Well, we will uh try and make it quick. I think there's like really two things we wanted to share with you in terms of updates, which is an update on kind of the the cut list, right? We're still obviously, as we shared last time, a million um in revenue short of the level service
budget. So, we can share kind of that updated information. We went over that um a little bit before February break uh with the department sharing that kind of first first time with school committee and then we talked about it more yesterday and at full school committee last night. Um and then we can also share a little bit of an update on the
the circuit breaker utilization because I know that's something that's been a question. So those are two updates we can give and then definitely want to open up ask answer any questions y'all have. But does that sound like a good starting place? >> Yeah, sounds great. But I was I was at
the um uh was it yesterday's meeting? Yesterday morning's meeting. >> The finance. Yeah, I saw you. You logged on. Thank you. >> One of our uh loyal viewers. I appreciate all that. Um uh I I talk way
too much. Uh and so I'm Nathan has graciously agreed to uh take this on. So he's going to share his screen and kind of go over the position reductions. if you want to share that, Nathan. >> Yes. I need your permission, Mark, to do that.
>> I sent a request. >> There you go. >> Okay, cool. >> Are you able to see the slides? >> Okay. >> Yes. Great. And I'll just put it in presentation mode so it's bigger. Okay.
>> So, um, and Elaine, if you were at the, um, finance committee meeting yesterday, you saw a version of this. This is actually an updated table, um, that we went through last night at at the full school committee meeting uh, with the
full school committee and the public. Um, so a little bit of changes here and this is part of a larger set of materials that either are already on the the budget website or will shortly be there and we can certainly share them with
you. Uh the next this slide and the next slide go through the choices we're making to get to close this uh almost million-doll gap um or to close the million-dollar gap. So just walk through this. I'm going to
I'll move quickly um and you both should just chime in with questions along the way. I'll I'll provide some basic context and if you need more happy to do that. So uh the reduction the position reductions
we're looking at are in this uh first uh first set of rows here. You can sort of we had considered taking this one out of the reductions but we put it back in. That's what that's about. So first we have three currently vacant positions that we're not going to fill. So sort of
permanently reduce these roles. Um the first is an equity coach um that we held back for this entire year and we're going to um continue to not fill it next year. Um a special education teacher and Mark
come in with anything also that I'm missing, but a special education teacher that we held back this year that uh was uh not warranted this year. Uh we're going to continue to not fill that. We also had vacant a director of fine art
fine and performing arts as a central office position that provides uh curriculum and and teaching and learning support to schools. Um that was also held back this year and we're not going to fill it. Uh we will be you'll see on the next slide that we are going to
continue to designate a um a teach an instructional position to to uh to lead uh the fine and performing arts um uh work uh through through through a stipend.
Uh we're going to eliminate the director of data and analytics role. Um and on the next slide you'll see that we are going to reintroduce the director of education techn education technology role and these two roles are going to be merged. Uh so we'll have a single
central office role focused on um uh building and leveraging our technology platforms and generating the data and and to some degree the analysis needed for our instructional leaders and
instructional staff um to inform their to inform their uh their teaching and learning approach. Um, can I can I ask you a question, Nathan, about the >> Yeah. >> data and analytics director. Um, so I'm
not as clear on how it works at the K to2 level, but there's how many people are in that office because I know there's a lot of reporting federally and uh to the state.
Um I think this is Katie feel free to come in here if you know this if you know the answer to this question. >> Um so there are several positions that work in the technology office. There is another position whose primary
responsibility is to do um the state reporting and so this position um is not necessarily responsible for that state reporting that we have to provide. So we already have somebody
that's covering some of that. >> Okay. >> And sorry you're said you said that role is merging with um what was it? Director of Education and Technology. >> Director of Education Technology,
>> which is a role the district has had for some years and it was vacated uh I think at the end of last year and we we kept it vacant. We've kept it vacant throughout this year. >> Okay. So how is that accounted for in
these um uh these charts like roles that are not currently filled but that we are not eliminating? >> It will be on the next slide. Uh there's there's three I think three roles on the
next slide that we're bringing back. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Um all right, I'm going keep going. Uh we have 1.3 FTE focused on out of district student coordination. Um so we have one person
who's basically providing.3 uh hours uh on this.3 FTE on this. So we we are going to eliminate that role in that um one FTE will be responsible for out of district uh coordination um for
for students with needs that require them to be placed out of district. Uh we have a director a district-wide director of nursing role uh that we're going to eliminate. Um, and we're going to designate one of our existing nurses
as a lead nurse who will be responsible for um, the some of the leadership responsibilities districtwide such as training, monitoring, reporting. And um, Mark, I might ask you to jump in here. I think there's also a float nurse
um, who is currently in the mix who's going to float throughout the throughout the district. And we will sort of monitor this and um could adjust could adjust that float nurses allocation depending on student need.
>> Is that that right? >> Yeah. Even with the loss of the director of nursing, there will still be seven nursing positions next year. Uh one at each school site and then one district-wide kind of float nurse who I think will be based um I think John said would be based like at the high school.
