--------- Right. Uh, we'll go ahead and get started. call the meeting to order here at 8:03 a.m. Committee finance subcommittee. Um start with uh new business which is the FY26 budget update.
>> Sure. I want to thank uh Katie Blake for her patience and her work in um uh closing out the FY25 budget. Uh there's been a a lengthy conversation from June and July and through August about whether or not after um adjusting
some of our funding from the town to support the close out of FY25 um and uh with the gift of the override that's a very very uh uh incredible um support mechanism financially to the town from the community.
We still felt that there were lines in our budget that needed to be reconciled from what the actual expenditures were through not only 20 FY23, FY24 but also the recent data points of FY25.
Um uh during that analysis um we felt there may be a need to reduce our staffing levels in order to provide revenue to disperse to those lines of the budget and net by 26 in order to make sure that we were setting ourselves
up for fiscal success. Uh given the the the lack of um the last two fiscal years meeting that obligation, we we wanted to make sure we were good stewards of the of the funds. So, uh, as we began to discuss whether or not we could reduce, uh, any folks, we first started with
reviewing every position to make sure that if there were any vacancies, we could pause those vacancies in order to save some money to put in the lines that have some deficits in them for FY26. And over the course of the summer, as you can see from the list provided, we were
able to identify um 7 thou $772,000 worth of reductions through not filling vacancies with the exception uh of a nurse position, which we are reducing. Uh that is a real person who who position, but we are offering them a
separate role in the work groups that they will have access to. So, uh, the sheet that you have in front of you, uh, represents the FY26 operating budget realignment draft, uh, that was printed out yesterday and sent to you. Um, as
you can see in that document, we have, uh, 8.5 positions and also some overtime dollars that we're reducing from the budget. Um, these positions all have tasks that they do. Uh we have worked with our staff, our principles, our
leadership team and and also have notified and discussed this issue with the Milton Educators Association because there will be some other work that will need to happen in order to get these services delivered that these folks would normally deliver. Um, so the good news is we feel uh that we're trying to
meet a goal of roughly $600,000 or more in order to feel secure that we can redistribute these funds to the lines of the budget that have uh some have small deficits, some that have larger deficits in order to make sure that we are fiscally solvent in FY26. Um, we're also thankful that we did not
have to actually terminate any employees in order to get to that dollar amount. Uh we did have a list of potential reductions that would have resulted in us having conversations over the next few days with people who would have been very disappointed as they were probably on the list in the spring when the
override was coming about and then felt uh grateful that their job didn't get reduced to have to reduce anybody's position in August prior to a school year. So avoiding that kind of um reduction process was really helpful. So
to go down this list, would people feel comfortable if I explain each reduction? Does people have questions about the reductions? >> Yeah, I think walking through the the reductions are any additional detail beyond what you've kind of provided here. Just >> if there's any budgetary dollar
questions of lines and how we want to, you know, how we're going to utilize these funds, I would then ask Katie to step in and talk about that as well. >> Uh the first position was vacated in June. Uh the director of educational technology is a unit B uh administrative position. Uh that role supports teachers
in the classroom related to their technology use and access. Um it really works around our school and different types of applications that are used in our classrooms. Uh this individual oversees the business education department teachers at the high school which is food service not food service
but it's uh culinary the wood shop and also one or two business education teachers that will be absorbed by the school principal and administrative team for evaluation purposes. Uh he also oversees two educators, one at the high school, one at the middle, uh who will then uh there might be in that cost of
giving one of them a stipen in order for them to pick up some the roles that age left in its wake. There will be uh concern related to some of our teachers reaching out for some of that services could be delayed. It might look different. Uh but we think that we can pause it for a year, reevaluate and
decide position comes back for the following year. The equity coach was uh vacated in June as well. the educator who been with us for several years went to Boston public schools. Um that position we're pausing um the equity work this year will focus more on hiring
and retention and policy and we felt that uh not filling that role would be something we could reevaluate as we talk about FY27 as well. Um the Milton High School team chair, there are two team chairs at the high school and two team chairs at the middle school. uh we felt
that we could reduce this role uh or not fill this role because she resigned in July um and have the three chairs combined between middle and high school work uh together in order to overlap grades. We're really focusing on the transition grades. So, one of the chairs
will be an 89 building shared not to make their life harder by having to move but actually to make the families and children's life easier in order to help make the transition between eight and nine. uh we're looking at similar types of approaches from a service delivery model from five to six and from preK tok
those decision points are really important and the team chairs are really uh integral in that work. So we feel like this new model will be helpful to them um despite the fact that they'll have more on their uh list of uh families to work with. We also have
talked about potentially utilizing some um administrative assistance support in the in the high school that's existing uh to support any kind of paper in back of the house functions. So, we think that they'll be fine. The nurse is the only individual we'll
be talked to today related to their position. It'll be a float nurse who currently the district has one nurse in every building. That's six. two float nurses that go between buildings when someone's out and a nurse director. Uh
we felt that that was more a COVID level related hiring staff um number and reducing the the one of the flows allowed us to save the salary of $89,000. The asterct is that we also have a
unique onetoone nurse need for one of our children who has medical needs that has been paid out of the um the contracted services budget for special education. That was a one-year contracted service agreement. So instead of this nurse losing her job, we are
able to offer her that role. Uh so if she would like to maintain employment, she has the opportunity to do so with the same pay just in a different role within the district. So whether they take that role or not is to be seen. Uh but if that would that savings out of
payroll is a real number because that will be taken on the payroll. So ultimately we will have eight nurses for six schools, one nurse per school, one flow and one director. All of which will be re-evaluated for
service delivery need for 27. We ended up building some of the preschool who was ended up leaving the district sometime in the spring and was not replaced. We feel like the preschool can utilize our daily stop work as as others have as they have in the past. Uh
we had a special education position that was vacated uh and no longer in need at the Columbia school. That position was targeted to be utilized at the high school if needed. Um, after reviewing the class sizes of the programs at the high school and also looking at the
therapeutic needs of some of the programs at the high school, we decided to maintain the adjustment counselor that was previously on this list in order to support the peers in the high school's therapeutic program that didn't have a therapeutic component directly
connected to them. they were using the the adjustment councils that were already in the building at Islook and we felt the um distributing the students and working with them in the two programs at the high school and then working with them that would settle the class size issue the position we're
going to add. There's like needs uh between the the students that we are working with in that program. So that educator will have more students but he'll have another educator with him two or three periods a day. you'll have a par professional for the remainder of the day and those children also go out
every period for inclusion opportunity. So it's never a full room in that space. But what was important for our special education service delivery is that all of those students need some direct support that an adjustment council bring to them that we felt was needed. So we
opted for a little bit higher class size for our special education students who were going in and out but adding the therapeutic component. So that was the choice that we made. Um, and that's where that position originated from the F25 budget. Uh, and I'll go through them all and
then we can ask any question you want. Keep talking. Uh, custodians, we have two openings in the custodial ranks. Um, and we've been going through overtime in order to pay folks to work the added um, attention of those people. We feel like
putting in two brand new custodians at a low level of pay initiating their start pay and then being able to reduce the overtime would be kind of an analysis we felt comfortable with. We feel like there's no need for overtime to go higher to go lower with a fully staffed
building. We haven't had fully staffed buildings in a while. So, we would prefer to cut the overtime to hire two hardworking folks and only hire one position, not fill the other, and maybe have the overtime get creeped into and have it maybe not be financially as
clean and successful. So, I want to thank Cage for doing that analysis and working through that as well. Assistant director of student services. This position was vacated during 2425 school year. Um, this role is important to the success of our special education
director. Um, after going through an interview process, we really didn't find um, candidates that we felt uh, were going to be um, in the role that would be a good fit. Uh, so we decided to put it on pause in the hire this year. Um, I
can say that in the past two years, uh, Daniel Wetmore, who's the director of student services, the she's responsible for our English language learner program, she's responsible for guidance, she's responsible for the nurse, she was
responsible for registration, she was responsible for residency um, in order to support this reduction in her office or not providing her with the support that she had had maybe in the first she because I don't think anybody's been stable in that position
since she arrived. We've taken away registration from her. I am taking that work on. We're taking away residency from her. I'm taking that role on uh we're providing her support through a high school and an elementary uh principal and assistant principal in order to provide the EL functions that
she needs. Um and we are discussing whether or not we take the nurse um director and put the nurse director under someone else. The goal is to free her up to be successful, set her up for success. As I sat with her yesterday, her department and her work that she
leads from a service delivery standpoint, from the importance of the students that she works with and the teachers she works with, and from a financial perspective is one of the most important roles we have in the district. And we wanted to be able to move as many things off our plate as we can in order to be successful. So, this is a hard
thing not to fill. Uh, but I'd rather fill it in a way that made the job uh in the department more effective and I didn't think that was going to happen this year. Um the speech pathologist, we did an assessment of the uh the case lead
uh and instead of hiring a 1.0 speech person, we hired a uh part-time speech person. We just made that hiring this this uh this week. Uh so they actually were someone that immediately uh and didn't want to work full time. So we just happen to be the parttime job pick
that person lifestyle and we've got a very experienced um uh capable uh speech pathologist. We will keep an eye on that case load. Uh that person will be out of the collot. Um, so we have an eye on everybody's building based needs in
terms of case load and Danielle is keeping an eye on the districtwide because sometimes speech OT some of the BCBA functions really should start to be distributed districtwide according to need. So no one should be getting in a position like
that and locking that individual into that school because they may have a year when the need's down and some school might have a higher need that that goes year a year. So we are really clearly stating that those types of positions are districtwide. You're just you have a home school, but you you can be
redistributed. The same thing for my for our nurses for them. These are districtwide school nurses, not the glover nurse or the high school nurse. So uh we're ready to be flexible in how we uh deploy the resources depending the case load. So the speech pathologist
just is a good example of that. Uh lastly, Zena Hamada brought to our attention that the French building sub that they hired uh actually had resigned somewhere during the school year and that those the demand for that position was low on a daily basis. Uh that they had been using the regular school
building subs and the building sub process for French program. Uh the loss is obviously a French speaking sub when the person happens to have it and the child happens to have it and also that's a great way to build a movement of uh teachers of French because they're hard
to find and it's good place to give someone a job who's beginning the the education field and you know scaffold them into a teaching job. So we understand that going into it that we're missing out on a little bit of that but we agreed to pause that as well. So, uh, the reductions that we had originally
proposed were the director of education technology and the equity code. So, we knew we were going to save roughly $200,000. We added the remaining vacancies. So, we are reducing the payroll line in this unit A, unit B, and unit D scenario uh by $772,279
from 126 budget. Uh, those dollars will be dist redistributed and utilized uh in that 126. So, I think it's important for our folks to understand we're not giving this money back. We're not reducing our budget, overall budget. We need every dollar
budget. We're actually realigning funds within our budget to make sure that we're keeping our resources where we need the most. Uh, and we just happen to get some vacancies that we can actually do that with. So, this prevents anybody from losing their job. uh the these the $772,000
will be instrumental in making sure that we can continue to respond to any needs this year and come out at the end of the year uh fiscally solvent which we have to do this year. That was one of the main goals that we had. So we feel very confident that uh dollar amount moving
into the fiscal year and I open that to K. um questions. Um >> um thanks John, thanks Katie. Um recognize this has been a long process.
>> Um two observations. One is how much you all know about the operational impact of not following these rules. >> It's really good to hear it >> and appreciate hearing how central office principles
other there's a lot of burden sharing happening like eliminating these roles is going to have cascading effects and it sounds like folks in the district are taking on that um absorbing that extra work. Um, I had a couple of questions.
So, uh, I heard like the elimination of the edtech role results in having to give someone a stipend, we'll be using more daily subsidy schools from the foot branch and until there's one or two new
custodians. So, I was wondering so like these position eliminations will create some new costs. And I was just wondering if this number, the 772 was the net of all of these new costs. These are baked in. >> Okay.
>> And so under the budget savings, that's why some of these numbers um are rounded because in some instances we did try to net out knowing that there would be additional there be the daily sub costs
or the step in cost. Um, so the numbers in the budget savings aren't exact because we were trying to take into account that there would be a corresponding expense. Um, and the corresponding expense at this time is an estimate.
>> Right. Okay. Great. And the only other question I had, so we're offering one of the nurse one of the nurses a new role. Can you just say again? I just sort of >> Yeah. So we have a a young person who needs a one to one all day. >> Okay.
