to the warrant committee meeting March 17, 2026. Karen, can you do a roll call to start the meeting? >> Have Jay Funley, Nikki Boyce, Kraken, Loren D, Grace Dherty, Brian Maguire,
Miss Tangi, Cecil Yang. You have a corner. >> Okay, great. We have multiple sets of guests here tonight. Uh the first set of guests will be the community preservation committee. We'll be discussing um and maybe Cecilele can set
the set the table for us. There are three articles that the community preservation has in front of us this year. I'd say two of them are sort of standard articles similar to what they have in other years, but we want to focus tonight on the non-standard article, which is work on Warf Park. And
then after that, we'll talk a little bit about and I'm asking them to adhere to a 20 to 30 minute schedule to go no later than 7:30. After that, we'll talk a little bit about what upcoming meetings we have in the next week or two. And then we'll have our guests from the school committee and school
administration talk about the school budget. So, can the community preservation committee I'm sure I'm mangling your name. CPC people please join us at the table. >> Uh, can you start by introducing yourselves?
>> Uh, let's go. >> Kathleen O'Donnell. I'm a citizens member on the community preservation committee. Jenny Russell, vice chair and also citizens. >> Uh Rob Levash, I'm the chair of the parks commission and also a member of
the CPC. >> Cecil, I know I'm catching you off guard. Do you want to say like why there are three articles and like two of them are? >> Yeah. >> Sort of what background you've done for the >> Yeah. So Tom and I talked about the first two articles which are pretty standard every year. >> Tom is
>> I'll hand the chair of the CC. Thank you. Um yeah, the first two are pretty standard. So I think in the interest of saving our guest some time, we can just move to the third article, which is um from what Tom said was the first time that we're doing this as a town. Um I'm also really excited to learn more about
it. Um yeah. >> Okay. And I will say that in you know CPC is only a few years old. In previous years for the warrant committee, I mean the CPC has a bucket of money that they collect from people's taxes and they can spend it more or less as they want. So,
in previous years, they would come and tell us what they're going to spend it on, but they're, you know, they've made decisions of how to spend their bucket of money. So, I didn't think we needed to discuss as a full committee about all those. But, uh, should I turn it over to you to discuss the War Park article?
>> Can you? >> Yeah. Thank you, Jay. Um, we're three going to take up about three minutes each, so we're going to be as fast as possible so we can make into questions. And I know you guys were loaded with a bunch of background material, but we won't assume that you read it all. Um, so we're going to do a quick uh Rob's
going to do a quick how we got here with the CPC, the relationship of the uh application to us, and Kathleen is going to talk about bonding in general, how it's worked for other CPA communities in the state, and I'll wrap up with just talking about uh where the town is at
and what the meeting is for us, and then um turn it over for questions. So, I will be a strict timekeeper here. Rob, you're on three minutes. >> Yeah, sure. So, in in 2023, uh the the Milton War Park uh folks came
to our CPC committee and asked for um a design study, a planning study um which they engaged Greg Lombardi design um who did who did their uh original design for them. They had four additional uh meetings with stakeholders, met with the
community um and then they presented to the select board which they received unanimous approval. They came back again in 2024. The CPC awarded them $73,500 for engineering costs towards $157,000
total. Um which the the remainder was privately raised by the the Milton Warf uh park. um committee that that was led by Scott McCay. Um 50% of the civil engineering plans were issued in May of
2025 and then just this last year in 2025 they appeared before our committee and they've asked for a $750,000 uh funding request towards a $1.2 million project cost uh construction
budget basically. um that would include 75% uh construction documents. So after after review and meeting with the parks uh park steering committee meeting, we also met with Joanna McCarthy. Um the CPC voted on January 12th, 2026 to fund
the project uh by bonding the amount of the requested funds. And as a bond request, it requires a separate warrant article that needs a twothirds approval from town meeting. and I'll turn it over to Kathleen to just discuss about the bonding. >> Well done. Two minutes.
>> Um, so in my uh past I actually worked for our current town council Copeland Page was then not KP Law and worked with community preservation committees around the Commonwealth and um the use of bonding is a typical man way to manage
the funds that community preservation committees collect. As you can imagine, many towns do not collect as much money as this town does. And so, it's hard to do any kinds of major projects or even acquisitions of farmland or open space and that sort of thing with the existing
yearly budget that people have. So, using bonding, which we would be using through the town, is a is a standard way that cities and towns manage their CPA money and stretch it out for greater uses. Uh an example, um the town of Nem
um did that for their town hall project. The town of Plymouth did it for their town hall when they converted the courthouse. Anytime you have a project that's going to be in the million, a million or up, it's very typical to do the bonding. The important message we'd like to send to you is that it is not an
addition to the tax that that it's not an override. It's not a search charge. You are already paying Community Preservation Act fun fees every year. And so the debt service for this particular bonding comes out of the community preservation act money, not
the town's major regular budget. So that's the difference is that we have the funds available um in our in our yearly collections to cover the debt service for this. And the assumption is that it would be it's up to the treasurer to see which would be the most
advantageous bonding. Um we don't participate in that. Um, but it is the idea that we would be borrowing $750,000 for debt services paid out of our yearly funds that we collect, which is almost 9 $900,000 a year we collect in taxes.
There's a state match, but we only get 1%. Um, last year was $150,000. So, but we have those funds available. And as I said, we'll be leaving that up to the treasurer to decide how that bonding happens.
Yeah. And just to add to that, there have been um 200 over half of the 201 CPA communities have bonded since um since 2001, and many have had multiple bonds. Amherst has had the most with 12. Neighboring
Randolph has had nine. So, it's it's not sort of a oneanddone kind of thing for towns. They use it many times and the terms range from 1 to 20 years. Um in Milton's case the suggestion is that it will be 15 years with a 4 and a.5% um
probably uh rate something like that and that would be uh a range of between 72 and $82,000 a year which would be paid by the CPC budget. So that would come out of of the budget that we're given on an annual basis which is roughly one one
million 1.2 million something like that. So it wouldn't be any um sort of uh burden to the town uh to do this at all. So one of the things that we were sort of struck by and we had uh Rob said
multiple conversations with the committee um and with Scott Mcbay I think he came before the before us more than six times and each time he came with more people. So, first it was him and then it was the town and then it was the farmers market board and then it was the friends of Milton Recreation and
then it was >> business owners >> business owners and then 99 more for um so 88 whatever it was called um and members of the arts community and he put together a whole list of the meetings that he had and I think it added up to
at least about 15 different ones in the community and we also requested um information from uh Doug hunt about the tree because the design um will include taking down that beautiful red oak tree and that had some concern um for the
community. And as it turns out um Doug found some rot in the tree, so he thought the potential for it not lasting very long um was great. and the the beach tree that is on the far side of
the park has uh a much better chance of lasting for another hundred years is what he quoted us. Um and you all have seen I think designs if you haven't we have them. You can you can take a look at them. I don't know if you've had a chance to see what the design looks
like. Um if you don't let me know and I have a copy of it. >> I don't have the designs. you haven't seen haven't seen. I >> I think one of the uh >> Oops. >> One of the the most impactful things for the design of this of of the design of
it, she'll pass it around. Um is that it really makes this park accessible. Um which right now that that site is very rocky and um there's tree roots that are like impacted over the ground. So, it's really important for this park to just
make this market accessible and for any other events that happens here. So, I we think it'll be very impactful for the community over overall. So, what they're projecting is uh about a $1.2 $2 million budget and for the CPC um to come up
with a $750,000 bond which leaves $450 for them to raise or to get from inind which they expect um to get from um town the town itself, other foundations, businesses and individuals. Um and the
inind support is estimated currently at about $180,000 which will be for like plantings and some handrails and stuff like that. So, um um the bond request, as T Kathleen said, would not impact any kind of tax rates.
Um the CPA would cover the administrative funds for the cost of the bonding, which is estimated to be a couple of thousand dollars. Um, according to um um Joanne who we met with, the bond
could benefit the town because it would be bundled with other issuances uh particularly the fire station and the Cunningham schools, the ones that she mentioned, and thereby it could reduce the overall administrative costs of um of the bonding with uh with EUSI, which
is the unib fiscal advisory services that provide the bonds for the out. Um so that's about it. Um as Kathleen also said, we won't know the exact rate um
until it is negotiated with the Treasury and with EasyI um and that would be after um the bond is approved and and other funds are raised. I will say I failed to share the
attachments with everybody here. So you all got an email 60 seconds ago. Uh would you like me to share this? >> We're happy if you want to put it up. >> We're done with open for questions. >> Um
my one question is about this extra I I counted it as 500,000 but if it's only 450,000 so much the better. Um you said they expect to um you know raise the funds to business donations, in kind
donations, etc. How um do they have commitments for that money yet? And how likely is it that those will come in? >> What I will say is Scott McKay is him and his he's been the the force behind the Milton playground planners in town and you know the his past success with
getting four playgrounds installed in town. you know, I think there's a lot strong support there from him and and his connections in town. So, I I have full faith that he will be able to raise that money. >> The other >> Yeah, we did have business owners who did come to the CPC and answered that
question while we we sort of asked about it. Two things is that is that this $750,000 funds a substantial portion of this construction. in kind donations will help and there is some sort of potential
to kind of phase the development so that as they raise more money they could be doing more more things. Um but um you know the the the stability of the site and the accessibility as Rob pointed out would be the first you know covered by
that first. But but I also think, you know, I do a lot of work with nonprofits and such and when it also helps to have some money on the table to show other donors, hey, listen, we we have a big commitment to this project that I think,
you know, Scott has shown our committee at least with the business owners and stuff who came out to support this. We we think that it will it'll just continue to grow and and and be able to be completed. So, one of the business owners is JD >> While >> While who came to several meetings and
he was very enthusiastic about it and he presented this image of of course the new cafe that's going in at the corner at the bank. um there's no place for people to go to eat their sandwich and so and then one sort of development is
the stairs for instance down from the post office right next to the post office there are stairs going down that need to be developed >> and uh so that's you know one of the things that business owners would be very interested in >> having the park there that would encourage people to hang and linger
>> yeah I mean for those folks I mean I'm sure you guys know this site but I'm an architect so I'm I'll just jump in and I think this is like one of the an exciting site for the town. It's actually, you know, the fact that we have waterfront that can that is in our
town, it should be celebrated. Um, and I think this park will just completely um bring folks down to the waterfront. Um, you know, we have crew crew teams that kind of come out over on the side there as you can see like the water over on
the front. 80 Warf is just to the north of that. Um and then the park is kind of in your in your central piece. And then right behind you, of course, is is is the Milton Village um with the businesses that are local to there. So, as um Jenny was saying, you know, this new cafe, which is across the street
from Milton Village, you know, in the old bank building, that's going to open up soon, too. Um, so it's really a a great opportunity um for for community members to to enjoy this park >> because we actually don't really have very many gathering places in this home.