>> Yeah. Um, >> so seven seven nurses uh districtwide and you'll see the lead nurse uh ad on the on the next slide. Um we have an ac 6 academic tester
position um whose role it is is to facilitate uh student testing on a number of areas. That work we're going to eliminate that role. that work will um go back to pre-existing staff uh to
to provide that testing. We have two 504 coordinators in district. We're going to eliminate one of those roles. Um and the the work that that that one FTE will be reallocated
back to uh various people in schools who previously had done 504 coordination work such as assistant principles, teachers, uh counselors. Um so that will that will sort of return to to those staff which is how it worked
before these 504 coordinators were added in a couple of years ago. Uh there's two um teaching roles that are being eliminated, one at the middle school and one at the high school where um class uh basically class size isn't
justifying these roles any longer. Um so uh there's so we're eliminating both of those. Um one of the things we didn't cover in the I didn't go through in the previous slide are some of the goals of of these budget reductions. So I'd encourage you to look at that. And one
one uh very important goal for us was not to eliminate uh was to generally try to reduce the impact on students. So um many of these roles that we're eliminating are not student facing and to not have any reductions in elementary
school classrooms. Um so these two instructional roles are being are being closed off because of because of small class sizes. Um, yeah. Julia, >> sorry, Nathan. Are you able to give any more details on like like middle school
electives teacher? That's kind of vague. Like what is the actual impact that's going to have in terms of subject matter? >> Katie, do you know or Mark, do you know the the specific class they were responsible for, this role is
responsible for? So I do know that it wouldn't be um this position is not one of the positions that at the middle school level because the middle school is broken up into teams and then you have your content area teachers for each one of the teams.
So it is not one of those positions. In addition to those teaching positions that we have at the middle school, we also have um positions that teach classes and I believe we reference them
as electives. Um so there are classroom teachers, but they're not it's not like a social studies class or a science class. It would be more of an elective class. Um, and when we went through um,
and looked at every single one of the teaching positions, we looked at the case load and the class size, and we felt pretty comfortable that we could eliminate one of the elective teachers at the middle school, >> but has that particular position not
been selected yet or like can you like is it art? Is it gym? I don't know what the other electives are, but like are you able to be more specific? >> It's not so it's not a specialist. It's not an or gym. There's no there would be
no change to any of that service delivery. it would be more of um and I I don't I can't remember the term that they use at the middle school, but it's um it would be somebody that would teach
kind of like a supplemental math or a supplemental English, but it's not the core curriculum class. So, it's one of those teachers and they're we reference them as elective teachers. >> That's the name of the role is electives teacher.
Yeah. >> So, has this individual not been identified yet? >> No, they have been and they've been notified. >> Julia, we can follow. >> If you'd like more information on the exact electives that the this position
teaches, we can follow up with John and Carlo on that. Sorry, you were on mute there, Julia, but we can follow up on the exact courses. Again, I think as Katie said, there they have supplemental um kind of courses that fill in the day. Uh many of those courses would still be
offered. It's just the class sizes across those would increase because of this, but they already felt like the class sizes and for at least a certain number of them was was low enough that consolidating them wasn't going to raise class sizes to a place that was was of concern.
and and so it's possible that the person and the electives they're teaching those particular electives could be split across different middle school elective teachers based upon student interest. Uh but we can get more information on that from from Carla and John.
>> Okay. Yeah, that would be great. And then high school English teacher. That sounds like a core position, but you're saying it's not. And it and it was originally on the cut list. As far as I remember, >> it it was on the cut list and then we
discussed whether or not to remove it uh from the cut list and make it one of the adbacks in the orange. It was then further discussed that again based upon class size uh that that position uh the department felt comfortable being able to cut that position still offer um you
know the the courses necessary for students and and keep classes at at reasonable levels. So, that is a a core content class. Um, obviously it's English, but >> can we get some information on um >> can we get information on what the class
sizes will be if this teacher is cut like what's it going to go from like 22 per class to 24 per class or what it looks like? >> Sure. I think we can Yeah, sorry. Yeah,
we can we can we can get estimates on on what they on what um what Superintendent Failen or the or assistant superintendent Kosa thinks would be the impact. I I think the um the students that are in this class will
would be redistributed the students that would be in this class would be redistributed into other sections of the class and the feeling is that the current case load is low enough that it would not have a meaningful impact on class size uh in other classes.
>> Yeah, you might just like to get some more specifics about what's meaningful. >> Um because there are recommendations by you know n national coun council of teachers of English about class sizes and you know I just like to see what what those
numbers look like. >> So um if I can just add so I don't know if you had an opportunity to look but there is a document that has a rationale um that provides a little more context for each one of the positions that's on
this slide. So that may be helpful. It doesn't have the data around the class size. Um it just kind of references what we had already said that the um looking at the current average class size and then when we look at the rising
students for next year um we felt comfortable through the conversations that we had you know um with the high school team that the class sizes would remain in a in a comfortable range. Again, at the high school, it's an
average, too, cuz due to the scheduling, you could have some classes with 18 students and some classes with 24 students. It's just based on student choice in the schedule. So, um, but we could definitely provide more information around what that that
average may be or what that range could look like next year. >> Great. Thank you. Um and another question um in the presentation um from the I think it was February 11th
meeting um I believe there were three electives teachers between the high school and the middle school that were being proposed to be cut. Um, >> so and I don't know maybe one of those was actually this high school English teacher but there was a third.
>> The third is school special ed teacher which is below. >> Yeah. >> So there were three teachers total. Middle school electives, high school English and middle school special education teacher. >> Okay. Gotcha.
