Mr. Lorenzi, can I get a roll call, please? >> Mr. Guzman, >> here. >> Mrs. Atinson >> here. >> Mrs. Beltron, >> here. >> Mr. Poss >> here. >> Mr. Keller, >> here. You can stand for a pledge.
To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for Good evening everyone and welcome. I hope you had a wonderful holiday and
enjoyed a restful spring break. Feels like it was a lifetime ago. Here we go again. Just as a reminder, talking about snow, our district calendar now reflects that
our last day of school along with all of our graduation ceremonies will take place on Tuesday, June 23rd. That is because of the weather. I I don't foresee any snow in the forecast, so I think we're good. But in the event that
there are any changes or closings, I will make that everyone is notified immediately. Once again, just please mark it on your calendar, Tuesday, June 23rd, and let's hope for the best and most beautiful weather. >> Is that right, Mr. George? >> Yes,
>> we got it. >> I'd like to start this evening with um just expressing some some news about a wonderful wonderful individual who was Miss Diane Mangold.
She was a beloved member of our school community who I believe dedicated 40 years of service to our district at regional day school. Am I right? Mrs. McCallis, was it 40 years? Even in retirement, Miss Diane or Dolly
remained a cherished part of our community. She was kind. She was devoted. She took great pride in supporting both our students and our staff. And if you knew her, you loved her. She was a remarkable woman. So, I'm going to ask that you please keep Miss
Mangold's family in your thoughts and in your prayers. Obviously, this impacted greatly regional day, but she had just an impact throughout our district. So, at this time, I'm just going to ask you if you would kindly take a moment of silence in honor of Miss Mangold, whose
legacy and care of students and kindness has left such a caring and lasting impact on our school community. Thank you so much. I'd also like to recognize some retirements that you'll see on the
agenda this evening. The first one is actually a hard one for me because although I'm very very My dear friend and beautiful person and colleague, Miss Evelyn Swift, the
principal of Whiting Elementary School, will be retiring with 26 years of dedicated service here in Manchester. Let's give her a nice round. Mrs. Whip and I started our career here and they paralleled in this building,
the middle school. So, all the best, my friend. All the best. Next one is not easy either. I tested Mr. P on this one because I wanted to know if he knew How many years Miss Barbara Doyle has been a beloved
staff member here at Always Whiting School? Anybody know? Don't say it. >> Close. Mrs. McLaclin, you're a math person. Add three. Anybody want to add three to that for me? 46 years of
dedicated, fantastic, incredible service for Miss Barbara Doyle, who will sorely be missed. She loved the Yankees as much as she loved her students and that was just incredibly a lot. She would call
and let them know what was going on with the score there at the Yankee Stadium. But the same way she rallied for her team, she did the same for Whiting School. She's a wild cat through and through and we are going to sorely miss her. So congratulations to Miss Barbara
Doyle. And so this next young lady, my dear friend, and I hired her when I was honored to be the principal of Ridgeway School, 20 years of service.
If you're a teacher, you know how valuable your power professionals are. Am I right? >> They are instructional coaches. They're there with us. Um, and I am just going to send a lot of love and all the best wishes to Miss Elizabeth Hackett.
Congratulations. So, as we're saying farewell and best wishes to some of the finest in our profession, we are excited about the new staff that will be joining us here in our team in Manchester. And I am delighted that this evening we
are recommending a high school principal. You will see that Mr. Jamie Brown is on the agenda to become the principal and the leader of the Hawk nest. Congratulations. I also want to ask that you please put some important things on your calendar.
