget summary. You have the full budget in your packets. The full budget is
posted online um for the public under budget. Um and that concludes our presentation for tonight. This was excellent. Thank you. >> Half the size of the last one. >> I like PowerPoint um when it's used
well. >> No, it was wonderful. I do I did feel really prepared though because we've talked about this way more than we would have already. So I mean >> there's no surprises. >> There's no surprises. >> And our presentation to the finance committee is tomorrow night >> and they shouldn't be surprised. I I
hope they >> um and the >> I mean we talked about a lot of this stuff. >> The changes are that $28,000 that we've shaved off everywhere. the the main one being the athletics the bulk of it bulk
but >> a large portion >> a large portion of it being moving the athletic director from full-time to halftime which I do have concerns about because Mrs. Burns said this is a full-time job and I very much believe
her. So, I have concerns about hiring someone halftime, but um I think that's the compromise we need to make to get this. >> Can I can I ask like a point of order that instead of holding our override
discussion until the 10th item on the agenda that we do it now? And that way >> can we do we need to hear from the public? >> Oh yeah yeah yeah sure. >> I think this is where we'd like to hear from people.
>> Yeah. >> Nothing. >> Not at this time. >> Was anybody online >> looking? No. >> Maybe we're just doing such a good job explaining it. I just think
>> I just think we haven't really raised the I honestly think people don't realize >> I think the level of engagement is just incredibly low. >> Yes. Because I don't think people are burnt out on this too because it's been >> this is our third year of doing this. I mean the teachers aren't burnt out on this. the teachers are burnt out from
being subjected to this every three years which is >> it's just problem 10% of the town pays really close attention to everything and 90% of the town pay does and that's just the problem and I I truly believe that if
the people of the town were to understand the gravity of the situation I'm with you I think that the vast majority of people would do the right and obvious thing I'm just concerned at the lack of engagement. >> So, can we >> done the budget presentation, the
surplus presentation four times and other than staff, we had like seven people come and six of the seven people were the same people each time. How can we raise the level of discussion about the
need right yet not subject teachers to the you know lists and all the things we've done in the past. I think it's important that we keep our discussions at this point in time at the high level
like what what would what sections of the budget would you like to see trimmed and obviously personnel is going to be part of that but then let us take that back to my leadership team and let us
make the decisions. What I want to try to avoid this year is getting down into the yellow marker line. No. >> I don't want because I one I don't think it does anybody good any good. Two because I I have the deepest respect for
the school committee but I don't think they understand how many yellow markers we may need better than our school principal. >> No. No. And I I 100% agree with you. I just think so. My vision of what happened three years ago when we actually passed an override basically is
Kate proposed all these cuts. I read about it online and was basically like oh my god nobody like nobody knows that this is happening. me and some other people, it wasn't just me, started a Facebook group, started sending information out that was like
this is going to happen, like this is going to happen if people don't get, you know, and then we had some people attend some meetings. Then we had a group that met and then people started to pay attention. So, I guess what I'm saying is I don't I trust your instincts, but I
just feel like we have not gotten to the point where the public understands how bad it is. And I don't know, do we we there's the argument, right, like like I think we need parents to vote for an override. So, we have to educate the parents
enough. >> Who's educating their parents better than their children? >> I would say, >> oh my goodness. What do you what are you philosophical at night? >> I think a big thing that might, you know, trigger some engagement as well is
giving a proposed budget slide like this but without that $900,000 because there's nothing that like fuels people together more than like kind of like a common enemy or like something that upsets them. What's being presented now
isn't really upsetting to anybody because there aren't any cuts being produced. So there's nothing that stands out to people as like we need to save this thing. >> When are we on the timeline for that? What do we have? March 18. Okay. So March 18th. >> Okay. >> We are going to have to look at a the
balanced budget which is when we take our proportionate increase from the town manager. But could we come up with a statement from the school committee like that kind of summarizes what happened in this meeting or something like that that we could post for the public like or could the superintendent just put
something out like that? because I you know would we come to the whole editing issue right but like could you write something that was just like we had our budget hearing this was the proposal FYI like you don't have to write FYI but these are a few like I don't think it has to be law she has to be careful with
legally what she can and cannot say regarding an override did you read the guidance that the town manager sent over concerning overrides and town >> I skimmed it but I'm not saying you >> we have a public comment I just want you >> oh yeah come help me come back >> I I usually usually can remember your
address. So like >> Oh my god, she's live. >> No, no, she's she's here so often. So Laura Bian 389 Mulpus Road. So there there's there's nothing to get alarmed about right now. >> Right. You presented the some the
restoration and this is I sat in this seat and said my biggest concern with any cut is putting it back. It is 10 times harder to put it back than it is to cut it. It hurts to cut it, but it's impossible to put it back. So, right
now, this is great. You're putting stuff back on. You've come up with a plan, but right now, there's nothing to be alarmed about. What's going to happen is what is it going to need to be? When we find out what this needs to be, that's the difference between where we are right
now and where the need where they're going to tell us this number has to be, right? >> That's when people are going to get involved. And I appreciate that. Also, always awesome and always a great leader for our band. Yeah. >> And um and absolutely that that's why
Neil will have, you know, the kids in the music program are going to be lined up again. They'll be at town meeting day. They'll be here at the committee meetings because they're extremely passionate. I talked to, you know, the kids, you know, when I'm at jazz, you know, they go to the jazz concert tomorrow. We had the the auditorium
packed, you know, for the winter concert. you know, we've got I think there's 40 something sixth graders coming up through the, you know, through the band. >> I mean, the numbers are growing, but and I appreciate seeing the the trend, you know, the transportation is back in there, but, you know, supplies are still
a little low and things like that, but we'll we'll manage, like I said, but right now and you're restoring, you know, the two classes that were cut, the point4 is two classes that were, you know, impacted everybody. But again, right now there's you 979,000.