Exactly. Um I live in East Milton. We have the Deco Express. Speaking of a place, somebody there's not enough shade in here. I'm like try the Deco but the uh but we don't. And the biggest gathering we have is on land owned by the trustees reservations, not by us.
And so the idea that the farmers market um which gets you know there's there's the libraries down there doing readings for kids um the access to the tea the access to um the water access to all kinds of things would just make this such a lively spot and we on the
committee thought that it was a a wonderful asset to develop for this town. When you think about the history of this town, it starts there. That's where the first factory in America is at is where the Choco factory is. It's was done by Isaac Stoen in 1600. And if you
look at the history of this site, you can see that it was, you know, ship building, carpenters, all kinds of activity. And now it's just, you know, it's not it's very much underutilized as they would say. >> Ron, I see your hand is up. >> Hi, thanks. Um, this sounds like a great
project and I think everything you explained is super helpful. So, thank you for that. I just had a question. Are there other projects that would be deprioritized in order to do this one? Because this one sounds like a very, you know, it's a big project. It's going to have a lot of
cost over 15 years. Do we have to, what are we sacrificing to do this? That's just my my question for for just background. Thank you. I think like at least this for this funding round this year we we funded all of the applicants
that came before our board. Um and then I don't do you guys do you know what the hit would be on a yearly basis? >> We have well we we have a sort of an estimate that it could be you know that something like 727,000
out of the million whatever that we get will be paid for this debt. We have in fact one the first year when Rob was chair of the CPC we did have the fire station people come to us um actually for this building um but that we couldn't fund it because it had already
been included in the budget um but we know that the Athetherton is going to be an ask potentially in the future and we have we talked about this on the committee and we believe that we have the funds to make if that's bonded as well we would be able to cover um
historic preservation costs for the island. So we have talked about that um you know when Laura was chair and when Jenny has been on the leadership of the community preservation committee um we have talked about the fact that if this was a huge impact and we do not believe that I
>> I mean in terms of a percentage it's probably six or 7% of our budget right on a yearly basis for you know for the next depending on what the bond long term it's if it's 15 years or whatever that's what that's what it would be but granted everything also is increasing yearbyear right as well Um, you know, we
expect the CPC receipts will continue to grow as well. >> No, it's a great question and it was it certainly occurred to us. It was like, oh, is this going to sink us? And, um, because of the spread out nature of the payment of it, it won't. In fact, we could consider other bonds as other towns have in the past
>> at the same time. Yeah, I guess that's the benefit of the bond that you pay over time, but it does lock us into a really long like almost a generation of folks will be paying or 15 years of 80 grand is a a big commitment.
So, it all makes sense to me. I just, you know, wanted to know if we had thought through opportunity cost. Thank you. >> Y >> I mean, I'll say unfortunately Mr. Milano just stepped out of the room. But I'll say but we have a finance professor here. So maybe you can agree or disagree with me. >> Oh no. I mean
>> Well, what I was about to say was a generation will be paying for this park. A generation will be enjoying this park. So the town will pay for it over the time that the town enjoys it. That appeals to me. I don't Brian, I see your hand is up.
>> It wasn't, but I actually do have question. Okay. >> Oh, just Yeah, I'll just go um quickly. So, it was basically the same question. Where does the money go instead of bonds? Um, and this, like you said, this will just be paying up paying it down. Nick can help us with the detail, but
I'm assuming that the that this bonding isn't going to push up against our limits or change our credit rating at all. >> No, we asked Johanna that question when she came before us and the answer was no. >> Perfect. Okay. I trust her >> because it has a dedicated stream. >> It has a dedicated I mean bond, right? I
get it. Yeah. Yeah. >> So it's a it doesn't increase the risk on the part of the >> Right. Right. >> Yep. Perfect. Thank you. >> I just I just I mean I just have one question. Um totally on the side. How
large is that land? >> I don't Let's see. The diameter was like 60 feet maybe in the circle. >> What do you think? I think that was why do I think that No, I don't even think it's an acre. >> It's not even an >> Yeah,
>> my guess is it's Yeah, it's a small park. >> Um it's it's probably less than an acre. I I don't >> No, I think that's I think it's I thought wasn't it something like 12,000 square feet something like that. >> Is it in the specs? >> Probably
>> but it's not very big. Well, first see what it >> just it just looks like the whole if you look at the whole picture looks like a large piece of property. What am I missing? >> Where the farmers market is if you have a >> and um and the idea is that it would be
linked up to the steps that come down from Adam Street. Um uh we 88 warf has participated in the u public outreach and has said >> yeah actually this is perfect that you see go back to that last one >> you see the steps that come off Adams so
that's the steps down and then you'll see the new steps that just kind of lead down to the park >> so it's going >> so this will be much more conducive for the for the farmers market so they could set up their stalls around around the
the hard surface there. Um, and so we'll just be much more accessible for folks. >> So, of course, it's not only going to be used for the farmers market. There was a lot of interest in other programming. the arts community was interested in it concerts,
>> um different kinds of gatherings and connecting to um to the to the water and a way to get people, you know, more on the water, by the water, um walking it through the water, on top of the water. >> Um
>> um how long will it take to do the construction? And I'm thinking like will it like hinder access to the site? That is a good question. >> That's a good question. Um I I obviously it's going to take some time. I think they're moving earthwork and such. My
guess would be any anywhere between like eight months or to a year or something like that. >> They're going to start sort of preconstruction because the funds won't be available until the start of the fiscal year after July 1st. >> And so I think they were thinking that they would be starting to do site prep
and stuff like that in September. >> Yeah. But Nick may remember, >> but that's also assuming that they have other. >> Yeah, >> right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so I guess >> but Nick might remember what construction >> schedule
July, September, something like that. Um, and then I get, you know, I think the farmers market would have to find obviously an alternative temporary space. >> Yeah. Temporary space or something. >> And that East Milton Square location would be the perfect spot, >> right?
>> I'm happy with it. >> Right. All right. Yeah. Someone's got to get used to this space, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. We're at 7:25. Uh, I'll ask, you know, I'll look around the room figuratively and literally. members
have other questions? Do we have other things? I guess I'll I'll phrase it as, you know, we're not going to be voting on this one tonight, I don't think. So, if we're voting on it next Monday, do we have questions that we need answered to
form our decision next Monday? >> Is it I haven't seen the language on it. I haven't looked at the annuals. So, I guess that's probably in the emails, right? >> Uh yeah, it's in We have an old version of the warrant. We I'm looking at Nick. We'll probably get an updated version of
the warrant between now and next Monday. >> Almost certainly. Um I mean I'll I could pull up >> this is the current one. >> Okay, great. Awesome. >> Uh Ron, you recognize >> Can we just get Can we get a little more detail on the the analysis of the tree
just in case I I think it sounds like it's going to die at some point. Is it >> years or so? We we got a report back from from Doug Hunt um which basically said the the tree is diseased. So over
10 or 15 years we we believe the tree will will come down regardless. So the the landscape architect >> who who >> obviously loves trees. he's actually on on the uh tree committee for the town. Um looked at this as like saying listen
this is a this is a big investment for the town and he sees this park as being a century old you know uh >> park to plan. Yeah. And so that's the reason why they decided that the tree the tree should come down um for for
this circular >> it was yeah a larger commitment to the park. We have a letter that we are happy to share with you from November 18th. >> Um and he said that um the tree dropped a large limb about five years ago and it has not dropped any limbs since. But
when he went to to look at that limb um he found some rot where the back 30% of the tree fell off years ago. Um and he felt that there was definitely rot inside that we cannot see. So the chances of the tree falling over are very slight. Chances of a large limb
breaking off at this part of the tree increase every year due to this rot that we cannot see. And of course the roots um the raised roots pose a serious tripping and hazard. >> Right. >> Is it okay if I share a Google map you >> sure? >> Yeah sure. I I mean that's one of the
big issues today. If you just if anyone goes out to this park you'll see the root system is just all exposed. So that that poses a big challenge. >> This is a picture from Google Maps. So to understand this one in front sort of the sparse
>> I would say sparse limbs >> is the one that's coming down and the one in the back I don't know if can you see my be maintaining >> so the beach tree in the back stays the it's the red oak in the front and um it's estimated to be about 150 years old
>> but I but I believe as a part of this project too there will be new plantings as well right >> yeah we don't know where we don't know where we don't know if there's 50 years old. I looked at the atlas from it's not there. >> It's old, but maybe not.
>> Not that old. >> Yeah. >> Hey, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm sure that will be discussed at town meeting and we try to we want to flesh out any issues that are going to come before town meeting before they do. >> Yeah. >> So, shall we leave his letter with or do you want it emailed or
>> Please email it. >> Okay. >> Yes. Please include Karen WC clerk and Karen can forward it to everybody. >> Thank you very that's very helpful. >> Can I just ask one more question? Are we getting the list of the other we vote going to be voting on the other expenditures?
>> Yeah, you will. You'll you'll have that. So there'll be three CPC articles before >> one for the budget, one for the actual recommendations we're making which are 11 this year. >> Okay. Great. and then as far >> so yeah Ryan in my view and we'll have
Cecilele and Ron both to discuss this next Monday in my view you know discussing at length I mean they have a pot of money that's theirs discussing at length every project that they're going to spend the pot of money on >> I didn't think was a good use of around this table
you may disagree >> it's unfortunate because under what our experts >> we make the recommendations to town meeting >> and Um, nobody gets to change those represations >> under this statute.
>> Oh, we don't get to no matter what. We wouldn't. Even if we wanted to change it, we couldn't. >> It's all up. So, Oh. Oh, up or down. Okay. >> And you know, that's why we have our experts Ron and Cecil looked into those and they'll be talking recommendations on the warrant. >> Ron and Cecil do them. They've they've
Yep. that I mean that that being said the CPC will be pulled out separately and and they will present the town meeting the the the separate project >> it won't be on the consent agenda >> because we like to have we feel it's important to have the opportunity to explain to the town meeting members what
we are spending their money on >> and so it won't we've pulled it all the time from the consent for that reason. So one exception or difference to this is that uh this particular warrant will require twothirds of vote >> because
>> of the bonding. >> So we'll see how that goes. >> Okay. Is the strike of 7:30. >> I appreciate your time. >> You answered our questions. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much for coming. >> Thank you for listening. Feel free to be in touch if you have any other questions before Monday.