>> And that comes out of the special education uh budget for contracted service that has already been in place. So that number is in the budget for the contracted nurse. We've been using a non-miling public school. So we just we terminated the contractor for now on
pause because we wanted to be able to offer our mil schools nurse that available job. And if they decide to take it, they'll be also the payroll budget will go down by the nurse's salary and the nurse's salary will be taken and put into the contract to
contract service line. >> Next question. >> Yeah. And I think we talked about this a bit before. So I know with the speech pathologist and I would assume similarly team chair but it's I think the team
chair is is different so I'll leave that apart. Um in looking at that recogni when you went through and looked at all of the projected case loads I assume that you did that like with all of the services within the IEPs
>> is that and then this is where we found like given case loads. This is where we found like with the speech the speech pathologist that we had um that maybe we needed a.5 or so. >> So so we we um to raise the the um the
lens in this just a little higher we went through every staffing level of every school and a lot of those are consistent with what you would think they would be. There's three first grades, there's three first grade teachers, there's uh two French, two English, you know. So we the elementary chart is coming to my brain that we have a big chart that literally is this big
and then it goes across to all the service providers at the elementary school. Um the section where we have OTP speech etc are all moving parts because it really is the service delivery of the IEPs of the students in that building or across the district that we want to be
able to make sure that we can fulfill. Um, we thought about reducing this position in full because we felt there wasn't a need for that based on the number of students that they serve. And I want to give Danielle and also the building principles. The building principles know exactly who their
students are who are exactly who they see and what they need and how many days a week they need. So, we feel comfortable with that case load. That would be uh that is a Collie Clark hire that would service the Collie Clark Cunningham and potentially the preschool. We try to utilize those service delivery professionals in a way
that captures all three organizations preschool. So right now we feel comfortable with that number. But remember also the bigger picture is this this amount of money that we're trying to uh actively
repurpose will be available for us if for some reason OT goes up and we need to hire 2 or.3 or this number for speech goes up and we we will have money in order to to respond to any variable service demands that we have to across
the budget. So if that that investment comes to one where we have the need for a little bit more, we would have to let folks know we need to move that person from 5 to 8.6. And that could happen to any position that we're looking at. And that's why being conservative and having
these dollars aside to redistribute is so important. That's how school budgets work. That's why we have bottom line authority. So you bottom line authority is only great when you have a bottom line money to actually redistribute. And and that's what we're trying to do as well. And I think that's where um excuse
me Danielle came and spoke with us at the end of last year and gave a presentation talking about because I think some I think unless you're in the world of it you don't recognize when we talk about like variability within the budget recognizing like children getting
referred for special ed services that that it's not necessarily the beginning of the year >> is what you have that that it it there's this eb and flow and that right now we don't have any cushion for any eb and flow and so I think it's important to
realize that um this and that is also where we have historically um had budget deficits at the end of the year. So I think that's why having this built in there recognizing that the budget is built for
the current level of within special education the current level of service that we have but recognizing to G's point I think she said last March even just at the high school she had 35 students referred that's a lot and so that could be a huge budget impact in
March this gives us that that cushion that's needed. Um I did have another question. Um so around the equity coach, I know one of the things in the past in in a past meeting
um you referenced some changes that have been made with respect to um hiring and even just sort of the platform that you're using for hiring. So to the end as part of the end goal of
having greater diversity in hiring and having can you talk about that a little bit? >> Sure. Um so uh any one of these positions if they weren't vacated we probably wouldn't we don't know if we would have reduced them. So if the equity coach didn't leave we we would have kept the equity
coach we would have kept FJ Chambers Dr. Shambers who's a director of DEIB and Adena who was in that role and uh Cyrus the gentleman that make up the group. So um in rethinking the department with one less person because it did become vacant
uh and because our equity work um has had many leaders over the last five years and this is Dr. Shaver's second year. Our goal together is right sizing her work, focusing on some concrete goals for the year that she can accomplish without having that position
and then as we get ready for by 27 forward with maybe hiring that position back. And what that work would look like to your point is uh we met 20 brand new teachers. They're up in the library right now with their third day of orientation. And as we look at that group of 20 educators, they are all
white males and females. It's just not acceptable. we need to diversify our so we uh were saying as we were welcoming the group and we had a presenter I said FA we need to take a picture so we can take a picture next year and see that this group of individuals that we bring
on to the schools looks different looks more like our community and and has a real clear that we have a real clear intention on hiring retaining people of color uh and so our our goal through FA's initiative this year will be we do
have a new platform for supporting hires of people of color and also retention. It's called the teachers lounge. It's a nonprofit group that works with students, works with teachers in the Boston area that we've already signed up for. We're going to look to have equity training for our I would call hiring
agents and that's our unit B staff and our principles and our central office staff. So we can actually be trained in how we want to look at our own bias, look at the questions that we ask, look at how we operate around the search and interview process in order to not only uh make sure that we look at higher
pools of diverse candidates that that should result in higher numbers of people hired that are diverse. Um and then what are the retention issues that we have start talking about that. So that's a goal we're going to we want to give Dr. was very targeted goals to meet
um shrink the work a little bit because we do have homeless persons in the department but that does not mean that that work will continue and as we met with the leadership team yesterday to talk about my goals which become part of their goals which will be then communicated to the teachers on Monday
uh number one is the classroom um which has room for DEIB initiatives embedded the second goal is culture and climate in the building and in the classroom how do we support students and families to feel safe and ready to learn that also has DEI embedded in it and the
fiscal uh guard uh uh stewardship of the dollars which generally is our responsibility to make sure that we're ready to respond to anything. So we can we really looked at and actually the chart at the end of the day of our five themes all had DEIB themes underneath that embedded into that work.
the DEIB work uh will happen this year. It will be uh intentful and it's discussed uh as part of our big patient work and continue. I just appreciate the clear explanation of the work that you've done, the
thorough process that you've been through, very transparent, um, inclusive and detailoriented and I really just appreci appreciate
the decisive proactive active steps that you're taking. So, thank you Amber for all this. So, this all started because when we when Katie and I first met and I had watched Katie go through a challenging spring, the the
first question that we had all together was making sure that we're solving it and and uh I I want to thank Katie for being the driver of having the clarity of what the budget has in it, what the budget does not have in it, looking at
every single line of the budget over and over again, and then putting in the actuals for 25 after resolving a very high 25 so she could provide me with a comfortable level of funding that we needed to reach in order to make this year solve it. So
Katie's behind the scenes work of the numbers itself. I don't know those numbers. I'm so thankful that Katie now has kind of her own budget to move forward as opposed to shephering somebody else's budget and recalibrating it where needed and then taking the steps to do so. I think um I'm thankful
that Katie has the numbers and that we can name that and there are going to be variables that we're going to have to respond to this year, but um we're feeling more comfortable with the FY26 budget every day. So, I want to thank Katie for her work last year and moving into this year. >> Yeah. And I would only add that for
anybody who listens to this conversation or when we have it in the community tonight who's sort of wondering or feeling like this is coming out of middleware, I just would remind them that actually what this is is the follow through on
what Katie you were saying all along over the past year you were going to need to be doing. So, I hope that is clear and appreciated, you know, by everybody. Um recognizing it's not easy, of course, you know, and these are hard
decisions, but um that's why I'm, you know, all the more grateful to you for just stepping up to make the decisions because that represents the follow through on the commitment that that you made and all of us who were here not yet made, but everyone on school committee
made that commitment. Um, so I just thank you for following through on it. >> Yeah. Uh, totally agree to start with just that like I love the detail with which you were able to walk us through this. That's something Katie has obviously done many times with us. Not
something I've seen from the superintendent. So love how in the weeds you are given how important this is for our district to be in the year as you talked about like a stable foundation our budget and bright side that issue that's been plaguing us for two years at
this point. Um so really appreciate that. Love that we're talking about this obvious January. Um, I also feels like a little bit separate from the budget conversation, but all the stuff you're talking about with the DI department just really resonates with me that
presentation, it's great, but there was so much she was talking about a meeting like too big would be effective at failing for one person. So I think narrating having our biggest goals
staff hiring diversity attention stuff is something talked about a few times like can we get a presentation on what what is our current state what is our goal in terms of diversity and hiring so all that really resonates love to see some presentation from her or you on just yeah where we're at now what what
you'll see as like our goals the next next year or next couple years um to try and reshift all that two questions question on the finance piece like Lizzie you said it well like this is a follow up for recasting and told
people we were going to need to do after this feels like first giant step towards doing that is there anything else within the recasting process that in your mind we need to be doing before we like feel really good about the next budget or
this is kind of that we track this quarter on the 14. >> So in the quarter one report um I was planning on providing you information by that off center breakdown. So it's each one of the schools and then the major
departments with the salaries and expenses and just providing visibility on what our original FY26 budget was so that you can see those numbers and then what the realigned budget is. And so you
can see um a piece of that may be shifting within the lines and within the class centers because that's the realignment piece and all of that is going to encompass all of the changes in all the work that we've done since we originally created the budget and the
budget was approved in May. And so um that will take into account some of these shifts. there is um budget transfer authorization. So that may potentially be a piece of it that the school committee would look at the
changes and then collectively as a group would approve those changes just to say okay we know when we approved this budget last May we approved it we voted on it as a school committee and we're acknowledging that those changes are present in the Q1 report and we're
authorizing that we're approving that those transfers um as John had mentioned it is a bottom line budget so we do have the ability to make these changes as long as we meet that bottom line. And you know, as we all know, the past two
years, we haven't been able to meet that bottom line. So, these shifts certainly are moving us to to have the ability to be um to operate within our budget for this school year. So, does that is that
>> Yeah. So quarter there will be a follow quarter one report more the budget reallocation. We also need to vote on this authorize these reductions without specifically within >> confirming where the exact line items
amounts that are going to each line item but that we're going to reduce the salary essentially broadly speaking the salary line item by this amount >> to move over into the operating line item. I I would even say that maybe the vote today is more about a vote of conference for this approach to realigning the
budget and that the actual categories will be unpacked at the Q1 meeting. This is more I I would because technically I think the vote really has to happen in the Q1 reset is actually so you can actually see where money went from here to here. Uh we're showing you what we're doing in order to make that happen for
Q1. Mhm. >> I I I would ask as uh as your superintendent in Katie in the district that the vote today is maybe less formal but more about a support for the work that we're doing in order to create this to start the ball rolling to reset the
Q1. I think the the official vote for policy would be the Q1 vote. This is a vote of confidence that this is approved or whatever be transparent with the community type of thing. question. >> I just want to make sure I understand
the last part. So this budget these funds will not start to be spent, right? They'll be once we once we sort of give you a vote of confidence on this idea to the 90, then you will begin the process of
reallocating the money. What will it be? I guess what I'm not clear on is are do we when the school committee votes on the budget transfer are we voting to approve a transfer that has already happened or voting to approve a transfer that will happen and
I'm just wondering what will these dollars will start accumulating by um as savings and where go if not to pay >> that's I'm just trying to check totally understand and so as far as the timing is concerned and why we're
Why we're not looking at the transfers or um voting on the budget transfers today is because we are very much in the process of finishing up hiring and confirming kind of positions and um
salaries for this upcoming year. And so that's all that will all continue um this week, next week, and sometimes it even continues into the first couple weeks of the school year. And so, um, because that work is still taking place,
those salaries are a huge part of us making sure that each one of the lines is accurate and that it's also funded appropriately. So, I need that work to kind of continue into almost finish up that work before we can take a wholesale
look at the budget and say, "Okay, we had some of these reductions, but we may have to potentially put it over here because this salary is a little bit higher than what we had originally put in the budget. Um, and then there are
some reallocations that we currently know based off of looking at last year's actuals in the budget that was originally approved for this year, we already know of some reallocations that we need to make. Um, but it's just
instead of having to vote every single meeting line by line by line at each one of the transfers, the timing just works out well to do it with the quarter one report. >> Got it. So, so these funds will actually stay where they are vote on it. Correct.
Quarter one. Okay. Got it. >> One of the custodians I couldn't understand. Have we already hire both custodians or they're just supposed to? >> So, we we've posted to one of the collegiard and one of the uh peers. >> Okay. So if for some reason those aren't
able to be filled with those savings. >> I mean so it's interesting to say we're already almost we're a month and a half into the fiscal year. >> Yeah. >> We've gone without an HR director. We went a month without a assistant superintendent. We've gone a month without two custodians.
>> But again burning over because they've been trying to make up the shift. So um every every month that goes by, every payroll that goes by, there are accumul stories that um to offset that we had to bring back Marty McKenna to help with re-registration and communicating with
all folks. So to to the point of is this 772 clean money that we have in a bank account that we just look at and say, "Wow, isn't that this is it's complicated. It's not, you know, so there's some small offsets that we can go in order to to try to make sure that service delivery is happening.
for kids questions or I'll take a motion. >> Um, okay. So the motion would be to approve the direction of the school department um in terms of moving forward
with these budget realignments, right? >> That's the motion you'll need. >> Okay. So, I will make a motion to um support the district's plan to realign the budget based upon these deductions.
Second um in further discussion. Uh all in favor that will be our recommendation and we'll set that to full school committee tonight. Thank you very much.
