great thanks so much today is March 5th 2025 we have a Medford school committee meeting um for fiscal year 26 budget at 4M via
Zoom this meeting will be view can be viewed through me Community media on Comcast and Verizon participants can log or call in by using the following link or call in number and the meeting ID is 963 3459
4761 questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing Medford SCC medford.ma us those submitting questions or comments must include the following information your first and last name your Medford Street address your
question or comment um member you please call the role certainly member Bramley present M gram M gram here can you hear me um you're pretty pretty light but I just
heard you that timea okay me and tapa me m and TAA can you hear um are you able to unmute he's not he's not a host oh we're g to make him a host yesk
great member ol member reinfeld present member so present May Goen present six seven present zero absent um if we all um may rise to salute the
flag please pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice um agenda item number three is
the msba accelerated repair statements of Interest so SOI um Dr Peter Cushing assistant superintendent and this is concerning the district's intention to submit a statement of Interest to the Massachusetts school building authority msba accelerated program on behalf of
the Roberts the missu and the Brooks Elementary Schools the Memphis school committee is hereby asked to approve three separate motions hereby authorizing the administration to formally submit the statement of interests for the schools listed below under priority five replacement
renovation and modernization of school facility systems such as roofs Windows boilers Heating and ventilation systems to increase energy conservation and decrease energy related costs in school facilities number one is the Roberts
Elementary School roof and heat pump two is mck Elementary School roof and heat pump and Brooks number three is Brooks Elementary School roof and heat pump Dr krushing I don't know if you have anything to add before we take votes and discuss uh no just appreciate the um
committee's consideration of this um this window is open now until March 21st and then uh we anticipate it will be closed for approximately two years so now is an opportunity to at least get into the pipeline um and have the opportunity to make decisions as we move
forward with these three schools thank you um and then so the general Public's aware this is the same process we took just a different um category under msba as it relates to the work we're doing um for the new high
school which we're now excited to share last week that were in the feasibility study so this is just the first phase of trying to get that um portion of these projects paid for through the msba so I want to thank all that are working on these applications from the chair um
needed projects of course as one the test to worry about City and school budgets it's it's a lot of work that we are doing on our HVAC and our high school and now these roofs never mind Cityside projects but definitely getting at least 50% reimbursement is something that you just can't pass stop trying
trying to do when you've had have buildings that are 25 years old at this point and you know their roofs are at the life expectancy or going to be there shortly so thank you um member rouso then member Graham thank you um is there
an exact set of language that I should have the motion and is that why M Graham has her hand up that's my question thank you yes there is Dr Cushing this language that um you shared with me I'm just
going to pop in the chat um yes I'm happy to read it out loud but um I think the other piece of context for all of this um just so that if anybody else is listening besides the committee that's sort of been through all of this um with us when we looked at the capital plan um
which we approved back in December dece I believe it was December um in that plan and we made recommendations to pursue these accelerated repair applications when the
window opened because at that time what we did know is this window is open again for the first time in a while or I think it was open last year potentially um but was closed um to us when we would have
needed to use it for um The mugglin Andrews project and um the msba is doing a lot to try to combat like the sort of skyrocketing cost of construction across all of their projects which is what led to them
freezing this program so it is seems like it's the first program to freeze um when something happens that is unexpected um and I'm glad that we have this window open that we might be
successful with one or multiple of these projects because at best if everything goes as planned this will not come around again for two years which means we would not know an answer for three years which means we probably looking at five years
from now that like these things would be repaired and replaced and I am really worried based on what I hear about the um things like the roofs and the hvacs um from the process that we've been going through with um mcglenn and doing
these many assessments to figure out how to submit these applications that sometime between now and 5 years from now like we are going to be looking at all of these projects as non-optional projects so um I I know Dr kushen has
been like really hustling to get this done in collaboration with some of the team that is working on mlen Andrews um and just sort of trying to position us to take advantage of a potential Grant so thank you Dr Dr kushen for um for
doing that and I will um I'll read this and I will also pop it in the chat um this is gram just real quick gram if I can I apologize for interrupting this language that is going to be read is extraordinarily specific and
prescribed uh to the largest extent where um specific things have been put in around the priority the address of the school things like that but otherwise the language is prescribed by msba and specifically taken from their
resources thank you um which made it really easy so I didn't have to come up with this on the own so I will make a motion um that reads having convened in an open meeting on March 5th 2025 prior to the SOI submission closing date the
Medford school committee of the City of Medford in accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize a superintendent to submit to the Mass Mett School building authority the statement of Interest form dated March 2025 for the Roberts Elementary
School located at um what is the exact address Street I believe 35 I think thank you Port Street Medford
nass um 02155 which describes and explains the following deficiencies in the priority categories for which the application may be submitted to the Massachusetts school building authority in the future priority five replacement renovation or modern modernization of school facility systems including the
roof which is approaching 25 years old and the HVAC systems with heat pump technology this work is being undertaken by the school district in partnership with the City of Medford as both the heating and cooling systems are in various states of failure in particular the cooling systems are unable to
maintain a comfortable temperature for staffs and staff and students to function at maximum learning capacity the roof is showing signs of deterioration and wetness and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of Interest form the Massachusetts school building
authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts school building authority or commits medord public schools of the City of Medford to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts
school building Authority and here it comes in the chat I am forever grateful you didn't expect me to type that up as it went as you went although it's not letting me send it oh it's too long oh je guess there's
a limit would you like me to share the doent with member um yes half and half um that would be great um it is it is in a document so um
what I just read we can share with you if that works there's a motion on the floor by member Grahams second to member reinfeld roll call please unless that's a problem because I have a child at the Roberts but I assume that's fine yeah I think
it's fine um member brandley yes member Grant yes member inapa yes member Al yes member reinfeld
yes member so yes M L I also have a student at the Roberts but I'm going to vote in favor all three so yes seven the affirmative zero in the negative motion passes is Miss next oh each one is yes Miss Elementary
roof and heat pump is next I'm assuming same sort of resolution yeah it's the same exact resolution can read it again um having convenient an open meeting on March 5th 2025 prior to the SOI submission closing date the Medford City Council of the
city of sorry this is the wrong one um hold on I'm in the wrong place sorry RS here we go um the Medford school committee of the City of Medford in accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinances has authoriz voted to authorize the
superintendent submit the Massachusetts school building authority statement of Interest form dated March 2025 for the missak elementary school local7 Hicks Avenue Medford Mass 02155 which describes and explains the following deficiencies and priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts school
building authority in the future priority five is replacement renovation or modernization of school facility systems including the roof which is approaching 25 years old and the HVAC systems with heat pump technology the work is being undertaken by the school district in partnership with the City of
Medford as both the heating and cooling systems are in various states of failure in particular the cooling systems are unable to maintain a comfortable temperature for staff and students to function at maximum learning Capac capacity the roof is showing signs of deterioration and wetness and here
hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of Interest form the massachus in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application the awarding of a grant any funding commitment to the Massachusetts school building authority or commits Medford Public Schools of the
City of Medford to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts school building authority M grams member R um I'm in the document there seem to be duplicates for each school um that that's because there's votes that have to be taken by the council as well so you just need to
go to the school committee section excellent thank you I'll second it though motion for approval by member Graham seconded by member Russo um roll call please Iber brand yes M gr yes member
and tapa yes member ala yes member reinfeld yes member so yes mayor lar yes seven the affirmative zero and the negative emotion passes and on to number three which is Brooks Elementary
School roof and heat pump member gram uh having conven in open in an open meeting on March 5th 2025 prior to the SOI submission closing date the Medford school committee of the City of Medford in accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the
Massachusetts school building authority a statement of Interest form dated March 2025 for the Brooks Elementary School located at 388 High Street Medford Mass 02155 which describes and explains the following deficiencies in the priority categories for which an application may
be submitted to the Massachusetts school building authority in the future priority five is replacement renovation or modernization of school facility systems including the roof which is approaching 25 years old and the HC systems with heat heat pump technology this work is being undertak taken by The District in partnership with the City of
Medford as both the heating and cooling systems are in various states of failure in particular the cooling systems are unable to maintain a comfortable temperature for students and staff to function at maximum learning capacity the roof is showing signs of deterioration and wetness and hereby further specifically acknowledges that
by submitting the statement of Interest form the Massachusetts school building authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts school building authority or commits the Medford Public Schools of the City of Medford to filing an
application for funding with the Massachusetts school building authority by member Russo second AB member reinfeld roll call please M brandley yes member Graham yes member
Anapa yes member Ola yes member reinfeld yes member so yes M Longo K yes s the affirmative zero and the negative motion passes thank just a note for everybody that these do also need
to um be approved by the council and Dr Cushing is working on a submission to them in time for their meeting next week wonderful thank you Dr Cushing next up we have the fiscal year
six budget areas of chapter 90 revolving funds enrollment projections and class size so I'll turn it over to our budget analyst Mr Gerald McHugh thank you Madame M um I'm gonna attempt to share my screen and here we
go uh at the bottom right Jerry next to the slider okay it's always F all right can you see it okay okay um so for this meeting uh I'm going to give an overview of what we
found for for enrollment uh projections for next year uh what how that translates into class sizes projected um a brief overview of uh
Chapter 70 budget and kind of how we uh divided up the U the override questions and then I'm going to go through um kind of the initial asks from all the principles and
directors um in the school system and there there's going to be a lot there and the the bottom Line's going to be a little eye popping but you know we're not suggesting that we're going to attempt to fund everything that was asked for
but we do want to encourage principles and um directors to um not be shy about stating what they think they need for their program Jerry do you want to save questions till the end um I guess uh I
did allow for some time for questions at the end but I suppose you know if if uh there's for clarification that it might you know it might make sense to interrupt and sorry while I'm here will we get a copy of this I don't think it
was in our great we'll we'll get it up on the the website tomorrow um so we are we're predicting um in increase in kindergarten enrollment and of course that's that's just a best
guess uh but I did note that um there was 699 births in Medford uh for the year uh that the kindergarten classes entering um we I took an average of the
percent of births in the prior three years that translated into kindergarten enrollment uh and then I I made my projections based on that so um you know we'll of course keep an eye on that you know
through a registration process um but we are proposing you know to have sufficient teaches to handle that uh increase in enrollment uh so the enrollment by grade
um it it's some what stable although there's been this history in recent years where one kindergarten is high and then the next year the kindergarten is low and then as these grades uh progress through the elementary there's there's ups and
downs but we'll get to the uh total enrollment and it's it's somewhat stable um this will necessitate uh principles to kind of um move their teaching staff around