>> So I will ask our schools visitors to indulge me for just a minute. I'll get to talk about scheduling over the next uh week or so. Let me share my screen. >> Not from beginning. Okay. So, this is what I'm seeing for
the schedule for the next week, two week, this week and next week. Tonight we're discussing the community preservation committee and schools. So when I look at what's open and left to do, there's the signs bylaw. We've discussed that. So next Monday will be a
big meeting for us. We'll discuss the signs bylaw and vote on it. Uh CPC articles will vote on them. The capital budget, we'll hear from our capital ex our representative on the capital committee. We'll vote on that. And then I'll say the overall budget. It'll be a big meeting next week because we'll have
Mr. Milano presenting the overall budget to us and you know we'll discuss how everything fits together and I'm I'm putting here a vote on key items. Now I realize it's a lot to say. We're going to be voting on or we're going to be considering the whole budget in one
meeting. uh we'll be getting things in front of people before that night obviously and we've had all of our experts since December if not earlier looking into the budget looking into what's been requested we've got you know recommendations from Mr. Milano. So, I
think we're going to be discussing big items like use of free cash, things like that. When I say vote on key items, I think there will be certain things, you know, probably the use of free cash, how we allocate to uh various stabilization funds, maybe the school's budget that I think will be important
for everybody to vote on. And then when you when you look at the warrant, you'll see easily 25 articles that they're important. Most of them are budget articles. Some of them are articles saying yes, the treasur can open an account this year. Some of them
are articles saying the sewer people can use the sewer budget this year. They're important. They're, you know, mostly budget articles, but I don't think they're things that will require a lot of discussion around this table. will do the discussion on the 23rd. But when it comes to voting,
I'm not looking forward to having 30 roll call votes. So when I say vote a palooa on Thursday, what I'm imagining is an in-person meeting with at least eight people. So we have a quorum and we've all decided everything, but instead of having 30 different roll call
votes, we all show up in person. We have 30 votes by boy vote bo by voice. I'm thinking less than an hour. Uh so that's what I'm seeing for the next two weeks.
Thoughts, concerns? >> Just just to get things just to get the information in advance because I hate getting information the same night trying to digest and having fun. >> Okay. Uh specifically, I mean, there's the overall budget. >> If there's changes in the articles like to see that the new updated
>> Okay. I mean, there's the big budget. uh signs. I don't know if there's gonna be changes. Um >> yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. >> After Monday, we'll have the budget that we can look at to make a decision for Thursday or >> No, before Monday, we'll have the budget. Monday is, you know, we we'll
have something in our email box before Monday. On Monday, Mr. Milano will present his overview of the whole budget. If there are things that we might be making decisions on, we'll discuss and make those decisions and even vote on critical ones that require decisions.
>> We should have some time, Brian, if we get it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'll He keeps keeps escaping the room at the right time. Um I don't know. He might be able to send us a budget tomorrow. I I don't know exactly where
he stands, but I think so. Okay. any questions? Okay. Uh on this same note, before I turn it over to our friends from the schools, um I would like to just sort of frame the discussion for tonight. It's it's the same sort of thing people
have heard me say before. Uh you know, this is one of my favorite quotes from the Department of Revenues Review of Milton. Now, this is from 2013, but it took us a while to get the strong town administrator. It took us a while to find our feet on the warrant committee. One of my favorite quotes from the
report is the warrant committee should not focus on the minutiae of individual department budgets, but rather reviewing major spending priorities, use of free cash of the reserves, the development of fiscal policies. >> That's what I've been thinking of this year when thinking what do we look at? What is you know what is our role to
review and what is you know too fine grain for us to review. Uh when it comes to the administration of the schools, by definition, the administration of the schools is the job of the school administration and the school administration is overseen by the elected school committee. People of
Milton voted for six people who are overseeing the school administration. Uh and it everyone most people in this room have heard me say this multiple times. It makes me think of my analogy with the fire department. you know, previous years on the warrant committee, the fire chief comes in and we love talking to
the fire chief. We could ask him about fire trucks. We could ask him, "Do you really have a poll? We could ask him all sorts of things for hours, but it's not the best use of our time around here." Similarly, you know, we could all talk to the school administration and the school committee for at least an hour,
each one of us, about what we think about how the schools are run and what about this and what about that. I'm trying to keep things efficient, focused on the big picture of the budget. I will say there are members of this warrant committee who said to me last summer, Jay, I will be on the warrant committee
if you promise to keep it efficient and that we don't ask nitpicky things going into details that really aren't our concern. So, that was a promise I made to get people to join the warrant committee. And I'd like to stand up to it. Um, but then what is our job? We're
not we're not a bump on a log. We have a reason to be here. So our job, we present the total budget town meeting and justify why our recommendation is appropriate. If we're recommending X million for the schools, no more, no
less. We we as a whole and me as the person receiving arrows and fat books at the front of the town meeting have to justify why we think this is the right number. No, it may very well may be the same number that that town administrator
suggests, but we still have justified. This is why we think the number is correct. Uh it is prudent for us to do a review of large budget drivers. What's really driving the budget? What's the total increase? And then high level financial issues regarding the town. This is something that I think the
warrant committee should present to town meeting. I maybe I shouldn't have only given one example, but one example is why are we having layoffs a year after passing an override? That's a relevant financial question from the town. That's a relevant thing for us to address. So hopefully I've covered you know what's
it's it's not a it's not a clear line. It's not a clear line what's in our role and what's not in our role. But hopefully that sets the stage of our discussion. So I would like to invite anyone and everyone who would wish to come to the table school administration. I will also say and I'm sure you'll say
the same thing. The chair of the school committee is on vacation with her family. I talked to her for over an hour today. She maybe uh I noticed Val from the school committee is on here. >> Sure. >> Okay.
>> She hasn't accepted the promotion, but maybe if she hears us, she will. >> That's fine. >> And I'm not sure who Zoom Zoom is. If that's a chair, she can just raise her hand. >> Okay. Okay. Um either way, she was wanted me to convey to you that it is not out of
disrespect of the warrant committee that she's not here. Um I think I think goes without saying, but she asked me to convey it anyway. >> Okay, great. So take it away. >> Great.
>> Oh, can you introduce yourselves? Uh start. >> Yes. >> Hi, my name is John. from the interim superintendent of the Milton public schools. >> Lizzie Carroll, member of the school committee. >> Mark Luring, member of the school committee. >> Nathan Hutto, member of the school
committee. >> Katie Blake, assistant superintendent for finance and operations. >> Uh, thank you all so much for being here tonight. Uh, as we get started, just want to take a moment to thank, uh, the subcommittee, uh, Elaine, Lorraine, Julia for spending some time with us,
attending some of our meetings. probably too many of the meetings for their liking, but um just all the the kind of back and forth and ability to kind of bounce things off of them was very helpful. So really really appreciate their time. Uh also just want to make thank my fellow uh finance committee members on the school committee
especially as we talk about the development of this budget, Amanda and Nathan because we spend a lot of time meet every week on on the budget stuff since um September. And so I really appreciate that and obviously all the work that John Katie and a lot of people at the school department do to put this
together to run our schools every year and to put together budget every year. There are a lot of people involved. um not to discount obviously the role of all the other school committee members as well. Sorry. Uh and so uh just a lot of people involved in this because I really appreciate that. I'm start
um we shared these slides uh to Brian's point unfortunately it was just today because we were finishing some um some final changes. So apologies but this is the agenda we're going to kind of go through. Hopefully this will hit on most of your um your questions things you're looking for and then we'll certainly have time at the end for questions.
I'll pass on to John. Sure. As we normally do, we like to celebrate some of the things that are happening in the Milton public schools related to student achievements. Um I don't want to read to this group. I know you have the slides in front of you, but we have a really lot of good stuff happening um in the
Milton public schools. uh things that are based in our new business classes, things that are based in our debate teams, future problem solving teams that uh compete statewide, uh science olympiads in our echo literature and journalism group as well as our robotics
team. So all good academic based activities where our students uh from K through 12 are competing across the state. Uh very excited to to give those achievements to you very recently as of this past Sunday morning. Uh, next slide, please. We had our state champs
uh girls hockey team won the state championship. This is the first hockey team uh from Milton public schools to win a championship. It's wonderful to be there. The town showed up uh not just parents and students uh but community members from all ages. So, we're very
thankful that in the same weekend last weekend, we had our theater program uh finish uh in the semi-finals to get ready for the finals theater competition in Boston next week. and we also had our robotics team perform at the state finals on Sunday. So, a lot of good news
in recent news to report as well. And then additional highlights are just things that are going on in our schools every day uh that students are taking part in. Um we really want to emphasize that the Milton public schools are a great place to send your children to school. We're thankful that our parents
send us great students. Uh we have wonderful teachers that challenge students every day and uh and we get great outcomes from them and they have great experiences. So, uh, that goes a long way. So, when we think about why our budgeting is important, uh, it funds all the stuff that we're seeing on the
screen and obviously all the teaching all the teaching and learning that takes place uh, during our 180 days of school. Uh, again, more great highlights. Uh, what you see in the bottom right hand corner is Sparrow. That's our famous theater program that competed this past
weekend that will be in the state finals. They actually won the state finals last year. was very impressive. They're a great group. Uh and obviously we have plays that are going on from elementary to middle and high. And we have some good work being done at our schools uh related to art in our schools
and music in our schools months over the last few months uh in each of our schools. Great. Uh so again, always want to start with the the why. This is all about kind of the opportunities and the experiences we provide to the the kids of the community. Uh and so now we'll kind of dive into some of the numbers that
support that. Uh so some of these slides are ones that we shared previously when we came in front of you all back in I think it was October uh to try and kind of lay out um overall kind of the budget process. Uh as we talked about then education funding for Milton public schools involves a wide kind of number
of different accounts. Um the the largest one being district operating budget and that's what we're here in front of you tonight. Right? That is the Warren article is the allocation by the town uh for that line. And so that that's a really important piece uh of how we fund and operate our budget.