>> And yeah, no problem. Um so these three positions down here uh were originally on the reduction list and we have added them back to so that so they're they're not being uh eliminated as part of as
part of our our uh budget reductions and realignment. So we had considered reducing the director of DEIB role by point4. uh considered eliminating this middle school special education teacher and
considered eliminating two BCBA roles. We are at this stage adding those back in and and preserving those roles. Um so I won't I won't unless you want to hear anything about those. I won't I won't necessarily spend time on those. We're we're sort of taking those off the
list at this stage. >> I just had a quick question about the BCBA. Or maybe it's not quick. I don't know. Um but if you were originally going to cut both um board certified behavior analyst positions
um and now you're going to save both. What's the rationale of not cutting one? What was Can can you just dig into it a little bit more? >> Sure. Um the
so uh there's there's a total of six BCBAs assigned to schools districtwide. I think currently one at each school. Um so we were going to move to a model where a BC one BC I'm just looking at my
notes. One BCBA was shared between Tucker and Glover which is what they currently do. Um, one BCBA shared between Kyle Cott and Cunningham. Uh, one BCBA shared between the preschool and the Kolycott subsparate program. And then one shared between
Pierce and the high school. Um, so this was the thinking. I mean, number one, the core reason that these positions were going to be cut is because we have to find a million dollars in in savings from our level service budget. So that
that's what put anything on the list. Uh number two, I think we um uh both with sort of looking at at the level of BCBAS in other districts uh of
our size. I think it is common to have for a district of our size somewhere in the four to five range. Um, and we're trying to the the school district and superintendent Valen are focusing on strengthening our and and sort of making
more efficient our special education service delivery. And so this was um this was viewed as part of that effort. Um I don't think I don't think we were looking to do it right in this moment, but um that that was sort of part of the
thinking. what uh what motivated us to bring it back is community input um and probably some educator input as well. So, uh, in the in the first sort of release of our
thinking here, uh, we invited community input, um, heard from a lot of folks around, uh, the district, parents, educators, um, experts, and decided that, um, it would be wise to add them back in for
this year. I think it's um you know given given the revenue position of the town um that we're looking at over the next couple of years I I wouldn't guarantee that that I wouldn't guarantee these positions in perpetuity. Um but I
think for next year while we're trying to while our district management team is trying to figure out um how to improve our special education strategy, we felt like preserving these and finding another way to finance them would be wise for next year. Okay,
thank you. >> Yeah. Um, okay. So, I'm going to move to the next slide, uh, which, uh, walks through some, uh, adjustments and reallocations. Uh, some of this I've already I've
already covered. Um, so, first, we would like to we're planning on adding a bus. Uh you all may recall that at the beginning of the year um many of our students uh struggled and our families
struggled to get their students uh to school. Um we really needed another bus to transport um students uh to school whose parents aren't able to drop them off. Um and we didn't have the funds for it. So, one of our goals uh this year
both as a school committee and I think within the district management team is to strengthen uh school and district culture and getting to getting students to school uh on time and safely via bus transport is um is a commitment that
that we really want to be able to make next year. So, that's an addin. Um, we want to we we currently have an assistant superintendent of teaching and learning who's working at a point 6 level. We want to make that role full-time. The district of Milton's size
um with aspirations of improving our our teaching and learning results really requires a full-time uh senior leader uh supervising teaching and learning and really focused on improving instruction. So, that's an investment that we're that we're adding
in. Uh I mentioned uh a couple of these. I mentioned the next two in the previous slide. So we're we're um financing a lead teacher position focused on nursing. It's called teacher. We're calling it a teacher because it's within
unit A, but this will take an existing school nurse and make them a a lead nurse and provide uh leadership responsibilities across the district. Similarly, we're going to take a an existing fine and performing arts teacher, designate them as a lead
teacher um to again provide uh some leadership responsibilities on fine and performing arts and and they'll be stipened for that work. And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Katie and Mark, we currently are are taking this approach with fine and performing arts
right now. Uh and it's working really well. Um at Tucker we've piloted this year um a an approach to grade level facilitators where basically teacher leaders are
designated as facilitators for their grade levels um to sort of bring together the grade level team and help them level up their focus on instruction and data and general classroom approach. Uh so this will be uh financing grade
level facilitators um uh more at scale. Uh this uh we're increasing the existing team chair up uh 02. What school is this at? I actually don't know Mark or Katie >> at Tucker. >> Tucker.
>> At Tucker. Okay. Thank you. That's what I was thinking. Um so that's an investment in that role. Um support special education. Um we're sort of creating a a savings account here. You know, we're making a
number of changes as we outlined on the previous slide. Um uh especially on 504 um and some special education services. Uh so and essentially, you know, other other areas we're reducing. So, we just
want to have a savings account uh that we can use to offset uh those reductions in the in the event that student needs um need to be met. Uh maybe we'll spend all of that, maybe we'll spend none of that, but we wanted to have a little bit
of a safety net. Um Milton currently has the Milton Public Schools currently has a point 6 human resources director. >> Sorry to interrupt you, Nathan. Um I was on mute before but just before you move on. So the contracted service line that
could be used for any needs to offset staff reduction. >> Our thinking is that um and Katie jump in please. Um we're reducing an out of district coordinator, a tester 504 coordinator.