You know, I I get it. But right now, you've you've accounted for that. It's in there right now. >> But it's 1 total. That number is not what we're going to ask for in an override. >> No, that is I just want to make Yeah. The override number for the school to be
like 1.8, right? >> This is in addition to what we would need to continue level service, not level funding. >> No. And I sat here with the override to it and I said, "This is this fixes a year. This and and a tribute to our our our administration, you know, that the
the principles and all the teachers coppling things together to get through what they need. We know that that's what's happening." And all we did was we kicked the can a little bit. We did okay to see maybe, you know, we're prices going to level out or something else. Well, no, now there's tariffs and now there's this increase and now there's 70
ines of snow on the ground, you know, and 9 foot piles and no place to park and everything else. I mean, there's just more more more costs. It's not So, yeah, this is it has to be something longer. It's what we talked about. Where's the the three-year plan, the five-year plan? What is that going to
look like? Because this the overrides, it's we're going to have it just has to happen because I can't even imagine. I mean, I love seeing that those numbers, the way that you presented with the number of students staying the same. People want to be in our town. This is a great town, you know, and
>> and overall in school in Massachusetts has been steadily dropping. Yes. In Maine, >> we're doing great. I mean, this is a great town with great teachers and everything. So, that's what's appealing. That's what keeps all of our property values going up. That's what keeps, you know, everybody coming here and so it's
all the good things, but there's a cost to that. I mean, and I know it it hit it hits some families harder than others, but it's Yeah. So, it's I I appreciate kind of You want to you know, start ringing the bell and get people going,
but we don't know what you don't know what that is yet. I mean, it could it could come in very different. And so, it's it's it may be a little premature to go out with something too early. You've got to know what >> the tri board and the town manager is going to tell you. >> I guess I guess that I I very much
appreciate your comments because I I this I struggle with, right? I just want to make sure that we are not going to be in a position the middle of April where the public's like, "What the heck is going on? No one said there was going to be 900." Now, you're always going to have people who don't pay attention and
you're always going to have people who say that stuff, right? But are we doing enough as a school committee, I guess, to inform the public of the tsunami of cuts that could be coming our way, right? And how horrible it is going to be. I can inform within the limits of
law. I can inform families of our budget situation. I can't mention the override. I can use something similar to what I've been using to update the teachers each week. >> I just think it would be helpful >> to get a sense of and I mean I would be happy for it to come from the committee.
The problem is just that we we can't edit things because of the open meeting law. We would have to do it in it's a little bit it's very cumbersome. No, you start you start to get the word out and the committees, the PTO, the music boosters, the athletic boosters will get the word engagement.
>> Are you aware that there's an open slot on school? >> I am aware of that. >> Are you tax? It's tax season. So, >> you guys have the wrong time of year.
>> The second you retire. >> The second you're coming. >> No, you guys are doing great. music theaters present. That's what >> Can I say one thing? Because you had talked about when we talk about the cuts, that's when the students are all going to come here and tell us. >> That's great.
>> I don't I I love when they come here. I love hearing them talk. I love it. I need them to go to their neighbors and tell their neighbors. I do not need to hear I I want to because I I do love when our students come and get involved.
I don't need to hear how important athletics is because I know I don't need to know how important the music program is because I know and I want it too. The problem that outreach I think it's maybe this time we focus it go to your
neighbor's house and explain to them what athletics means to you and what the lack of an what the lack of funds. We saw when we did our our toll collection in August, we did in July in the the over the summer we did our toe
>> degrees that day. >> It was so warm that day. >> But the kids, I mean, they did amazing. They did fantastic and had how many people came out and said, "My kids were in the music program. It was the saving grace that got them through high school. It was the It was their people. It was their crew." We had people come back and
said, "No, I play in another band, you know, and somebody give us 200 bucks, you know, because they just they knew we were going to be out." So, it's just that's what the community will will will get the word out. >> Yeah. Because I feel like there's a lot of energy there and I think that it's going to this is going to take community
engagement. This is not on the >> Yeah. >> I know that during the override two years ago, there was a lot of frustration on what the school committee couldn't could not do because we are bound by open meeting laws and we can only meet when we meet and we can't respond to things immediately. it. This
involves a lot of community engagement, but like all of the sports students who came like go talk to your neighbors, go stand in the center of town and >> well TBD there's going to be an override committee >> in March 18th. You said your next meeting. >> Uh, no. So, our next meeting is next
week. And I should probably say right now while people are watching, our our next meeting is the first of the month, but it's going to be in this room for accessibility >> reasons because our town does not have a fully accessible meeting room and town hall upstairs. Um, so it's it's going to
be here for next week as well. No, March 18th is on the schedule when we're going to start talking about a balanced budget, which we're also calling the cuts budget because unfortunately, >> can we call it the shoot your favorite puppy budget?