Um this weekend we are going to have showings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday our magical production of Frozen from our middle school students and we're looking forward to that. We actually saw them practicing today Mr. Gonia at the
high school and it looked fantastic. So if you have something that you'd like to see that's very special. It'll be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I think one of those nights is a sing along. Am I right? or maybe the afternoon on Saturday
>> 2M performances. >> Okay. So, if you have young ones and you're looking for something fun to do, that will be the show to go and see. Also, one of the best nights of the year on Thursday, May 21st, we are going to have our district art show at the high
school. That starts at 5:00. Please mark that on your calendar. And then, guess who's turning 50? And it's not me. Although I wish um our high school will
be turning 50. >> I think we're going to have a cake, right, Mr. George? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, please mark on your calendar. Saturday, May 16th from 11 to 300 p.m. Please join us as we celebrate the
anniversary of our Manchester Township High School. And we are so excited about that. The committee has created so many wonderful things. Our opening ceremony will be at 11 o'clock. We will have a proclamation, but we have also tours
going on, memorabilia. I think there is rumor that Mr. McKennon will be there. Am I right? >> Not giving driver driving lessons, but he will be there. And it's just going to be a wonderful time celebrating the
history of the high school and just seeing how it is transformed. So, please mark your calendar for that. Thank you so much. >> Okay, go to our military ambassador, senior. >> Good evening. Uh, first off, I wanted to
thank the school district for all the support during the month of the military child. Uh, you guys sent out or the district sent out a bus full of kids for the proclamation, which was awesome. And then you guys also um supported the military children by
Uh this Friday is the uh senior recognition for military connected uh students. Uh my daughter is one of the students that'll be there. So it's going to be fun and thank
for all report. Good evening everyone. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Olivia Martino and I am the student government executive publicist at Manchester High School. I'm here today to provide you the board with important information
regarding important events that have been happening at Manchester Township High School since the last year. Juniors are set to have their prom. set up their prom. Prior to spring break, class of 2028 wraps up their Nothing Funky and Flowers pre-order
sale, so they will be delivered for Friday before Mother's Day. The freshman class has a burger 25 letter on May 6th. Please come out to support them. The freshman class has also been selling after school on Tuesday, which has been pretty successful. Coming back from spring break, we're getting back to work
with the final stretch of APs and ending the school year strong. Seniors have your future. The media center is decorated for a chance for students to take pictures with fun and backdrops. I just want to say thank you for allowing me to represent the MCH student government at
the board meeting this evening. I'm truly honored to be here with all of you and to have the opportunity to fill you all in on everything. Thank you again. Have a great presentations. So we will begin this evening celebrating our student for recognition
from NCA. Come on up. So Leila is a dedicated member of our safety patrol and serves as a bus ambassador consistently demonstrating a strong sense of responsibility and
commitment to her role. On one occasion that kindergarten students were properly cared for and safely always very humble helpful to her teachers and classmates
and hardwork. And we are so proud of you. >> Our next student is representing elementary school here. demonstrated exceptional responsibility and character by stepping in last minute
to learn all the lines in the spring concert play without hesitation. He supported his classmates and he helped ensure the performance could move forward successfully. Your bravery, your dedication, your dependable nature were
ev this kindhearted student who consistently shows a willing to help others. But what I love So next we are representing Whiting Elementary School and I believe we have
that correct bookmark contest. and am I saying that right? Her sister was awarded the same honor in the winter. An impressive accomplishment that reflects their creativity and the
cutest things ever. Their winning designs feature a vibrant and imaginative depiction of winter and spring. Their bookmark will be professionally reproduced and available for distribution to students at the Manchester branch of our library. So go
there and take a look for that. Congratulations. Congratulations. Nice work. One of my favorite young men is here today representing the Penguins and
Regal School. Where is my buddy Antonio? Antonio has made great strides since the beginning of the school year. He has been working very hard both academically and behaviorally. His smile, look at that smile and laugh are both very
contagious. He is kind to his classmates and students in the school and he loves including everyone and being part of the group. We are so very proud of you. >> We'll continue now with the middle
school. Is Victoria here? Victoria is a seventh grade student who has proven herself to be an integral member of the Mustang Mentor Club. To begin with, she leads by example and takes the time to listen, support, and encourage her peers. Furthermore, her
positive attitude helps create a welcoming environment within the building where many feel. It is the kindness and devotion that Victoria is a standout member of the organization, one who inspires others to make her own worth contribution to the
school community and that is really awesome. So congratulations. And we have now representing the middle school our student athletes Zachary and Kayla. We are extremely proud to have Zachary and Kayla represent the middle school as
our student athletes for the month of April. Zach and Kayla are both great representations of what it means to be student athletes. They are eighth grade leaders on our track and field. and track and field teams respectfully
and serve as our university and that is tremendous. So congratulations. So this nextbody has earned because we are talking about the seal of a tremendous task and a wonderful
opportunity. I can see you shaking your head because we know that It makes us so proud because to have these young men and women actually recognized for demonstrating high proficiency in two or
more languages is tremendous. So with their rigorous assessment they show communication skills cultural awareness preparing them for success global society. Their hard work reflect the commitment to global citizenship and
we'll prepare them for success inconnected world. So I'm going to call the names of these students and what we'll do we'll keep them up here and then we'll take a nice photo and I'm going to ask to come up. So congratulations to Tanya
there. Is Braa there? If I'm saying your name incorrectly, please let me know. But I think it's Am I right? The only Gabriel, come on up. Corona Morales Medina, Ashley.
