Okay, Julia, why don't you let everybody in um and we'll then I'll call the meeting to order. Actually, I'll call the meeting to order now. I'll let everybody in and then we'll >> adopt remote participation, all that stuff. If there is anybody be let in, that is
>> you're all set to go. This is it. >> It easy meeting. Uh, could I have a motion to adopt remote participation as written in the agenda, please? >> Second.
>> Second. >> Very good. Roll call vote. Pam is not here. So that brings us to Sarah as the starter. >> Sarah Montigue, Arlington, yes. >> Linda Herbison, Bolton, yes. >> Dortner, conquered, yes. >> Marculi Dover, yes. Sharon Mosto Lexington. Yes.
>> Jeff Stan. Yes. >> Austin Lucasto. Yes. >> Okay. Very good. Now, just a reminder now that although there's nobody else here at this point, so uh Mark, just FYI, this is the public budget hearing and anybody in the public who is
interested in uh listening to our budget and exploration explanation therein can show up. Mhm. >> And some years we have a lot of people from uh often from the various fincoms who are angry about something show up. And sometimes when it's considered
uncontroversial, we have nobody show up. >> Mhm. >> And we especially have nobody show up. And we have a history of a few years now of the superintendent and the business manager going to each individual town where they're happy with the presentations they're given and the type
of answers they get. So it's these this meeting is considered uh most years recently uncontroversial. So uh they they just don't want to come here because they're going to get answers to the questions somewhere else.
The ones who care about it and the the general public isn't often is not interested unless it's something happening in the news. Not that interested in in the budget of the Minutemen Regional High School. So today for example, we have nobody showing up at least so far. But we will conduct ourselves as if we had a packed house
because that's our job. And if somebody shows up, we'll just going to let them in. Okay. So there there are two meetings. The first meeting is for the public. At the public meeting after the presentation, the school committee does not ask questions. The only questions at
this meeting are from the public. So the public asks questions and generally it'll be the business manager and the superintendent who answer those questions unless it drifts away from the budget in which case the the chair will decide if the question is uh within the
bounds of the meeting or goes to something that the school committee members should talk about which almost never happens. Then we adjourn this meeting and we move to our uh school committee meeting for the purpose of which is to vote the budget. And at that
meeting we can ask whatever questions we want because that meeting is for us. And then we officially hopefully vote the budget and the assessments and that goes to the all the town managers and their fincoms and select boards and uh that
although they may not be happy with the number they're very happy that they got a number that they can uh say this is the number from minute me and now we can you know put it in our warrant. So that's the way that it works. So, on that note, uh, I'm going to turn it over
to Heidi and Nikki to give the formal presentation, which is for the general public and also for us because we may have questions on it when we get to our meeting. They're not going to repeat the the presentation again for us. This is it. >> Thank you all so much. Um Nikki is going
to take you through what we have been through many times already. Um and there are a few little changes that will be highlighted based on the governor's budget and we adjusted one slide. Go ahead Nikki.