watch the recording. >> I copied those. >> Uh, all right. That's it for FI26. Um, 843. Uh, discussion of finance report structure. This is something we've been
wanting to get into a bit of like how we uh look at our budgets, uh, look at the reports. Katie has shared some documents previously and we've had on the agenda for a while and not been able to really dive into it. Um, so
I guess the question to the team is like is do we want to talk about kind of this process by which we want to give Katie and John some feedback on reports that they've been sharing with us and any changes or additions we want to see
within thinking about what she's producing and how best committ school. We need a sample quarterly report somewhere. I thought it was one of these uh documents, but it's not. Um
>> um we could potentially use the year-end financial report >> that um the year end financial report was organized, the financial piece of it. there was a memo and then there was um an exhibit and that is organized by
quest center. So that would be a good example and then I believe there were I provided examples from a few other communities at a previous meeting too. So we can put it maybe put a copy. >> Yeah. So in the folder I'll drop a copy here
again but it is in the 86 folder. I think is actually too and one of our goals this year was being really proactive with our communication not only to you all um and to our colleagues within the school department
but also to the community. And a piece of that was just making sure that we're posting information on um on the school district's website. And so I think you know these reports can truly act as a mechanism of a way of like communicating
this information. I think there were some questions previously about like oh why don't we do kind of quarterly reports can we do and I think for just being able to um very easily point people in the direction to be able to read through them
>> is important. So I would just say um just trying to like tie together like our goals of having that proactive communication and is this report working for not only us but does it provide information that a community and maybe
even staff would be able to read through it and have a sense of how we're doing. >> That's because it's It's not written in a way that someone that's my best background to understand. I mean I think it's very
clear and you know especially with the year end report where there were um significant overages like exploring what they were getting I think was helpful. Um, obviously looking not to have that be a
factor this year, but anything but I think essentially calling out any variability and explaining the why is is helpful. Um, I mean I think the sort of next qualitative quantitative approach to the
report works. I'm sure quarterly reports are different flavor than >> um when just a question. So your cost centers it looks like there's you know about 10ish major cost centers the the
schools maybe 15 major like so the schools and then you have you know maintenance and repair and district administration special education at the school level does are the are the codes underneath that like more detailed like
there's staffing office supplies >> whatever >> yes Um I think I think looking at budget trends by cost center just it's like just topline understanding of how money is
going but then looking at how subcategories are working across the district. Um and I'm yeah just taking salary as an obvious example. Um I see total
like there's salary by cost center and then there's total salary. It could also be interesting as as to to look at things like depending on what the what the data is showing, you know, total um total salary expenditure for
certain grade levels, total salary expenditure for special education, total salary expenditure for whatever um or salary expenditure because some of these as I understand it now some
salary costs are whether it's substitutes or districtwide are actually assigned to a school when in fact their services are districtwide and so it confuses how how money is actually used. >> Sure. >> So getting into that I don't I'm not
sure what the best way is to do that but I think better understanding Yeah, just unpack that for a minute because the salary the salary by say grade level of school by school the teacher salaries a fairly consistent number right
>> but the variable that we've learned is something that we need to keep an eye on is the coverages >> in the substitute that that that seems to be where that goes like this so the kindergarten teacher stays at 120th of their salary you go see that you know that would be pretty constant the
variable of those lines if refer to again is something that we're cognizant of as well. So however that is reflected up is that something that we all have agree very intent on the shares is an example of a cost. >> That's a great point and is that
categorized as salary or is that a separate >> it's it is okay >> and it is so for the substitute expenses it is within the cost center of um the school. So it it is broken out by school. But I
think if because that was one budget area that we have been over historically for a few different years, we could potentially create a separate cost center that was just substitute coverage
just to call it out. It would only be a salary line. Um and then that could be substitutes, extra duties, kind of those variable lines. Um, and so that way we could see that it's just district level, but if we needed to look at each one of
the individuals, so I could I could take those from the school centers and just create a separate center. >> I think special ed has their own separate I believe there's a separate special education
cost center. Um, so we should be able to see those salaries. So those salaries are everyone districtwide that um are I say coded because that's um you know the accounting term um as a special
education employee but that includes every all of our schools. >> So that special education code of person districtwide could be the speech pathologist as they call them. >> Yes. Correct. That's where they separate. That's how the budget line separate. >> Thank you.
>> So, so following up on that, similarly like sort of where we were before, you're not going to see variability that suddenly you have to add a first grade teacher. That's consistent in elementary. But within special education based on what we were talking about
before, there is the possibility for variability within that salary line item depending on on students coming in for services. So is that a line item? So recog I guess recognizing that within special
education that has been so variable, is there a greater level of detail that would be helpful to look at quarterly that helps us track any of that variability? Because right now it's a big it's a salary line item. So, you
know, we recognize that transportation would be a piece of it and tuition could be a piece of it and that. So, is there something within there that would be helpful to go a little bit deeper because right now transportation in this case is
big trans. It's not special ed. >> So, um just knowing that that was an area that makes sense what we got ignored. >> Is there a greater level of detail that would be helpful? So I think for um for the special
education piece if we start breaking it down really granular then the it becomes not cost center anymore and the report is just going to continue to expand and so then we would want to be consistent with the other areas. But what we can do
and what I can do is I think the memo section sometimes is is truly like that's the important piece, right? If it was just this cost center report, I could just send this report out at whatever frequency >> and I don't know if it was unless you
have like kind of this context and the um the memo portion of it to explain it, then we really try to make the report kind of meaningful. And so I think if there are any areas where we're experiencing an overage, we could
reference it. Yeah. >> In the memo portion >> and then we should be able to see it kind of tracking in the report as well. Um, but certainly as like as the year progresses, if there's areas that there's specific lines that we're like,
oh, more consistently going over, then we can potentially talk about modifying kind of that financial piece of the report, too. >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't and I don't want to get in the weeds of it. I just think is there a way to
keep um be aware like have an eye on recognizing that of all the areas that's probably one of the most variability. So one of the things I think about from a from a in district special education view that in the scenario you provided
them in is to say we do have an uptick of students who need a certain service delivery as the meeting start to happen and folks come in and that that speech pathologist that we just approved as a five that case load goes up we would present to you that we were increasing
that.5 to6 we'd have to let the school committee know that we're doing that because we're quote adding staff right we're adding point six of that Okay. And then that's that's how we could capture that in the summary, >> right? >> That we we have an added need. We're going to need to be able to do this. So that that would be part of a discussion
that we would have. Um that's part of that. That's where that would fit into and we would say it out loud. Uh the the out of district work and transportation and the es and flows of that is is a is a bigger conversation. That's that's more >> for non-indist folks. the industry folks
think that service delivery and those expenses we we absorb pretty well within what we have staff but if we have to increase it then it should be recognized as >> and that's where I think we haven't necessarily recognizing if we have to increase
somebody that should be very clear for you meaning in the future that will be very good for you um one of the big goals these reductions is to help replenish the funds. Um
is there movement within the revolving funds on quarterly basis that is worth looking at >> and should that >> um I believe so if you scroll down I think it was paid by >> so it's a different format because it's
not necessarily broken down by cost center. These are just this is the full list out of our revolving accounts um for the school department. >> I don't think you know we typically provide this on a quarterly.
>> No, we have not. Yep. So we can definitely >> I don't even know that we need to see this full table every quarter if we do. Great. It could also just be you could have like a paragraph in a memo that's just like talking about where
you know I I don't know. I'd be interested why we don't talk about now like are there are do we have specific replenishment goals for some of these funds this year or are we just going to be opportunistic about it and then if in the memo we
could just talk about progress towards >> replenishment >> and many >> we talked about that in our last meeting I think it's a great idea to actually have a conversation this fall about what those goals should beh and begin the
multi-year work of getting to a point where the balances are sufficient. Um just as an example, when you look at community schools isn't it's the fourth line down. Um revenue in during the 2425 year was 2 million1
revenue out in that same year was 2.9. >> Okay. So I think there's a uh an understanding here from the community that might not be 100% accurate that there's so much money in the involving the account from the community schools. Why can't we do more? Why can't we scale up so easily? Uh scaling up the
community schools is not is not only about money. That's one factor. It's space. It's safety. It's appropriate staffing levels. It's program quality. So there's a lot to it. And I think that when people see a balance of $943,000, they say, "Why can't we do more?" We're
actually back with we're upside down right now. So, there will be discussion this year to talk about whether or not the $648 an hour per child that they pay may need to go up to $7 per hour child >> in order to make that solvent. That has
to be it doesn't have to be a generating positive revenue. It needs to be at least even. >> You know, we're not making money yet, but we're we're always trying to provide an appropriate balance. So that's one example of goals and I think Mike you brought that up of actually trying to put some policy maybe in place so we can
bring it to the when we go to that bigger conversation about the 27 budget that we use those policy those levers to justify how we're presenting our budget which is a great idea >> for what it's worth I've never heard the
hourly breakdown um >> it's like $78 I feel very helpful to message Yeah. >> Um yeah, I mean I generally agree with some of like having some additional breakdown in the salary to like break
out vapans or subs coverage from salary I think would be helpful especially given kind of the the issues we've seen over the last couple years with the over places. Um the other thing I think is typically helpful with salary is like an FTE
versus actual um type thing. I know again especially special education if thereual identified services needed that that can change but I think that's been a thing that has changed and has hurt us um just because obviously there are costs
associated with them said earlier we haven't had quite the flexibility within the budget in order to assume there's a cost about um going over budget. So I think having a visual in terms of that of how we're doing around FTP and if we're above
how we all are feeling about that and adjusting for that is to accept the other thing I'd say is like I I don't know if for me or at our level for members here like the difference
between Cully Cotting Glover Tucker is a level of like the level of conversations we need to have versus school staff or elementary versus middle and high school. Um
that's just a a level of detail I think actually is a place where maybe we're too low. Um >> say that again and make sure you >> just again if we're thinking about like there I think there are some levels within this that are too high. Okay. So again like salary is just I think too
broad a number. I think getting a little more detail as we talked about would be helpful. I think in other ways like looking at it on a school by school level might be too low given I think point you made which is that and that came up during the subst but the sub coverage
was assigned to Kyle Cott. So Kyle Cott looked over but actually that's not how y'all look at it. Y'all look at it across the elementary school. So if you're looking at across the elementary schools >> I don't think we need to look at it at like a Glover Tucker. Yeah, that's so um so that's just a place where again I think it might be I know those are your
cost centers as you're talking to principles and things but >> we're not having conversations directly principal so that might be a a level too much um for the general expenses I don't know if there's any further breakdown
that is helpful obviously yeah classroom supply instructional supplies there's like operating suppl supplies or things like but I'm not sure how much you break it down those are obviously pretty small. I do agree and I think with your point of
the special education if the general expense there is something we can you know break down to say hey there's our projected out of district placement costs or like again what are the kind of top couple things that have been a concern over the last couple years and then the rest be like remaining or
miscellaneous internal expenses. Um, >> so one of the ways that we would break it down kind of like in the financial system and the way that the the state has actually structured it. Um, so that all the school departments are kind of
reporting our information in a in a consultant fashion is for salaries there's three major categories of salaries and similarly for that expenses there's three major categories. All of these expenses are categorized in in one
of the six. So it would be for this report just under salary we could be we could put the three major categories and show you the summary for each. What the categories represent is it's at a high level but it is just one, two, and three
for salaries and it's one is your licensed teaching staff. two is your administrative and support staff and three is your nonlicensed educational support staff. So that would be your instructional assistance and
also our technology support staff would be in the three category. And so I could break down that information very easily adding in those layers. I just don't know. And that's like kind of providing the context >> that you're looking for because it
wouldn't for general expenses. It's four, five, and six. It's um contracted services, supplies, and materials, and then other it's just kind of a broad bucket. Um so it's not going to tell you transportation,
right? uh it's not going to I mean you know supplies um would just be our general school supplies but I I don't know that it's providing the context but that is to be able to expand it in that way and categorize it that is kind of
functionality that already exists and there's a mechanism to do it. I just don't know that it's really going to like provide that context of those areas where we're like, "Oh, that was typically concerned." >> So, I guess digging into that a little
bit more like you talked about the um administrative and support staff and and I so this is asking the question of recognizing things have been put in place so that those numbers don't change without approval.
help. But if you think about like what we saw historically, those two lines like I think if you look at IAS and you look at those some of those those grew but we but if we're looking at just that top salary line number we don't know
where they were growing. So to your point before like sub coverage was in that but if through the year four IAS were hired >> but there's no um we don't have a lens
into that but we see that number growing if we saw those two >> those if you saw that breakout then you would see that that's where it's going because that top that first one in all likelihood wouldn't change because it's but those other two is where you might see the And I think it's just us having
that lens into that would be would could be helpful if if we're looking for more detail. >> Do you know what I mean? Because that's where >> that's kind of what I was thinking about like the FTE like would the FTE actually be more helpful than
>> salary number, right? Again, >> you brought people in who actually are under salary than the person left than from the budget. and you're going to see some savings there, but one person who's slightly over like being somewhat above it, >> but like those things hopefully watch
out across the district >> growth in the FTE might be piece, but I don't know how easy it is to incorporate FTS with these reports. So, I'm trying to balance the the um the process piece for Katie to be able
to provide right >> the most um clear detail in a way that's universal enough to get through >> the Q1 Q3. So it's enough detail but it also has a systematic approach that's that's achievable and also
>> reports back to the state that we all have to kind of organize has a way of doing that that's pretty centralized through her association which doesn't work and then the sec the other side of that is the thing that I was just writing down is what have been
the recent cost drivers of the district >> that we have been concerned about because we've been >> over >> you know what what are the things that we're all worried about like what keeps us up at night. So, and how do we want to keep track of that? >> Yes. >> And right now thinking about how FY25
ended, it was subs, it was coverage, it was um uh out of district tuitions, contracted services, special education, special education, transportation, community, >> right? >> Right. So, because that's where the variability has been. Right. So, >> maybe Katie and I think about how do we
>> because we want to keep track of that as well. We have we have a shared interest in making sure that our expenses are being monitored in a way and we discussed you know every other week we'll be meeting with Danielle every other week to go over the bottom half of
that those four things you know where are we keep going so we'll think about how we reflect that so we can all together monitor the ups and downs of that and if there's a point where we need to put up a red flag of we're a little worried about this line we're
okay everywhere sort of a problem at the end of the year, >> but this is how this cost driver is behaving this year and we want to just be clear about how we're going to try to work through that >> accommod. And I think I think a piece of that too
is when we're having those conversations, it's having those conversations and what is the impact for 26 then what is the impact for 27. So, so we so we'll be talking about it a lot because it's not just going to be something that we're tracking through
the administration of this year's budget. It's something that we will have to really take into consideration when we're talking about building FY27. >> And can I foreshadow something for everybody? So with that thought, we're going to work hard to two big things
that we're going to get the principles to get working on as soon as we open school and they absorb all these reductions and they welcome 4,000 children next week. Uh is negotiation prep and budget. When we start talking about budget,
realigning it and making it by 27 the first year of the reset after this is the reset year, then the first year to reset, we could reset the whole thing, come up with a beautiful plan, tighten it all up, maybe redirect some positions to other service delivery, maybe save a couple of positions, whatever that is.