Catherine Catherine, Jonathan Garcia, Garcia, Marco Gaspar, Buddy Joshua Johnson, Evelyn Lopez, Nelson,
Isabella SAZ. Thank you very much. Say it again. >> I'm going to get it. Say it again. chairs in front. You guys slide down and tall row.
Okay, are we ready? So, I'm just going to highlight that one of our students for the first time earned proficiency in sign language. Spanish, French, >> Polish,
>> American Sign Language. >> And so for the younger students that are here tonight, that is something for you to aspire to. We have options at the high school and we hope you can be part of the seal of Bitery. Thank you, Dr. for leading that charge and thank you to
wonderful teachers as well. I have some certificates. I'll give them to you later. Okay. Okay. We're gonna continue. I'm excited about these two. They are student athletes from the high school. And I I don't know if I saw Christine.
>> Okay. So, Christine is still on the bus because They're coming back from Okay. But they're coming back from the bus and it was a good effort. Yes. >> I do want to recognize Patrick and his coaches here today. Come on up.
So Christine is a varsity softball and has been wonderful for the team for freshman year. But I'm going to talk about now Patrick. So Patrick has qualified for the New Balance Indoor Nationals in the 1600 meter with a time
of 4 minutes 32 seconds. That is quite tremendous. He is ranking among the top freshman runners in the nation. He demonstrated resilience and elite performance and now sets his sights on
qualifying for >> we are there for you buddy. We are there for you outdoor nationals in June positive mental attitude. You got it. We believe in you. You got it. Thank you so much. He's going to be able to get there. He's
done a great job. It's been a It's been a privilege and a pleasure and really appreciate it. >> Thank you. And what I would like to say is besides the fact that we have such tremendous teaching staff here, the fact that we have teachers working with our students
as coaches is really truly tremendous as well. I just appreciate those staff members that are working extracurricular shaking their head as you know it's just tremendous and they have such great belief in our students and our student athletes. Um Mr.
I think what you saw here today is that we are not only excellent by example, but we have some of the cutest kids around and some of the kids also. And so, thank you to everybody. We are glad to come out this evening. We are going to have
our budget presentation this evening. So, if you'd like to stay for that, you certainly can. But if some of the students have to get home a little bit early, I saw some of the little ones in the back. That is not a problem. You have a good night and we will see you perhaps next
Mr. Loren, you're up. You have a report for us. >> It's going to take a minute. >> All right. So, welcome everybody and thank you for sticking around. You guys look forward to this every year. We are going to go through the 26 27
budget. Just a little process before we start. We typically start this process in October, mid October. Information is sent out to all of our schools of our supervisors, administrators, and we start developing the budget back in
October. From October to here, we go through several rounds of reviews, meetings, discussions. Um, and obviously if you read the newspapers, you see what's going on in our county, in the state.
Uh, you obviously know that there are schools that are districts that are closed schools, districts that are laying off mass numbers of staff. Health benefits is a huge topic of discussion this year, cost of health benefits. So you know there's a lot
there is a lot going on school funding there is a lot going on this is a very intensive process that happens over a period of about five months. Uh it it takes everybody in the district to get us where we are today. So I want to
thank you guys because it was not easy this year. Uh so what we'll do is we'll start going through uh and kind of kind of break down a little bit what our budget looks like for next year. So this is just a quick agenda. A couple things. We'll talk about our revenues, our cost
drivers and expenses, administrative cost, we'll do a budget snapshot, and then ultimately budget outcome. So our revenues essentially fall into four budgets. The fifth one I'll talk about uh we have tax levy adjustments,
tax levy, tax levy adjustments. Uh we get state, we get federal aid and then we have another source, another bucket, other revenue which typically comes from our send relationship with they send us their their 9th grade through 12th grade
students. Uh we get some transportation for our move uh extraordinary need which is additional need that we get special education cost. Then our other support which plays a big role in some of the things we get to do here is we we get funding
from our we get grants from our PTA from our foundation uh from our our staff go out donors choose uh these are things we do shared services where we share services with other districts we charge them uh which brings additional revenue