>> That's what it is. Let's be clear. Um >> so be >> the way that even with enough even with the the money we would get from traditional overrides we cannot even meet our contractual obligations and the increase in healthcare let alone
anything else. We are no matter what we're we would be making cuts this year because of the increase in costs that's not offset as much by developing growth on top. But yeah, please like those students. >> I still like when they come talk because
um >> it also makes me really proud of Lindberg schools how great our students are. >> They're good. They're good kids >> at public speaking and what they believe in. But >> we're not the ones they need to convince. I don't think this year it's even the select board they need to convince. It's not another town body
they need to convince. It's >> it's their neighbors. It's everyone >> across the town. This is going to be like This is going to involve community outreach and hopefully the students. >> Yeah, Cara, I think you made a fantastic
point earlier too because when you said you're choosing between, you know, band and an AP class, you know, even we have our freshman. So, my daughter's a freshman last year and it was honors history or band. >> Yeah. >> And it was band
>> because the one band, you know, that's she's the one band class. So, she took history. So, but for a ninth and tth grader to have honors history and then 11th and 12th to have AP, that's going to be a stronger resume on a college application. But she's like, "No, I'm not going to give up band then." So, but
and this year worked at Mr. worked at the office and everything and they worked it out and they were able to move some things around and do honors with, you know, honors class with the band class still. So, they were able to, you know, shift some things because there was enough, you know, kids who need, you know, to change. But it's just that kind
of thing. It's making those choices, you know, and you do you've got to be able to compete with other kids at other schools and having that resume. And that's we want to, you know, tee our kids up as best as we can to give them the opportunities to take a Latin class, take a Spanish class, take a history,
take an AP class, you know, be able to get into, you know, plan their future if they're going to work that hard to have a tough schedule, plus the, you know, the other, you know, the arts and the sports and, you know, the music and everything else. we've got to give them that opportunity. So that is
>> I remember the summer going into my freshman year, right? We finally get our schedules released and I instantly email my Latin teacher and I'm like, "Did you not recommend me for Latin 2?" And she's like, "No, you you're in Latin, too." And I'm like, "It's not on my schedule. They put me in a study that block." Mhm.
>> And she was like, "The first day of school, you are going up to guidance and figuring that out cuz like I couldn't take the classes I needed to take." And >> it looks worse as well when a student's choppy with what they do, right? If I
don't take band freshman year, but then I take it sophomore year, but then I don't do it junior year, but I do it senior year, it's like, >> why can't this kid like commit to something long term? >> It just there isn't that nice path. There should be the we should have these tracks. They should be able to follow the tracks and have the choices.
>> You know, like the the thing that it brings back to my mind is the competitiveness of college application process, you know, like you can look at Harvard and be like it's like 3 or 4% get accepted. But as we see a shift away
from like tons of different schools, like some schools are having dwindling endow uh endowments and enrollments, the schools that are surviving are doing really well, but they're doing really well and the difference between getting into that school or getting into
substantially worse school is is shrinking, >> right? Like the number of really highly competitive seats is shrinking. And like, you know, my wife works at Holy Cross and I can see it in the students she gets. Um, you know, the students that we get at our firm because we always take a summer intern. You know,
some of them have like insane resumes. And it's like, you know, like one of the people that we had two years ago, she had a perfect resume. She was the validictorian of her high school. She's the validictorian of her college. She got into Duke Law School. She got a federal clerkship. And like to think
that like our students in a marketplace that's that competitive would miss out because of structural choices the town made for like you know essentially a cup of coffee a day. It's really painful, right? Like they can't
you guys can't fix that problem. >> But >> we have to fix it. >> We have to fix it. >> Yeah. You can't fix the problem but you have to bear the you have to bear the consequences of these very difficult >> AP chem conflicted this year with honors
pre-calc and there were our AP chem class is six students three of them were also supposed to be in honors pre-calc and are now in CP pre-calc and might not be able to take AP cal >> because
>> they couldn't take honors precalc because they prioritized an AP over an honors class. >> And I know like I asked a while ago, like I asked Dr. Fortuna when I first started, when was the last time we had a kid go to an Ivy League school, a top 10 school, or one of the militarymies? And
it's just the numbers are small, but it used to be that Lunberg would regularly produce somebody that would go to one of those schools. Maybe not every year, but like maybe one year there'd be two. And I I'm concerned that the reason why that's no longer the case is because we
have limited options in high school to a degree that penalizes our very brightest students. Like they look objectively worse in a system that just has to sift through people really fast, right? Like they're going to bump out college
applications for kids that didn't take all AP classes or something, you know? Like I I remember when I was doing rec recruiting for the public defender, I would go to Harvard and I would have 40 applications where they were absolutely perfect from basically like kindergarten
on. They had straight A's, they were validictorian, they were double validictorian, you know, they did everything right. And like even then it was still like sifting. So if if our kids are coming out of this school with a less than perfect resume, not because
of their abilities, but because of the town's inability to raise funds due to Prop 2 and a half, it just seems like we're in like this suicide pack. When you add on top of that that we both will not raise taxes and will not increase business activity, >> will not allow it to get.
>> It just seems like it's not a good situation to be in. >> And I would say it's true. you you know anybody who goes to a trade or goes to anything to have the choices that's the most important thing I mean that's what the kids should be exploring different things right now this is their chance to do that whe you know whether again
somebody wants to go to the trades but they want to you know play in the athletics or you know be an artist or anything at all they have those choices that's what we want to give them so that's >> Mr. Would you second that? >> I've been seconding now for 15 months. >> Okay.