Um the different components are kind of all of these things which again we we shared back in October, but salaries are obviously uh 81% of our overall budget. So that's a really big cost driver. We'll talk about more later on in the presentation. We've talked about previously mandated expenses. There are a lot of things
within schools that you know we we cannot choose whether or not to do. We must provide them. There are laws, regulations uh around this and statutes that that require things uh obviously inflation adjustments, revenue offsets. These are all things that kind of come into play when we're developing our
budget. Uh the next piece which um Jay hit on a little bit is again we always think about our roles and responsibilities, the the superintendent, the school department versus the school committee, like what what are the roles we have? So again, we talked about this in October, but our school committee from our
standpoint, we really try and look at overall policies and guidelines. We set the strategic priorities and directions. Uh, and the superintendent and his team kind of um, you know, make recommendations on how they're going to carry that out. They implement that on the dayto-day basis. They kind of create staffing structures and organizational
systems that that try and achieve those goals. And so that's that's kind of how we balance the things. Um, obviously the budget uh that key point at the bottom that that Katie shared kind of back in October, but budget is a policy document. It is reflective kind of how how we are trying to achieve our
priorities as a district. And so we always try and keep that in mind as we develop the budget year. This is just a flowchart we've shared previously u from MASBO um the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials on just what is a
good budget process. So we we really have worked hard over the last few years to refine the budget process within the school committee uh collaboration with other boards and really have a a good process and good communication with with our families and with the town as a whole. Um
one of those things which we shared back in October was the original calendar. This calendar obviously did not happen in the way we wanted to. So apologize that we we presented this to you uh back then. We are uh working collaboratively with the school uh sorry select board to try and refine the calendar for next
year. We know we are here in March. We were hoping to be here with you in February. So I know that the pressure that puts on your time with all the other things you're putting in in uh place and all the other things you're talking about such as the CDC. Um so we we hope to do better next year. Uh but this is the current calendar kind of of
what we have worked through the conversations we've had both with this board with other boards. uh it it doesn't obviously include every single meeting that the finance subcommittee meeting has had or all the internal meetings that John and Katie have had with members but it tries to hit on some of the the high notes of kind of what
has happened when how did all those sequences come into place. So um hopefully that that's information you are familiar with but just wanted to share it for the context. Uh and the last thing we wanted to just remind folks of is this is kind of what
we also talked about in October was we really started from a place of what is our budget philosophy for this year? What are we trying to accomplish? And so these were the four goals we shared back in October that we have tried to stick to as we um you know work through the es and flows of the budget cycle whether it
was um creating one that we thought was a level service budget whether it was responding to different revenue gaps. uh these are things we still try and keep in mind every time we made a decision and appreciate John and Katie's leadership in kind of uh doing that. So the first is that long-term budget sustainability. That's something we
talked about last year during an override process and obviously some of the challenges we experienced within last year's school department budget. Uh that that is a primary um driving force for us as we worked through this budget cycle. uh strengthening tier one instruction and just to name tier one instruction is kind of the the first
level of instruction as you think about it like a pyramid. It's kind of the baseline instruction provided to all students within the classroom space, right? As strong as that is means that it supports more students and kind of meeting grade level standards. And that we want to make sure that is really strong, a solid foundation upon which
you build every other support that you need to provide to students around differentiation, special education, those things. Those all sit on the bed of strong tier one instruction. So that that is always something that we focus on and wanted to highlight within the budget. uh addressing student learning
gaps uh is something we need to do. We need to meet kids where they are and find ways to do that. And we want to improve district school classroom kind of climate and culture. We want to make sure kids are getting to school, they're enjoying their time at school, so their attendance is high, that families feel connected to our schools. Uh all those
things we know the research shows that that leads to stronger academic outcomes for kids if they are invested and their families are invested in the school community. Uh we'll now kind of talk about our allocation and final proposed budget. >> Yep.
>> Um so first of all I want to say that the school department is very thankful for the FY27 allocation of 75,613,973. We believe that we can provide a robust program for our school children with that budget. So, thank you very much to
the town and to the Warren Committee that revenue that meets our our budget needs for next year. Uh, after we've gone through some a series of uh discussions of how to expend that, we feel like we were putting a good budget forward for next year. So, we're thankful. Um the slide that you're
looking at right now uh shows that the town is providing the school department with an additional $2,740,60 which is a 3.7 7 3.76% increase over last year's FY26 budget. The Milton Public Schools uh for FY27 is
one uh the budget for the schools is $1,49,000 less than level service. uh less than level service budget can result in reductions in staff or reduction in operation lines, non- salary lines uh in potentially increase in fees. And we can
let you know uh to not bury the headline. All three of those things have happened during this budget transition from FY26 to FY27. Uh during these last few months, we've been talking about budgets for the following years um being at 3% as we
look at our revenue projections and potential expense projections. uh with the town and we really just want to focus on the discussion that we be we'll be having over the next several months about uh the potential of the school's expenses only increasing by 3% a year
which we feel uh would not be sustainable in order to provide a high quality education that our school parents and educators are used to providing every day. Um we're investing in FY27 in several things that we feel very very good
about. will invest in target areas uh uh to further budget goals and strengthening our district leadership around teaching and learning, expanding our investments uh in teacher collaboration, additional target investments and resources at the Tucker School. We provided some of those uh
enhancements this year and will continue to do so next year. Uh continue to professionalize the HR department um to support the ongoing needs of our staff um which we feel is very important. a good staff uh will provide uh the exceptional teaching and learning in our
classrooms and also working very hard and the target goal within the HR department in our DEIB committee uh to uh diversify our hiring process and diversify our staff. Um and also another culture and climate issue would be making sure that we have sufficient
transportation uh to provide all of our students. at the beginning of this year uh with the loss of a bus last year into this coming school year. We had a number of middle school and high school students who were were not able to access the bus. Uh so we made some temporary changes and got creative. Uh but we want to be able to provide an
additional bus which we have increased fees for uh and also have allocated money in the FY27 budget. um the balance to balance the FY27 budget needs uh and cuts with maintaining a long-term budget stability plan moving forward. That's
our goal is to create a stability uh from a financial perspective for the building public schools. Um just to just talk about some of those investments uh specifically and and connect them to our budget priority area. Uh we are increasing the uh
assistant superintendent for teaching and learning who provides all the professional development curriculum works with our principles and all of our curriculum directors and is the uh one person in charge of all things that are teaching and learning. That was a part-time position and we're looking to make that a full-time position. Uh that
point4 increase is a $72,000 increase in salary and to connect it to one of our budget priority areas absolutely strengthens our tier one instruction and addresses the student learning gaps that we have seen over the past few years that we are urgently addressing as we
speak. We also would like to increase grade level facilitators. These are teachers that get stipens to actually work within their grade level uh with their grade level peers in order to carry out all the curriculum work and all the assessment work. Um so there is one grade level facilitator in each of
the grades at each one of the elementary schools. This is uh was formerly a $600 stipen to do work with staff all year long and we're raising that to $1,000 statement. not very much money for a very big lever of gate for the amount of
uh curriculum and collaboration that we see those roles having with our staff. That's incredibly important uh to the classroom that we're focusing on where the teaching and learning happens. Um we also increased the team share this year at the Tucker School in order to address some of the achievement gaps. uh we will
continue to keep that added point two which is one more day of work for that individual uh to support strengthening tier one instruction and addressing the learning gaps as well. Uh that has been a very good model. The grade level facilitators and the team chair have been able to support very good work in
the Tucker this year. Um we also will be adding uh 8.4 HR uh position that will make that position a 1.0. We currently had a part-time person in that role this year. Uh and we would like to make that
full-time. Um this is a very important um part of our administrative team. Uh there's a lot of work being done with our unions, with all of our staff uh with the hiring and um all the different aspects of HR for a company or an organization of over 600 employees needs
an HR professional. And also, as I spoke to earlier, we will add a district-wide bus uh in order to make sure that our grades 6 through 12 students get to school safely. Uh they will pay a fee to ride that bus and that will offset the cost of the budget. Uh but it's very
important that we offer uh to increase the culture and climate. Uh we had some very serious concerns at the beginning of the year from parents who really expressed desire to make sure that that bus was in the budget and we wanted to follow through. I'm not committed to those fees.
Um, a quick summary of the FY27 budget. Uh, last year we had a budget uh, in FY26 of 72,873,913. The allocation for FY27 will be $75,613,973. That's a net increase of $2,740,60.
Um the cost of the uh school level service budget that we put forward back in the fall uh would have been an increase of 3,789,44348. Uh we have engaged some of our budget priority investments to add an additional $279,000
this and we have reduced positions uh in order to meet the total number of our budget. uh those positions in the reduction in a dollar amount is $711,137,000. Uh there are offsets to that of $56,000 for position cuts and other operating
cuts where we're reducing some non- salary items to the tune of $673,84648. So we're balanced out uh at our budget increase of $2,740,000. Any questions about anything we talked about so far before we get into budget
drivers? >> One question. Sure. >> The position reductions are are they positions that people are actually in or ones that haven't been filled and will not be? >> Great question. They're both. Uh >> Mary, can you speak up a bit? It's hard
to hear on on Zoom. >> Okay. >> Sorry. I was just wondering if the um um reductions were people in those positions um or positions that were open and not filled. >> So, we had open and unfilled positions
during the current school year that we're in. Some of those positions will remain unfilled and actually eliminated uh for the upcoming school year of FY27. And then some of those positions are actually uh currently filled by professionals that will be given um
nonrenew uh termination uh papers come April. >> Uh can I ask the bus? Will everybody be covered now on bus service? >> Uh I can't determine how many folks are going to take the bus next year, but I think that the capacity that we'll provide will meet the need of the folks
that signed up on time last year. Uh there were some folks on a list that signed up late or during the year that may have not got on. I'm not sure if the extra bus will handle that layer of the list, but we believe that we can meet the need that we had this year uh of all folks who signed up on time.
>> Um in terms of reduction in force total positions, how many are you? >> Um >> 6.9 >> 6.9 positions. >> That's FTE. equals 700,000. >> Okay. Thank you.
So cost drivers, what's behind some of the costs that we uh endure the schools? First and foremost, uh our overall salary line is increasing by 3.72% uh in the FY27 budget. this percent is reduced in the FY uh 27 budget due to
the positions that we that we cut. So it's a combination of uh the reductions in FTE uh with the rollover of our staff. The FY27 level service budget would have represented a 5.62% uh increase in salaries. Uh the exact salary increase change year to year
based upon the tenure of our staff, retention rates, continuing education work the staff uh is engaged in in negotiated caller uh changes from one contract to another. We are currently negotiating our next three-year contract as we speak.