into the district. U these are essentially our five revenue sources. Um without the PTA and MTS and those types of things there there are things the deputy would not be able to do. So we are grateful for their support of our school district. This is essentially how
our revenue breaks down. Uh this is unfortunately nothing new. You know the taxpayers support about 77% of our entire uh through through our general fund tax levy on debt service tax. This number has come down over the years. It
used to be in the low to mid 80s, but because we're receiving more federal funding now than we were a couple years ago, uh that has come down a bit. Our state aid is about 11% of our budget. And that's essentially our categorical aids uh extraordinary need, which is
special education need or nonpublic transportation, which is a partial reimbursement we get for all of our a service. Our federalally Majority of that number is our preschool program. Our preschool represents about half of
that number. Uh IDA, which is against funding, federal funding related to special education. ESA, which is formerly no child left behind, uh we we get funding there as well. And then the last bucket is, you know, just miscellaneous bank interest and some
other things that come in that bring us to our 100%. But again, you know, in this budget, and it's been this way for years, uh, is our taxpayers support majority of our budget because the school funding formula does consider Manchester a wealthy town. When you
consider factors in the funding formula um and and the reason that is because we do have a very large city population uh approximately 70% of our population is 55. Um, and the way the school funding formula does work is it takes the town's
total income, the town's total property value, uh, and that that number gets pushed into the formula and based on that number because we have that property value, because we have that revenue stream and we're not getting kids from those those
developments. We our funding formula shows that we have more of a billion to pay than you say like our surrounding towns that are getting significantly more. Uh that's you know it's an unfortunate situation we're in. There are only three districts that are like us in this in
this in this in this state. It's us Berkeley and there's a district down um all the same all the same have a lot larger populations. We are we are considered district factor group B. Um they don't use them anymore but just to
put it in perspective your district facs that are getting funded 80 90% or higher from the state. We are one level below that and we're you know we're only receiving about 11%.
So that's you know that's unique to man. When you take a look at this screen, this live has a lot of increases, which is great. This is our historical state aid over the last five years. Um, what as a business administrator, when our state aid numbers come out and you see
increases, it's it's a little bit of a uh but what the reason I put this up here is I want to just discuss the last two years 25 26 and this year that we're talking about them. The state changed the school funding formula last year. Uh
and basically what they do, they tried to make it more favorable and change the way they collect the income data. They change the way they collect the property data. Uh and essentially what that formula did was it recalculated how much schools get. Now that that was great and
we thought it was going to be great. But what what they wound up doing was they wound up capping what increases schools can get, what decreases schools would have. So if you take a look over the last two years, the school funding formula calculated that we should have
received just under 1.8 million in 2526 and 1.9 million for 2627. What we actually received is 360,000 in 2526 380,000 in 2627. So that's created a 2-year state a
shortfall of almost $3 million. That's very significant, but again, this is the caps they put in place. So, essentially, the school districts that were supposed to get increases are subsidizing the school districts that were supposed to have increases. Uh
this, you know, obviously is a problem. Uh so, you know, whenever the governor comes out and says we're fully funding the formula, technically they are. Uh you know, they are funding, but they're not we're just just not receiving that money uh that the formula said it was
supposed to be receiving. So while like I said you see a lot of green on this slide it is great we are getting more we should be getting significantly more cost drivers again the cost drivers themselves these do not change from year to year it's t it's typically the same
five or six items uh what's significant really about this year and I'm sure you know we've heard it municipalities are deal we're dealing with it private sector is health benefits the cost of health um that That is very significant
this year and for our upcoming years. This year in 2526 we saw a 34% increase in our health benefit premiums to the state. Uh that's an astronomical number and they're telling us to project that again next year. Really what's happened
is and I'll talk about a little bit in the next slide. I'll hold up on the next special education services. Again we have 50 we have 50 kids that we send out of district. We have kids with more needs now. Uh, significantly more needs.