>> Um we also at the time were reducing the BCBAS. Um, so we felt like given that level of change, uh, we just wanted to have a a safety net in case we needed to bring in outside services for any unmet
needs across those those sorts of roles. >> And without getting too into the weeds, like how how does that work logistically? Like who provides those kinds of services? And I mean, how do you have to engage them for a certain amount of time? like what what is practically speaking what does that look
like? >> Katie, can I invite you for that question? >> Yeah, of course. So, um we currently uh partner with some contracted services pro providers for some of these services
already. Um especially when it comes to some of the evaluations, some of the additional testing that we may have to do. Um, so there are a number of vendors that are currently providing that service and so by
increasing that contracted services budget line, that's just a reflection of saying that we know that there are going to be certain times throughout the school year that when um in the past we may have had an employee that was there
for the entire school year, but we know that there are busier there are times that are busier than others. And so when that employee is no longer available, even though much of the work is redistributed, there may be times like the beginning of the year or in the
spring when there's um the volume of evaluations tends to increase that we would have to bring in that contracted service provider kind of at a level that's higher than what we're we're currently partnering with them. Um, so
that's what the $50,000 increase to that contracted service line is for. >> Okay. >> Thanks. >> Yeah. Thanks, Julia. Uh, and then, um, did I talk about the
director of HR? >> No, I interrupted you there. >> Okay. Yeah. So, we currently have a point6 director of HR. We have um you know roughly 500 and something employees in the district um numerous collective
bargaining agreements. Um it's a it's a it's a moderatelysized organization um with a lot of employee needs, leaves, an evaluation system, etc. Really requires a full-time uh employee paying
attention to human resources. Uh so we're we're bringing uh that role up to a full-time role. Um and then uh a few areas. Uh so we're reducing uh several general
expense lines. You can see some examples there. Uh cross maintenance, tax, furniture. Um how we're spending on legal settlements. Um so reductions uh reductions in general expense.
>> I'm sorry. How are you reducing those? Are are you just right sizing to actuals or have you actually like saved costs on those somehow? >> Katie, can you can I invite you in for that? >> Sure. Um for the maintenance line, the
maintenance is a reference to a new account. It's called extraordinary maintenance. School districts typically have an extraordinary maintenance account that you're supposed to carry around $50,000 and that's just for if a hot water heater goes or something that
you're just not anticipating and you haven't budgeted for. We um established that line for this fiscal year. Um and we used the majority of that during the summer because we had an issue with an
elevator in one of our schools. Um, but because of budget constraints, our goal was to actually increase that line for fiscal year 27 just because the amount of money if something happens in one of the schools is not $25,000. It's usually
significantly more. Um but because of the budget constraints that's one of the areas where we said okay we can eliminate that line and that is going to be a risk that we may have to um take some of the money out of our building
usage account to be able to offset some of those unanticipated costs with the tax. We had established a line for new curriculum materials which we're hoping to move forward with in this fiscal year. So that is just a reduction of
that line. It's not an elimination. Um with the legal settlements, that's general education legal settlements. We did not have to use that last year. Um we're not anticipating that we have to use it this year. So that is just more of a reflection of what the recent
actuals have been. We did have to use that account several years ago. Um and so it is somewhat of a risk. Um, but we were just looking at more recent actuals and said, you know, we made a commitment that we weren't just going to be looking
at the staffing lines, we were going to look at our general expense lines as well. And we felt that the combination of those four accounts were kind of the least impactful. Um, because it's not, you know, um, we're not decreasing the
utility budget because we know that that we'll need that funding. Thanks. >> Um, next line, we're go we are likely to increase fees um fees for buses to help
finance the new bus, uh, fees for some student activities and clubs and then fees for building use or rentals. I will say we haven't had a chance as a finance committee or school committee to really review and discuss this. there's a
separate proposal on the table. Um, and I think we need to also take a separate vote on fee changes. So, I would view this as a as a probably relatively accurate placeholder, but we haven't really finalized a a decision on that just yet. But do you have um I'm sure
that that you do if with this number here, but but um do you have any details or Katie, maybe it's in the the details that you told me about before um on what the bus fee would go from currently to how much it would go up and the same
thing with clubs and activity fees, etc.? >> Yep. So there is a separate document. It's a memo that was drafted and in the memo it gives information on how many students that pay, what the current fee is, and what the additional revenue
would be if we increase the fee iteratively by $25. Um, and so it has all of that information for the bus. It has similar information for um the student activities and that would be
specific to the high school. And then building use um it doesn't have similar data to the bus and student activities with the usage data. It's just more of a an overall proposal and with that we hadn't increase the fee in a number of
years. So, we just felt like it was time um to be able to increase that fee and that would be for outside usage. That's not for um that wouldn't be for like nonprofits or um town members of the
town, not members of the town, but like for park and wreck, for example. >> Okay. and memo should be so the supplemental document um as Nathan had said earlier if it's not on the the
budget page already it I'm sure it will be posted shortly and you can kind of see the details in in the memo >> okay thank you >> yeah I would just highlight um Nathan's point that we just haven't dived in we have not had the time to dive into it uh because we've been talking about more of
the positions and the circuit breaker pieces so uh that's still a place that I think Right now we're not clear on exactly again the Katie has done this great memo where it rolls out these scenarios. We just have not talked through kind of which of those scenarios we kind of want to land on. So the
number could be slightly less than 75,000. It could be slightly more than 75,000. It's just um it's something we can get into kind of at a a future meeting once um the committee has been able to talk about it a bit more. Um, and then the last item here is an
adjustment to the stipen budget of $50,000. So, a reduction to that to that budget. I'm going to skip over the circuit breaker funding because Mark is going to walk us through that, but this sort of relies on using more of the circuit breaker funding than we had um
originally anticipated. And then these three positions in red are positions that are currently vacant that we had held for this year and we are going to fill them uh next year. So the director of instructional technology um is the role that I described earlier
that would be merged with the director of data analytics um and so that role would have um and would have responsibility over both of those areas. Uh the assistant director of student services has been vacant um for this
entire year. Um and the student services central team is is very lean and this role would add much neededed capacity to that team to professional development to be able to sort of enable um uh a number
of the improvements that um that the district wants to wants to uh make in special education service delivery. And then the third position is a team chair position. I believe this is at the high school.