But as we're doing that between October, November, December, the school world is moving. The variables are coming in and out. The unit might go down by two and up by three. the PT or OT person might go from a 0.5 to a point to a point 7
somewhere in the spring after we kind of reset the budget and get ready to be proud of how we presented by 27 and get ready to we need to stop somewhere in the spring of of 26 to say this was a perfect plan but now the cost centers or
the cost lines had to adapt to meet the needs of the children this year. So we need to reflect that before we cement that budget for FY27 because otherwise you're already starting at a deficit or you're already starting with a budget you're presenting and improving a town meeting that's not it's all it's it's
out of whack. It's outdated. >> So you you need to capture that last number as best you can and then make projections for what may happen in FY27 that you don't know about because you remember that that that'll be the comment. Why didn't you think about that last year? >> Right? Why didn't you accommodate for
that in April if that student moved in or that thing happened? So we're we'll build this as best we can, but it's going to be a 95% cooked part cooked thing. And then we'll we have to adjust. And so we should prepare the warrant committee for that and the select board for that that when we present you this
and we're working through this through the fall and winter months and all agreeing that the revenue is what it is and here we may we may need to make some changes in order to accurately to the moment that we can in the budget process most accurately reflect what I mean.
A lot of places don't do that. And then what happens is that when you add that 0.5 or that point2 over the course of that year to make things work for kids, you're already you're already over your FTE count when you start the year. >> And that that recognition of happening
it having those things communicated clearly during the year >> but then having them reflected after you set the budget in January and we start to shop it around. We have to then reset it again. >> If that makes sense. because that's really where a lot of things fall in fiscal budgets for municipalities
because there's just so much happening in schools the last school. >> Yeah. >> So that's the Q3 report can can support that >> um sort of final piece of information. I'm speaking as a not finance committee
person, so I totally defer to all of you as you figure out how this makes most sense. But to me, like the clock is pitching for Q1, Q2, like as long as we're in budget, like on track more or less,
that like it seems makes sense to focus the information on those places that for whatever reasons are areas of concern or requiring attention, right? I mean, >> right, >> that's one of the main needs for these
reports, right? It's like status updates. >> And so, even if and that may not be reflected in the table, but in the body of the memo, like that's where you can flag and maybe it's one of those same drivers that kept us up at like night
last year. Maybe something else will come up and become an issue that you're tracking and needing to adjust. Um, but like that's that might just mean you're pulling that
detail into the memo portion to explain like what this work is showing us. But I really reinforce the concept of not creating more work for you
for the purpose of track of demonstrating that we're on track in the majority of the of the lines. Like that seems like not the best use of your time. >> Let me be mindful of the time. So I
think we'll we can pause the conversation here and keep talking about we obviously have a little quarter of one report >> that would be >> so moving us down um townwide finance
committee meeting. We're voting on that tonight in terms of placements um have discussion and full school committee as to who the members who we think the members of that should be on behalf of school committee. Um, have you heard anything about the
finance consultants? >> So, we we had a um kickoff meeting maybe a couple weeks ago and then I met with the consultant individually to talk about the school department and talk about um they had some bulleted items
that they had um presented to us during our kickoff meeting and so I was able to just provide them with some information. um they had some questions for us. So just kind of talk to them about my experience and some the work that we've
done um since I started last year. So um I probably spent about two hours with the team. There were two individuals. So it's pretty good conversation. >> What is there to is it like a report and
conditions? Yeah, that's my understanding. >> The first meeting was Katie and I with members of Nick Milano's team and then now they're going >> great. Uh great. Um
we are going to defer meeting minutes trying to put the those together. Uh discussion next meeting date we have 93. Um any particular agenda items that folks want to play for that? So Katie John I will check beforehand just to
confirm we'll continue the finance report structure conversation. some of the other things that we have any discuss. Um, great. Well, that then I will take a motion to adjurnn.
>> Is there a second? Second. All in favor? 16 a.m. Thanksgiving. Part: 2
[Music] Welcome everyone. Um, welcome to the um, April uh, April August 20th 25 um, school committee meeting. The first or
second meeting of the um, 25 uh, the 2025 school year. Sorry, I'll get through there. Um let's start with the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all. >> So welcome. Um the first thing that we have um is to approve the August 20th agenda. Does anybody have any changes or additions to that?
>> Nope. Good. All right. Well, welcome. Um first, we'll start off with uh welcome Superintendent Failen. We'll start off with the superintendent report. >> Perfect. Um uh the superintendent's report tonight has a lot of data and it's going to be our operational kind of look at how we're starting school with
some of the work over the summer and getting ready for the school year. Um and then we'll have a more academic presentation when we meet after Labor Day with the start of school related to our work with the leadership team and our first day with new teachers etc. So, uh, given that this was a data heavy,
um, report, I decided to do it on PowerPoint so the data could be saved and posted on the website for our families at home. Um, the, uh, school year is opening on next Wednesday. Our first slide, the overview of the week
that we have uh been uh experiencing this week and next week. We had first uh year teachers, our new teachers of the district on Monday the 18th, Tuesday the 19th, and today the 20th. We're very very fortunate to have 17 new educators come to the Milton public schools. Uh
they had three full days uh with the mentoring program and our mentoring team of unit A and unit B staff John Rods and Meredith Kemp and Laura Mcder. I want to thank all the presenters that we had that day. We had Bill Fish present. Katie Blake presented. Uh Lori Dunn even
stepped in for HR and presented. So it was very much a full team of folks welcoming our new uh new members and with a nice lunch on Monday afternoon. Uh on August 19th we had our full leadership retreat. We'll go into this in detail when we present at our next meeting in early September, but we
really did a nice job of getting our leadership team together, finding out what their needs are and fitting those needs and looking at some data into how we want to approach our work in the classroom uh that we're going to focus on this year. So uh a lot more of uh discussion will be happening about
classroom instruction, how we're working with our paraprofessionals and our educators in the classroom, how we can support them in the classroom and came up with some really great um five very sound uh priorities and themes for the
coming year that we'll be putting in front of our educators on Monday when they return to school uh on the 25th. Uh in the next slide, um I want to thank everybody that worked so hard this summer. We had a great Milton summer of enrichment program, our ESY program at
the uh high school and at the uh Cunningham Kycott. Uh very very high participation for the calculus projects here at Milton High School, our Beyond the Bell program, Camp Cunningham and Camp Tucker. First year that we've had our after school program run a camp
after Tucker and the community responded with high numbers. because it was a great program. We're very thankful to branch out and uh the work that they're doing in the community schools is fantastic and they had a great summer. Keep in mind that group only takes one week off a year. They work all the way through uh this week. They take this one
week off at at um community schools and they're right back at it next week. So, we thank the uh the community schools uh for all their hard work not only during the school year over the summer and uh we wish them a good week this week uh so they can be ready for the first day of school. Uh all Milton Public School
faculty and staff will report to their school buildings uh on Monday, August 25th. That's a little change from the past where they would come up to the high school and would have a first day gathering of all the staff and the superintendent would speak and would have some guest speakers um in order to
welcome the group back. But given this year we only have one professional day for this administrative work that we want to uh support and engage our educators in and the 26th of August Tuesday being a teacher day where they're getting ready in the classroom. Um we decided to yield that time back to
the school. So, our teachers and par profofessionals and our uh lunch aids and um everybody will be in their buildings getting to work at 8:00 a.m. um Monday morning in their classrooms on Tuesday morning. And all Milton Public School faculty, staff, and students K to
12, I'm sorry, that's 1 through 12. We'll start Wednesday the 27th and Thursday the 28th. And there will be no school on Friday the 29th. So, I apologize for the typo. It is grades 1 through 12 that start on Wednesday and have a second day Thursday. All
kindergarten students report on the Tuesday after Labor Day. >> Um some, you know, really big work being done this year over the summer. The Collie Cunningham Library space renovation project uh is coming to a close this week. They came in and did a
fantastic job. Uh I'd like to thank uh Katie for being involved. Also, uh, Holly Conan and John Redden, Tom McCarthy, Bob Mayhew were all involved. Uh, we have expanded the footprint of the Milton public schools by 5,512
square ft. That includes six offices, three large breakout spaces, uh, a large breakout space, three classrooms, and one teachers room. This is sorely needed space. And I know that the school committee worked hard uh, and the administration prior to me arriving worked hard or to gain more space for
the Milton public schools. And over the summer this was completed. Uh the work looks fantastic and uh we can't wait for the teachers and the students to see their new space at the Cunningham. This is phase one of the work. Phase two will happen in summer of 26 when they'll be expanding the attic space into the
library uh use and we will have a a full working library next year at the Cunningham College. This year our librarian will be going uh class to class and also has his own space where students can come to him in order for their lessons to be uninterrupted during
the uh school year this year. So the service delivery will be the same. The other consolidated facilities update from Tom McCarthy is a long list of things that have been happening. If you are a baseball family, you saw the parking lot being uh repaved, so you
couldn't park there for a couple of games. Uh the um we had uh the elevator fixed at the Tucker. We've had some AC units replaced. We've had some painting in the auditorium here at the high school. Uh repainting the floors in the
auditorium. Uh lots of good work by all the uh capital funds that we have and some of the operating funds for the facilities department all put to good use making sure that the uh school buildings are in shape for the students and staff coming back. I want to thank Tom McCarti, Bob Mayhew, and I actually
want to take the time to thank our senior custodians who actually do a great job working not not only to clean the buildings, but clean it around summer programming and in some cases cleaning it around summer construction. So, all the buildings are ready to go for staff next week and for students the
following week. So, uh thank you to the facilities and custodial department. Uh just to give you a quick glimpse of the enrollment comparison for the end of last year and the start of this year. Want to pause and say that this is not the official enrollment for the Milton
public schools for the school year. That enrollment is taken by the department of elementary and secondary ed on October 1st of every year. It's called the October one report. We have to put all of our uh enrollment um data in by October 1st and then Desi takes that
snapshot. So that's how we're measured for our enrollment for any funding pieces that will come to us through the state. So the enrollment is not a a a done picture right now, but it is a good thing to look at. Um as you look on the lefth hand side, you have the 25 26 as
of today. Uh that is in our enrollment in prek all the way through grade 13. And keep in mind grade 13 are the students who stay with us through their uh IEP service deliveries from 18 to 22. Um, so our enrollment for this school
year at the moment is 4373 compared to at the end of last year it was 4363 a net new amount of students of 10 students a lot of in and out as you can see on the right hand side from the changes. I just want to let the public
know and the committee know that that change is uh essentially uh the kindergarten coming in versus the kindergarten that's leaving. So the change between cohorts of students which is would be a separate view of this is
actually if you look at the kindergarten in the 2425 column uh is 369 last year grade K 369 2425 school year when you follow your eye down to the left and you
look at grade 1 for 2526 it's 372. So that cohort grew by three students. That's just another lens into how the how the enrollment is moving through the district. Um so we have a net number of 10. We have move movement in and out of
the district at every grade. And um the reason why you see a minus 50 at that kindergarten is because the kindergarten class coming in is that much smaller than the one that just came in last year. So just a good view of the preliminary data related to enrollment.
And um when we come to the October one date, we'll give the official enrollment out. We'll do another presentation at that time. Uh transportation is an issue that uh we've received calls about. There is concerns related to the uh the added bus from last year that has been reduced for
the budget purposes in this school year. So we just wanted to be very clear with the data and show it to the public what it looks like related to last year. uh this school year 2526 as of uh August 13. Uh total students registered um is
1465. Whether you were late or on time, the total is 1465. The total students on the wait list uh for on-time registrations is 84. The total students weight listed who were late is 32. And the total amount on the weight list is 116. When we compare that to the
previous year where there was an extra bus, we had 1466 riders. We had 26 weight listed who are on time registering and we had 61 who are on the wait list uh who were late in their
registration in a total of 87. So we are up with the amount of students on the wait list. It's not a surprise because we're one bus less than we were um last year. And and I think the dialogue that we had at finance committee this morning around, you know, the brief history of
how that bus uh came to being reduced, uh my short synopsis is, and folks at the table can please correct me, the school committee added a bus halfway through the year in order to address needs in weight lists. And the school
committee then supported that for the FY26 budget to keep not only that added bus but an additional bus to increase uh to decrease the weight list even further. But as the budget uh process um worked its way through January,
February, March, April, May, uh those two buses were not afforded in the budget. uh they were uh the the way that you all did your budget last year in terms of level service versus >> needs >> needs versus >> need-based budget. The need-based budget
had two buses in it >> more than we have right now >> and due to the fiscal concerns. Not only was that second bus reduced, but the original bus was reduced. So we're back to two years ago transportation bus level that had weight list then and and
currently it has weight list now. So, we uh understand the plight and the concern that that represents for the uh 116 families. This is mainly a Pearson High School issue uh because the state law says that we have to give rides to students on buses K to six who live more
than 2 miles. But the law also states that we don't have an obligation to do it 7 through 12. Although we make every effort to give everybody of us uh who needs it uh where we can and how we can uh when the fiscal conditions are are
better than they are right now. >> Community schools update uh again Martha did a great job um this summer wanted to give some real good data on where we are without the school. Um we are starting the school year at full capacity at the Collart Cunningham and Glover 150
students each in near capacity at the Tucker 130 and we have uh spots to fill I think 10 available spots at the Tucker. Uh we are still actively hiring due to staff departures and reduced availability. Current openings include uh group leaders, instructional aids,
kindergarten educator and one assistant supervisor. So this is an advertisement. If you are watching this show and you would like to work for the after school program, Martha is an incredible leader. The hours of three to six and if you are uh are watching this or your your older
high school or college age child is watching this, anybody and all people are welcome to apply. Uh your help would be um appreciated and it's a great place with a great atmosphere. Uh and it could be a school right in your neighborhood that you could walk to. uh enrollment weight list for the current year. A
collicott has 150 daily. There's 177 total enrolled waved uh with varied schedules. We have 24 on the wait list. The Cunningham has 150 capacity daily. 177 enrolled, 24 on the wait list. Uh and 12 were offered alternative
attendance, meaning not full-time, but maybe separate two or three days a week. Glover has 150 spots available with 170 folks enrolled, 31 on the wait list, and two are offered alternative attendance. Tucker has 130 daily spots, 140 total
enrolled, no weight list. Um, lottery trends compared to last year is a significant increase in grades 1 through five applicants. There was a decrease in K applicants at all sites except for Tucker, which saw an increase of 53% and all lottery applicants were granted
spots. All K lottery applicants grant these spots. The demand and the increase by site we have a 32% increase in demand at Collicot 16% increase at Cunningham 9% increase at Glover and a 21 27%
increase at the Tucker. So we will re-evaluate. I think it will be a good time early this fall uh with Martha to evaluate what is the impact of the lottery policy that we put in place I think last year. How has it changed the experience for our families? I had one
conversation with a gentleman uh who was really worried because it's a it's a year-to-year um experience for those folks. It used to be in the past that when you got in in K, you were okay all the way through. So, that felt like a good consistent experience for those folks who were
fortunate enough to get into kindergarten. However, the inconsistent experience for folks previously was those who were new to the district and they didn't have a chance to get into the after school program. So, there was an equity access issue there. So, I'm assuming that the lottery was an
opportunity to maybe try to open up that access annually. So, I think it might be helpful for us to look into that, see what any mitigating uh issues that have come up that we might want to discuss later in the fall and then maybe report out on that. Lastly, reestablishment and residency.