because some uh you know they might have had four uh grade twos this year and they only have three grade threes next year but one of those uh second grade teachers will probably have to move to grade
three unless they still needed four in grade two so we've accounted for that um so there's your um Middle School grades and High School and then I took a a cut by uh school as
well so um Roberts is is really large um so that's something that we should be keeping an eye on and uh the rest of the uh the schools are pretty um close to what they had this year and some of that
uh increased kindergarten and is is driving up that number for them slightly and then here's the middle schools are pretty um uh stable uh and then the high school
we expect will increase a little bit uh because of the ninth grade coming in and the Curtis toughs will be somewhat stable this year and that really depends on that's based on students we know about uh and they could
other students assigned to Curtis T during the FY 26 school year and then these are the totals for the last uh three years are actual as of October one and then uh based on the
October 124 enrollment we use that as a baseline to form a projection for FY 26 so about you know 34 students let's see it's an increase of about 65 students 34 is from
that kindergarten enrollment 23 is from the high school and then the rest is kind of sprinkled around throughout the the remaining schools so we did we did class size you know after I got some feedback from the
principls this year we we changed little bit how we doing class size um because I wasn't originally taking into account students that are um mainstreamed in uh specialist classes
so we we tried this methodology this year where we took the number of uh regular Ed grades in the school for a particular grade and then divided it by the total student enrollment um and that will make sure
that the specialist will have a reasonable uh case load and these are I think compared to other school districts I know about these are pretty uh generous class sizes I think but Chapter 70
um as we found out kind of the basis for the override was the conclusion that at the Chapter 70 um budget and Chapter 70 State the foundation budget and the Chapter 70
state aid um really do not provide medf with the funds they need to run their District um so they'll there's a um right now this is based on the governor's budget uh Chapter 70 for Medford will
increase by $338,000 um that's uh based on um many school districts actually get uh the minimum State funding they don't qualify for chapter 78 uh as is as is the case with Medford
so uh the typically uh Governors have begun this process by giving $30 per student uh Governor Healey uh constructed her budget based on 75 per
student uh and if my memory serves last year at the conclusion of the state budget process it was up to about $14 um per pupil so hopefully that number will rise and give uh the city a
little bit of extra funding to offset their um appropriation school department bar yes I don't know if you can see the uh question from the mayor but should that actually say fy2 and FY
26 yeah didn't know that was sorry um yes okay because you said it will be going up so yeah 25 were finalized yeah I think I I used last year's um slides okay
template uh and I did forget but I'll fix that at the end of the presentation thank you okay great thank you and so then we we had the ballot questions this year and thanks to the
voters of meid coming to the rescue U providing um $7 million in um additional budget Authority for for menford public schools question seven provided $3 million for kind of General School
expenses and 4 million was uh dedicated towards uh the creation of a high school schedule uh along with um providing funds for teacher and Par professional compensation so how this got divided up
is um we um we were grateful to the mayor and the city council who advanced uh 1,750,000 to the school department
um to kind of finalize our um our school budget last year and it prevented further Cuts everybody can remember there were a lot of cuts uh that had to be made in last year's budget uh so the city was willing to take a risk and
provide those funds up front and hoping that the override would pass which it did so of the 7 million um that 1.7 was retained so it could go to fund the amount of money that the city already provided to the
school department and that left 5 point uh 200 5, 250,000 to um to add to the budget so basically this year we're working with a
budget of $83 million um and last year I know the school committee was very interested in some of the special Revenue funds that we have uh so I'm going to try to quickly go through the list of uh of
these items so we have uh federal grants uh you'll see I have a column for FTE funded and I haven't uh got to that yet but um particularly with the federal grants um those grants are at risk as
many of you are aware uh so we really have to get a handle of who have funding off of these grants and just be prepared uh in the event uh that funding is um is cut but uh that will be part of the
budget narrative uh when you get the budget document so we have our Essa group uh title one uh title 2A um Title One you know is for reading and math instruction title 2 a is uh
professional development and maybe um is it class size you can use it for class size reduction um title three is for our El program um and then we have this uh student support academic
enrichment Saturday Academy that's a s Saturday Academy terrific okay and then the uh the vot program has the Perkins Grant uh special ad has the idea uh you we we have a significant um
special needs population which is why this amount is so high and this funds teaches and um uh medical contracts um other types of contracts that are needed for our
special needs students and um out of District tuition um we got uh there was was a new IEP uh being impl mandated to be implemented so we did receive some funds to um Implement that new
IEP uh and then we get a separate IDE idea uh funding that supports the uh preschool program uh then we got this year we got um vacation acceleration acmis and we and um
Molly Lorden uh spearheaded um an effort to um take advantage of a cyber security Grant uh that was available earlier this year and we in fact rewarded
it um our health services department uh receives comprehensive school health services Grant from dph um and then we are um a Fiscal Agent for Medford Family Network and they
receive a Federal grant uh coordinated family and Community engagement uh and then we had a small Grant uh to support um proficiency outcomes for our El students and then the state uh kicked in another
$5,500 for that Federal grant that we got um we also um had uh qualify for reimbursement for a portion of our out of District uh uh tuitions and Transportation uh over a certain amount
uh any tuition that's over a certain amount of money that's based on your foundation per pupil amount uh 75% of that difference is eligible for reimbursement from the state so our
special education department um prepares a an initial claim every year and then uh we get reimbursement based on that claim and then in the last quarter uh there's a Reconciliation uh to get uh the actual
student costs lined up um with what we already received and we also uh get reimbursed for our homeless transportation and um we've never
budgeted this but uh this year I want to utilize some of these funds uh to offset our homeless Transportation budget so I think we can free up maybe 300,000 or all the way to 391 um to kind
of offset the uh the homeless Transportation uh in the general fund and that you know Prov that provides us a little bit of relief to do do other address other needs in the budget we have private grants we have the