>> Thank you everyone. Um welcome to the public hearing of the FY27 budget. Again um this is a presentation you're very familiar with our finance committee multiple times. Um so this should be very familiar with you. We will highlight right now um changes that we
have seen due to the governor's budget. So just as a reminder um you have seen this presentation um on Tuesday, January 13th, which was our public hearing. And then we had an opportunity um to have you ask questions
on the detailed um draft budget book on the 26th. So that was great um that some of you were able to and we definitely will be um doing that or put making that part of our process in the future. So this information is newly released um
since Wednesday, January 28th and the finance committee met on Monday to review these changes. So what has um impacted Minute Man's budget since the governor's budget came out was our estimates in the state aid. So there was
an estimate that ended up being lower than the governor's budget for both our chapter 7 aid and our chapter 71 regional transportation reimbursement. Our chapter 70 aid um we have now increased to be the governor's budget number which is an increase of about
46,000 and our chapter 71 regional transportation reimbursement um we've now increased by about $71,000. We had estimated that to be about a 75% reimbursement. Um the governor's budget is estimating that to be about 87%
reimbursement. And what that has done overall has impacted our member town assessments. It's reduced um the increase from year to year from 2.89% to 2.44%. And what else was updated within the
budget book um that impacts how it affects all of our member towns is um the chapter 70 formula spreadsheet which is presented by DESIE um and it's on the DESIE website. Um we've updated it for each of our members town combined effort
yield which we've chatted about briefly but it's that's the that's the town's property wealth and income. um the foundation enrollment for each town and the minimum required contribution. So these are the updated um assessment
numbers for each of our member towns. You'll see that majority have decreased to where two member towns have increased and that is a direct um that is directly impacted by the state's minimum required contribution. So that is set by the state. Our number was an estimate. We're
going with the governor's actual budget and actual estimate. So, now that you've heard what's changed within our budget, I'm going to go through some of the slides that you've seen before. Um, but this is our budget presentation, which will be similar um
to the one you heard on January 13th. So, again, our budget reflects our priorities um which are the teachers, the staff, and the students. So, you know, we always keep that in mind and really like to um before we dig into the numbers,
see really who this budget impacts and why we're all here um supporting this great school. So, despite the governor's budget um changing or us updating the um non-assessment revenue, our budget has
stayed exactly the same. Um, we're recommending just shy of a 33.5 million budget, which is a $2.99% increase from FY26. How that's broken up a little bit is our operating budget being um just less than
26.5 million with a 3.84% increase. Our operating capital is just over 1.2 million and that's a negative 4% approximately decrease from FY26. and our building project debt staying um
just about even at 5.7 million dollars. Um just less than a 1% change from FY26. And again, as we noted with the governor's budget, that now decreases our assessment to the member towns to 26,200
710,366, which is a 2.44% increase. So the vote will um has changed that we'll be recommending to the school committee to be this new number.
Again, our budget priorities have stayed the same. Our staffing is most important. Um for the payroll side, we have successfully negotiated the collective bargaining agreement um for FY27 through FY29. What that means here
is that the staff will be receiving a 3% increase um plus steps and levels which is the biggest impact um from the payroll side. We've also proposed a market adjustment for our teacher aids and are proposing a one FTE increase for
a maintenance position which is 50% funded by the general fund and 50% funded by our revolving account. While supplies of materials is something that we always um keep in mind, especially considering the tariffs that are happening, um our insurancees are the
biggest cost driver in the non-salary side. Um so what we've been seeing across the industry is that um health insurancees is is definitely double digits um maybe mid teens. Um so we are
proposing in here the biggest cost driver is a double-digit um placeholder for our our health insurance. Our capital stabilization is always something that we focus on. Um and there'll be a slide with more details
surrounding that. And just a reminder to all of our member towns um as we continue um to see them in finance committees and town meetings that we are keeping good on our promise to offset that athletic field uh debt with our
facility revolving account. So just a little bit more about that capital stabilization fund. Um this year we are proposing 1,50,000 to this fund. that is a $100,000 increase or a 10% increase. Um what
we've proposed and are recommending um alongside the capital planning committee is a 10% increase each year until we've reached the maximum contribution. Um and this year that would have been just over 1.3 million. So this really
puts us in a good position to build up this fund. Um, so when we have expected breaks um or maintenance that need that needs servicing or looking at um in future years that we're able to um utilize the capital stabilization fund
instead of going back to our member towns um and asking for assessment increases, other capital planning needs. Um we are pausing and we are looking at and participating in the MSBA
recommissioning project. Um so they've actually it's a pilot program which is a no cost to the school and they've come to our building. They have um looked around and they are going to look at HVAC, electrical, plumbing, our
building envelope and building management system and they will provide us with a report um on how the school is operating since the MSBA program. So, we are pausing until we get that report to really address any of the other capital
needs in the building at this point. OPAB or other postemployment benefits is always um a hot topic that gets asked about with the budget. So, I was actually able to update our trust fund balance and I got our January bank
statement today. um $3,125,682 in that account with a total liability of just over 17 million. That puts our percent funded um just over 18% which is really great. We've been really focusing
um each year on contributing more and more to that fund. Um for FY27 we are proposing um just about $1.2 million which is in line with the OPED
advisory group um recommendation. That group was put together in 2021 and that is about half of our active health insurance and half of our trust fund contribution for the future. Um rolling into our overall enrollment
for the school. Um our total number here in the blue is 657. Our member town enrollment 615 and our non-member enrollment or our non-member towns is 42. This
matches the foundation enrollment which was published in the governor's budget and the DESIE um spreadsheet. And it's important to note here that the foundation enrollment does include four post-secary students as well. And that's one from Arlington, two from conquered,
and one from Dover. So that is an updated slide. Um, does anyone have a question about this? We've added that the postsecary students are a part a part of the foundation budget because if someone looks at the foundation number of students
it in it is higher than what we have on our chart. The reason why we have just our high school students on this chart is because that is what we use for our four-year rolling average. We only use 9 through 12. But the foundation enrollment includes any post-secary
students who are from our member towns. So that does look a little different. That's a part of why um the um the minimum contribution changed for a few towns. Questions about that.