So, they have full-time nurses or full-time paris transportation being we have, you know, we've seen a little bit of a shift in our demographic here in Manchester. Uh, and and what's come with that is additional transportation payments that we have to make. Liability insurance, you know, again, is
increasing because the cost of everything is increasing. So, now if we have some disaster in one of our buildings, you know, buildings are Everything cost more. So the insurance to cover those things cost more. Utilities, you probably seen it in your own home. We see it here. We have six
building, you know, six school buildings. We have administrative buildings. We have maintenance buildings. Lights are on. Air's on. You know, we've seen 20% increases there. And then we also have a pension that we that we made when the state pension fund kind of was struggling. They started
pushing that some of those payments back onto the schools. That was probably eight or nine years ago. We still continue to pay that. You know, that's about 1.6 1.7 million. Some of the other areas we still have a large population multi- language learners. So, there's additional cost
that come down. We still have 30 kids that go to charter schools that live in Manchester at 18 to $20,000 a piece that we are responsible for. Substitute shortages are getting better. We are still having issues filling positions. And when we do that, we have to go
outside to companies uh to to fill those positions and that costs us more. Minimum wage increases are still going up. They're not going up as as much as it did previously, but again, every time that goes up, that affects us both here and that affects us through our vendors
and then just the general cost of doing business. I mean, you can't walk out the door now. Gas is $4.30. Diesel, which is what most of our buses use, is almost $6. And we don't pay that. We don't the But we still pay probably four and a
half hours, you know, gallon in buses that get eight miles per gallon. So it's, you know, just the cost of everything is far exceeding what our budget typically increases. Talk a little bit just a little bit about the health because this this line
item alone in our budget increase $3 million for next year. Uh and this is why when When the state health plan designed the educator health plan back in 2022, um they created a plan that was a fairly
robust plan and and the idea behind the plan was it was it was to move people out of these legacy plans and move them into an educator plan where the plan design was pretty solid compared to the legacy plan. The premium was cheaper so
the school districts in theory would save money and then members would also their contribution structure change. Uh and the legacy plans their contributions were based on premium and educator plans their contributions are based on their salary. So there was a significant
difference in what a member could pay. They switched. But in 2022 that was I think that was the first year it came out. Nobody really knew much about it. not not a lot of people went into this you know and the state had you know I
projected some large numbers moving from legacy to EHP very early on and those numbers did not happen so then you'll see the second year 2023 the renewals were fairly even so again in that second year you weren't getting a lot of people
switching from legacy to EHP because there wasn't enough separation of premium cost and to them it was still the fear of the unknown by 24 the state. Now again I can't say this I I don't know if this is true or
not but when you look at the numbers where they were where they went now where they are it seems like something in 2024 and 2025 was done to subsidize EHP to start increasing the gap between
legacy and EHP. Um because in 2024 this was when we started seeing a lot more people moving out of legacy plans and moving into these every health. Um again, same thing happened in 25. So 24 25 where we saw the largest shift from
from legacy to GHP. Now in those in those particular years, it's it's when the shift happens, it's it's helpful because the premium is is cheaper 15 to 20% cheaper in 24 and about 25%
cheaper in 25. But employee contributions dropped significantly. So it e into some of that savings. So now we have in our district here we have about 73% of our population in aggregated plan.
202526 comes and that's our uh 34% for Manchester legacy plans increase 37% EHP increases 30%. So all of a sudden we go from an 8.8 because now the majority of people are in these plans. Now what happens with
for the school district is in the educated plan the school district bears the majority of the increase of that cost now because premium I mean health benefit contributions are based on salary. So people's salaries you know don't change much from year to year. So our contributions do not change much
from year to year but a 30% renewal on on that premium we're pretty much picking up % of that. That's what's significant now. Uh and we're being told to project potentially similar numbers next year.