When you look at some of the desi categories of our budget in the FY27 form, uh I'll let this uh speak for itself, but you can see the majority of our uh budget in the pie chart above is professional salaries, administrative and clerical salaries. Um we then have
uh other services, contracted services, supplies and materials and other expenses. So that's basically our breakdown and you can see the table on top and the pie chart on the bottom. Can I ask in well where I know special education is a large cost driver. Where
would that fit in number one? Would that fit in number four? >> It's in all of them. >> All of them. >> So that um object code is just breaking um the budget down between salaries and the categories and the salaries and then
general expenses. But special education is allocated between all object codes. >> Thank you very much. >> Uh cost drivers and salaries. Uh teachers salaries are collectively bargained. We're doing so right now with
the Milton Educators Association. Uh the Milton Milton uh educators association and the Milton public schools and the school committee uh engage in the same process of all public schools across the state. Um and the teachers are get increased in compensation through three
avenues. Uh one is additional experience as a teacher moves up and down the pay scale of step steps and lanes. Uh the lanes are the educational part of that that chart that is pretty consistent across all public school systems across the state of Massachusetts and quite
frankly nationally. And during collective bargaining adjustments are made to the salary tables typically increasing steps uh with the cost of living adjustment to keep the compensation competitive. Uh this structure of compensation is standard and meant to compete with uh other um districts and towns so we can retain
high quality staff. Cost drivers that aren't related to salary. Uh transportation is going up by 8% next year. Uh that's not just the bus. That's actually the the bus and the expected increase for our transportation. I'm looking at Katie to
make sure that that's accurate. 8% um is the contractual increase for each one of the buses >> is 8%. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Um so even if it didn't we didn't add the bus, we'd still have an 8% based on the 10 buses that we've already provided. >> Excuse me.
>> Does that include the fuel search charge or is that estimated out or >> um the fuel search charge is budgeted but it is not a part of the 8% contractual increase. time question.
>> Uh, special education costs are also going up annually at rates higher than the standard inflation. Uh, special ed contracted services will go up by an estimated 12.72% in FY27 and special education out of district tuition will go up by 12.27
uh in FY27. Tuition rates are set by the state. We don't have control over those rates and we can't bid those rates. Uh and we also have increased space at the Coney Polycott. Please note that there's a capital program going on in the Coney Polycott that is taking uh the library and making it into offices and
classrooms which is in place right now thankfully to the T from the town's revenue and the school committee's leadership and we are now uh working on the library in summer of 26 that library space will be available for all students qualified for next school year.
I ask two questions. I think two questions. One is the special ed cost. I was looking at a earlier version of the budget from probably January. And just going off memory, the special ed total cost was approximately a third
of the total budget. The total budget in the ballpark of 75 million and special ed costs in the ballpark of 25. Am I did I understand that correctly? Am I remembering correctly? >> I don't know the breakdown. I can get the breakdown for you. It sounds um I
don't know the exact number but >> it it's a sizable portion of the school budget. Exact the exact amount I'm not sure but it is a sizable portion of the budget. >> So you have you have to contract with them because of the state. The state
says you have to contract with SPED SBD and you >> sped is a acronym for special education. So it's there multiple different outofd district placements. There are multiple different schools and programs that kids go to based upon their individualized needs. The tuition to each of those schools varies by the school and the
program that the kid needs and is it a day placement? Is it an overnight placement? Things like that. Uh severity of disability, do they require onetoone services when they're on-site? All those things vary in terms of what the tuition is. But the tuition rate for those programs are bid at the state level.
They don't bid out. They don't negotiate with individual districts. The state manages that and so they set the rates. So we have no ability to tell providers. >> You have to do that. >> It provides certified vendors for for otherwise we won't get reimbured for certain costs.
>> The schools that we use have to be approved by the state and the state sets the increase. And then annually we'll get letters from each one of those schools that says what their increase has been approved by the state. They let us know individually. So we just received one of those letters today. They let us know that they went through the process to get their rate increased
and that they inform us of what the increase will be based on the state's um regulations. >> One question on where does Milton sit in terms of other school districts in terms of the need for a special education? Are we higher? Like where does that I I
think if we look at our total population, I think we're relatively average in the amount of students who are on IEPs. uh and I would say over the it's if in in comparison to my previous work in other districts our out of district population is actually a little lower. So the meaning the number of
students that we send out to get services that they deserve is a little lower because I think we provide a lot of good services within the public schools. Uh we have wonderful programming in Milton that has allowed uh not only us to service those students um without sending them out of district
but they get to be with their peers, they get to be with their neighbors and and that's where they want to be. So, we've really been working. I think the district prior to my arrival worked very hard and very successfully in making sure that the programming that we have within our six schools uh can service those folks to keep those children in
schools. >> Do we think that population is going to stay stable coming up for the next couple of like years or is it going to increase? Any sense for that? I you know the these these determinations are made at the team meeting that they have at the school that's based on the participants of that meeting the parents the teachers and the uh administration
at the school um where I think we could look backwards to find out what that percentage looks like but I I I don't see any bigger increase happening I don't I don't I don't have any data on that right now. Uh >> so >> I can share some historical stuff. So this is a slide we put together I think
maybe even shared last year committee. Um these comparison districts are one set by um by Desi. They're called our comparison districts based on size population. So you can just see SY15 versus SY 24 that 10ear kind of window uh you know what it started at what it
ended at. So you can see Milton's down there. We started pretty low at 13.34 and SY 24 we were 18.58. I think within the current year we're 17.8. We're down a little bit off of that 18.58. Uh but obviously that is a a significant
increase kind of over that over that 10-y year period. Um >> is that millions of dollars? I'm I'm >> No, no, no. This is this is percentage of students. Sorry, this is not dollars. This is kids. >> 18%. >> So 18, but again we're a little under
18% for this current year. Um this is a different slide that shows just change of total number of students based upon total number of kids uh times the number of or percent of special education students. So that's why it's point kids um how it's changed over time. And again
you can kind of see that line line jumping up. We've kind of plateaued here right around kind of the 750 um number of students. Obviously that this line is dependent upon your total number of students uh and also by that rate. So uh obviously Milton has grown during this
time and our rate has increased and the the lower line the orange line is you know when asking about what that that's ELLL students English language learners uh that's also a population that has significantly increased uh since you know 20 years ago and so those are those
are two selected population enrolled. So it looks like it's sort of stabilizing coming. >> Yeah. Over the last I mean our district you know enrollment overall over the last about five years has somewhat plateaued. Uh and so you know special education rate has done something
similar over since you know spiked postcoid since co has somewhat plateaued dipped again a little bit um since 24. Um rates are similar. >> Can I ask this please? Sorry question.
The um out of district going up by 12% for next year. I shouldn't speak off the cuff, but what was it two years ago? It was somewhere class in case of emergency freak out. It led to you know end of year. I mean that that seemed like it was a
big problem and that was much high. So what is the out of district as what is what is the out of district inflation usually? Is 12 extraordinarily high? Is that gonna >> I I don't know how to say my question
but few years ago we had something in the teens and that caused a huge problem. Part of that was budgeting, right? Those were costs that were being incurred within the current year and the budget had not been set to acrue those and they had to go to the circuit breaker account to cover the costs that
they did not budget for and there was not enough money in the circuit breaker to do so. Uh so I again that was prior that was a year prior to my coming here. Uh and so I I can't totally speak for it. Two things that drive the percent increase is percent of students who
require those services. The types of services those students require can change in addition to the tuition. So this isn't uh this the out of district tuition isn't 100% caused just by the number set by the state but also if there are particular needs that have
grown uh across students that number would also as a percent of our overall budget would also increase. >> Thank you. So, are you saying we already know what the FY27 costs will be for district placements? >> At any given moment, anyone anyone can move into town and have a student that
needs special that needs special uh education out of district placement, let's say, and we haven't budgeted for it because we wouldn't know. >> I follow that. What I meant was for a student who we know who they are and we know they'll be here next year and we know what their needs will be.
>> Do we know what the state is going to charge for inflation next year? Yes. >> All the rates ra the rates at best schools. >> Yes. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You made a good point, Ela. I just that was >> Yeah. I mean, in some ways there's you
can plan based on past years and and do the kind of work that the school committee clearly has done, but there's always that um that situation where you you just haven't you haven't planned for it. You
just don't know. So, yeah. which is a great segue. Okay, >> so uh the Milton public school circuit breaker utilization uh circuit breaker is a an amount of money that we uh use
to fund most of our out of district placement. Uh there's three uh revenue sources that go into paying for most of our out of district placements which is federal um uh which comes in the the uh way of a grant uh circuit breaker money
from the state and then local uh local revenue that we get from our budget from the town. Um and as Elaine pointed out we we want to make sure that we have uh funds available for anything that may happen in a year. So, if you look at this chart that we have on the right
hand side, uh after working with the school committee uh throughout the fall, talking about wanting to make sure that we don't end this year, this FY26 year, the same way we started, if you look up in the highlighted, we started the year with $8,712
in that account. Um that is that is extremely low. Our our circuit breaker reimbursement in FY26 is $3.5 million. So we have been trying to gauge how much to use out of our federal, local, and
circuit breaker money in order to be strategic about saving towards a balance of somewhere around 75% of our traditional circuit breaker reimbursement each year. So that that that number is roughly around $2.7
million. So, we took a journey of saying that over four years, we'd like to be able to each year use a certain portion of our circuit breaker and then hold back a certain portion to pay our bills to make sure that we're giving students what they need, but also, you know,
creating our own savings account just in case to um to uh Mark's description of a few years ago and to Elaine's point about could happen at any time. This is that flexible account that if there is an extraordinary circumstance, this is the lever that we use in order to make
sure that we don't impact the general fund budget uh that we can handle this within the Milton public schools budget. So, as you can see, I think originally we wanted to have a three-year plan to get up to that 2.7. We heard feedback from uh from folks like Jay and the select board and
others. Do you have to go that fast? Can you slow that process down? can you use some of those funds to to support the operating costs that we're seeing some reductions in this year? And so we did that. We actually we reduced how much we were putting away. We stretched that goal out to four years. We used some of
those dollars to reinstate some of the positions that were on that original cut list and we tried to balance that that process. Um we're fortunate that the work we have done with uh Nick Milano who's behind us, our town administrator, he brought that reduction number from 2
million down to 1 million. Uh so we have strategically worked with the town in order to balance the the work that we're doing to try to ensure that we're fiscally responsible and strategic moving forward, but also wanted to take a little of the edge off and save some of the positions that were originally on
that list. And I think that we've um we've met at a good spot with that. Um, but I can't emphasize that the circuit breaker funding uh when we're starting it at $8,000 and it should be somewhere between 2.7 and three million, we have
to actively deposit our own funding in that to make sure we can get to that goal over three or four years. But once we get there, we don't have to continually deposit that much of operating in that every year because once the balance is set, then we can free up some of those dollars in order
to support the other operating costs that we have in the school district. And I'll use the example of OPED. I think that if you're on the Warren Committee, you're familiar with the budgeting of the town side. They had a goal of paying off the OPED debt by a certain time in the future. And they took an aggressive model and paid it off quickly. So now
the town doesn't have to dedicate any of the operating money in order to get that balance to the point that they need to by law. It's already in place. So I don't I'm not an expert on OPED, but what I'm saying is >> I'm sorry. >> What is that? Old is the uh retirement fund that the town's responsible to have
at a certain level, okay, >> for a state law. >> And so once they met that balance, now that freed up a lot of money in the operating budget for the town to use for police, for fire, for schools, etc. >> We're hoping to do that ourselves to get this balance to a point where we feel
comfortable with that threshold and then during the years that proceed after that, we'd have more operating budget to spend on things like teachers and programming and other parts of the school. But we feel it's important to move this work forward. Yes. >> So that seems like a great plan. I'm curious, how can the expense be less
than the reimbursement? How can you get paid? How can you get reimbursed more than you actually paid out? >> Just the year before, right? Isn't that the post? >> You get reimbursed from the previous year's expenses and then you get the reimbursement in October. So whatever we spend on this certain type of expense
will be calculated by the state at a certain percentage and then they reimburse us in October of next year for what we just went through this year. >> Right. But in the >> so the expense that is shown on this spreadsheet is only the portion of the
expense that we're funding from circuit breaker. So the other portion because our out of district district tuition cost is much higher than $3 million that's funded by the operating budget.