And I don't know why the slide came out like this, but it's it is what it is tonight. Uh reestablishment. Remember now, we have asked every third grade family, every sixth grade family, and every ninth grade family who is rising into those grades to reestablish their residency. Uh Serena Burke has worked
hard. I want to thank the high school office staff. And I want to let folks know that we brought back Mighty McKenna, who was probably the most popular person in the Milton public schools for the last 10 years uh back these last two weeks to help get through these folders and communicate with families and make sure that everybody
has uh an understanding of what they need to to reregister for school this year. With all that work done and continuing to be done this week and next week, we have eight families who are currently at the high school working on submitting documents and we have 15 families who have not who who have not
started the process. So, we have a total of 22 potential families who are out there getting ready to bring paperwork in and hopefully they do. Pierce Middle School has four families who are currently working on submitting documents and 18 families who have not started yet. grade three families across
the elementary school. Six families are working on completing the process, four who have not started yet. Keep in mind that we have sent out four communications on this issue to every single family who is reestablishing. Uh the most recent communication was on Monday morning. That communication
states that if you don't have the material in by Friday, we may not be able to let your child start on time because we just might not be able to process the paperwork in that crunch period of just a few days. So, we're asking families for their patience. We ask them to please submit the documents
so we can process and have their child start as soon as possible and hopefully on time, but we want to make sure that we're letting folks know that that is not a punitive timeline. It's really about being able to process that last minute rush of folders. So, we will be uh completing folders and getting back
to people on a one by one basis so we can get as many folks to start school as possible. the uh registration of new students. We have 12 registering at Milton Milton High School who have pre-registered and not completed any forms. We have four families working on completing
registration. Therefore, we have a total of 16 potential registrations still out there for Milton High School. At the Pierce, we have 11 families pre-registered but have not completed the forms. two families who are actively working with staff on their registration packets. A total of 13 who are
potentially registering um at the middle school for the school year. And at the elementary level, 12 families have pre-registered and have not done anything since that. Four families are in process with us working on their packet. A total of potentially 16 students prepared to enter the schools.
Um I want to thank Serena Burke uh for her work on this. uh and Brad Spindle who also works on this. Uh we have been handplacing every single elementary student to make sure that they first have a um um uh a chance to go to school
in their resident district school. Uh but also if their school classrooms are full, we are moving folks to a school close to their home that has a better class size. So the the the sheet that you will see for elementary schools
should have a balanced um set of class sizes across grades and across school. We feel class size is important. We don't want any school having a lopsided class size in either grade one or grade five. So we're balancing uh that for
academic purposes for our students. And um that is my superintendent report. We'll post that information and data on the website with the school committee materials uh so folks can review it at their leisure as well. >> I had one question or comment. So I know
in addition to um the weight list for the transportation I know that there have been questions about the routes. So Katie would that be if there are concerns about roots or questions around that would those emails go to you or who
would those go to? like if if something came up but there's also there's a Google doc on the website correct under transportation if there's an issue with the >> so on the district website under the transportation page we have posted the routes and then if any families have any
concerns with the bus stop um or any of the bus routes there is a Google form that we're asking them to submit to provide us with the information so that we can look into their request and their in inquiry um and work with the bus
company to see if we can um make the modification or um provide any of the updates. We're trying to do so um and then um provide the information to others that may be impacted because it
could potentially change the route and the timing of the route. So, we're trying to do that um as fast as we possibly can just so everyone has that information before next Wednesday in the start of school. >> So, if there's a change in the route,
would that be would families be emailed? So what we do, the process that we currently do is we would update the documents that are posted on the website and then we would um send an email to the families that are on that bus route if there was going to be any specific
impact to their stop or if there was any specific impact or significant impact to the timing of the route. So if there if we had to switch things around and the students stop went from the end of the route to the beginning of the route, we would send an email to those families to
notify them so they know an appropriate time to be out at the bus stop. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> I I I also want to thank um uh Stephanie O'Keeffe. We have now have the ability to actually communicate directly with families by bus. Mhm.
>> So if anything happens on a rainy day or a snowy day, we can actually or a bus breaks down, we can communicate with those families directly by bus. So I want to thank uh Stephanie for making that tool available. And also thank Katie for the process of when that feedback comes in from our families uh
that we're actively moving it over to the bus company and they are making changes based on that feedback. Um and the reason why the bus stops are different this year is because we have one less bus. Mhm. >> So, they're kind of trying to make it work with one less bus, so the stops have changed a little bit. So, Katie, thank you very much.
>> Of course. >> Great. Thank you. Anyone else questions or comments? >> Yeah, just really appreciate the presentation walking through all these aspects. Um, hi. Um, couple things that
stick out to me. One, enrollment. Um, last year was our second highest enrollment in Milton's history. This is projected to be higher than that. So we'll have a new second highest enrollment in Milton's history. >> You're talking about the current first grade. >> I'm talking about Oh, total.
>> Oh, total. Gotcha. >> Like the highest ever was 2020 since then. Last year was the second highest. Now if this surpasses it will be the new second highest ever. Unfortunately, that it's good news that people want to come. Um rough news from
a space perspective. Uh, I did want to reh highlight kind of the thing you hit on a bit, John, about the transportation steps because I thought like that is helpful just to go over again because I know you tried to cover it. You were not obviously here uh for that and so we did talk about a little bit in finance, but
for anybody watching last year, we had similar weight list. We've had similar weight lists. We got the one-time funding from the select board who's gracious enough to provide us funding for an additional bus. As we move through the budget process, we identified the desire to try and eliminate the weight list as like a
priority for the district and included that in our needs-based budget request and the conversations around the override. That needsbased budget with the select board quickly was um kind of informed that that was not feasible. Uh we went down to level service where we
maintained the bus that we added last year. And then when the school department was asked to cut the budget for this year below level service, the $700,000 cut, it was at that point that we removed the additional bus that was added last year. And to the point you
made, John, why we are at the bus capacity we were for the prior school year FY24. That's kind of the timeline of walking through. I think it again stinks that we are not able to support all the families who want space on on the bus. Um, and I
we knew that that was a need and a problem and try to work through that with the budget process, but given the the need to actually cut below services that we provided last year, I think that's where where we landed of we needed to cut things that were not mandated um given that the transportation, as you said, is not
mandated for students above grade six. So, that's something I just want to make sure we we were clear on. Um, I'm interested to hear. I didn't actually for the lottery for and I'm kind of going through your slides as we did this for the afterchool program
my experience wasn't that it was like a kinder lottery the thing we introduced the lottery for was because it used to be a first come first serve like if you got in when the application window opened the thing we're solving for like the application window open at 5 o'clock on a 12 o'clock on a Tuesday if you got
in there from 12 o'clock to 12:05 you got a spot you got in there at 12:10, you were weight listed. So, that was that was the thing the lottery was intended to address was not have it be a first come first serve. And um I don't think we've
given preference for prior enrollments even in the last few years. So, it might have been a few years ago that that that changed. I'm not sure if any of us were around for that. Um but yeah, would always be interested in figuring out as we've done how we could further strengthen that program to similar to
the transportation like how do we get people off those weight lists um and provide more services that the community is requesting. >> So I appreciate all that that context and the detailed context about registration and that's just all very helpful and um insightful data. So thank
you. >> You're welcome. Do we think is the rate limiting factor on after school enrollment about space >> or is it also about I'm just noting how many people there are still hiring. So,
uh, after meeting with folks, it's about space. It's also about quality staffing, hiring those staffing, hiring those staff, uh, training those staff, >> um, quality programming, quality ratios,
>> and also making sure that we because we um are open to any student who wants to come. Some students may come with other needs that we need to provide support for. Uh all of those factors are why the the growth and the scaling up of it needs to be done thoughtfully. It's not
about just let's get another room and see if we can hire some more folks. It is a very well-run program. It's not just babysitting. Uh there's some good work going on with those young people and it needs to be done in a way that's safe and high quality and we want to make sure folks can be trained. So um
I'll be meeting uh probably at the end of September to think about how we can uh you know set some goals that we might want to approach over the next few years for increasing capacity but it would have to meet the conditions of all those things being done at a high level. Mhm. >> I think we did increase capacity last
year >> and then obviously just continuing this year, but the demand increase, those percentages you shared are >> Yeah. >> shocking. >> Cancelled out the canceled out what should have been an helpful increase in capacity is just like a net
>> continuing to not meet the demand. Yeah. >> Yeah. I I think Martha does a wonderful job. She interacts with Katie very well and the principles very well and um it it will we'll be monitoring our ability to scale up over time and we'll be
probably coming out in November with some uh summary statements about where we are and what we want to do moving forward. >> If I can just speak to kind of the financial piece. So, community schools is a self- sustaining program, meaning that the revenue um or the fees that
we're charging our families, that is the um revenue that we use to support the program. And as a part of the expansion of the enrollment numbers that we overtook over the last several years, we
also made some modifications to the pay scales so that we could really try to recruit and retain um and hire employees to be able to staff the programs. And I think as we look at the next three to five years and just talking about the
scaling and the additions, we also just have to be mindful of um some of the changes that have happened in the past and just ensuring that we continue to ensure that it is a self- sustaining program. And so, um, when we
look at some of the financials over the past year, just, um, in the future, we'll just have to make sure that right now we're expending more money than we're actually bringing in for revenue. And so, if we continue to just try to
increase capacity and higher at the rate that we've done, um, it may impact our ability to remain a self-sustaining program. So, I just wanted to mention that from the financial side because I know at one time we had a significant balance in that account. Um, and that's
just no longer the case. So, just another consideration for the program. >> Anything else? >> Thank you, John. That's great. Appreciate that. Um because it's the new year and I still have summer brain. I completely forgot citizen speak. So do
we have anybody online um here speak? Um if so if you could raise your hand there's nobody in the audience here doesn't look like it. No.
>> All right we will skip speak. Great. Um the next is the chair's report. So I have two things under this one is um the first is the update on the school committee retreat. We had that school committee retreat on August 6th. Um John
joined us as did uh Katie Blake and um assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Carla Kosa joined us as well. So it was great to meet her. It was her second day so I think she had about eight hours under her belt. So it was great for her to come and join us. Um, so,
uh, the first half of the meeting, John provided a number of the updates of things that he's been doing since he hit the ground running on June 1st. And then the, uh, latter half of the meeting is when we began to look at the, um, school committee goals and begin to brainstorm
around some of those. Um, we got some work under that, some work on that. We we definitely made some traction on it. We have more work to do in upcoming meetings. Um, one of the things that we did um, address and that again would we need to we need to
discuss in upcoming meetings is the prospect of extending um, the superintendent's term for a second year. So, not the interim superintendent's term. Uh, so talking to John about that and talking about that as a school committee. Um, there was a lot of
discussion around that. Um, I think many of us feel that, you know, there's been a there's been um a lot of great work so far in a short amount of time. I think we've had a a district that's had a lot of instability over the last five years. So, having a second
year um with the same superintendent would be great and provide some stability to the district um especially given the budget challenges that we've had. And also, you know, I think we've all found in addition to um John's insight around the budget and his
leadership, you know, his his strategic vision has also been really really um appreciated. So, one of the things that we talked about is having the um MASC come and discuss sort of the pros and cons of that of a two-year term, some of the things that we need to look at. They
were not available to come now, so we're trying to get them in the next meeting or two. the beginning of the school year um was busy. So I'm working on that piece. So if there are other questions that we have and then similarly I know that um we're exploring some of the other challenges about getting the waiver and the possibility of moving
that forward for a second year. So that was a you know that because um one of the goals would have been or could be the um the superintendent search. it seemed like a good time to discuss that so that we weren't >> dedicating a lot of time to what we were
looking for in a search if um if the go if the intent is to continue with a second year. So I don't know if anybody wanted to weigh in on that piece. We're going we will be discussing it more in the the next couple of meetings. Um but I think that there was a lot of you know
healthy discussion around it. I think you know um somebody made a really good point that um in having you in this role and in things moving forward it's almost like we're beginning to see um you give us insight into what we should be looking for in
the next leader and I think that that's really important. I think that leadership role that you are providing is important and that you're that that's um giving us good context and good feedback as we do the search for the the more the permanent position. So I don't know if anybody else wanted to add
anything or discuss anything at this point. Okay, that will be a discussion moving forward. Um again, there were other items that we talked about that we still need to flesh out. Um we have just have a draft of those goals and we'll work on those moving forward. We also discussed
some of the um objectives and topics that we want to focus on in the coming year. um French immersion was one that came up that we will begin to look at and schedule over the coming year. Um we also talked about
um looking back at you know at um addressing the um achievement gap and um some of the information around that and also um looking at some of the um ELA curriculum and the curriculum moving forward. So having presentations around those things, but again, we'll begin to
we'll continue to flesh that out as we move forward. Um but I think it was just a great opportunity for all of us to come together, kick off the year, really um look back at what we achieved last year and then begin to set the stage for the coming year.