>> Our salutotoran two years ago got weight listed from UMass Amherst. Eventually got in and is going there now, but our second in the class two years ago got weightlisted from a state school. >> Okay. Well, you just panicked every
parent. >> Thank you. >> Did you get that moment of like pressure? Thank you very much. >> Yeah. No, thank you guys. Thank you for doing great engaging constantly. >> No, happy to >> and I appreciate you guys keeping
especially, you know, here to advocate for the music program, too. Keep us on top of mind, but you're you're doing it for all the kids, so it's best you can do. >> It's hard to balance, but thank you. >> NPS, I will say, Dr. Fortuna, everybody is loving your emails. >> Oh my gosh. >> I have to say, I was at the cheer
competition. The the girls look amazing on Sunday and everybody was talking about your girl. It was just Yeah. Have you seen it? Have you seen it? No, you have to read it. You have to read all of it. >> Cheer. >> No, we were cheering on We were cheering for our cheerleaders. Yeah. So, we were there cheering on our competition. They
did. They did fantastic. They did great. So, they placed. Yeah. So, yeah, they had enough scores for regionals. I got that right. >> Somebody will correct me. So, yeah, that was great. >> Thanks. Thank you. Do we have anyone online, Liz?
>> Hold on one second. See everyone here? >> Yeah. And the March cuts one we do a hearing on that one that that will have a lot. >> Right. But I just think it's our job to keep people informed. That's all I'm
trying to >> When you're done with the budget hearing, can you close out the budget here? >> Yeah. I think done. Are we done? >> Motion to close the budget hearing. >> Second. >> Say second. >> Second. Sorry. >> You're the only person. All right. All
in favor? >> All right. Um, can we move the override discussion since this is top of mind? >> I'm pretty sure we already had it. >> I'm pretty sure we already had it. No, we have to talk. We need to talk about how >> Let's look. Let's can I can I pose three questions? Number one, what do you want
the amount to be? Number two, should it be townwide or just us? And number three, what do you think about a tiered the structure for the override? >> Backwards in order. Okay. >> It should not be tiered. We should not
make people have to choose which level they want to support. We should be one comprehensive uh block ideally with the select board um to say this is what our account needs. because there are things on the
town side that I as a citizen very much want. I would love >> full shift fire >> a fully staffed fire department, an ambulance. Uh I hope to never need them, but it's would be nice if we could fully fund them so they're they're there when
we need them. Uh and they've been working for a very long time with not enough resources. >> Okay. >> What was the second question? >> Uh sort of the town. I think you kind of answered it. We We need to do this in cooperation. And as far as the amount,
Dr. Fortuna has that you have that amount. >> I think we still have some details to work out with the board. >> Okay. But it's it's hovering around that two. It's like 1.8, I think, right now. >> We got another two. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you shaved off.
Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, about 1.8, But we do not need an exact number yet. But that's what we're looking at basically the restoration. >> But I I I I think that and this is just me responding to what you said. I think
that we need to basically pass an override that gets us through the next three years. >> Right. So this is the problem. The number we're talking about 1 million is not going to get us through the next eight three years. I think one thing that's important when
we have this discussion and I actually think it's something to discuss with the tri board when we meet on March 9th is we aren't guaranteed to get so for the first year we go up for an override I'm
just using a 1.8 as a figure. We will get that for the year after the override, but after that it goes into the town's general fund. It doesn't come back necessarily to us. >> Our slice of the pie >> will be larger next year because the
override part that we asked for will be allocated to us. >> Yeah. It'll be like%. >> And the town wants to correct that. >> The town does not want us to continue eating up more and more of the pie. Correct. >> Yes. And
if we ask for too much, we will eat up a lot of the pie, get that next year, but then not be guaranteed that in the future. >> That's a good point. >> And I think that my point about the override being a release valve where if
in two years we also find ourselves in a devastating situation, >> which we will. I >> I don't know what the future holds. I've been told there are okay years. >> I'm just saying like economic reason and there's bad years. >> Economically speaking, if we can't if we
continue, you know, with stupid self-injurious tariffs and no override and no increase in businesses, I can't see how we're not going to need another one. >> Yeah. I mean, I hope at some point the state legislature notices the schools
along around the state are falling. I think it's going to take Massachusetts definitively falling from number one in the state in the country which I think we already are to be honest. I think that our demographics of more educated populace uh because of the number of
universities in the state and I think um the wealth in the state are the only things keeping us up because the education my kids are getting is not the same education that their cousins in New Jersey and Maryland and Connecticut are getting. And it's honestly a little bit
depressing to hear legislators pat themselves on the back for the number one education system when it has very little to do with their support of it. Um the way we're doing things is not I would hope it would be fixed
eventually, but that's also going to require change. Uh because I'm not happy with the way that education is being funded in Massachusetts right now. Um to see the governor's budget and the amount
allocated to chapter 70 is incredibly disheartening after going and testifying and listening to hours of testimony from le from school committee members
and students. I mean you were there. >> Yeah. I'm going to go back >> hear all of it. What does it matter? You know what? I >> I'm not sure it matters. I don't think >> that was a delicious lunch. >> The only way that things change
is by continuing >> Yeah. >> to knock on the door >> or >> Yeah. >> or vote people out. >> Yeah. >> But >> Yeah. So, I just um >> So, can I just say that? So, but I don't
know what's going to happen statewise in two years. And I think it's difficult to come up with a comprehensive override. And I I don't want to ask for too much of that pie because we're going to get it next year, but we might not get it in the future. And the the town manager and the select board have said they do not
want us to continue eating up more of the pie because we'd like to keep it balanced. Um, can I just say though, for years and years, people in this town didn't care about the way that that happened. And that's part of the problem. If people had been positively
looking for overrides and trying to get more development over the last 10, 20 years, we wouldn't be in this hell hole. >> Yeah, I can't. >> Sorry, I'm I'm getting a little bit drunk and I like I just can't I can't either. But to blame the schools and the students for the percentage of the
budget we're taking up just because like people for years and years didn't do anything ridiculous. >> I just I want to be cognizant of that. >> I'm not I'm not saying it at you. I'm in general. you have to cooperate with the rest of the town. And the the pie
metaphor is >> they are concerned and I can see why that the schools will continue to grow and consume more resources at a rate that is unsustainable. And I I understand that view. I think that
>> have children is maybe the primary purpose of everything. But um so I don't even do we you gave us numbers for a three-year override, but that's very difficult to predict. Yes. Especially consider changing.