We are just saying every year we are going to fund $3 million in tuition expenses from circuit breaker. the rest comes down to other portions of our budget. And the total cost of special education is beyond the 3.5 million
werect we pay. That only reimbures you for a portion 85% of costs above a certain threshold. So none of this is reflective of the total cost of providing these services to students. It is just yeah part of the federal kind of process. So the when it says expense you
know maybe it'd be more clear to say uh utilization again that is how much we are utilizing out of the provided circuit breaker funding that we are projecting to utilize out of the private circuit breaker funding within that fiscal year. >> You get reimbured for the expenses and
they let you just sort of bank those reimbursements. Bank them up to one year. You can keep one year of a reimbursement as a balance to be able to offset any unanticipated unbudgeted expenses.
>> So when you carry over if you're supposed to use everything up in one year, >> no, you can roll those funds over up to 12 months. So you can So if we get reimbured, >> so as an example, in FY26, we are projecting to get reimbured $3.5
million. There could be a scenario in which we spent zero of those dollars within FY26. In FY27, we have to spend $3.5 million because otherwise we have to give that money back, right? >> Extra year, not the year that you're in,
but the extra year on top. Oh. Oh, so it's almost >> it allows you to have one year a year. So that if there's an unexpected situation where you have a kid with a multiple $100,000 out of district placement that we did not know about in March and we find out about in October
that we don't have to cut positions in order to fund those, we have a balance within the circuit breaker that we can go to and say, "Okay, we need to draw it down." Again, the circuit breaker can only be used for special education expenses. It's not like we want to take the kids to to Europe and so why don't
we just draw that down more. is only for special education costs and having that balance again provides you flexibility because special education is unexpected. There are just it's very hard to know exactly students who will come in even the students you have how they will
develop what they will need. Uh and so that provides you you know flexibility within the department. So FY26 is actual. That's like what we already had, right? >> Well, the ending balance is projected. Uh the reimbursement is uh projected
based upon what we've received thus far. So we haven't gotten that full amount, monthly or quarterly installments. So this next slide is basically everything that we just talked about. It's why we think it's important. uh it's the flexibility to use those funds in a way that supports students uh who
have the need uh to uh get their education in spaces that are good for them and meets their needs where they are. Um I think that we have a history over the last few years of that account uh to J your point and Mark's reaction to where we needed to uh respond deeply
in one year in order to use that fund uh in a way to uh to pay off expenses that were high in any one year. Uh that was just two years ago. So we are trying to uh within our own budget replenish that account to a level that we think is sustainable that will take us about four
years but it's a journey that's worth taking and you have to start it one step at a time and we want to start this year. Um and we're very very um uh trying to be very thoughtful and strategic about getting there on our own by making sure that we're using our
allocations uh to the best way we can. Um so we're we're looking forward to do that. uh it is in the best interest of the school district to have a stable um um um circuit breaker account. Uh this is a uh highlighted um section of the
financial consultant report that was done over the summer uh that was I think um requested by the town uh connected to the override in the spring. Uh they met with Katie and I. They also met with uh I believe uh Nick Milano and Amy Text Dexter and other folks throughout the
town and some of their findings we think is really interesting to share. Uh this guidance basically supports the need uh or their recommendation that we always begin uh to make sure that we have a circuit breaker account balance over several years um to and they have a
prescription of uh ideally two or three times the annual rate of the increase of a district. uh but their Milton's long-term financial resilience will depend on rebuilding reserves in establishing mechanisms to manage cost volatility particularly in special
education. The last two slides that we just had is our strategic version of making that line and that recommendation from that outside financial consultant a reality in in uh in Milton. And um and when I arrived in June, right after the
override and right after some of the budget challenges, uh it was very clearly communicated to me as someone coming in for a short period of time to stabilize the budget to make sure the systems were working to work with Katie Blake, who was the one who identified
some of the challenges, who rented the ship last year and support her work. uh the work streams that we have now, the financial systems that we have in place right now, and our eye on the budget on a on a very very uh close monthly basis uh are all part of the strategies that
we're taking to ensure that the budget will be um uh sufficient and we will not overspend in the Milton public schools. We will be on time. We will not overspend this year. The budget that you gave us for next year, we will not overspend that budget. We will always be within our means. We owe it to the
taxpayer to do that. That's part of our responsibility and we take it very seriously. So I just want to bring people's memory back to the concern and the worry that folks had just about eight months ago, nine months ago with uh wow I hope this doesn't happen again. We're taking these kind of steps to make
sure that does does not happen again the school's budget. Question on that. I thought it was a really good report. It's great. Um, but one of the things they mentioned was like the EFP system, you going ahead with something.
>> A what system? >> EF system like budgeting. >> What? >> The accounting system. >> Um, so the accounting system, I would definitely look to the town um because that's something that we'll have to do
collaboratively with them. We use the town's accounting system. Got so >> Nick question. >> He's a good guy. He'll answer real quick. Great. >> Sure. >> I mean,
>> yes, we would we would support that as well. But yeah, I mean I I assume that would come up kind of during your conversation about the rest of the budget. Yeah, definitely one of the recommendations that was in there one we highlighted was what looked to be for my at least initial reading our initial
reading is kind of what is most school specific. There are a lot of things in there that are kind of joined school and town and how we again work together. We appreciate the town investing in bringing in that. That was something we talked about in the override process and told people we were going to do and Nick has been supportive of kind of
throughout that time prior to the override last year and followed through on it. So, we just are really appreciative of of them doing it. Glad we have the board so we can start talking that through and see how we we prioritize those um those recommendations. But, as we as we highlighted, we we are just pleased that
those recommendations uh are aligned to kind of our our strategy and and a lot of the recommendations that that Katie and her expertise has brought in and talked to us about at this point for, you know, over 18 months. Um and so really Sorry to put you on the spot, but I'd
like to figuratively look at one of our members of the school subcommittee and literally look at two members of our school subcommittee with sort of an open-ended either either do you have questions for them or more directly, you know, you you've been looking into this for a little while.
What are your thoughts? I'm looking at Elaine. As most people in the room know, Elaine was previously a member of the school committee for six years. I consider her an expert in the school budget. Do you have thoughts of what's been presented?
>> Um, yeah. I was going to ask the team if they could pull up the page where you list the cuts and um just to have it on record with the sort of rationale for why you came to the decisions that you ultimately
came to. Um of particular interest to me, but this is just sort of I think self-motivated um is the cut of the high school uh English teacher. um given the learning losses post pandemic, given the fact that um
you know I I work at the college level, I've seen uh the effects of that. Um, and um, I'm just wondering and and given that one of your, you know, your goals here is to make sure that that you
are keeping people in front of the classroom and trying to keep those um, faculty to student ratios low. I just um wanted to hear more about why that cut was made, but also just sort of let
everybody look at these and maybe ask questions about these just to see what that 711 137 was in the original presentation. >> So, I I'll walk right down the top and go down to the bottom if that's okay. uh the director of data and analytics. Uh
that role and that service delivery delivery will be embedded into uh a position that we left vacant this year which was the technology director. That technology director role was vacated during the year. We did not fill it. They're responsible for all the teacher
and student facing technology and we felt by adding the data analytics service delivery into that role would be a cost savings. uh we want someone in that data collection in and technology role to be all-encompassing, be in meetings, work through the data, work
with our staff, work with our principles and our curriculum folks. We think it's a good fit. And there are other districts that have a data analytic role within the technology. We have two technology directors, one that's the back of the house person, meaning servers, networks, uh devices, etc. And
this director of technology, which is the front-facing uh position, is working with students and staff and curriculum leaders. And so we embedded the Atlantic the data analytics role into that new technology role. The second role is the director of fine and performing arts.
This also was vacated during the school year. We decided not to fill it next year. Um that is someone who would be responsible for all the K to2 art and music uh staff. uh we have a role uh that would supplement this with being vacant. We currently have one of our
music teachers at the high school level getting a team lead stipen in order to oversee some of the work that's going on in connecting the curriculum dots between uh each of those curriculum areas from elementary to middle to high. Um, it's more of a band-aid approach
than a solid approach, but again, the stipen will be roughly between5 and $10,000, which is a savings uh instead of paying 127. So, we're going to keep an eye on that and see um and make sure that our students and our staff are well supported, but we think we can go one
more year without that with that role being filled in with someone being in a in a stipened lead teacher model. Uh we had an equity coach that that left the district this year. we decided not to fill that position as well. A lot of our focus on our DEIB work will be in
retention and hiring. Uh we're working with outside partners, the teachers lounge and the Boston plan for excellence in order to partner with outside agencies in order to help us recruit, maintain uh and um and hire a more diverse faculty and staff. Um we
feel that that work can be supported by the HR director as well. uh and it will free up our current DEI director to do more of the coaching and being in schools as well. So, we're looking to build that work across multiple people. No one person in our community should be
responsible for all the equity work. We think that equity work should be broadened across all of our staff members. And we're beginning to take steps to make that happen with professional development and outside partners to work with our staff. 504 coordinators are a relatively new role
to the district over the last five or six years. I'm not sure when it started. Uh they basically meet with families who may have some sort of a challenge for their child. It could be medical, it could be um it could be academic that
wouldn't necessarily uh be suited for an individual education plan or a special education plan, but they need some sort of an accommodation in order to uh make their child allow their child to access the curriculum. So, these coordinators are the ones that help run the meetings.