Um so a vacant position um that we're going to fill for for next year. Any questions on on those three? >> Um not on those three, but the adjustment to the stipen budget, how how
is that happening? like who who's not receiving a stipen that was previously your >> So when we had built the stipen budget originally, we had built it based off of past actuals and then when we looked at
the stipen budget for this year and then kind of dug more into the details of the what was paid out last year as a portion of what was paid last year. there was there had to be an adjustment um that was made because of an error in
the previous fiscal year. So the total expenditure from last year was actually like artificially inflated because a portion of that was just fixing a past error. So, um, once we saw that, we
truly wanted to make sure that the stipen budget was a reflective of of like the current year with obviously an adjustment because those stipens increase year-over-year depending on the collective bargaining agreement. So in the level service
budget, the stipen budget was originally created and it did not take into account that kind of one-time adjustment and so we felt comfortable um that we could reduce the stipen budget based off of that information.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um, if there's no other questions on this, maybe I'll turn it over to you, Mark, to walk through the circuit breaker uh models. >> Sure. Great. >> Do you want me to share my screen or do that?
>> I can. I got it pulled up. Um, uh, Julia Lane, I just want to be clear on y'all have to go at some point for this. Is that Do you have a heart stop at seven? Is it before that? What? I mean, I' I'd be fine joining a little late if it means we can finish up here more thoroughly.
>> Yeah, that's that's fine. >> Okay, great. Um, can you all see my screen come through? Okay. Uh, so this is another document that in addition to the slides I sent you all last night after the uh school committee meeting. Uh, and it's linked as one of the
resources at the end of the slides as well. Uh, and will be up on the website as we talked about. So uh this top area again I think circuit breaker has been a point of t conversation within the school committee. I know it's obviously come up at this meeting. We talked about what is our planned utilization things
like that. This first scenario is really kind of what we've been planning on doing um especially when we thought we were having a level service uh budget. Um the starting balance at the beginning of this year was around that kind of $8,000
number as as we've mentioned. Uh target balance is you know anywhere between really this number reflects like 75% of what we get u from the states. We still haven't nailed down a policy on this.
We've talked about having one year of a rears. We've shared that with y'all before. um or you know 75% is kind of a newer number that's been talked about as a slightly less aggressive number in order to allow us to to get there eventually. But um I just for the realities of kind of the type fiscal
situation we're in. So that's what that number is up top. The information below is a projection right now for uh where we think we will end in FY26. And again, that's a projection. It could be changes. New students could come in at any time. time we had some uh
unexpected students come in towards the end of last year who um had had some uh high needs, high costs. That could happen again. So, this number could be lower. Um students could exit the district 2. The number could slightly be higher. But this is our best guess as to kind of where where we'll end at the end
of FY26. Um so FY27, that's our starting place, right? That's what we're able to roll over up to one year. Uh you can see we had already talked about increasing circuit break utilization by an additional $200,000 next year which is
about an 8% increase. Um and so uh you know based upon that and based upon what we estimate kind of the reimbursement to be next year um we're estimating kind of that we'd be about $2 million after FY27 and then about $2.8 million after FY28.
So the goal of kind of um trying to get up to this kind of target balance around that 75% to 100% uh reserves within a three-year period is kind of what we talked about. So given the situation we've been in and
the positions that were being cut um and obviously the the feedback too, we've heard from warrant committee, we looked at increasing the utilization of the circuit breaker to reduce the impact on positions lost and talked that through
as a committee kind of last um or yesterday I should say uh and kind of landed on this option one that Katie presented to us which is changing the increase in utiliz ization circuit breaker for next year by an additional $400,000, which is what Nathan kind of showed in
that chart. That's that additional $400,000 that helps to cover for the positions that we're adding back um that DEIB role that um special education teacher, the two BCBAS. So, we were at again 2.6 now um planning
on utilizing $3 million of circuit breaker. that still gives us about $500,000 to continue building that balance over time. It's obviously significantly less than the 900,000. So, it's a more modest um savings um and kind of changes our
time horizon to four years. Uh and it's obviously a little bit less too, but four-year time horizon to reach that that 75% number. I'll say again that 75% number somewhat in quotes because we haven't fully landed on exactly what the policy is that we we feel comfortable as
a school committee to kind of name uh that we should have moving forward. Um but again somewhere between that 75 to 100 is what we we've discussed. So that was the decision that was made really just yesterday um as we were looking at
ways to increase our revenue to decrease the position cuts. Um, so that that's a $400,000 um positive adjustment towards the school department account without having any impact on the town uh revenue
distribution overall. Any questions on that? >> So you're saying that this is now the the plan for the use of circuit breaker reimbursement? Yeah, I'll say in terms
of the plan, this is the plan for FY27, the $3 million. The outy years are projections, right, of like just again as we're trying to think through how do we get to that goal? Uh it is possible that circuit breaker our allocation increases next year, it's possible it
decreases next year, right? It you know what our reimbursement is is not set because it's based upon current year costs. So it's not static. it likely goes up because inflation and these costs arise, but also if our, you know, the students that are eligible for this
decrease in some way or the the costs change, our reimbursement could go down. So, I just want to make sure that is clear that like FY28, FY29 are are really just kind of projections that that Katie was providing us as to kind of show our pathway towards reaching our
long-term goal. Uh but yes, for FY27, we are at at this time um moving kind of forward with the the $400,000 uh additional increase. That number might change slightly because again, we are not at a 100% budget here. This is a current draft. We're still getting