I would just hate to ask for a higher number on the basis of we're not going to come back for another I mean we'll say 3 years and they'll hear 10 years. Um I just think we need to answer that question. I'm not saying we need to
solve the problem for three years, but I think as a school committee and as a town, we have to be really clear about the fact that we're in unprecedented times, right? And like because that's just the thing. We just we can't promise people something
that's not true. >> I feel like we're packing a bag and the question is are we packing an overdrive bag or packing a three-day bag? And I would not want to like I I think Laura is right. I would not want to promise it's a three-day bag and then have
everybody be like, "Well, you're staying the whole week, right?" >> Yeah. No, I agree. And I think that the only way we fix this problem is by more development, more state money or multiple overrides, right? So, we have to >> or some combination of all >> and all I think it's going to be a combination of all three. But you but we
can't just say that overrides are once in a generation thing anymore. >> No. And I don't it's a release valve. The idea is that you go to the tax pay, you go to the voters, and you say, >> I mean, >> it's an arcane law. Two and a half% is a random number. It's not it's not even
anything that's like, >> yeah, >> I mean, >> and I would hope at some point the state legislature realizes it's a problem. >> They're only going to ask you, >> keep voting for the same people over and over again. It's not going to happen. >> Um, I would just say, Tony, about the number, yeah, I'm fine with the number
being 1.8 or whatever under two million. I think we should go for everything, but the only thing that I really would like to draw a line, my personal line in the sand is if the select board and others are thinking about doing things like expanding for the fourth ship fire department, which I
think is very very important that I don't think that the schools we shouldn't be able to include some of our expansion money in the number. >> Well, we the restoration, >> right? But in the end, the select board is going to decide the final number. >> Yes. So, what I'm saying is if the
select board were to come forward and say, "We want to we want to support the fourth shift, but we don't want to support any of the expansion money that the schools want." >> What do we feel like we would want to do in that? >> I think that's a hypothetical we would have to deal with if it happened, but I
don't think they >> I don't think that's going to happen. >> I think that's that's why we're having the tri board meetings is so we can cooperate with them because I do have faith that the select board understands. I mean, I'm, you know, like we're all like sort of counting votes, right? >> Well, I'm I'm just over here being I'm over here being the devil's advocate,
right? Because the school committee has to represent the schools. And so, all I'm saying is if there's a budget, I'm not committing to you 100% that I am 100% on board with all the things you've said. If we come back with a select board, the select board says, and I
don't think this is going to happen, but there is a scenario where the select board says the override number Kelly the same >> the override number doesn't fill your gap and it fills other gaps. >> Yeah, I agree.
>> Right. And so that is a situation where I think this board should not overly commit that we are going to be on board on that situation. >> I think the select board would be smart enough to realize if that happened a lot of the votes
>> they need come from people invested in the school system. >> I Yeah. >> So I don't think that's a risk. One of the things that I I have been told and I feel has changed in town is this sense
of cooperation >> amongst the town >> and Jen has a lot to do with that. I want to give Jen >> and and the select >> and the select. But I'm just saying Jen is the one on the floor every day. >> Yes. And and I really appreciate Jen's passion. >> Yes. No, I really I do. I it has not
been like that in the past. And the select board as well, and I've always respected the select board, but Jen is the one that's there every day, >> you know. >> Yeah. And Jen and I are very very aligned in in our beliefs and she's very upfront with me. Like
>> for a town manager to be very clear, especially for a school override that in year two the schools may not see that money. Yeah. is something unprecedented that I've never had and I've been in multiple communities that have gone for
overrides that I've never seen happen. >> You have to say that you do not have to be that honest. She could have >> you you have to understand I the position I'm in is on this board. I told you when I got elected I am not just going to believe what people say. >> Yep.
>> Because I got burned a lot. We got burned a lot. And so we can be a board that makes group decisions together. And I'm not saying that's going to happen, but I just want to reserve my right >> that I'm not saying right now I'm going to always be on board. I want to see the
final product >> before I say >> Okay. >> Right. I I don't think I I am allowed to say that. >> No, you're right. Like I'm allowed to say like, "Hey, you know what? Court rules. You can get up here and just swear." >> Well, I have to go to that 8our class. So, I can't talk about this.