These meetings used to be run by the guidance counselors, the assistant principles, uh the nurses, and other folks that have contact with these families for the for the reason that they may need the 504. So, we have two in the district. We're reducing one, and we're going to keep one, and we're going to broaden that work back to our
guidance staff, our adjustment counseling staff, our assistant principles, and our nurses in order to support that work. Similar, we have AC an academic tester position. That's a point 6. So that means it's a three day a week person and they basically help our special education teachers do some
of the testing that needs to be done for their annual meetings uh that they have each year. Uh that work had been previously been part of what a special education teacher would do in addition to service delivery to students. And we're looking to have some of that work go back to the to the teachers uh and
doing some of that work throughout the year and the testing along with some of the team uh evaluation leaders that we have in every school. Uh we feel like again we can bring that work back to the folks who did it prior to that position being created uh just a few years ago.
Out of district coordinator, we have one full-time out of district coordinator. This was a part-time.3 position. Um so we feel with our out of district placements being under 50 or right around there that that's just enough work for one person to be able to do. Uh if we compare that to what our team
chairs do within the district that do similar work for IND district students that that's pretty much uh the lowest um per pupil uh ratio for that position. So we felt like we could reduce the.3 and only have the 1.0 full-time person pick
up that case load. Uh special education teacher. This was less vacant last year. Uh we actually decided to hire an adjustment counselor to support a special education program instead of a teacher. that was a behavioral therapeutic program at the high school and the middle school that we wanted to
be able to provide therapeutic support for because not everything is related to any one part of why a child might be in a a specialized program. It could be academic, it could be therapeutic, it could be behavioral and so we felt we would round out those two programs with a adjustment counselor. That's why we decided not to fill the special
education jobs. That was kind of a a shift in how we wanted to deliver that service. Uh so that was not filled this year. we will now take it off the books and not fill it at all for next year. Um, an elective teacher at the middle school. We have various electives at the middle school. Uh, not just PE, art,
music, um, technology. Uh, we also have STEM. We have different types of reading, uh, language arts, writing, math enrichment, uh, ELA enrichment. Uh, so we're going to take one of those positions out of that cadre of
offerings. um and um and that affects uh the electives that would that sixth, seventh and or eighth grade teachers uh students would take. Again, we think the class size there was really doable. We took a look at this year's schedule and we realized that we could take one of
those uh educators out uh and it would and those those students would now be able to take all those other courses instead and the class sizes wouldn't go up in any dramatic fashion across the entire Pier school. And lastly, the high school English teacher. Uh the English department uh with this reduction will
have the same amount of teachers as the math department. Uh and uh I believe the science department uh which already with it with the 10 teachers that they have, they their class sizes are very uh reasonable. Uh we are focusing on tier one instruction for sure, but I we're
trying to do a combination of not touching the classroom directly, but also not wanting to impede too much on some of the special education support pieces that we were looking to reduce and this is just a balance of that. Uh tier one instruction is very important. It is our main goal. uh but we feel this
this reduction uh right now our class sizes in the English department are very favorable and we felt that we could reduce that uh and still be in line with what the other departments have for class sizes. Um you are correct. We are trying to stay away from direct classroom positions. It's important for
tier one instruction. But when we started this process of reducing more than that 7.9, we did have some special education support services that were you know directly supporting students and indirectly supporting students. And we heard a lot from our families that that was just too much that they positions
back. And we listened to that feedback over the last month and a half. So, we put back some of those positions as well as we put back the the director of nursing as well. And that was a good month of feedback that we received via email and uh coming to school committee meetings and um and we heard that and we
responded to it. So, that's this is what was left in that reduction. >> Just to say the obvious, obviously reason cuts is because we had to cut 1,49,000 out of our budget. there was a gap. If
81% of our budget is positions, there's no way we any school probably possibly cut that much without losing some positions. So, what drove that? >> Okay,
Jay, can I hop in? Can you hear me? >> Can you guys hear me in the room? >> Yes. >> Oh, thank you. Um, so I'm I'm a member of the the subcommittee here and um I first uh you
know, you sort of asked for our thoughts and on this process on the budget. Um, first off, I want to say that no one wants to see cuts. I should say I think very few people want to see cuts
to the schools. Um that being said, I think the um school committee and superintendent and um everyone involved I think has been very thoughtful about how to go about um
balancing this budget and I really commend them for being open to the the feedback, soliciting the feedback, being open to it and incorporating a lot of it and making those changes. I know that can't be easy to feel like everyone is
Monday morning quarterbacking you on everything all the time. So, um, a lot of credit to them for that. Um, at the risk of pontificating here, you know, just at a at a 30,000 foot level, I think
we need to go back to the process of um, you know, determining whether or not we were even going to have an override last year and then ultimately what was the number that was going to be put on the ballot. and
the select board at the time was not even willing to consider a needs-based budget. So, we were incredibly lucky, quote unquote, that we even got a level service number put on that ballot. So, I think it's good for
us all to remember this could have been worse and this could have been better. Um, and so this is like I think a lot of people tuned in during the override last year who aren't maybe normally plugged into what's going on in the town,
started learning how all this works and here we are with the consequences of the level service budget that we knew was going to put us in this position. And my concern is that people don't I I'm
worried that people don't understand that this is going to keep coming at us year after year and we're going to keep seeing cuts if we expect our schools to stay within an unrealistic, you know, 3 to 4% increase year-over-year. That's
just not um that's not what other districts are doing of our size, of our um caliber. And if we think we can do otherwise, I think we're going to start seeing the effects of that in the education that our students receive. So
again, I'm I'm getting a little off topic here, but I just want to remind all of us and anyone watching that, you know, elections have consequences, and we are in this position for a reason. Um and we need to think about how we want
to avoid being in the in this position in perpetuity um moving forward. >> Thank you, Julia. Yeah, I a little bit off topic but a little bit on topic. Um and you know, in some sense the warrant committee, the only question for the warrant committee is what total number
do we give the schools? Is it 3% more than last year or 4% last year or 5% more than last year? What they do with it? They're elected to determine what they do with it. So in that sense it was very on topic and that you know the big picture percentage increase is is very
much our business. Thank you. >> Can I just say one thing is thank you for the presentation. Um the positions that you've cut and I understand why and it go makes sense. I assume there will be an ongoing evaluation process throughout the year to determine the
effects of it so that we're not in a situation where we're in dire need of something because we've been because it looks like you've shifted some tasks to provide to people already and is that does that work? Is that too much? Is something else not going to get done
because they're doing this? Um so that's my one question. So, I'm glad to hear you'll have an ongoing evaluation. And then just a side thing is as students have increased, special needs students have increased in the school system, have you had to increase the number of
employees that support these students? And and so is your plan to keep bringing in as many students as we can in house so to speak, there would have to be an ongoing continuing increase of support staff, I would
imagine. >> Yes. But there's there's a a good balance there, right? So the more first of all, the more students that come back and go to the Milton public schools as opposed to having to get on a band and go somewhere else, it's just good for kids. So we're always looking to do that. And there'd be there may be a cost
to the general budget that we are expending, but there would be a corresponding decrease in the out of district budget that we would see that would generally offset that. Uh but those are never really dollars and cents questions. Those are always using families who may have an out of district
placement, what would it take to you to come back? What what what do we think your child what can we do in in house? So the example would be the therapeutic addition of the adjustment counselor to the classroom at the middle school and the high school could actually bring someone back and say if you have that kind of support I think my child could
be successful there. So that that's the kind of proactive staffing and resource allocation that we're trying to do in order to try to to balance that. It's usually in the best interest of the children that we're trying to do that. And once in a while when that happens it is actually cost effective as well but sometimes it it might not be but it's
still what's best for that child. I guess I would again turn to the subcommittee. This might sound like I'm in discussion. I do not think discussion is over, but I would turn to the subcommittee and say the warrant committee is going to recommend a town meeting a dollar amount. Very well might be the same dollar amount Mr. Milano
recommends. But let's say it is. Does the subcommittee feel that we can say in writing in the warrant and standing up in front of town meeting, yes, we think this is the correct amount to for the school budget.
>> I just speaking personally, this is just me. Um I would say yes. Um, I really appreciate, among the many things that Julia and Lorraine have mentioned, I really appreciate this long-term focus
on budget sustainability because um, I might as well say it out loud. When I chaired finance uh for 5 years, it felt like laying on band-aids and just trying to get to yes and doing the same thing every year, scrambling to
make it work. And I think this idea um and and I especially appreciate the move from the quick turnaround of three years uh you know for working with circuit breaker to the four years um I think has
made it a better budget with fewer cuts and um something that I can get behind. >> Thank you. >> Uh
Lorraine, do you want to add to that? >> No, I'm just saying I I agree also. I I just um I think there's been a lot of really good changes in how we're moving forward um you know with working together town
working with the school and and um circuit breaker account is great. So I would feel comfortable um with this presented. >> Yeah, same for me. Um again I think I
know the process um was painful at times but I appreciate the collaboration across the different departments and um players here and I think that um it's in a place now that I'm I'm comfortable supporting it.
>> I'll ask a question. Uh I talked to Mr. Luring about this previously so I hope I'm not catching by surprise. I mean, 80% of your budget is salaries and they're going up by I don't remember three, four, 5%. And >> wrapping our heads around, oh, we hear
the word steps and lanes and and we don't know what that means. So, do you have a And we talked about this previously. Do you have like a sample to show us is how much >> Jay? Yes. >> Yeah. I'm not trying to catch you by surprise, but I think it's important for
us to understand. I have to wake up earlier in the day for that. We got you. >> Uh so we talked about this. We worked through some of these. I I want to name we're using example. Um so we have a couple examples here we can go through. We're currently in budget negotiations
with the MEA. So we are not able to use FY26 versus FY27. Right? FY27 does not exist. We talked about whether or not we reject something but felt like that was inappropriate given kind of where where we are. we don't want to inappropriate with um the ongoing conversation we're
having with our partners at the NDA. So, uh Katie was kind enough to kind of take a an example of an existing contract. This is from 2022 to 2023. And so, this just walks through uh one example of a new teacher. They come in with no years of teaching experience. So, they come in
at kind of step one. That is their salary or what would have been their salary in 2022. the very following year they move up one step uh because they've now completed one year of teaching experience they have an extra year they're on step two and so they get that
57 that is uh that 57 is calculated it's an 8% increase as you can see that is both because as you can see the step one has increased there's a cola applied between 2022 and 2023 so there's a cola
applied to every step on that scale uh which is again standard practice. So they get that cola and they get the additional uh funding for moving up to the other stuff. So that's one example and again that brings this one employee who was in their first year that's an 8% increase in their salary.