feedback from folks. We're still weighing those other positions that we are cutting. I think Nathan said it well of saying, you know, the $400,000 number is obviously just it's just a round number. It's not anything exactly. So if
that number needed to be $400,72, right? $400,412, like what, you know, it could be something a little bit more or something a little bit less than that kind of 400,000 number in order to support whatever other ads we might be looking at putting back within the budget. Uh
but there was general agreement uh across the school committee of that that kind of amount being uh appropriate because that's still that allows us to relieve some of the pressure within the current year but still provides a pathway towards building this uh to the level that that we feel the school department needs to provide
sustainability uh and you know assurance um over time. So, um I know that you haven't voted on the cuts yet and the um and the second
uh list that you showed us of what's going to be added back um and your changes in your use of circuit breaker. But when the warrant committee is discussing this, is it are you saying that we should be using these
numbers that you've showed to us today as opposed to like the original budget? >> Yes, this is a more updated budget. >> Okay. Even though the full school committee has not voted on this. >> Well, the full school committee didn't vote on the prior budget information
either. >> Okay. >> Then the full school committee has heard this budget information. and you can share that like again none of this is finalized. We are still getting feedback. We expect feedback from y'all as well. Uh and we have you know a few more weeks. I know that the timeline's
going to get tight here. Um but yeah, nothing is finalized. The school committee hasn't voted on any part of this at all, but we have talked about that. We we feel like there is general alignment. >> Okay. in these directions. And so, uh, yes, I would definitely share this
information versus, um, sharing like the the information we shared a couple weeks ago as it relates to, uh, all the cut lists like the the DIB director position is not being cut. The BCBAS are not being cut. Um, you know, as of right now, the the that's the current
standing. >> Okay. Thank you. of course and I' I'd highlight that the presentation John he went through all the slides last night. I think he did a a really nice job just kind of walking through the entire process and how things have changed. So that's also a presentation we would
encourage anybody who is looking for again detail on you know just how the the budget has changed for the school committee. Uh that I think is a really nice overview and kind of walks through all all the different pieces. Um, Julia, do you have other questions?
>> Yeah, sorry, I forgot I was on mute. Um, is that the is that the the end of the presentation? Um, or did you have anything else you wanted to present? >> No, those were the two pieces, the again position cuts and the circuit breaker. So, if there's something else you have questions about, we're happy to try and pull something up and share. But, um,
those were the two pieces that we discussed and wanted to get over to y'all. Um, my apologies if there w if there is more explanation for this out there. Um, I have not had a chance to watch last night's meeting yet, but um, I just, you
know, what comes to mind, and I'm sure you've probably already heard this or will, you know, replacing a director of nursing and a director of fine and performing arts with like a, you know, these are $120,000 positions with a $6,000 or whatever it was dollar stipend
to me just seems like that that does not tie for me. Um, and I understand we're we're here making cuts and sacrifices, but I'm just like you said that it's it's working well currently for the director of fine and performing arts.
Um, is that cuz you have a really motivated, willing teacher and what happens if that person leaves? Like I don't know. It's just so hard for me to imagine replacing a full-time FTE with a a stipened person and not, you know, losing something
there. Yeah, that's a a good concern. It's a concern I think I I raised last night and others have raised. Obviously, again, the the baseline here is something has to be cut and so that is unfortunately where we are. Um and so
that that's just the base. Um so looking at what are the positions that need to be cut, I think John has said clearly and we've agreed with the goal is keeping the dollars as close to the students as possible. So prioritizing the investment of the the people who are working directly with those students. So
within those departments as an example, keeping the the nurses uh that are directly serving students within the buildings versus the director role uh and the director of fine performing arts again keeping the teachers who are directly kind of providing the instruction related to fine and performing arts versus the director
role. Um I am similarly concerned around the director like losing a director of fine and performing arts. I think that that is a highlight of kind of what the educational experience we provide to our students. Uh as Nathan said, we've been going this year without that and the
school department has not uh received concerns from those teachers about the support that they have provided. Um you know the programming that has been offered to students has not been limited uh within this year. I think it is something that we're asking the school
department to keep a close eye on. And if this is a course correction we need to make in the future, we will in order to make sure we're still um you know providing high quality um fine and performing arts opportunities for our students. It will mean a different difficult decision if we want to add
that position back later on um because none of these are easy easy decisions. But uh again, as of right now, as Nathan said, we think the department thinks that that is working this year. That was a role that was vacated in in September. The person left and so it was one of those that we just did not backfill and
we're testing it out uh within the year. And again, the department, I think the feedback was that it is working. I think that is something I've appreciated about what Katie and John did with some of these positions is pause that in order to strengthen them. pause some of the
positions in order to strengthen budget lines as you know we shared with warrant committee in our quarter two budget. It's not like we are we were flush. We were still projecting kind of in right on on budget. Uh but pause those and then within the budget process identified like hey this is these
positions we paused and it's working well. These positions we paused and it's not working well. We need to add them back and have a real like discussion of what that is. Um for the trajectory of nursing position I can just share my own personal uh experience. Again I I
oversee the nursing department for my um organization. We have a lead nurse model. Uh our lead nurse is fantastic. I think that's usually true for like any any organization or system is like having a good person makes it really good. Uh having a bad person makes it