crystal Campbell betterman project uh Cummings Foundation uh provides money for the uh Center Center of um Civic and social responsibility uh they also receive
donations from the P public so that's in a third account uh we have a scholarship uh in the memory of Leah ker Clark um we help the medfit Education Foundation manage the distribution of
funds to our um teachers that apply for Grants through the Medford Education Foundation um another private Grant is children's trust for met uh Medford Family Network that that is in a deficit
but it's mainly um we still kind of unwrap TR in accounting uh problems with that they have several um several pots of money and then they have people could be funded over two or
three different pots and if that's not executed perfectly then you can get um this situation but the this grant is is well managed by the person that's assigned to it so um that will I'm not
concerned about that right now and by the way these funds are only through the end of February and it's being compared to a full years uh worth of funding um from FY
24 and then uh midford family Network also does some fundraising and that goes into their gift account and then the school department uh receives um gifts and donations uh ious um at various times
and it goes into this account uh as well and then for our revolving funds oh okay right just to clear that's the balance right that's not the spending on it yes it's not the spending thank you it's just what's what's
available after the spending okay I mean I I'm happy to uh you know maybe at a different time we could kind of take a deeper dive into um the the revolving funds and we could get yeah I mean I I have a a history of
Revenue and spending for each no I just I just wanted to make sure that was yeah it's not the spending that's a good question um and the other thing about revolving funds is that the um the expenses hit right away but the revenue
typically lags because of reporting it comes through a lot of a lot of um fees come through the website and then they have to be downloaded here at the school department uh prepare report that has to go up to City Hall City Hall has to match it up
with a deposit they received uh and then it gets uh into the admin system so the the the revenue does lag behind and the balances at the end of the year uh you know will reflect all the revenue that was collected
um let's see so some of these I mean you're familiar with um the uh Early Education Program Medford is fee based school lunch is fee based um that those balances are down
mainly for the reason that I talked to you about it but it's also um the the school lunch director is really doing a good job uh replacing equipment and updating equipment utiliz in those revolving funds um School
athletics Drive is Ed um we we charge students if they break their Chromebook or they lose their Chromebook um we um at one time we we uh accepted students from out of District
down at the Curtis tff and we charge tuition so we do still have balance in that account which we use to judge uh one of the individuals uh teaching there Kids Corner again that's a situation where
the the revenue lags uh the the actual spending but um we've we've been we there's another thing that we're working on right now is that um we've always had this practice of
holding slots for employees and sometime you know if you have a very efficient soon to be mom she's on the phone four or five months ahead of when she needs it just to make sure she gets a slot and
the budget is really based on almost full utilization of all the seats so that's creating a little bit of a problem with the revenue projections that we're trying to address now for next year G yes yes member R thank you
um the shore tuition going up is confusing because I didn't think we had Shore occupying any classroom so it was their money that Shore owed us and we just got it yeah so it it went in what typically happens when you have out of District students in your District you
can set up a revolving fund and so this is a balance from back in the day when we collected tuition for those students and little by little we've been kind of of spending it down so you see it goes from
176 at the end of 24 it's down to 98 uh as of February oh there's a there's an the 176 is 17 thou 176,000 oh that should be a Comm yeah
okay sorry I was confused by that okay thank you good catch there's no more there's no more Revenue coming into that account and that that's also the same for uh vocational uh tuition as well um I think
the last student that we have from out a district is a senior this year uh and then of course we have the before and after school program um the edgely field now these next two accounts
one um you know the in Community Schools um I don't know when the decision was made but it was before my time but I'm sure it was necessary to get through a tough budget year but the
um uh director of Athletics and his Administrative Assistant are charged to Community Schools and it could have been that there were like sufficient uh funds in that year to be
able to do that and of course of course the director of Athletics does have uh responsibility for scheduling uh the people that rent our school buildings but it's really unsustainable um because we don't have the rent coming
in to cover those salaries anymore so I think uh what we'll try to do before the budget is finalized is figure out some kind of allocation method where it kind of makes sense for the director to be charged portion to Ed field a portion to
Community Schools and a portion to the general fund um and the same for his administrative assistant and that will provide some relief to this uh revolving fund and then the pool uh they're doing
uh a little bit better as you can see from the deficit is going down but uh there were that we did change the rates at the beginning of the year so that's that's helped um the other thing that I've done one one thing that also may be
unsustainable on the pool is that the use of the pool by our own students uh is important but it's right now is being absorbed into this fund which doesn't have the money uh so we can either uh so right
now um I directed um the pool director to fund the chemicals that are used uh in the pool we're funding those out of the facilities Department right now to kind of compensate for the school
use but um going forward we might have to figure out some kind of allocation on the general fund to uh support the pool and then finally the uh uh the Medford Family Network also has a
revolving fund that they call the parent child account do you want me to that was a lot do you want to um let me see yeah we're going to get into kind of all the different asks in the next few slides I don't know
if we want to stop and entertain any questions so far I just have a question from the chair if I don't see any hand rais hands raised um in the CFO world and maybe the superintendent
too where we at with the federal uncertainty and how are schools you know taking that into account and budgeting I know mayor us Mayors are talking about it on this on the city Side mainly but I
have recently learned that there's a city or two that are nervous enough to be is going to be you know affecting their budgets so I just
didn't know where we are because you did have a slide with all the federal monies and Grant monies that come in and just is there any of them that are of concern are are we hearing any word on any of them that they might be cut or reduced or anything like that
just so we can keep an eye on it um I haven't heard any specifics we definitely have to keep an eye on it um I'll try to budget some money um in