Um when the governor gave her address, you know, our budget address, this is supposed to be a priority. Um but this chapter 44 law does not sunset until January 28th. So we have this renewal
coming up in January 27th and then one more unveil keep an eye on. I mean we we do try to we do try to shop our plan out to private sector to see if we can get anything better out private sector but our claims aid is is not good enough for
private sector uh to to even be willing to take us on. So this is obviously something we got to it was I think it's important discussed tonight because this is the major driver in our budget this year. As far as our expenditures overall,
again, this is just a quick summary of where the money kind of falls in our budget. Obviously, the majority of our money is in instruction where it's it's supposed to be. Um, it's in the classroom, that's that's staff, that's supplies, all those types of things. You can see, you know, the health benefit piece, that purple piece is fairly
large, too. That that's $18 million is tied up in that include but that also includes our pension payment, tuition reimbursement, those types of things. But the majority of that is uh 16 million of that is health benefits alone. Uh and you can
kind of see I won't go through all of them. You can kind of see where all where the money kind of shakes out. Transportation again, we we see we see much higher transportation costs now because we made significantly more payments need uh we are budgeting $1.4
million in payment. for next year. Uh that tuition number is is the number that's what we spent to send our special needs children out this year almost $6 million cost us send those kids out uh because we do not have programs here our
grants that's federal money we discussed uh and then you know the rest is there but just you know you know it's an $80 million budget that covers that crosses all funds that cross crosses our operating budget our our special revenue
budget our grants are debt service. Um the majority the majority of that money is in the classroom. That's what you want. Um as far as our administrative cost for pupils like this is one thing you know again when you when you hear about all the cuts and the things that are going
on around us uh a lot of times you see people attacking administrators and things like that for salaries and those types of things and And I do understand that. But at least here in Manchester, um, we do we do a very good job at controlling our administrative costs
here. We have the 17th lowest administrative cost out of 72 school districts that are in our in our group. We have the third highest faculty to administrative ratio in that same group of 72 districts. We currently spend $822 less per pupil than the regional limit,
which is which is 2.2 million less in cost. administrative spending than the regional women. So, so look that that is a great job. You know, we ask our administration here to do a lot to to do a lot and they've done they've stepped
up every year. But this is significant obviously because when you look at the budget and as we get further, we talk about some of the things we had to do to get here. Fact that we're spending, you know, potentially 2.2 million less than some of our counterparts around us is,
you know, is tremendous. So, how did we get here? Some budget adjustments. So, over the last year, our our enrollment has decreased by about 77 students. Um, again, this is primarily due to the demograph demographic change
in the neighborhood. We are also doing much more uh residency investigations now. So, we are, you know, we are finding kids that are coming here that don't live in town. those kids those kids are part of that 77 but we've decreased our role has decreased about
77 kids with the majority of that decrease being in our high school this budget does eliminate 13 positions I believe now we're up to about nine or 10 we're doing through attrition either whether it was retirement or resignations and then one or two or non
renewals but so we were able to essentially get where we're at today without basically taking jobs from that that's huge and that's important. Um, we made about a million dollars in operational cuts and that's essentially across the board. Anywhere we could
anywhere we could reduce, we we we reduce, you know, because our goal going into any budget is saving staff and programs. That's always the priority. Um, and so to do that, we had to look pretty, you know, deep in other areas. And you know, we've had extensive
conversations with the administrators and things like that. and we're asking them to do, you know, to try to do more with less next year. Uh they understand that. They understand where we're at. Uh federal funding contracts. So we had a lot of federal new funding come into the
district when CO when CO came back in in 2020, 2021. Uh about roughly about $7 million came into our district through that funding. And we were able to do a lot of things with that with that funding. That funding is gone now. and some things
that we've purchased that we've decided to keep uh where we might have had them under multi-year contracts, those types of things are are now coming back into our local budget. Um because we don't that federal funding is not there to support that cost anymore. So overall,
we made about $2.4 million in cuts to get here. Uh good news, class sizes, we don't expect we don't anticipate any significant change in school classes uh for next year. are maintaining all of our programs and services uh for
students and staff. Uh we have staff development is still in place. No changes to sports or clubs at this point, but we are going to take closer looks at participation and see if there are things that we maybe shouldn't run or there things we can combine. Courtesy busing, same thing. This is essentially
all busing that's not to and from school. Um that is still in play, but we are looking at ways we can potentially uh there whether it's consol some consolidation or or adjusting routes how are we going to do it uh we have to
start looking at ways where we can potentially uh reduce some of those costs uh and field trips will continue future challenges and again this is nothing to do unfortunately you know school funding school funding
is is the big issue here is when our schools going to be fully funded based on what the court says um without you know without if it continues the way it's going with cost rising rate is we're going to be in a position like this every year when we're taught where
we're making very difficult decisions district demographic changes again you know families that are moving into Manchester right now do not send their kids here so that's going to have an impact potentially on enrollment it's going to it's also going to add cost to our
budget new construction impact they are still building their yard development still being built Um although we have not seen a tremendous amount of new students come come to us from the from the building project right here at high
school. You've seen you've seen some but nothing you know nothing out of the ordinary. Uh we don't really know what we're going to get from the new development that's up near uh Commonwealth. Um and there's some other buildings still going on here. So we're not really sure how that's going to impact the schools yet. 2% cap. you
know, our budget, we are subject to a 2% tax like a cat with one or two exceptions. Uh, obviously, you saw some of the information that I put up here. The cost of doing business is well beyond 2%. That is going to continue to be a problem. And then, you know, other factors, and we don't know what those
are yet, but every year it seems like the state's giving us new things uh that we have to do less money to do. So, we just don't know what the future holds as far as far as the state. um just budget a snapshot. I have not to
go through all of these things. I mean this this presentation will be on our website but um related to curriculum and those types of things. Uh we are we have the right now based on the 2425 tax guided spending. We have our 68th
lowest student teacher ratio in those 72 school districts. That is commendable to you know that's thanks to the board thanks to community for contining to support us because the only way we can do that is with the support of the community. You know, again, when you see
when you look at districts around us like Lacy, Jackson, Lakewood, Ter, and you know, you're hearing class sizes of 30, 35, 30, that's a that's a scary thing to think about. Uh we've been able to maintain our class sizes, which is great.