harder. Um uh but it certainly colors my opinion on this and that we have a lead nurse system I think works really well. that person is able to support students within the building and also have make time to support the other nurses um uh
across the district and work with me on uh you know health policies and procedures and work with our kind of signing physician for the district and all those types of things. So it is a model that is not unique that Milton is proposing. It's a model that exists elsewhere um and is a model that again
is somewhat necessitated by the fact that we we need to make some hard decisions here and unfortunately and so those are that's one of the ones that we think uh the department thinks they can make with having the least impact on students. Um so
>> Mark can I just add something quickly? Um when we did look at the positions and some of the positions that you see on the reduction list, we did look at um what the staffing levels looked at kind of before the pandemic because some of
those positions we were able to add um because of the supplemental federal funds. And so when we looked at the nursing department, um we did say that with the reduction of the nursing director, it kind of brought
us back to those precoid um staffing levels. I also just wanted to mention that the um that student services isn't just spe special education. Student services also incorporates um English language
learners guidance and it also incorporates nursing. And so being able to re um fi or to reestablish and fill the assistant student services director which is currently empty. um that rule
should provide some oversight to nursing guidance e and special education as well. Um, and so hopefully, you know, not having that uh dedicated director level position in the nursing
department, there still will be uh an additional staff member um that should be able to provide some administrative support under the student services lens. Um, so it's just going to be a combination of students assistant
student services director as well as um the person that's appointed the lead teacher for that nursing position, >> right? >> Um, and I think that's something that could be helpful to just uh think through as as you all continue to
message this outwardly, like you know, are some of these positions because we ended up over staffed for whatever reasons. I think a lot of people can understand that especially with the the extra co funding and then you know which of these positions are like woo yeah this hurts in an ideal world we would
have it but we got to find cuts and not that I want you know anyone be classified as expendable but I think um that's kind of a push and pull that we are dealing with and um I think some of the cuts might be easier to stomach if
you know people are saying like you know we just we can't actually justify by this staffing because there's not the enrollment or you know whatever it may be. Um versus like yeah of course we would all love a director of uh fine performing arts. Like that's that's a
tough one to to lose in my opinion. Um uh I just want to say thank you for um considering the you know alternatives to the circuit breaker and and the way that that's being used. Um, I think that will, um, you know, I think that will go
a long ways in, uh, helping the people, you know, the public sort of swallow the somewhat bitter pill. Um, so I appreciate you guys considering that and, um, being willing to think differently about that. Um
in terms of the sort of detailed budget that we have seen in previous years that like bajillion page you know Excel spreadsheet um I think last year we we saw it around like Novemberish. Um and I think Katie it was I think it was
something you actually maybe had put together. Um um so just wondering when we might be able to get our hands on the knowing that there's still moving pieces and it's not going to be final final but um when we might be able to anticipate
seeing that for FY27. So that document I believe we are discussing or will be shared at the Wednesday Wednesday finance subcommittee meeting >> um >> this coming Wednesday
>> yes coming up and um the that document is currently reflected reflective of the initial I'm sorry I can't tell >> you tired late >> the initial
um line level detail that was presented I think back to February 10th. So um it will be available shortly. I know it's been um a few folks have asked for it so
should be shared soon. Sorry, when you say uh the level of the February 10th, um I'm not sure. I'm I don't know if I can share. Um I was going to show you what I
was referencing here. Um Oh, it looks like I can like this. >> Is that what you're Okay, great. >> Yeah. So, the document um that looks just like that. um has some of the
initial reductions that we had talked about like the reduction of the DEIB director that's all kind of still shown in that document. Um so we can certainly share it but just knowing that you know as as some of these conversations
continue that we'll just have to continue to update it. But you can pretty much see in each one of the lines um kind of the changes are reflective in the FTE counts. >> Katie, what do you call that? >> Yeah, you know.
>> Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> I was just asking Katie, what do you call the document that Julie just showed the version for this year? Is there a name for that file? >> That's um the line level detail. So, it shows every single account line. >> Got it. Thank you.
>> Yeah. Um yeah, I think you know we are aware of um I'm writing that down so I don't forget it in a little detail. Um that you know obviously from this conversation and and then other meetings that some of those things have changed but knowing what a dense document it is
the sooner we could get it the the better just so we can start digging in on our own time and um again knowing that there's still moving pieces here. Thank you. Um, and then last thing I just wanted to um,
uh, see what your availability and I guess your I guess I'll direct this question to Mark, but obviously up to you who you want to bring with you to come in front of the whole warrant committee and talk budget um, in, you
know, early to mid-March, I think, at the latest at this point. And if you want, we can do this offline if you need to like consult your calendar, but just thought I'd ask while I had you here. >> Yeah. No, I I think it's an appropriate
time to ask about it. Um, is there do y'all expect to have another one of these before that or is essentially the next step for us to kind of share any future updates kind of with the full warrant committee?
>> I mean, I'm curious to hear from Elaine. I would say it probably depends on how much changes between you know what we just talked about and then but >> that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, if there's if there are a lot if it's if it's some of the stuff that you talked about and there are minor changes I don't think there's another reason to
meet a reason to meet again. Sorry, I also can't talk tonight Katie. Um, but I but I think that if the if there are substantive changes that we want to talk to you about, then then there would be another a reason to meet again.