undesignated salaries to to maybe address uh three or four positions um what's unclear is is whether the grants are going to be completely eliminated or are they s simply
eliminating the bureaucracy and giving the money or some portion of the money directly to the states so you know we'll we'll just have to see what direction they go in but
um you know the these are grants that affect every Community red States blue States Urban rural um it's just um there'll be a lot
of push back I think if this attempts to cut them completely so um yeah when you hear about you know cutting you know eliminating the Department of Education it's possible that these programs will just move over to the United States Treasury and will
be dispersed from there did you want to say I was only going to just follow up that you know the title grants are the ones that fall under Essa every student succeeds act they are the ones that are linked to the
um the competency determination and our compliance with making sure that we are um compliant to the state standards and Frameworks right now for Title One in Medford we are using it solely um for
early literacy and reading skills at the Elementry level um and to Jerry's Point title two is a lot around professional development and learning um we do fund some consultancies in there some of that um funding is used to help us continue
our partnership with Hill for literacy um title three as he said is is through Paul techera title four um is a lot of of stips and use to as it's stated here um support students and a lot of our
fiscal 25 funding went to help with the high school Saturday Academy um the only thing that I would say there's definitely a lot of conversation going on a lot of monitoring of the current situation there has been no
change um but there is definitely some some rhetoric around maybe you know just fear in if districts and states are not compliant with Federal mandates and executive orders you know the the threat
is that this is the type of things that they will remove um from funding districts um federally so of course it warrants monitoring but at this time there's no
change thank you Dr um gy and member Graham thank you I just um I saw I got a couple of questions related to this from a constituent and on the same day I saw one of our masc Representatives post um
about this very topic so I just dug up her post and I'm going to put it in the chat um to sort of frame like how does money come to us like there's very little money that comes directly to us directly from the feds um so um I just
thought this was like a helpful context oh it's too big um I'm just going to give you the Facebook link I guess because I can't give you the whole quote um but um she I find her to be very helpful and
factual in her um understanding of how school funding works like she's sort of a legend in Massachusetts and she should be um in a much more broad way than that I don't know if that will actually take you to her post but
um let me I will I will send it to you all separately and her name is Tracy oconnell novic and she is a wealth of information so um I can happy to read it to you all but she basically
um she says that um something I see a lot perhaps uh of people simp perhaps simply not knowing how federal aid to school districts works in the vast majority of cases federal aid to school districts fls through State Ed agencies there are some exceptions and this doesn't for
example speak to DOD schools or the bureau of Indian Affairs districts are not on their own though for the most part your federal aid is conditioned on written agreements between the state and federal governments there is no tap that runs directly to your school district and thus this isn't every little dis
School District's fight um you know the world changes like every minute right now but um that is helpful context um so for all of our like wishes
about um what desie might do differently in the world right now I think we're we're all on that same side thank you but just point I mean I do think that's important to also note though because there is a difference right between competitive grants and
non-competitive grants and most not all but like most of these grants that Jerry is highlighting we are we receive an allocation based on our demographics our enrollment and so we're we're kind of assigned the amount that we have to work with and
budget for uh in the various categories yeah okay so let's um I wanted just to give you an idea of what um the principles and program directors uh have been asking um we've made
some tenative decisions on things we might include in the budget but it's very uh limited right now um we we know we're you know we're going to have um we have to provide a reserve for our
collective bargaining agreements and we do have um teachers um we do have staff that are under agreement with a collective bargaining that will have an increase next year that has to be
accounted for uh and most people have step increases or a lot of people have step increases that also have to be accounted for too so once that's taken care of then we can kind of address some of these other
needs um and this is kind of right now where I'm at there's still um there still a handful of budgets that I really haven't gone through with the fine tooth comb but um we and and keep in mind um that the
numbers that I you're looking at is not a budget number it's the increase over fy2 um so uh you know we're anticipating uh we'll have to increase our reserve for
expiring uh Collective buying agreements by 1.33 million um we we've already plugged in uh FY 26 salaries uh for everybody um if they if they are under a
uh collective bargaining agreement in FY 26 we used you know whatever was proposed for that um that employee ffy 26 if they're not we um we're using their current uh amount and th those
funds are provided uh on that first line under our Reserve um we have a handful of unforeseen expenses that we had to add to fy2 after the budget was approved and I'll go
through the that list with you um we have you know tentatively uh sought to include um some new spending and then I'll go through the the list I I wanted to see just to give
you an idea of what's being asked for um is are kind of to be determined uh that totals uh 2.7 million right now and you know there's no expectation that we're going to be able
to fund everything that was asked for um but all the expenses will be evaluated um some of the ask it may it may um behoove us to wait until a new new salary schedule a new uh school
schedules are established um so I'm going to uh switch to a different spreadsheet so I'm going to stop sharing this
one and no sorry the wrong one here it is okay so this is a new spending uh that we've included so far and again we kind of deserve the right to to take some of these off if if we have to De
balance the budget but we do want to um increase our capacity uh in our Tech uh area we we did um we uh identified this year every single software
application that we're using um and and it totals close to $800,000 worth of annual licenses so we know that our students and staff are using a lot of this uh
technology um for research uh for instruction uh for professional development um for uh you know keeping track of our students uh with demographic uh information keeping track
of their grades and things like that so um you know we have to have a reliable uh Network and um what this will do is that the the kind of the network support is within uh the group of people that
are under Molly Laden that uh support the um uh the school the teachers and the students with getting their computers running the appren is running uh so we intend to keep those that same