>> It's way better to get sworn at than go to that 8 hour class. Let's not start the 8our class. We have not a deal waiting to talk about the graph. >> Okay, let's just let's just do that then. We're done. We're done this. >> Well, I think >> I think we're done. >> So, I think we should come to a consensus. Do we need to take a a vote on this? Oh no, no, no. It was a
discussion the agenda >> because I I do want to telegraph to the other parties involved in an override discussion that yeah, we are cooperative because we would really mess them up if we decided no, we're going to do try and get a citizens petition and do school
only. >> I am not saying that at all. >> Let's not do that. >> You need to vote on moving this budget forward. >> That's what you vote on. >> I would vote I would ask for a motion on the proposed budget. >> I'll second it. Well, I'll first it I'll motion
>> to for the school committee to approve the FY27 needsbased restoration budget to present to the finance committee tomorrow night. Um as our budget and then I believe we have to vote again next week. That'll be our
seven days. >> Um but I motion that we present that to the finance committee and that will be our >> space budget that we support. >> I second it. >> All in favor? I >> All right. Um, can we take these out of order so the teacher that's waiting? >> Yes, the civics. It's the first
>> Oh, perfect. Let's go. >> Oh my god. Is it Mr. Stevenson? >> No. Is it for? >> Yes. >> Your students were great. >> They're the best. >> We have really good kids on there. >> Mhm. Okay. Great. Oh, I can't see him.
>> Democracy in action. Warren, it's your favorite. >> Thank you, Warren, if you can hear me. I'm excited >> at 9:26. You're still >> Sorry, dude. >> Okay, so the first item is it Hi.
>> Is it okay to start? >> Yes. Okay, go. >> Go for it. >> These are great. >> So, the first item is a grant is a civics teaching and learning grant proposal. What we're asking for is $25,000 in state grant funding. And the
grant is to provide students in grades a um grades 8 through 12 with equitable access to civics materials, experiential civic learning opportunities and educator training aligned to the Massachusetts civics requirements.
I make a motion that we accept this grant proposal. I read it. It was great. >> Second also fantastic. >> I mean really I I don't mean to make you wait, Warren, but I read it. It sounded great. I actually asked Mrs. Leblanc because I am friendly with her as well. She's very excited about it. So >> awesome.
>> And and I definitely want to thank Warren and Lisa for working with me on this because obviously I couldn't do it without them. >> Yeah, I really like this grant proposal um because it's flexible. It doesn't nail us down to anything in particular, but still is really comprehensive. And
you write really great grants. >> Thanks. >> I should call Dr. Fort who wrote this one. This is a really good one. >> Thank you. >> Um so second, do we want to do them batch or one at a time? I we want to do them all together. >> How about if we approve this alone
before go to bed? >> Let's do that. All in favor? I >> Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Warren. Sorry you stayed on. Appreciate you. >> This is a really good one and I'm excited about it. >> All right. >> Civics are great. >> Great. Okay. Let's move on to um let's
move on to the strategic relocation of the ear mark funds. So essentially what I'm asking is for approval to reallocate approximately $42,000 in previously awarded one-time funds.
For the record, this is this is um permission for us to submit these grant proposals to the state and then hopefully we get approval. And so this is essentially initially we were going to use these funds for I Ready. Yeah.
But because this grant took months and months and months to get approval, um we know now and and we don't know that we're going to have we're probably not going to have money for the cyclical cost of I Ready. We thought it would be prudent for us to try to reallocate
those funds because we're not going to be able to get the most out of I Ready. >> My daughter be so excited. >> Yes. is too. >> So, what we're asking for is to invest in more decodable readers, high school math instructional materials. I worked
with um the the chair at the high school to figure out which materials they needed and also targeted professional learning to address documented student learning needs. >> Perfect. I propose we accept the grant proposal for strategic reallocation of
one-time grant funds to evidence-based investments. >> I second it. All in favor? >> I. >> Sounds good. Good. >> Great. Okay. The next one is my cap. And we have Mr. Santry on deck here just in case. So, just so you know, my cap
stands for my career and academic plan. It's a multi-year planning tool and process adopted by Desi to help students 6 through 12 map out academic, personal, social, and career goals. Essentially it's like an electronic portfolio
>> and every student is required to do this. >> So not every student is required but what is required in order for us to participate is uh completion of all mass core requirements. I think it's students who are part of designated pathways who
are actually required. >> Do we have students enrolled in the designated pathways? >> So you're talking about requirement, not necessarily what we're doing. Um, are we doing that now with the community pathways? I know we've talked about making that.
>> It's okay. Um, yes. So, my cap is going to be required by DESIE in I believe June 2027. So, we're trying to get ahead of it. Uh we've sent out staff from our middle school uh done professional development with our guidance counselors
as well as some of our ninth grade high school teachers in order to get we're talking about pathways just like we were talking about for before. We're going to do um career academic planning in that eighth grade piece. So when we transition over to high school, kids
will have a better idea of what their portfolio, what their classes are going to be taking. And it's a an electronic way of tracking that from grade to grade. So >> did Jesse give us money for the implementation of this pretty large?