If anybody has anything else you want to add to that? Oh, maybe for this for >> you finish. You might want to go back to the vote for this. >> Oh, right. Is that on there? >> Okay.
Okay. Um, so that was the update on the retreat. Again, we'll final we'll look forward and finalize those um those uh objectives, our goals moving forward. Um
the one thing we have to do, we have a couple of votes to do. The first is we have to um if we can approve the meeting, the minutes for that uh school committee retreat. I don't know if everybody got to review those. >> I'll make a motion um at least for the
purpose of discussion. Motion to approve the minutes of the Milton School Committee retreat dated August 6th, 2025. >> Second. All in favor? Great. It's approved. Great.
So, under the um superintendent report, there are a number of um motions that we need to do to approve the student handbooks for the 2025 26 school year. So in the folder we had the
Milton High School student and family handbook, the Pierce Middle School student and family handbook, the elementary student and family handbook, the MPS staff handbook, and the student athlete handbook. Um those are all in the folder as well. I think as opposed
to doing them as individual votes, um I believe we could do them all as one vote. >> Um >> can I is John? You might not know this, but obviously these are very long documents, lots of lots of things. Um,
uh, do you know what, if anything like substantial has changed in any of these from last year? And I guess another thing I might flag is would there be a way on an annual basis to almost have like a
a kind of >> summary >> summary of changes page at the start of it to say like hey this year we updated this policy within this because for families who have >> read through and there's probably not a whole lot that have read through every single policy but families who are somewhat familiar with it having at
least that forcing anybody to like figure out what we've changed on annual basis I think is just too Um, so something that says like, oh, we updated this student access policy. Then families know, okay, let me make sure I understand what that is.
>> Um, versus just rereading through the whole thing and hoping they remember what changed. >> So, um, that's a great idea and we can implement that change for our, uh, next year's kickoff of the handbooks. Uh the major change in the handbooks was the uh
response to the Supreme Court case related to parents being able to opt out of certain curriculum. Um that Supreme Court case did not provide any guidance to school districts across the country. So, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent teamed up with the
Massachusetts uh Association of School Committees and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Ed and provided some guidance that that was suggested to put into the handbooks. That information was reviewed by our council um as well
and uh and we provided that language in the the handbook um this year. So that was the only from my understanding the only major change from last year this year. This is more procedural question. So within
if changes are made to each individual handbook, does it go through policy committee or is there or there are the changes made um who would make recommend changes to the policy within each individual
handbook if they were going to be made? Is that >> I I think there's a difference between policy in the handbook. So any and all policy changes were would be going through the school committee policy subcommittee and then the school committee and I think we did some of that work in our retreat when we changed >> the title N policy and reverted back to
the >> the shift. So uh that would go through the school committee in the normal way. Uh the handbooks are uh because it's not a policy it's handbook language like it would be if we change any language around any code of discipline or
anything uh related to that. Uh so there is no policy aspect of that. U in this case we took guidance from our attorney and the three agencies that we all work with together >> and we put the changes in that they recommended and so every year we would put the handbook in front of you into
Mark's point which is a good one. >> You know a cover sheet saying here's some of the changes we made >> uh from the principal of the high school and middle school. There could be disciplinary changes that we would want to uh focus on to make sure parents knew that there was any updated expectations. Um, so when language like that changes,
I think we should highlight it and bring it to the attention of the school committee and the public as part of this process. >> Great. And that's that's helpful. >> So just annually does the do the lawyers look at it? >> They look at every that um unfortunately for Charlene Roach, this is her main job
uh in July and August is making sure that we have the the the recent versions. We give them all to the attorney to review. if they have any uh legal things that they would like to see changed, they would let us know and we'd bring that to the attention and we we'd make those changes. Um
most of the changes in the yearbook, I mean in the handbooks year to year are the changes in names and titles of anybody that may uh be coming in and out of the staff related to the handbook. And um so that that's the process. >> Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions? >> Motion. >> Uh, I'll make a motion to approve the following handbooks for 2025 2026 school year. Milton High School student and family handbook. Pierce Middle School student and family handbook. Elementary
student and family handbook, NPS staff handbook, and student athlete handbook. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> Okay. >> All right. I'm making sure I'm not forgetting anything.
Not a stellar first meeting. I apologize. Great. >> Uh we will now move to the finance subcommittee reports. Uh great. Um we met uh this morning. Uh we also met a couple weeks ago on the 6th. Um one of the big topics we have
been discussing is uh one of the things we've mentioned we were going to be doing uh when we were talking about the budget stuff last year, which is the quarter 4 closeout. um how FY25 ended and then the school department's work to evaluate that against the FY26 budget
through what um Katie has called kind of a recasting uh to make sure that we feel confident about where our budget um how our budget is constructed for the current fiscal year and how that will meet the needs of the district based upon kind of how the the fiscal picture
closed out at the end of last year. and to highlight any places where we uh were over and have some concerns or have some updating kind of developments within um costs related to supporting students things like that. So obviously we finished the year with the additional
million dollar request that was granted by town meeting and warrant committee supported by warrant committee and the select board which was fantastic. That was a slight increase from our original projection 700. So all those things are are factors that I think Katie and John have been looking at. really appreciate
John as a a second set of kind of fresh eyes bringing to this to support all the work that Katie's uh really helped to lead us on to to get there. And so I think they finance committee were able to share some pl ways in which they are want to see some realignments within the
FY26 budget in order to support and strengthen certain line items within the school department's accounts operating accounts uh to ensure we have a strong and sound um fiscal picture throughout this this year. So really appreciative of all that work. Excited that we're
having this conversation in August uh and not in January. And um love to turn it over for what you want to share. >> Um thank you Mark. Uh, I first want to just acknowledge and thank uh Katie Blake's ability to close out the FY25
budget uh when the district was looking at a deficit of about $2.5 million in it in her ability to pull the reins in on the expenses um and really take a hard look at where the the expenditures need to be pulled back in freezing those
expenditures and freezing the hiring uh in working with this body of school committee members as well as the warrant committee and the select board uh and then with the end of the year a successful uh transfer of funds from the select board and the warren community to the school department to be able to make
up a $2.5 million deficit in 5 months is quite a feat. So I first of all want to thank everybody at the table for that especially Katie. Um and uh and then to have the town uh take the incredible measure of supporting the schools in the town with a $9.5 million override is an
extraordinary feat, especially with the amount of votes that it got um uh in the consensus of the community to want to support the schools in the town. With all that being said, as we walk into FY26,
uh we're still in in July needing to go back and use funds in order to pay backwards to FY25 to close out those bills and then identify the continued data points of what we budgeted over time and what our
actual expenditures were and noticing those data points over three years that there were just gaps in the budget. um between what was budgeted and what the actual expenditures were at the end of every year. So we we know that we asked the town for a
big lift in getting an override. So the town did their job uh the community did their job. The other part of this is now our job to make sure that we can fiscally be responsible and steward those dollars in a way uh that our budget is solvent at the end of this
year. And that means looking at the expense side of the budget. We have to look at how we spend our money uh how our resources are deployed and make sure that we have enough funds in the budget lines uh that we know are going to have actual expenditures that reach a certain
amount. in the only way that uh we saw fit to be able to recalibrate and realign money within those lines in order to make sure that our utilities line had enough money uh that our uh unit D uh payroll had enough money because we have a few more folks there
that we need to have in place for us to support our students. Uh there are several lines uh that needed shoring up. uh we decided to uh have agency in this work and and actually reallocate the funds and the funds that we were going
to reallocate had to come from somewhere. So we started to look at our payroll in our staffing level which uh is about 80% of our budget. Uh we looked at our non- salary items as well, materials and supplies that affect the classroom. And uh we had several
meetings over the summer with the principles uh central office team eventually the leadership team as well. Uh we met with the Milton Educators Association to make sure that we were walking down this path of trying to save money and potentially impact staff. Um,
and it resulted in our unique ability to uh look at the vacancies that we had available every time a vacancy became available and decide do we fill this with a new teacher or new educator um or do we pause and not fill that vacancy to see if we can save money in
order to reallocate it to some other line in the budget that needs it. A lot of the vacancies that we had, we had to fill. fourth grade teacher at Tucker, fifth grade teacher at Tucker, third grade teacher at Kolycott, um, uh, special educator at Pierce, special
educator at Kolycott. You mean everywhere that a a vacancy was available that had students in front of them that we had to fill those positions. Those were uh, not negotiable, but there were other positions that we felt as we reviewed the data and the service delivery that
we could pause for a year and use those dollars in other ways to support the budget. So all students have what they need for the school year. Um we are fortunate that we had uh 7.5 vacancies that we did not fill and
I'll go through the list for the folks uh on the table and at home. And we also had one position that we reduced but that person who was in that role was offered another job within the district that we needed to have filled. So the list that I'm going to give you tonight
um there was no employee harmed in terms of losing their job. The one that was reduced is actually uh deciding whether they want to take the job that was made available to them. And that was really important to us from a human being level. Think of it as a staff member who was worried from February, March and
April about whether they had a job or not. they may have been on that list of 72 that would have been reduced and then the override came in and they felt relieved. Coming back and letting someone know that they were going to lose their job in August would have been a horrible morale uh issue. It would have been just not a good way to start
the year. So, we're fortunate that we were able to save um $772,290 $279 that we can reallocate in our budget. Uh and we will continue to review our vacancies as they occur to see if we need to fill them or not throughout the
year. Uh because every dollar that we're able to reallocate to a line that supports students in other ways uh in right back into the classroom uh we feel we need to do in order to rightsize our budget and get ready for FY27. Um, with that said, I sent out a uh a memo to all
staff today uh letting them know that this was taking place that we had a meeting this morning and we got pre preliminary approval through the sub finance committee to move forward with not filling these vacancies. Again, we are not reducing anybody. Everybody has a job. These are vacancies that we would
have normally filled uh that we're going to have to rally around and do some extra work amongst the other staff members in the Milton public schools to make the work happen. So, um, I'd like to share a memo that I sent to the school committee, uh, and the finance subcommittee and just talk a little bit
about the positions that we're reducing. Um, there are, uh, 8.5 positions that we'll be talking about. I'll read a little bit about each one of them and these this information will be posted on the website as well. >> Be helpful to pull it out, >> please. That would be great. >> Sorry.
I just shot this one. Great. >> So for the folks at home, the the narrative above that will be posted, but essentially it's the conversation that we've been having. We've had two difficult fiscal years in FY24 and 25
that have resulted in uh being unable to finish the year with enough money uh to pay our expenses. And so this year we're taking extraordinary steps to make sure that does not happen during FY26. So these are the vacancies that we're not filling. Um it has the FTE, it has
the unit that that employee belongs to, it has the savings, the rough savings. Some of these are exact numbers and some of them are placeholders. And then it has an impact uh next to that. So uh the first position is one that was vacated the director of educational technology. Uh that was a unit B administrator. Uh
the salary related to that position was roughly $140,000. Uh this is the position that supported educational technology for teaching in the classroom. uh this position was essential during COVID because we were all remote or uh or hybrid in the skills
and the technology and the applications that were uh needed for teachers to execute teaching and learning during that time was essential. Um now that we are in a postcoid environment, we want to re-evaluate that position. Um this position along with everything else on this list will be re-eval re-evaluated
during the FY27 discussion and potentially put back in place next year. But this gives us a chance to pause, save some money and re-evaluate whether we need that uh position in the same way it was existing prior or maybe shape it different for the future. So it gives us
an opportunity. Um we do know that teachers will be looking to have questions answered by uh this role that was in place by AJ Malansen who did a fantastic job. uh and we are working on some workarounds and looking to get some support from folks in order to make sure that teachers still get what they need
at a certain level but maybe not at the high level that they got in previous years. Um the equity coach resigned from Milton public schools to go to another school district. Uh this individual and colleague was with the district for I
think four or five years. did a wonderful job working with teachers in the classroom uh around areas of inclusion in bias training and supporting students of color and all students in our DEI B uh community uh
and educating teachers on how best to approach the work and move it forward in the classroom. Uh when they left, we had a great exit interview actually with the director of technology in with the equity coach. What do we need to continue to do? How would not filling this position impact your staff? We had
a good hour conversation with Dr. uh FA Shavers, myself, and the individual. Um, we do believe that we're going to restructure our DEI work this year uh to focus more on hiring, retaining, and recruiting staff of color. We've already
made efforts in there to recruit uh and engage with a new recruitment and retention um nonprofit group based right out of Boston called the Teachers Lounge. and we'll be looking to do some uh equity and bias training for our staff in Milton public schools who do
the hiring. We really need to check our bias at the door. We really need to be thoughtful about how we approach hiring if we want to increase the diversity in our schools. And I think we actually have to have everybody go through some training to highlight uh what are some of the subtleties and some of the really
clear and tentful things that we need to do in order to have a pool of people who want to come to Milton who are diverse so that we can interview folks and use questions and get feedback in a way that is uh you know appropriate for all of our staff uh in especially our diverse
candidates and that will lead to higher numbers of folks that will be in our schools. We also want to do a good job with the staff we have and retain them. The best recruiter for a a new teacher of color is an existing teacher of color. So, we have to look on retaining
that's how the teachers lounge that we are now engaging with. Uh that's their big cell is that they provide space for teachers to be able to go and talk and discuss how they're doing in their district. And and so we feel like we're trying to attack this from a couple of different ways. Uh the other the other
main goal of Dr. Shavers in the equity department is to focus on some policies that we really wanted to get into. What are some policies that we feel need to be revisited in order to make sure that we thought uh through the policies through the lens of our community of
people of color and our DEIB community. So those will be the two highlights for the year. Um, and we feel like we can pause the coach and then when we get a better idea of what that goal will be for the following year, we can decide whether we bring that position back or
something else like that to support our community. Uh, the Milton High School team chair, we currently have two team chairs at the high school, two team chairs at the middle school, and this person resigned to go to another district. We are now
going to reorganize those three remaining team chairs at the middle school and high school to work across the grades 6 through 12. We're going to have one of those folks work directly with that grade 8 to nine transition, which we think all transitions need to
be handled very uniquely by our team chairs. preschool to kindergarten is a unique transition year for our students in IEPs and making sure those IEPs reflect uh what the what the shift in teaching and learning looks like from prek to K from grades five to grade six
that's a different learning environment elementary school to middle and obviously middle to high school. So this is not only uh um an opportunity to look at how we organize this work differently uh but it might yield some good results in how we make those transitions work
that can inform how we organize our team chairs in the rest of the district over the next few years. Um the nurse that we have we have a float nurse in the district. We have nine nurses in the Milton public schools. One nurse per building which
equals six. two float nurses that work throughout the district every day that are not assigned to a school and a nurse director. Um, again like the e educational technology, our nursing department did incredible work during co uh we could have not have
gotten by without that uh team of uh highly skilled uh medical professionals in the district. Now that we are moving towards a more postco environment, u we feel like we can do with one less float nurse. Uh that individual um will be
offered a job with a uh student who needs a full-time nurse in the district. So we do have a place for them to go. Uh so that individual will be made whole if they decide to stay in Milton public schools, but the second float nurse will be reduced to just one float nurse,
which is a savings of roughly $89,000. We have a building sub at the preschool that didn't seem to work out last year. We're not filling that position for next year. There's only a few staff there that can access the the daily subs and the building subs at the county and Kolicott. Um there was a special
education position at the Glover that was uh no longer needed and we were thinking about moving that position up to the um the high school. Uh the position became vacant when someone left and resigned. uh we thought we would try
to uh create a sister program of a subsparate program at the high school. Um the the number of students that are going to populate that program were not really warranting a full FTE. uh and we
felt like if we combined programs at the high school and gave them support through a adjustment counselor because some of these students needed a therapeutic support that that was a better learning environment for them to be able to access high school. And so we're going to uh provide that service
delivery as opposed to adding another class. So, those students will be uh in a program uh at Milton High uh in a classroom that will be supported by two teachers, one PAR professional and an adjustment counselor. So, we feel like there's plenty of support for those
folks to be able to uh be at Milton High and have their IEPs met um during the school year. Again, that special education position was at the Glover and it was vacated and they did not need that at the Glover. Um the custodian and overtime budget
will be reduced by $30,000. We believe that we can make that reduction because we have been understaffed for several months and the overtime was needed in order to clean the buildings. Those two positions have been posted and we really felt it was important to have our
custodial department be at full staff um instead of not filling one of those vacancies because it's an important role. Um, and if we are full staffed, we think that our overtime budget will be uh able to take uh somewhat of a financial reduction because we're fully
staffed and we no longer need as much overtime. So, I want to thank Katie for doing that analysis between do we not fill one of the vacancies and take that dollar amount and have that be the savings or do we want to have a full staff, make sure our schools are clean, and then do the analysis of overtime.