number of positions this gives us an extra extra position that can deal exclusively with uh network issues and we'll be able to serve uh the staff and students better uh in the school uh with
the compliment of um staff that we have there and then we have um you know aging uh servers and uninterrupted power supplies you know these are these power supplies would keep our
computers running in the event of a power outage and a lot of them don't work or they're beyond their uh their life expect expectancy we have a separate project going um to replace um um air
conditioning that's in the um computer rooms at each school too so a lot of those are out and of course that creates um a very risky um uh situ situation when when those rooms uh heat up too too
much um we do think um we we've the the we have sufficient teachers um to uh Implement those class sizes that I showed you earlier except we would need another elementary teacher
at the Brooks um so we're kind of a little bit back and forth whether we should hold back on that and wait until um we get closer to the start of the school year to see if those additional students materialize but right now we're
uh suggesting that we want to um go forward with that position yeah the the U I had a meeting with the principles and we went over there um their the number of teachers they have per class so uh I know there was a
concern with the Miss in fact that's that will be on the list uh that I showed you but the um all the I believe all the teaches that the um principales need in the elementary schools are provided for in the budget right
now um and we can go if you wanted to see kind of details about how many classrooms we have at each grade at each school we can certainly go through that at another time
uh the um World Language uh director asked uh for a stien to provide a French 2 um uh course uh an existing teacher would pick up an extra SE section to do that of course with the new schedule
there may be no need for that they might be able to be absorbed or we'll we'll keep an eye on that um we in our when we approve approved our uh Compensation Plan for hourly rates we we uh
identified uh security monitors as a possible security monitor substitutes um as a possible need so um this will um provide a small budget at
at least initially um if we uh utilize uh a daily sub for security Monitor and um we are expanding the number of students that can take the PSAT um sophomores uh and juniors uh I think
at all all sophomores and juniors I think are contemplated to to take the PSAT next year and so that requires an increase uh to that subsidy uh of $2,000 the current budget is $4,000 uh now for Budget adjustments
these are uh me see if I can make this a little bigger so these are things you know for operations we had because of um we had students move into the district uh that required oneon-one pars
they come to the district with with IEPs um and we had to put on three uh one-on-one pairs at the Mis uh and and an additional uh special at pair at the
Roberts um we also we currently fund lunch monitors uh in the in the lunch fund um which is uh not appropriate um we will get written up by desie uh if we
haven't already done so so we'll propose to uh bring those uh salaries onto the general fund um we have two pieces of software that uh no all no longer eligible for
grant funding that are integral to to our instruction one is St Math software and the other is um the map map um assessment uh program that we will have to uh provide
for in the general fund next year um we uh this year uh to deal with um vacancies and illnesses at The Vocational School we added a um a
building sub U although no we added an academic lead I think to uh to support um The Vocational program and um that is working very well right now
and so we're proposing that we add that to the budget next year when we fix it um we also um have frequently used um daily subs in the Health Services Program uh but we don't really have a
budget for that so uh we're going to establish a budget in FY 26 uh for those needs uh for security monitors One Security monitor uh was added this year uh
because we we have one uh night shift building monitor at the high school uh and we weren't able to provide uh that building monitor with a workfree
uh dinner uh at the appropriate time uh we also had some concerns with coverage over on the pool side uh on a door on that side so um we added a building monitor for that purpose uh and
then in reviewing the staff uh so we take a kind of look we look at you know the FTE that were authorized in fy2 versus what we actually have in the payroll and um a uh additional security
monitor popped up at the high school so through through U miscommunication I think that a position got filled that didn't really exist so we're we're kind of evaluating you know how we want to deal with that second position right now
but one is uh definitely [Music] needed and then as I said we we went through uh all the instructional software that used throughout the building and uh throughout the school system and these
um you know as these became available it my my guess is that people would just um kind of figure out accounts they already had that they might have some slack in a particular year to fold in uh
software so sometimes it was charged to textbooks sometimes it was char charg to uh instructional supplies sometimes to Contract Services um but for end of your reporting it should be reported under a
category that's called instructional software so we've um identified all those and um for what we need uh to get those accounts right size we would have to add $58,000 to various
accounts um over the um school system to to um make sure that those that uh software is fully [Music] funded excuse me um J Jerry if I may ask
question I I know every year the city adds like a position or two and then the schools is is moving things around and maybe does the same adds several positions th this year where where adding quite a few few more than that
obviously because of the overrides are you budgeting it all on on the school side for the like 20,000 plus per person it costs for insurance or is that um something that would be doing on the city Side ju just pointing it out
because I know the school side alone is 11 maybe 11 and a half million for insurance right yeah that that um well I think the the practice here m is that that was always um accounted for on the
city Side um but you know we could have a conversation if you wanted these people are already on the payroll so they're already baked in to fy2 uh okay on this page I just this
page and I know there's been a few others with new proposed positions so that's why I think it's going to be more than more than usual with the overrides so I just wanted to point that out it's just a a large expense for a city and school um that we yeah I think we do
take on the city side so I didn't know if you were budgeting that 20,000 or so or more per person per new hire we have not yet but but you would have the um the increase in the Chapter 70 um to help support that um and I
don't think at the end of the day um the the the the the the question eight was really to address compensation so not to add
people uh and then question three I mean question seven uh the three million is basically stabilizing some of these budgets like this is how we're you know fully funding our instructional
software and looking at you know facilities maintenance and uh um Tech you know the the needs of our technology so I think you'll find that we're not um we're not really in a position to add a lot of new
staff uh in my mind right now okay thank you uh and so just i' I wanted to just kind of give you uh an idea of what the principls and directors were asking for um at the high