>> Uh they uh had the opportunity for the grant funding. >> Okay. But the grant is the grant funding is not ongoing. Okay. Just wanted to point out that >> it's a competitive grant for an unfunded mandate. Sweet. >> That is true. >> Which is generally what the state does. says, "Here's a couple years of money
for this and then you're going to roll it into property taxes because that's what we do." >> And the border recall that this is a large part of the middle school policy that you voted earlier in this year. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. I was just going to say we had discussed this in adding this. So, we do not currently have students enrolled,
but hopefully um the grant this grant is the first step. >> Yes. >> Perfect. Okay. Great. Um Okay. Okay. So, what we're looking for is we're we are seeking $20,778 in state grant funding. And this is to
compensate educators for planning time to align middle school career exploration experiences with the district's MYAP process and high school academic and career pathways. >> And this is a one-time >> one time. And this doesn't add how
>> how does that support their prep time? Is it a be work that occurs outside of their work day. So there could be potentially like planning time after school for teachers to engage in this in this work.
>> Um okay, this is the one that sip. Yes, I'm sorry. >> This is the one that in includes the indirect cost rate. >> That's correct. >> Okay. That's what I wanted to make sure that we weren't adding to future costs. >> No. So I so we would be looking to pay teachers hourly instead of just a stipen
because we're looking for products, right? So the teachers will work hourly and and we'll have to figure out how many hours and what that looks like depending on interest. I would imagine not everybody will be interested in in participating in this, but those who are.
>> How many teachers do you think? Um >> we had four go to our initial training. >> Okay. >> So this would support 428 hours of planning. Okay. Um, yeah, not thrilled with Jessie about this.
I feel like something we wanted to develop and pay for. We could do it on our own without Jessie requirements. Can I make a motion to accept this proposal? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Yes. I >> Let's do it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it.
>> This was another informative. Thank you. Um, okay. So, then there is the activation fund concept paper. Um, so what I'm looking for is $125,000 in
grant funding to provide professional development and instructional coaching coaching for prek to grade 5 educators to strengthen foundation foundational literacy instruction and build long-term internal capacity. So, the activation um
fund supports, let's see, what are they looking for? Essentially, what they're looking for is to make sure that um that we address any sort of like public health crisis. And I posit that illiteracy is a public health
crisis. If you notice here, I cited um Dr. Naen Burke Harris Harrison's work. She's amazing. If you haven't read The Deepest Well, I definitely encourage you to do that. Um but she talks a lot about um illiteracy and toxic stress and how
that can lead to long-term um you know health issues, economic stability, it can reduce life expectancy and all of those things. So >> just to clarify you because I was confused, you are not asking for $125,000 from our budget. You are asking
for a grant for this to submit this proposal. >> That is wonderful. And uh I think it's stretch, but I kind of love how you did it. So um let's go for it. I motion to uh
>> I actually don't think it's a stretch. I think that that like the idea of >> like human function and literacy. >> Yeah. >> It's like I mean >> no >> this is what we do. >> There's a connection. I don't think she's you're not drawing any incorrect conclusions. Um, and I'm happy you are
taking advantage of every grant you see and I appreciate it. Um, so I propose to accept this uh grant or uh proposal grant proposal. >> I'll second it. >> All in favor?
>> I. All right. Accept it. >> Great. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> This was a large number of grants, so you've been very busy. Thank you very much. Yes. Appreciate all of that effort. Thank you. Appreciate it.
>> All right. Uh old business. Is this the enrollment of Massachusetts virtual schools? >> Okay, let's do that one. >> So enrollment in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Virtual Schools, CMVS,
is something that a school committee can vote to cap at 1% of its student population. We currently have 1.08 08% of our student population enrolled in Commonwealth virtual schools. >> Is that for this year?
>> That is what we currently have enrolled at this point. Okay. Have 16 um students. >> This would allow um those students to continue and allow another 1% to enroll if they so wish.
>> An additional 1% than the 1% we have. >> Okay. >> That's where I was confused. this confus. >> I thought you were asking I thought you were asking to cap it at 1% and we would not allow. >> Yeah. So, not all districts have voted to restrict.
>> Can I can I ask a question? And this was something I tried to figure out, but I I lost track. What is the purpose of the virtual school? Like why would they do that? >> The virtual school is a comprehensive school. They're offered K through 12. Um families can choose to do that. In fact,
um I checked in with Liz today. Our families have a variety of profiles that choose to do it. Some need the flexibility that a virtual school offers. Some um homeschooling families um use the virtual school platform.
>> Oh, got it. >> If it's hard to get to school or you live in the middle of nowhere. >> Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. All right. >> And why would you cap it? You would cap it because it takes away from your chapter 70 funding for the students that you leave >> in those.
>> But we don't have to vote to cap it. >> You don't have to. I would recommend that you do. >> I actually that'd be 32 students. And if you're not balancing that with school choice right now. >> Yeah. >> School choice.