So, uh, we're very, uh, fortunate to think that we're going to have that $30,000 to add to that total as well. The assistant director of student services is a position that would was based at um, central office to work with Danielle Wetmore, the director of
student services. That position was vacated during the school year early in the fall and has since been vacant. uh we posted the job, we had a search for the role uh and in the end we decided not to fill it. And this this pauses uh
a little bit for us to really take stock in, you know, was that a good decision or not. Uh our special ed and student service department is one of the most important departments in the district. They handle our most uh vulnerable populations of students and our students who need the most care. Um, but when we
looked at the workload that that Danielle Wetmore as a director had over the last two years, she was not only the director of student services, she was also took on the registration role for the district. She took on the residency role for the district, she took on EL
for the district, she took on nursing for the district in guidance. So part of the rationale of being able to go without this position and maybe fill it at the following year was to redistribute some of those other tasks that she's responsible for and realign
those to other folks in the district. So we are taking the residency role from her. Uh we are taking the enrollment and registration role from her. We are giving her support for the e uh at the elementary and the secondary level. uh
and we're working on how we may be able to reorganize the nursing uh department and maybe have that come under someone else. Our sole goal is to give her everything that she needs to be successful this year because it's such a vital role to the district. So, we've
made some accommodations on on the other side of that. So, we appreciate Danielle's willingness to have that role not filled u and it was a significant savings to the district. Um we uh getting down to the speech pathologist, we had originally had a 1.0 speech
pathologist resign. Uh in looking at the case load across the elementary schools, uh we feel that we only need to post and hire a.5 as opposed to a full-time position. That savings would be about $49,675. We do have enough staff on hand in order
to meet the needs of our students who have speech in their service delivery. And keep in mind that folks like speech pathologist, OT, physical therapists, etc. are really able to go across the district and meet the needs across schools. They're not just school-based.
They're need based. So, uh, if we need to redistribute folks in the district already for speech or any other service delivery, we will do that. And if we need to add to that 0.5 at any time during the year because the uh service delivery numbers go up, we would come back to the school committee and ask for
permission to to make that make an increase in that that person's FTE. Ironically, the person was not interested in the full-time job and is very happy to have the 0.5 job. So, we got a high level highquality individual because it was a halftime job. So, right now that feels like a good win for the
district and a savings as well. Uh lastly, there was a French building sub uh that also didn't finish the school year, left in the middle of the year. Uh uh with that uh position being vacated, the building subs in in the schools and
also the daily sub pool would continue to be the support mechanism uh when a teacher in the French program is out, just like a teacher in the English program. The downside of that is that the building sub in French is a really great bullpen to hire someone who might not be certified but speaks French and
wants to get into the world of education and can be working in the schools and we can get get to know them and they can get to know the quality of the program and help them get certified so we always have another person getting ready to be uh available. Um it is hard to recruit
and retain uh our French immersion staff. It's a very unique program. Uh so we would absolutely rethink that position for the FY27 budget because it provides layers of good things to the district other than just being a substitute teacher. Um, so those 8.5
positions uh have totaled roughly $772,279 that in meeting with Katie over the course of the summer and trying to get comfortable with what amount of money would we need in order to redistribute across the budget lines and have deficits. This is a very good start. Uh
this is also the shift in culture that we don't always have to ask for more that we can actually look within our budget in order to redistribute and rethink how we want to prioritize what we need for students uh in how we want to deploy the resources towards what is
best for students each year. So I think this is a good exercise that we want to um be thoughtful about as we get ready for FY27. These dollars do not go back to the town. These dollars stay in the school budget and these positions will stay in the school budget just unfilled and
they'll all be in discussion when we do the FY27 uh budget um uh work and quite frankly that budget work for FY27 will provide a lot more time for community and stakeholder engagement and feedback. uh
this was an unusual and unprecedented step in order to make the budget uh reduced in a way that made would assure us to be successful. Normally these kind of reductions and not filling positions would be a larger conversation with the school committee, a larger conversation with our staff and with the school
community. So we promise that conversation will happen for FY27 and I would not be surprised if some of the positions on this list will be back on our faculty and staff for the FY27 year. So, I want to thank Katie. Uh, I want to let you know that um, a lot of assistant
superintendents for finance uh, are really good at the finance part of the work, but Katie's ability to sit in all these meetings and also be an educator and speak to the front of the house and the back of the house when it comes to the budget and understand the need and the value of the positions that we were filling and not filling. And being a
strategic member of that group was very helpful because then when we're trying to do the the budget in a way that's we know that we have someone in charge of the budget that not only knows the numbers but also understands the value of each of the positions that we're talking about. So the ability to have
someone of Katie skill set not only as a uh business person but as a as an educational lens into the work and the leadership team has been very helpful. So thank you Katie for that work. >> Great. Thank you. Um, anything not to put you on the spot. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Uh, again, really appreciate it, John.
And for other members who aren't there at the finance committee meeting this morning, again, this is a lot a lot of what we talked about. Appreciate John walking through. I I want to just name really appreciate the detail with which John, you can speak to these matters and like getting in the weeds. I've always
really appreciated about Katie and as you've said, she like helps bring us along and educates us about these things. But, uh, really appreciate you leading on this. both with like the impact to kids and the impact to staff and thinking about that as we ensure financial stability as you've talked
about. I did just want to like highlight one thing you mentioned at the start which is like we were doing this to shore up line items. I can see some people saying like isn't that what the override was for? I just want to highlight that that is what the override was for. KD obviously used within the
budget planning process. All of us were, you know, that was started in February to kind of plan that based upon that identified line items and things like that of what we needed. And so what we said at that point and again Katie's led us through this is we're going to need to come back to that after we see
exactly how the year ends out >> to to ensure that our assumptions in in February were the right one. see where we were off and fix that so that we start the year on a really strong basis. So again stating again glad we're having
this conversation now um and able to strengthen these accounts to feel good about going into the rest of this year. Um just on a side note too personal and I appreciate the statement around the teachers lounge the partnership great organization I know we work with him at
our school Devin Morris is the founder I know him he's exceptional guy and has become really a leader in this area and the sur Boston surrounding area so really excited that we're partnering with them >> great for that uh recruitment and hiring retention work. Oh,
>> any other points about that discussion that any of the other finance committee members want to? >> Um I well there are two things I'd like to say. One is um I appreciate the um explanation around
um a couple of things. one is with respect to the the DEI B work and the fact that um that there's that it's not we're not saying that this um work is
being that we're not doing the work that the focus talking about where the focus is with respect to the hiring and and that it's um that that's still very much um a priority >> and looking really at what um the
strategies will be and the focus would be in the coming years. So I think that that's important to know that that is still very much a focus. I think the other thing that um I found very helpful, excuse me, and refreshing is, you know, when we've gone through this and you've shared, you have that great
big spreadsheet um where they're de, you know, especially when you look at positions like um a speech pathologist or you look at even like the team chair or some of those roles recognizing that um having a sense of what their case load
is and recogni and matching those services to the IEP. I mean, I think it's a level of work that needs to be done that isn't always necessarily done. So, seeing all of the work that you did, I feel, you know, it makes me feel a lot more confident that we aren't removing people or services from students who
need them. Um, and that's that's uh that's definitely reassuring. And also the philosophy around the team chairs, I think that makes a lot of sense with those transition periods. I think that sometimes those are areas where kids get lost when it's that handoff from 8th to 9th or fifth to sixth or K to um preK to
K. So I like the fact or I appreciate I should say the fact that um there was a strategic lens to it as well recognizing um what positions weren't being refilled this year. >> So thank you for that. >> You're welcome.
>> And the only I'd add a couple of minor things. Um, I first just really appreciate the the transparency in this effort from both of you, both on the process that you went through with your leadership team and
that what you're doing with the school committee today and with the public, there are no secrets in what's happening here, which is which is really really great. The second thought I have is just um
you know the the budget reallocation that you're proposing here represents about 1% of the total school budget which 1% is not that much but when almost your entire budget is fixed costs
that can't be realigned um this is actually an enormous amount of money to free up and put toward um budget lines that are at risk. So um I think it's a lot of really smart moves here. Um these moves are not without
risk and we've been transparent about what that risk could look like, but I think in order to get the the budget, this year's budget in the right place, it's worth the risk. >> Um so thank you both. >> You're welcome. and to share from a process perspective.
Uh what we are doing right now is again looking at the staffing as John said the positions we're not going to refill and the school department is looking for kind of the school committee to vote to support this direction. We are going to need to come back after
the quarter one uh where Katie and John will identify where the money is going to be reallocated in terms of the specific line items. We're not voting on that today. So that that reallocation will need to be voted on by school committee. But what I think the they brought to us at finance committee and
we voted unanimously to supported at finance committee. It's just ensuring that the school committee is kind of aligned on this as a direction specifically around these positions being unfilled. And again mostly I think John's urgency was ensuring we're doing that before the start of the year
because then that obviously affects staff more and that affects uh kids more. Um and so that's those are the kind of two steps we'll be taking. But any questions any members have further on this? >> If not, oh please. I was just going to
say I appreciated the opportunity to listen in and participate in the discussion this morning and I don't want to um say more than needed. it's already been said, but I think this approach is um it is what we need right
now. And I just am thankful for the thoughtfulness um because there are so many implications for each one of these decisions and um I think it, you know, I I'm really looking forward to the FY27 budget process where
we will be able to continue considering these implications. Um, but I appreciate your naming so clearly, you know, what your process was, your thought process, and see looking for all those sort of win-wins
um ways to save the money that we need to save in the short term while um mitigating a harmful impact or at least opening up an opportunity to sort of think outside the box in a way
that could overall um you know even enhance the you know what that department or or even position might be able to contribute >> starting in you know in a future year. So um I think the messaging around we're
pausing these um is is important for the community to understand that that is what's happening rather than the reductions rather than um the things you explained. But um just having, you know, been here over these past few years of
really challenging times, I think I can't um overstate how important it feels to be doing this at this point in the year. And it's been a lot of work over the summer um while some of us were able to
actually take a little bit of a you know, a a breath. But thank you for all of that work. >> And can I just add one thing? Um, want to thank the Milton Public Schools faculty and staff who I reached out to
and gave the letter today to the entire staff and I I I identified every single position to be very very clear. Um, and as we said that there there will be folks sharing some work to share. So I don't want to minimize the fact that uh there might be things that we're all
lifting up and trying to do and share. across that. So, I I appreciate uh the um the staff, you know, listening to that tonight and reading the memo. And then for further uh communication and clarity, I will be sending a letter to all families and staff tomorrow uh
summarizing tonight's meeting and the hopeful approval after the vote uh that we'll be making these um uh these transitions and realignments um and not filling these positions. So, uh, again, as we said in our finance committee, uh, we want to be proactive with what we're
doing. We want to be very clear and transparent with what we're doing and why. And, um, and so that communication in the website for the finance, uh, uh, committee will be is up and running by this week. Uh, thanks to Stephanie O'Keeffe. And all these documents will
be proactively posted there for folks to review as well. >> Sorry. Can I add one other thing? And I think it was an important thing that we talked about which is this is being done for I think for a couple of reasons. One is that you talked about the the areas
where they their budget line items where there may where they might be underfunded. But I think recognizing that we don't have any reserve funds within circuit breaker that we have zero um buffer should um students come in who
require more services or are referred for special education or require an out of district placement that that those can you know a couple of students um that or and and this isn't to put it on the special education more that special education is the most um uh the one area
where there is the most, as we talked about earlier, the most eb and flow. And so to be able to know that we have um resources in place to support those students that don't um and without trying to figure out where to take it from in other parts of the budget, I think is really important just because
we used those reserves in the past. So, I think that that's a that is a huge piece that that we need to um that I'm grateful that we're that we're looking at and that that that could have a real budget impact if we weren't looking ahead like this. So, Any
other questions or comments? Uh, I will make a motion uh a motion to support the direction of the school department's plan for FY26 budget realignment as presented tonight in this memo. >> Second.