Obviously, the focus for curriculum is on student achievement. you know, four pillars, math, science, read, write, you know, that's always our focus. Professional development for the staff, you know, it continues to be at the forefront. We have summer curriculum monies budgeted.
High school continues to offer diversified offerings. We have 268 multi- language learners here. And I won't go through these, but these are all the textbooks and instructional p purchases that are built into the budget this year. The one thing, you know,
understand that now is we don't have hard cover textbooks anymore. Everything is online. We have we have some classroom sets. Kids do not go home with books anymore. Uh everything is online. And the catch with these is the information is the most up to date
you're going to get. But these licenses uh expire every year, some two years, some textbooks where it used to be every 10 years, 15 years, you know, you bought a new textbook. Now we're doing this stuff almost annually. So these are continuing
operational costs in our budget. Special education we have over several hundred students about 25% of our enrollment have IEPs. Um we have about 50 students that are projected out of district uh for next year. Um one thing
we are seeing is we are the needs of our special ed students are increasing it seems like daily. Uh we have more kids coming to into these districts that are medically fragile, need full-time nursing, need professionals. Um, so
those costs are increasing. Um, we are closing a VRI classroom and opening an LLB classroom to suit the needs of the population we have for next year. Uh, our job coaching program at the high school is doing very well. This is giving us the opportunity to
bring some of the kids back to our district that may be in ad placements, you know, between the ages of 18 and 21 and giving them opportunities to come back here, meet their peers and go through the job coaching program. Our extended, we will have extended school
year programs again this year. And one of the things that changed from last year is last year it was a three-day program. This year it's going back to a 4-day program. Um, prevention. We still have our RBTs. We still offer BCPA services in house. But
again, this is special education is a moving target. We're constantly reviewing. What we're doing, enrollment as it comes in, and then we assess the needs as they go. Technology, two biggest things, just point out here is student devices. We have to replace 225
student devices. We are one school district here in Manchester. So that means every kid, I think, grades two three and up have it have a device. Um those devices last anywhere from 5 to seven years. So we are on a cycle where
we have to replace Chromebooks u every every couple years. So we have 225 of those built into our budget. We also have 50 replacement devices for our digital arts program here at the high school. Um some of the things we do to try to offset those costs, we do
participate in something called the e-ray program. Uh if you didn't know it, there's a small little charge that comes out of your cell phone bill, I think it is, uh that funds this program and certain services and and things that we need here. In addition, we can get
reimbursement for up to 80%. So that that plays a big factor into what we do with technology. Um far as facilities, you know, again, we still we are still following the CO 19 clean protocols. I mean obviously if you walk through our buildings our buildings
are great that's you know that's a testament to our building crew uh you know some of the hardest workers we got here we have 32 custodians for grounds people maintain staff there's funding obviously there for school grounds and maintenance preventative maintenance and
things that we are required to do every year um we have two projects that are coming up one's one's definite facilities the other one kind of crosses over between facilities and transportation The first one, this is coming out of our capital is we have we're installing two
bathrooms in Bridgeway We have access to Um, we're looking into we're investigating a turf tank. Uh, this is this is this is essentially a Rooma for your fields. Um, it paints the lines on
your fields. Um, it's us significantly less uh significantly less materials and obviously there's no labor. Um, since we cut our ground screw to 44 a couple years ago, this ground screw up where we
take away ground member a day to do a field day. This machine can do it in a few hours and obviously don't need to stand machine things. Overall, I think it would be a cash positive. It would be cash positive
for the district because again, you're cutting down labor and significantly cutting down the amount cost transportation. Again, you know, these guys probably have the most important job here because they're transporting our students back and forth to school.