>> I just But we It's not currently capped. Are we expecting It's not currently capped. Correct. >> Right. But I think it's a safer option for us. >> Yes, I would agree. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because if we got to 32, we could always reconsider it if there was some extenduating circumstance, right? If
there was some reason that we >> This is an annual vote, >> right? Yeah. We couldn't >> Yeah. Um as long as it's annual because my concern I don't I want to keep kids in Lunberg. I want to keep kids in school
uh in our town and but I also think that educational choice is import. I have a lot of feelings about the virtual school. Um I was very surprised that we have 16 students enrolled. >> Yeah. I mean I think I I am interested if a family is homeschooling and they
want access to more um a lot of it is >> and then they have to write it into their educational >> a lot of it. It's some of it >> some of it >> but there's a variety of reasons there's no single profile. >> Yeah. I'm just I'm just saying like a homeschooled parent I would hope that they would want access to these kind of
resources. That's that would be but if we got close we would talk about it again. >> I think capping it I I think I will choose to see capping as a safety valve. So if suddenly everyone decides to do this we are not faced with devastating loss of
>> funding. So as long as this is an annual thing and we're going to revisit it because uh first time we've done is is this the first We've >> This is the first time, Liz, that we've done this. >> Yes. Okay. >> As long as this is an annual thing, I'm
comfortable with capping it at 2% total. >> Uh just so we don't face a devastating loss of funding. >> How many is it across all grade levels? I'm just curious. >> It's K through 12. >> K through 12. >> Okay. I move take make a motion that we
accept this proposal to cap at 2%. I'll second it. All in favor? I >> I >> All right. >> I felt icky. Um >> Florida, some of these towns are like >> Oh, Florida and Seavoy to each other. >> 400 people
>> and they're in their percentages are so high because there's so few of them to begin with. It's >> there's like no there's no one of these schools has no elementary school or one of these places no elementary school like >> Yeah. And there's it's hard to get to school and I imagine they have a lot of snow days. Mhm. Um but I do
>> Sam kind of skit about this. So to say >> I do think it is important that kids have choice that families have choice. >> Yeah. >> As much as I would like them to choose Lunberg. >> Are we We're not going to talk about the janitors tonight.
>> We certainly could. Um >> no no I I I don't feel like I Yeah, it's a long conversation. So we can put on the agenda for next week. I just read the memo. Super short conversation for me. Um, >> okay. So, old, I'm sorry, I'm not running the meeting. >> What do you want to do? >> No, absolutely not. Super super short
conversation. >> Let's have a more thorough discussion than at 9:49. >> I don't know that it warrants one cuz I mean, >> okay, let's move on. >> All right. Uh, old business action item
2627 school. This a calendar. >> All right. Has everyone had a chance to review the school calendar? >> I added up the days. I counted >> now. I'm hoping it's correct because I'm going be really embarrassed if my math is wrong. >> It's right. >> I'm accept I'm moved to accept the 2627 school calendar.
>> I think it looks great. I noticed that we moved uh in we've been talking with the town manager about the possible closure of TCP. I just want to call people's attention to this. We had um the town is discussing closing TCP
because they had closed off half the building in hopes of saving half the heating cost and that is not what's happening. Uh and so that building is just as expensive uh to heat and maintain. So now the town is exploring
decommissioning TCP which means it would be unavailable for voting and the schools have said that that's something we would do here. Um, so traditionally we had election day off because we were voting in schools. We don't anymore. So this year we had moved that day off.
>> Yeah. >> Off of election day, but now it's gone back to it in anticipation of possibly having voting in one of our schools so that we do not have the public coming into a building where the students are, which is so I appreciate that and I'm
glad that we could be proactive about that without having a panic next year. So, it looks great. Motion to accept the 2627 school calendar. >> All in favor? >> I >> I think we need to I seconded it. Thank
>> All right. I think we're done. >> So, is that the official calendar? >> And it looks great, Liz. >> And I have to give credit to Pam Valley as well because Pam and I work on the school calendar every year together. So, >> Okay. Thank you, Pam, too. She's really
good with the like the figuring out the for. Yeah. >> All right. >> It looks really nice though. I appreciate it. >> Is there any public comment for issues discussed tonight? If anybody's left, I'm super impressed. >> I'm barely left. >> One of these going to have a comment.
>> Okay. So, can we just before we close, did you say we have a meeting March 9th? >> We have a meeting. >> Tri board meeting. >> Trib. >> So, tri board is the 9th. And then when is our next meeting? >> Our meeting is the fourth. next week. >> Okay. So, we're meeting the 4th. >> We're meeting on the 4th. We have a tri
board meeting on the 11th. And that will be >> Nope. The 9th. You just said, right? >> No, the 9th is uh citizens caucus. >> We're doing it. Didn't we decide to do it? >> No, I thought we had it the 11th. I told Chris Mart it was the 11th. >> Oh, I'll go with what your memory is.
Well, maybe let's check with >> I'm pretty sure that the tri board was the 11th because this was the 9th. >> Just about when the next tri board meeting is. >> I have it on my calendar as the 9th. >> I'm just going to point out there is one exception to the open meeting rule and it is discussion of agenda.
>> So, we can all talk about this together. >> Okay. I just don't want to miss it. And then we have another school committee meeting on March 18th when we will discuss the super fun. >> Shoot your favorite puppy budget. Are we Did we not adjourn yet? >> No. >> Motion.
>> Oh, topics. Uh, reports from subcommittees. >> Skip. >> Fine. You got to do it sometime. >> Topics for future discussion. I think we should talk about the budget. >> I think we should talk about the budget, too. >> Adnauseium for the next several months. >> All right. Uh, I'm looking for a motion
to adjourn at 9:45. >> Oh. Motion to adjurnn at 9:45 before 10 p.m. >> Second. >> Second. >> All in favor? Let's go.