>> Uh another example is uh somebody who moves up uh is this the same example? >> I think the same I messed this up. Katie made another example and I left it out so I apologize. Uh but we want to provide another kind of more current example of like somebody outside of
Milton, right? Because again, this Milton is the only one. So here's Hangingham and again all public all school districts have their contracts, their public documents. So this is just pulled straight from their Hangingham website. This is kind of current 2025 26. So in this example, fourthyear
teacher um in the B lane and again we'll get to lanes here in a second. That's what they make this year, 71,447 if you're teaching in Hangingham. uh next year, what are they going to do? Because their uh union contract is is agreed to through 2027, they would go to
76. That's a 7.44% increase for next year. And again, you can see kind of going from four to four that increases because there is a cola from 26 to 27. Uh so that's one example. So just one person moving from one year is 7.44%.
Uh here's an example that gets a little more complicated where they move between lanes, right? There's the B lane, which is bachelor's. This is bachelor's plus 15, which is a lane over. And again, these are all very standard lanes across all public school districts. After bachelor's plus 15, there's masters. So
when you earn your masters, so in this scenario, somebody in their seventh year of teaching, who's in B15, they make $83,000 approximately. Next year in Hingham, if they earn their masters at some point this year and next year now they're moving over a lane, they also move up a step because they have another
year of experience, they're now making $95,000. It's a 14% increase to that person's uh salary impact on the budget for the following year. So that is those are examples of how that kind of step in lane works.
Could I add on behalf of our educators that this example is a great example of going from a bachelor's 15 to a master's degree means that that educator took 36 credits of courses in order to get there. So the the amount of money that they put out in
order to pay for those courses, the time they put into getting those courses complete and being successful is all part and parcel of why. Because if you look at that and say, "Wow, 14% that's a lot of money in any one year." Well, it's probably been three years of classes and a good $40,000 of tuitions
that that that person has paid in order to be able to make that jump from one to the next. That's just to give the context a little bit. >> Thank you. I think that helps explain why year-over-year salary increases
what four, five, two. One thing you didn't show, I was peeking at the union contracts earlier this week, and once they hit like 15 or 20 years, they stop going up in steps, did I say? So, >> yeah, >> that's
so to me that would say, okay, long service employees are only going up by two or 3%, the short service employees are going up by seven or eight%, it averages out to, to my understanding correctly. >> Yeah, that's once you hit the top lane, top step, uh there are no more steps. So
you just get whatever that cola is that is negotiated. So again two four I mean there are all all kinds of different colas that are negotiated across the >> and then when when putting together next year's budget broad question is what do you do when
putting together next year's budget? >> Stay and go up by one year. any assumptions about lanes >> because you know who's going to move lanes? >> Yes. Okay. So, we have a list um the teachers there's a committee they submit
their information so we kind of track um there's some language around the timing of when they provide the information. So, it gives us the ability to to be able to budget for it. >> Oh, okay. Um, and so we keep that information. And then we also, um, for
all of our employees because many of our collective bargaining agreements, not just the teachers, but the instructional assistants, the custodians, many of them follow um, similar where there are steps included. Um, we take everyone that is
employed in the district this year and then we staff them and if we know that they could potentially have um a column change, then we include that information as well. >> Right now on March 17th or retirements that might come up in the next couple
months, >> it depends on the timing. So if we know of their retirement when we're building out the salary projections, we can certainly include that. And the same can be said about sometimes what we may have
um educators that may go on a year-long leave. And so we make sure that we um earmark them in the budget because we know that they will be coming back in the following year. Um but there we also do know that there may be a replacement
in for them. So, we're just keeping track of kind of um the people that we are anticipating are going to be working in the Milton public schools in the upcoming year. Um the timing for the retirements can be tricky because the
educators may not tell us that they're planning on retiring until after we do the salary projections. So it's pretty much all of the information that we know up until that point of in time we incorporate into the salary projections.
>> So if you know of retirement you make an assumption about who will be replacing them >> in some instances we can. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Just quick question. What is the average tenure for teachers here? >> Are they mostly been here a long time or
a little? So, we do have we keep track of where all of the educators are, the steps and lanes. Um, and I don't I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but we do just keep like this scatter of where each one of them um sit. And I
would say the majority of our educators are kind of in the higher step um in in the M's category. And can I ask a question um about the steps and lanes? I think last we
understood Katie this was being done the these projections and incorporating this information was being done manually because you did not have software that could take this into account. Is that still the case? >> Yes.
>> And Mr. Mr. Milano is in the room this time. Um, yeah, I I think that gets back to something we discussed tonight and other times that I'll shut up. >> I mean, surely that exists. We just
don't have the money for it. I assume I I'm I'm uh playing Andrew's role here. I feel like normally he's the one who makes sure to advocate for >> getting this software to the schools and I'm I'm with him on that. I'll just say one more time though again
to the point of Manuel that kind of Julia is making Katie and and we say Katie because we're lucky enough we get to work directly with her but she's got a lot of other people uh that that help her all the principles the you know department leaders obviously John not to leave John out of that there's there's
so many people within the department who work very hard to kind of make these things work as John mentioned this is a 640 person uh organization this is the largest entity within the town. This is incredibly complex in terms of number of
employees, number of students, the needs across all the facilities. What they kind of manage as it relates to if you look at it as kind of a a separate business is is quite large and they do so put in a lot of time, put a lot of focus on again what is best for
students. Uh, and so I really just appreciate I think the work and I think it's been echoed here of a lot of the budget planning that we've done within FY27 that we're presenting to you is is with that kind of as the underlying foundation of kind of how they they've approached it, how they've helped lead
us as a committee kind of through this and share what what they think we need for next year. And I think throughout the process been very helpful in answering questions and uh, as you all said, taking feedback and we really appreciate the feedback you've gotten from our war committee members. gave it
to us from the public at large from the select board town administrator just as Julia I think said it's been challenging at times but again I think we've gotten to a strong final product here >> by the way I thought it was a really nice explanation about budget the
projected budget so thank you >> um are we can I just ask two questions can we are we on bud for the shared company. >> Yes. And we shared I shared them late because I I think I sent them today, but quarter one and quarter two budgets are both things we've uh shared previously
at finance meetings public. Quarter three budget will come out here in couple months. Um both of those show we are on target within the current year. So there's no issues with current. Most of my questions answered throughout the presentation. Um
uh fees, student fees or different things. Was there any I know it always comes up but like is there any discussion on increasing that for >> we increase fees uh to increase revenue within fees by about $78,000. We increased transportation fees. We've increased um uh rental fees uh that we
do for uh not town based programs and not nonprofit programs but for other programs which are our biggest rental group. Uh so we increase those fees by about 10% for next year. Uh transportation we increase by about $40 on about 30
$50 or 325. So um I don't know what that percentage is. >> They never they never have they never will. We are again transportation is mandated. So we have to provide transportation. We can't charge uh the vast majority of students use transportation. Transportation is man
mandated. >> High school kids we can and we do except for students who require door-to-door transportation within their individual education. But but yeah, chip fees fees were discussed and and were increased as part of this budget. Um are we so residency program still
following? >> Yep. >> Um I think it's one of the questions. I think that report was really good. >> Interesting. I know a lot of that stuff came up last year. >> Yeah. No, they're great. >> Report. You mean >> I mean you want more? No. Okay. >> Yeah.
>> You mean the consultants report? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think everyone within the past week got that is a it is a draft report, but >> that's a subject for another day. But >> I guess there is one thing that I would like to close the loop on when talking
about, you know, for next year and the year after. Will it be 3% or will it be more? And I believe Mr. Failen, you said we're going to work on that in the next few months. I would like to say something about that. Town meeting is the first week of May and I speaking it
as an individual feel an obligation to stand up in front of town meeting when I'm talking about the finances of the town and talk about a forecast and that includes a forecast that has let's call them reasonable assumptions for schools
among other things that's six weeks from today give or take. Uh I know you've seen some of my early work on a forecast. Uh, I would appreciate help from Mr. Luring, Mr. Milano, anyone else in this room who wants to help. Uh, I
I'll say it will be a forecast. It may not be the forecast. It may not be the final forecast, but I feel an obligation to present a town meeting. Here is what, you know, a reasonable forecast might be for the next couple years, and that would presumably include not cutting
schools to the bone. So when you said hoping to work it out in the next few months, I'm hoping to work something out a lot sooner than that. >> Yeah, I I was referring to the work that we do when we meet on Monday mornings. We have agreed to meet next Monday with uh forecasts from both the schools and
the town and begin to build that understanding of what we think the revenues will be over time and what the expenses will be over time. And in my in my experience, we always like to have those discussions in the spring, but really look to have any of the have the last fiscal year be closed out and let
that be the last data point. So, we'll be sit in August with Nick and I and Amy and and uh um um Katie who Katie will be here by closing Katie's role and then start to talk about what are the projected revenues uh what are the
projected costs and start having that dialogue in August in preparation for anything that we need to share with the community uh in September and October when everybody gets back and is prepared to get back to town work. And so, uh, that budget calendar and that kind of projection work, I'm looking forward to
do. So, when I say in a few months, I mean that I'd really like to do that work as well with you in those meetings. And I think that the real meat of that work will happen when we really see the FY26 close out. We'll have some good recent data points. And then we'll have uh hopefully the beginning of a budget
calendar that allows us to have that corresponding conversation of what we think the revenue projections are, what we think the expense projections are, and do we have to worry or are we in line or what that gap might look like? And so I look forward to being part of that work.
>> Okay. So I will look at the committee. You saw the schedule from I'm I'm I'm trying I'm not trying to end conversation. I'm trying to say you saw the schedule for the next couple weeks, meaning next Monday we're going to discuss the meat of the budget.
I feel a little faint when I think about discussing $150 million budget in one two-hour meeting that has other things on the agenda. Uh this is one of the this is you're just looking at departments. This is about twothirds of the size of the budget. So it's one of
the more important ones. Do we have questions? Are are we prepared to go into next Monday feeling like we understand what we need to understand in order to vote next Monday on at least
the school department line item budget? If not, what questions do we have? >> One of our members likes to berate me when I try to draw a discussion. and he says, "Jay, we're done. We're done. We done." Um, >> are we done?
>> We are done. I think I'm feeling that vibe. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I think the presentation. >> Thanks. >> Obviously, if there's any follow-up questions that arise in the wee hours, uh, please send them our way. We'll have to answer whatever we can. >> Okay.
>> Appreciate your support very Thank all of you. Thanks. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. So I will and I don't think there's any more business to discuss. So I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So move. >> Thank you.
>> Okay. Do I see nods around the table? >> Yes. Okay. We are ajourned. Thank you very much.