school the principal would like to start uh uh oh she asked funds for acceleration Academy and I think we have that covered is that covered in the grant oh that's a Saturday the Saturday Academy has been yes okay not this not
the acceleration Academy um it's very interested in establishing an alternative program at the high school and that this program was be similar to the Curtis toughs uh but uh different from the
Curtis toughs these would students that don't have identified special needs but need uh smaller groups and kind of e a little extra uh therapeutic support uh and she does have a Grand
Vision for this program but what we are looking at is uh kind of um more or less a a pilot and start out with a small group of students and see how that works out uh and there'd be a lead siphon
attached U to to kind of take care of some administrative uh duties within that appro and uh more funds for the summer school um uh an advisory uh curricul I guess this would
be a curriculum committee for uh for CL uh whiteboards um she'd like to add funds for bathroom duty but that's something that you know I haven't taken a look at yet um and you'll see uh she asked for a
number of positions uh which are are listed under the directors but an our teacher band teacher um which we took care of in the supplemental uh theater teacher um three World language teachers um and
we'll we'll give a few more details in a minute on those and then two engagement Specialists um that would support working with the students and um uh address attendance and
behavior at the vog program we more or less took care of a lot of their asss through the supplemental uh he is looking for a an assistant um due to increases in his program uh in in enrollment in his
program and just uh somebody to help out um with the administrative duties at Vocational School uh the Andrews principal asked for a full or part-time special ed reading teacher and was looking for um
either a par or a behavior specialist us to run a uh in school suspension uh program with a restora of practices curriculum uh at the mlin um we did talk
about the uh administrative assistant position and that got added in supplemental um he is look also looking for funds to utilize a guidance counselor to help with the schedule over the
summer the mrck asked for grade two which we've provided for um the Roberts was looking for special reading teacher of bcba and a math interventionist uh the ELA director
asked uh if we consider two A literacy intervention interventionist at each Middle School um the World Language director was interested in restoring one Spanish teacher that was cut in
25 uh and then adding a second Spanish teacher to expand offerings and to uh sorry there's a typo there but to create a sign language uh strand within her Department as
well um and then the extra section for fr too which we've tentatively signed off on and then we uh uh for math we had this stmath that we're we're bringing
into the general fund next year um she did offer to reduce her supply line because I um based on her needs that they're they're well uh they they have um less of a need for textbooks and
supplies because of uh the the technology that's used the Athletics um I haven't been able to go through and I I will uh within the next few days but uh they've been
typically uh running over their budget so I want to look at you know how we can structure that account to figure out what are we going to charge to the athletic revolving fund and then what do we want to provide for in the
uh in the general fund budget uh the food service director pro pro provided for new appliances at the various schools and she has sufficient funding in her revolving fund for that um Visual and Performing Arts would
like to add an art teacher and again this was kind of thinking uh similar to World Language that there might be a need for more uh more of these types of sections when the new schedule gets created um
but that I think is to be determined uh we restored the band teacher at the high school um She also asked that the theater teacher be restored uh and uh have a part-time uh Elementary band
teacher and then increase her supply line uh by $4,000 uh which I think is you know has Merit at the buildings and grounds we we um we added when we finally settled the
the teamsters contract we were able to add two swing stiff custodians and that that's been helpful in in keeping the overtime down um but the budget had already been passed by the time that um
labor agreement got worked out so we added those in the supplemental along with an assistant director for buildings and grounds um and we still have to do some analysis on the cleaning contract uh the maintenance lines and
the utility lines uh to make sure that those are uh sufficiently funded in curriculum instruction we talked about um the map and the ST Math
that that map is really should be 38,000 I think not 45 but um all this will continue to be gone over you know before we finalize the budget um for special ed tuition and
transportation we we kind of got lucky there was a increase of about $600,000 and special at tuition um but because we did not use all our circuit breaker money this year
we have some bandwidth to offset those increases with circuit breaker money that will we've already we will receive in fy2 and then some will receive an FY 26 um
so right now I have this line item as being level funded but it really would have put a hole in the uh the budget if we we had to come up with that we had we had a number of new students um this year that came to the district that
needed an outside placement but we do have a couple of um residential placements that are aging out next year so that that helped um same thing with transportation and here's here's my my guess on how
this happened but as I was going through the budget this year [Music] um well I get I'm uh I'm that's I'm thinking about yellow bus so for a special ed
um we had a significant increase this year uh and then the next two years are smaller increases we entered into a a three-year contract with northw Transportation um and we'll be able to
utilize some we'll be able to utilize some uh balances in circuit breaker uh to offset those uh increases in special in transportation which um as of a couple
of years ago the circuit breaker now takes into account Transportation as well so transportation is eligible uh for that reimbursement the um special education department has a program that they call Project
transition and it's for students that have completed high school but will still be with us until they turn 21 and so they've never really had a budget to work with um they've kind of cobbled together different amounts of money from
different um sources and including you know parents generosity Etc so um this year we we decided it's very small money for very worthwhile program so we'll
continue to uh we'll provide for that in FY 26 um and the uh director at the Curtis tus asked if she could have her own Supply budget um which is fine again it
Dr money but it kind of gives her a little uh ownership of of uh to meet her needs um before that she would just typically go to the uh special ed office and um
try to get what she try to get funds uh from the administrative office to for her supplies um She also asked that if we could um make sure the you know it was
always intended that the floater would provide some um administrative support uh to the director so um but what what was missing was a consistent day during the week where she could kind of rely on that person to come down so we're trying
to work out the scheduling of that so we can make that happen uh and then the um special ed director wants to review uh the access program at the muglin middle um to look at Staffing there's