>> Got you. I I obviously can't can't say one way if I I don't necessarily think there will be drastic changes. Uh, but we are expecting to get some more uh community input. Again, we just shared this last night. We got some input yesterday. We are planning on having a
meeting with the PTO's um and share this information, get some feedback there. We're going to have our public budget hearing on March 11th. Uh and then I think we are trying to schedule a oneoff school committee meeting the week of the 17th
um in order to vote on the budget so that we can get it to y'all um based upon the timeline we we talked about at the last meeting here. So, I think we're we're trying to get it done by the 18th. Um, and then I think our
our hope was to obviously get the information out to you by that uh point. Um, but then maybe try and meet the week of the 24th with the full warrant committee. I could come in front of the warrant committee earlier than that, but
again like everything will be hedged with like there there is no vote from the school committee. So I don't feel like I'd be able to talk with any like force of the committee. It would be a lot of like my opinions and generally like what the tenor has been within the
meetings, my assessment of that. But um there won't be a a final budget voted on by the school committee until likely that kind of um 16th, 17th, 18th. We haven't nailed down that date exactly. Um would is the week of the 24th just
too late? Um >> I think it's pretty late. >> Yeah, I was going to say I think knowing Jay, I think he would prefer you coming in earlier even if it's with, you know, like you said, not the full force of the school committee and just with like the information you have, but um so that
people can ask questions and be up to speed in case, you know, if there are changes, we can follow along via your meetings and things like that. But um I think I know he was we are planning currently meeting you know every Monday at least. So I think he was um looking
at the 9th or the 16th to have um the school committee come in front of us depending on your availability. >> If we could do the six I'm sorry. >> Um I think you were going to say just what I was going to say. The 16th would be after your budget meeting, your um
you know meeting with the community meeting um where you do the budget presentation and that might be better because you'd know what kind of feedback you had from that. But >> yeah, we'd have the budget hearing on the we'd have again the meeting before that, the budget hearing on the 11th and then the full school committee meeting also on the 11th so we could talk about
that. And again, I I think generally at that point, we would have conversations about finalizing the budget, the final changes to them because obviously then we need to get that together to have the vote the following week. So, yeah, I think that I agree with you, Elaine, uh is a long way of saying that. I think
that if you want to pencil us in for the 16th, uh let me make 100% sure my wife won't kill me. Uh yeah, six 16th should be okay. Um 7 o'clock. Is that when you all start typically? >> Yeah. >> Yes.
>> Yeah. >> Okay. I will like any of these we generally kind of crossost them and open them up to everybody. I will also talk to Amanda as the chair. She obviously needs to make kind of the I think be there and make the final call that like we can have it that night.
>> Um but I assume that we'll be okay. Uh but yeah, I'll I'll loop back with the committee and offer the 16th. Um okay. Okay. And then we don't want to hold any other time for this group to meet prior to that.
>> I'm happy to play that by ear unless we think it's better to schedule and cancel, but I guess it's all the same to me. >> Um, same for me. I I don't really know whether it's better to hold a time and a
post agenda and all that stuff and cancel, but in the short term, I don't think we need to meet right for next week. We can play I think we can play it by here. >> Okay, that sounds good. I just want to
make sure you all have uh what you need. Uh so other than the budget documents and obviously us to finalize our work, are there other questions in particular? I I got the two um just to repeat them back to you. The two questions I have is
on the high school English teacher reduction, what is the anticipated impact of the average class size next year? It's going from what to what? And what electives was the middle school electives teacher teaching? What electives will, if any, will be lost with the elimination of this position? >> Yes.
Okay. Were there any other >> um my last thing was just um and maybe this is will be redundant but Lorraine had sent over a list of questions um I think to you Mark that she had um wanted answers on. I don't believe she's
heard back from you on that. Maybe all that will be in the budget detail. So I don't know but um I don't know if you know what I'm talking about. >> Uh I it rings a bell. Uh I am just trying to pull up there were questions that were passed over from
>> J Province Town wealthy and troll at least advocate they're still out >> we're hearing >> pretty bad >> hearing the meeting on your phone. >> Yeah. Um >> um I'm trying to find it too when uh I think
>> yeah I I um yes I I got them uh back on the 16th kind of and forward them over Katie. That was one I forwarded over to you and John. Um it was a question on headcount
um and some other some other basic information. So I can reforward that if that's helpful. I can take a look. >> Great. Thank you. >> I think it was mostly like just things.
Um, yes. Great. Thank you for logging that, Julia. Any others? >> I think that's all for me. >> Okay. And then documentation wise, what you'll need is what you shared with Katie. It seems like Katie, you and Katie are on the same page of what what you're looking for. And sounds like that
is something that will be available. Um, >> the line level detail budget. Yeah, Katie, I know we haven't seen that document, but that document is already ready and you've wanted to go ahead and forward that over. I don't assume it has any information that like is beyond kind
of really what we've talked about, even if we haven't seen the exact document. And so, in an effort to give them more time to review it, if you want to go ahead and pass it over, I can say I'm comfortable with that, Nathan. I don't know if you you are as well. >> Totally fine. >> So, I sent it to John. I'm just waiting
for kind of like the thumbs up from him. So, I just want to make sure that he >> comfortable. >> Yeah. No, I to that makes total sense. Um uh great. Yeah. Any other documents or other questions you're getting from
other members that we should help prepare in advance? >> For me, that was that's all from me. >> Okay. Uh if you get any more tonight or at other upcoming meetings, again, please just gather them, send them over so we can try and answer them as as we're going, even leading up to the 16th. So, um
>> Okay, sounds good. >> I will try and get back to you as soon as I can about that night. >> Great. Thank you all so much for your time and your work. I really appreciate it. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm sorry you got now another long meeting. Uh so, good luck. >> That's all right. Part of the job,
right? Thank you. >> All right. Thanks all. Have a good rest of your night. >> Bye. Good night. Bye >> bye.