We are transport transportation department is highly efficient. Uh well over 200% where the state recommends 120. Uh we have 66 buses, three bands. Uh again, we talked about fuel cost a little bit. So, you know, again, we drive 800,000 miles plus a year on all
of our routes. Again, most of our 54 passenger buses, we get about eight miles per gallon. So, when you do that math and you see gas prices go up a dollar, a dollar50 a gallon, is significant to the uh we still we still continue our in-house
driver training program, which has helped us recruit a few more bus drivers to the district. So, our bus driver short is not quite as bad. I think we have maybe one or two, maybe three positions that are technically open, but we've done a very good job bringing drivers into the district. Uh, which has
allowed us to bring some of that work back that we send out because any any any transportation we send out district probably cost us $500, $600 a day transport, which is which is it's it's a lot of money. We think the obviously for significantly less. Um and you know
again we talked a little bit about bills which is those payments that we make or transportation that we cannot provide you know are that student increase just based on uh the demographic and again we will continue to look at non-based transportation student administrative
services. This is this falls under Mr. George. This is where testing home instruction fall and vocational fall. Uh we have we have roughly 88 kids this is this year that are in full-time vocational and we have about 107 kids that are in parttime
vocational which means they spend part of the time here part of the time in one of these programs. Um yes. Um so that's student administrative services preschool. Uh we are in the fifth year of our preschool program. Uh
we secured about 3.6 million of funding. We we will have 17 classrooms next year. We'll be adding more classrooms. Uh this has actually helped us stabilize enrollment. Um so this has been this has been great for the district. our hands on these kids a little earlier through the educational process.
Regional day school, now this is not part of the budget that we're asking the board to vote on tonight. Regional day school is a separate separate budget separate. It's a school that falls under the umbrella of our outdoor education is essentially a public public school for special needs students. Um we took it
over in the 80s. The benefit that the school district gets that we can offset some costs down there, administrative costs, those types of things. pull that money out of the local budget because we do obviously operate that budget. Funding is completely separate. It's fully supported by tition payments from
seven districts. Uh we receive kids from 20 different districts in quite primarily in Mon County. Uh we have 12 instructional classrooms there. Uh nine uh nine autism classrooms, ERI, preschool, and
intellectual disabilities. Uh we're anticipating about 63 kids next year enrollment wise. We program in six weeks, four days. Uh the new big new shiny thing down there is our sensory room. Um if you are a musician, you haven't seen it, it's a
cool little spot down there. Uh they did they did a tremendous job down there, but they have music therapy, the sensory room, occupational physical therapy, and the STEM program. And then just closing, obviously, we're we're facing huge budgetary challenges going forward. And
just understand that every decision we make is to mitigate student impact. Um we are trying to save the areas that are most critical to our staff and students. Um again we cannot do this without thanking the board community uh for
their continued support and uh you know again so thank you. And as far as the impact here this is the impact of the budget for next year. The average home in Manchester is $367,000. The rateable base is about $7.7 billion.
It wasn't a ton of increase from last year to this year. The school tax rate is will increase 3.8 cents. Uh impact is $151 $151.31 annually on the average home. Uh for
every 100,000 of assessed value is $418. questions. >> Any questions? >> The 13 positions. >> There are no rules. >> Thank you guys. Mr. Lorenzan, thank you. At this time,
we'll take any public comment on agenda items only. >> Are there any board member reports? >> Mr. Lorenz, any old business? >> No business. No business. >> Any correspondence?
>> No. Then we'll move to section one. A numbers one through three. New business. Any any discussion? >> We're going to go a
>> through a whole packet. through. Any discussion? If I get a roll call, >> Mr. Goodman, >> Mrs. >> Yes, >> Miss Bel. >> Yes, >> Mr.
Yes, Mr. >> Yes. >> Section two. >> Administration. Administrative 1 through five. Motion. >> Mr. Goodman. >> Yes. >> Min. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bel.
>> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kelly. >> Yes. Personnel numbers 1 through 20. Motion >> second. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Min.
>> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. M. >> Yes. Student personnel number one. >> Any discussion? >> Motion. >> Roll call.
>> Mr. Griezman. >> Yes. >> Min. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Bel. >> Yes. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Special services numbers one and two. Motion.
Roll >> yes. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bel. >> Yes. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. And >> yes. Section three, finance one through five. Motion. >> Roll call.
>> Mr. Gman. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. is now open to members of the public for comment.
Anyone? >> This meeting is hereby. Can I get a motion? >> Favor. >> Thanks, guys.