some concerns with uh possibly growing enrollment in that program next year and uh the we do have more special need students that require uh year round
programming so um the budget um which is around $280,000 right now um is projected to increase to about 330 some OD uh 26 the El program is fine and um May to
your earlier question this is another area that um we have to look at um uh because of the the nature of that program and the families that that are coming to Medford to be in that program
so uh if you remember last year we had a um a significant um El enrollment in kindergarten in FY 24 and we provided for two El uh teachers at grade one to
accommodate uh those students uh and speaking with the director uh we'll move that um second teacher into grade two for next year and then we'll keep an eye on uh enrollment as we go
forward the uh the health services we we uh we did add a nurse in the supplemental uh they were requesting a um uh a health record system um that is
really good um the the designers of the system like to say made by nurses for nurses and uh that this is going to help a lot with the reporting that they have to do with
dph because the software is um designed to do that and we'll get um that this in the first year of this grant the the cost of the application and the um implementation so there's a lot of work
that needs to be done to integrate uh this application into the school brains system um and then we will have to pick this up in FY 27 it will no longer be Grant eligible and then she did ask that her laptops be
refreshed with MacBooks and we um completed that uh a couple of weeks ago at least completed the ordering so that that's going forward this year guidance requested that the two counselors cut at the middle school be
restored um possibly add a College and Career uh counselor maybe as a stien uh position but somebody that could um you know take the lead on on the needs of U those students that require
those Services we talked about uh adding um uh to the PSA PSAT subsidy so a lot of students can pay for their own but some students need a little bit of support in order to take that and that support comes out of this
account um and then she also uh I don't know if you're familiar with recovery high schools but they're um they're a little bit like us special needs outplacement uh but they usually have
students that are referred uh that have uh substance um issues and uh I don't think we need to put a placeholder in because I think we' probably be able to cover it but it is
expensive um but we haven't there hasn't been a need for that for the last couple of years either uh the director of library and media uh suggested that we hire a a
districtwide library assistant so a few years back the the assistant accepted the high school were eliminated in favor of having full-time Librarians uh in each Library um but there is
um there is some um need to collect books and get them back on the shelves and um log in new books some kind of like low-level administrative duties
that could uh support the library Ian um and takes time away from their teaching assignments and other things they have to do in the library uh so for other operational we
are looking at um a position to kind of provide leadership in the technology area so this is something that we still haven't fully figured out but um our technology is kind of spread over
um different departments and it really needs to be organized in the same way uh facilities is organized uh so that uh people can be making sure that um servers are refreshed on a timely basis
and power supplies and um we're we're up to date on the latest uh uh releases uh for security reasons so um that is under discussion there was
some discussion earlier do we need to um somehow support uh our diversity um needs in the school department uh we rely on the city and their person and so we're taking a look at you know whether
it makes sense to um have our own work something out with the city uh so as I said before the Community Schools um without the edile account
being involved it would cost $127,000 to kind of allocate um two salaries on a 6040 basis 60% to the uh the general fund but um I need to sit
down with the athletic director kind of bit get a better handle on on the time he spend in he each of these programs um at the beginning of the school year we we um we established a city year program in
two schools so we are um thinking about whether or not we should continue those pro programs into FY 26 um we did as as happened last year we had uh you know we in order to deal with
um a severe um budget situation in FY 24 there were a number of Paras that were shifted to the before and after school program and um it really you know that's not um it's
something that was necessary to do that year but we should be working to undo that and get those people back on the general fund I will say that um through a we've we've be able we've kind of Whitted it down I think there's 17 Paras
that are on uh this revolving fund so it might be that we don't need to move five but we should probably try to move a couple at least and kind of keep an eye on that uh in the future years and then we've we've
talked about uh as part of overall um technology organization with whether we have a need for high school regist I think there was one at the high school uh a few years back but um I
think our position right now is we're going to wait until we have a vacancy in a uh our data reporting uh position so we want to get that filled and get that person up to speed so that person could
support um a new regist if we wanted to go forward with that position so uh does anyone have any questions uh on that list or where we're at no thank you so much for the
presentation um Mr McHugh very detailed any questions from the committee and if not we can move on to our last agenda item I I have a six affordable housing trust meeting as well also just throwing it out there that I have to leave around six um so if there's no questions thank
you for the presentation and I think you said you were going to um send it to us by email as well so that we have it and can further review yep will we get this list that you just went through here as well that would be really helpful to see what people want um yeah let me see it's
it's kind of embedded in a large spreadsheet but I could probably print it out and you know PDF it and even just this tab I think would be really helpful yeah great thank you so
much hearing and seeing no further questions thank you Mr mchu we're going to move on to number five which is our executive session portion upon motion to enter into executive sessions Pur pursuant of Mass general laws 30A section 21A executive session of the member of school committee um to conduct
a strategy session on the basis that an open meeting may have a detriment effect on the bargaining positions of the me school committee specifically the me school committee will be discussing ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with administrators and the mefor Teachers Association right is
there a moot and to enter executive session and we will not the memph school committee will not convene in public session after the executive session motion by member reinfeld seconded by second member and TOA roll call please
member brandley yes member gram yes member Anapa yes member olap yes member reinfeld yes member Roo yes Marilyn guer yes seven in the affirmative zero
in the negative motion to go into executive session has been approved have a good night everybody that's watching from home e e e e e
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