>> Great. Uh, all in favor? >> Unanimous. Thank you very much. Again, thank you Katie. Thank you, John, for your work on that. Uh, next item for finance is the um the joint uh budget
committee. Um, and so was it been called the tri board budget coordination committee. I believe it's called the budget coordination committee is the the final name. Uh, but essentially it's what we've talked about through the kind of override process uh and mentioned it's a established by the select board.
They've established it. They've appointed their two members. It's actually the two members of their finance committee are on it. They've also appointed a member of the public. Uh we have two members that we can appoint and a member uh at large member from the public. Uh so those are votes
that that we need to take and appoint to that committee as we do other committees. Um the it is online for uh residents to to look at for us to look at on the town website that has information on like what the committee
is and the members. Um so uh the planning board also has a member warrant committees also have member and they have all um at this point I believe voted. So we as a school committee need to vote to appoint. Um we can discuss who there's no requirement that it be
financed. I think that's been kind of my thoughts given it's a finance committee related um uh board, but I think that's something we we should talk through of like who who we think are the right people to appoint as school committee members. >> And what is the process for identifying
the designate? they they've um opened up um a place where you can apply to it for or for that position I should say. Um and I reached out to Nick Milano. He is on vacation this week, but to see if
they've gotten uh applications for the um resident designate. So once we have that, then I think we would go through a similar >> and maybe with the climate action. >> Yes, >> that's like a similar process. So, we could look at those together. >> Yeah, it's a a good flag though for
anybody who's watching or listening to this. Uh those the ability to apply for these >> uh committees is on the town website. Um so, please go and apply for again the two we get to appoint is climate action and this one uh we have some designates we can appoint. So, if you are
interested um please apply. I I'll jump in. I you know I think you similar to what you said um it seems like it would be uh good you know similar to the other boards having members from the finance
committee um be members of this uh budget coordination committee. Um, so, um, I don't know if anybody has other thoughts around that. I think just because you're in all of the meetings and you're, you know, reviewing all the
budget documents, etc., it's not, nobody else really has to get up to speed if they're not able to participate or attend the finance uh, subcommittee meetings. Um, so to that end, I would um I would be
nominating Mark and Nathan, assuming that people agreed that they were um finance subcommittee members. >> Yeah, I think I think Mark and Nathan would be great candidate for this. Here you go. >> These will be public meetings so anybody
can attend who would like to and obviously anything discussed to that would be brought back to finance committee which is cross-osted and would be brought back here. >> Reminder that this committee has no >> voting authority policy passing authority. It's merely to share
information ask questions >> and then bring that back to the voting authority which would be in our case the school committee as a whole. And I don't know if this changed, but I know in the last document that I read, they were talking about this would be for a one-year term and then they would
as a committee determine whether or not it made sense to continue forward in 2027. Um, so it's sort of a almost like a pilot program, if you will. So, this would be for, you know, would be for a one-year term, and it would become like a committee
that reports back, I think you just said this, but it reports back at these meetings like um it it would not be under the finance subcommittee report necessarily, but it's it's one of our townwide committees that we serve
on. So once after your monthly meeting at the next school committee meeting there it would be on our agenda to hear a report. Just >> confirming my understanding of that. >> That makes sense. Y >> okay. I agree. It makes sense for finance
committee members to be on it because you're by definition you're informed in the up to speed on I presume will be discussed. >> There's no concern. I will accept the nomination if you accept. >> Yes.
Uh so at least for the purpose of discussion I'll make the awkward motion of I'll make a motion to appoint uh Mark Luring and Nathan Hutter to the Milton budget coordination committee for fiscal year 2026. >> Second. >> Great. Any further discussion?
Okay. All in favor? Great. That is checked off. Uh next thing is the approval of vendor warrants. There's a lot. Uh, so, um, we have to close out some vendor warrants from fiscal year 25 that were reviewed
and signed over the summer. I believe I've sent all of those fiscal year warrant 26. I believe I sent three and four. I reviewed and signed six and seven today. I have not forwarded those documents. So, I'll do that um maybe at some point at the end of this meeting.
So, apologize for that. But, uh, all these have been uh reviewed and signed off at this point. So, I will go ahead and at least make the motion for discussion. And if anybody has questions, we can do it there. Um, all at once. Uh, motion is made to
approve vendor warrant 48 in the amount of $891,715.35 payable on 61225. Vendor warrant 50 in the amount of $884,55.38 payable on 62625. Vendor Warrant 51 in the amount of $578,1849
payable on 62725. Vendor warrant 52 in the amount of $186,00020 payable on 63025 for fiscal year 26 uh approving vendor warrant 3 in the amount of $83,466.7
payable on 71025. Vendor warrant four in the amount of $23,8362 payable on 73125. Vendor warrant 6 in the amount of 542,23944 payable on $81425. And vendor warrant 7 in the amount of
$576,583.12 payable on 82125. Is there a second? >> Second. Any discussion? All in favor? That's the vendor warrants. Um
I believe that's everything for finance. >> Excellent. Yeah. School. So the school building school building committee report. >> Uh all right. >> We should break these up. So do something in between for you. >> I'm sorry I talked. >> No. uh school building committee. Uh we
met a couple weeks ago have um and again apologize with our I'm not sure if we talked about this in open school committee meeting at this point but school building committee uh primary thing we were able to kind of talk about it last meeting is one we are through module one of the school uh MSBA
process. We've completed all those steps submitted them to the MSBA. We're SBA is reviewing. We're waiting on their kind of sign off and formal moving us into step two. Uh we were supposed to have 180 days to complete that. We did it in much much less time than that. Um because it started in May and we've
completed it by early July 31st. Um so I think that's like around 90 days. So it's great. Uh really appreciative of every member of that committee kind of pushed that along and all the work John and Katie did to kind of get some documents together with Tom and the principles, things like that. So thank
you. Um other thing that uh was discussed at school committee uh school building committee and I forwarded it to y'all is the warrant article that um school building committee reviewed uh related to changing the reverter clause in the land swap. So, just for the
background, the land swap uh legislation around the the land identified for the uh school building project uh back in so 2023, I believe, um uh Springtown meeting in 2023. Uh that
was passed. It had a 5-year reverter clause. At that point, the saying if the school building project um construction did not begin within 5 years, the land would revert back um so that it was not just kept in perpetuity. um um and was put back into conservation if it wasn't
to be used. Uh we were moving on a good timeline for that uh through kind of the school building committee process until we hit the acceptance into MSBA. It's obviously great news because that means some funding for the town. The downside
was it meant the process slowed uh was delayed kind of significantly. We've had to slow down um and obviously are just module one. So the concern is based upon kind of the best timelines as as Sean has laid out for the committee is that
going through the MSBA process within their timeline that it's going to run us right up against that five-year reverter clause. Um and I think the uh the idea is then to say that you know the intent of the reverter clause is to ensure that the project doesn't die and it just the
land sits kind of unused. And so given that we are in the MSBA and that's now dragging out a little bit longer is to extend that reverter clause not remove it but just extend it and the plan the plan presented was just to extend it another five years given that was the
original amount. Um and so that was a vendor warrant article that was proposed. School building committee uh reviewed that voted unanimously to uh approve it to move it forward with the warrant committee. Um Sean uh and myself will be in front of warrant committee on
Monday discussing that warrant article as a part of the fall town meeting in October. Um so that is something that we should discuss from a school committee perspective is not a warrant but given it's related to the school building project. Typically we have discussed any
warrant articles related to that and um voted to either lend our support or not. That's typically something that town media likes to hear from the school committee, our stance on a school building committee warn article. So, we don't have a vote on that tonight. We'll
have a vote on that at a future meeting. Uh, but wanted to at least begin the discussion, see if there are any questions, uh, comments, concerns. If we really need to, I could probably ask Sean uh, to come here. But, um, otherwise, I can also kind of gather
information. and Nathan and I can gather some stuff and try and answer it and bring it back to you all. But if the committee would really like to, I'm sure Sean wouldn't mind. He's always available. >> Anything I miss from that? >> No. Very thorough.
>> Too thorough. Any questions folks have on that one article? >> Okay. And I've sent the language uh to everybody, so you haven't had time to read through it. >> You can. If anything comes up, let us know. But that is that's the only change. It's essentially the language is
a little bit long because it's I think most the same language from the original Warren article but just that timeline uh has been adjusted. Okay. Uh that's those are the primary things from the school building committee. There's some other things we're working on related to enrollment
projections and things that we expect um uh that MSBA is going to need as we continue to move through their process. Um the module two is where we start actually being able to rebuild the construction team essentially um with
the architect and the OPM things like that. So that is really after that module is when we'll have kind of the team back that we had before we got into NSVA start reooking at the designs of the project and that that kicks off in more earnestness. That is it for the school building
committee unless there are any questions >> is the feasibility there's a feasibility study piece of that is that going on when it what module is that >> so it' be module three once we get the design team then when we get to module three we start looking at the the
designs again and so we'll look at obviously based upon the proposals we put towards MSBA that was accepted by MSBA we'll look at the upper middle school design as we have we'll need to look at an elementary school uh additional elementary school design as
the committee did before I joined, but we'll need to do that again through MSBA um and potentially some other things that that we can look at as well. So, MSBA will kind of walk us through and say exactly here are the different things you'll need to study and produce a report on and then uh ultimately share
that to say this is why we are wanting to move forward with this type of project based upon kind of the the studies we've done. Great. >> Thank you. When are we going to hear back from LSDA about this first phase? >> It's a good question. I'm not sure. Um,
again, we've completed it like well in advance of the allowable timeline. We're still trying to move other work forward that we know they are going to be needing to not uh totally pause. But I I think we expect to hear in the next month or so, but it's it's yeah, I'm not
I'm not 100% sure. So, I can also follow up with Sean. I know he's like reaching out to them, connecting with them. to connect with Nick and um maybe with John. I'm not sure. Um and so try and figure out if we've heard anything and have a better timeline for our next meeting. >> Good question. >> I think it happens through the board
meetings, right? So the approval will happen >> at the next board meeting. >> There you go. >> Which I don't know when that is, but that's when that's the milestone. their boarding their the their board meetings >> the MSBA board meeting they'll
>> review the they'll review our our our >> our work our submission for phase one and and then vote on it I assume next meeting is scheduled for August 27th so >> next week >> away we'll see if they
discuss and >> not going to discuss it until the 188 80 days that line right >> they shouldn't they shouldn't need to wait the 180 days. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> That's it for
>> Yes. >> Great. Um so the next thing is uh agenda items for the next meeting. Um, I would like to follow up with the NASC around the um the discussion around the
extending the the the uh looking at a second term for the for your role, the superintendent role. So, okay, reaching out to them. I we're trading emails um and looking back and just to see have them come in and address any questions.
>> Um we can have further discussion around that. Is there anything else that people have? coming out of this meeting that we want to include. Obviously, we'll have an agenda meeting, but if there's something coming out of this that we
want follow up on or >> we'll have a finance committee meeting. Um, >> right. >> Before that, we will not have a school building committee meeting. Um, but we should have a further discussion on the warrant on the court. See if the committee can potentially hold a vote in case the committee's ready to vote.
Okay. We might possibly have, depending on what Nick says, there might be a vote. There could conceivably be a vote on the citiz on the uh community designate. >> Do we need to speak with them live here
or just review? >> I have to look at that. Okay. >> For the designate, >> yeah, >> we didn't for at least I guess we probably could, but for climate action when we appointed that person, we just reviewed >> and then discussed the different um resumes that were submitted and
>> we'd appoint. I think there was a process maybe you can share >> you can share there might be a process of like independent review and sharing >> top candidates to >> Amanda >> we'll have
>> no we don't need till the 15th so we'll be looking at our goals um >> talk about reaffirming the members at the start of the because the members from the community that are on facilities. >> Mh. >> So because I know we didn't haven't done that
>> process. So I don't really know if that's done here at a meeting to reaffirm the members of facilities um or if those does that just happen at the facilities advisory >> I think meeting >> should
like anybody else any other committee >> yeah would be here. >> Okay. All right. >> Um, any other subcommittee? Will you be um No, you wouldn't have had any the plan you guys the >> Oh my gosh. Procedure the
>> policy >> policy. Thank you. That's the word I'm thinking. >> That's on the 15th. >> That's on the Okay. >> Yeah. Well, I was just So, at our next meeting, we'll be looking at our goals that we drafted. >> Yes. >> If
Yeah. >> Okay. So, that's it. Great. All right. I think that is everything. Do we I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor?
>> Great. Thank you everyone. [Music]