Okay. So this is the updated enrollment by town as of October 1st. um you know really matching here the 615 from our member towns, 42 from our non-member towns, 657 total. This breaks
out each member town as well as the grades of the students. Um just really stressing here that enrollment is primarily in district. There are out of district seats um available and our real goal here um as we continue on with the school is to maximize the enrollment for
Minute Man. This slide is our FY27 preliminary assessments. Again, it shows the difference between the FY26 um final assessments and what we are proposing tonight based on the governor's budget. So overall, as we've
noted, 2.44% increase and the 4-year rolling average 3.2% increase. So when we um calculate the budget, what's important to note is that the budget starts with the minimum
required contribution and then after that it's based on the 4-year rolling average for the operating budget. So when the governor's budget comes out and minimum required contribution does change that's the base and that's why again as we noted some of those um those
two member towns did change and just to wrap up our presentation um comparing the FY27 um budget to the FY26 budget again a 2.99% increase in our total operating in capital this shows the breakout of the
actual FY26 budget to FY27. Our non-assessment revenue, as we've continued to note, has changed um based on the chapter 78 and the chapter 71 um regional transportation reimbursement. So you'll see there um we are expecting
very slight increases um just over 1% for chapter 78 um and just under half a percent for the chapter um 71 regional transportation reimbursement. Um, one line that we like to highlight is the
regional transportation revolving. Um, because our estimate was lower than what we received last year. Um, we are able to offset and required to offset um any member town um assessments. So the transportation
um breakout you'll see here for the transportation budget has decreased um you know quite a bit in this assessment component breakout because we were able to use that um transportation revolving account. So you'll see here the minimum
required contribution um did increase slightly um but just about a 2% increase. So that wraps up our presentation. Um, I'm happy to report that on Monday,
February 2nd, the finance committee did vote to recommend to the school committee three votes. Um, which would be happening in our next meeting following the public hearing. Um the first vote to approve the total budget, the second vote to approve the
preliminary assessments which has updated since the governor's budget and the vote to authorize 650,000 from our excess and deficiency fund. This is um not certified yet from the state. So, we
will vote um this number, but once it's certified from the state, we'll come back to the school committee and ask for an official vote once it's certified. >> And thank you for your time tonight. We'd be happy to answer any questions that you have.
>> And can I confirm, Julia, it looks like we still don't have any additional um guests from the public? >> That is correct. >> Very good. Then I'm going to ask to adjourn this meeting and we will reconvene at 7 o'clock and
then school committee members can ask whatever questions they want if you have any others. Alice, do you have something procedural? >> I do. I don't know if you can close it if the public has been noticed for half an hour. I think you have to keep it
open in case they come. >> Okay. will uh >> Julie and I fine. I'll keep it open. >> Yeah, >> sure thing you stay as well. >> Okay, >> I'm going to go off audio and off video, but I'll stay here in case I hear
something and then um uh about 6:57 we'll we'll close it down. We'll take the vote to close it down. Okay. Okay. Very good. Okay. So, I would like a uh motion to
I'll call the meeting to order. I call to order the meeting of the um the uh the budget meeting, the regular meeting in which we're going to discuss the budget of Midan Region High School. And I would like a motion to adopt remote participation as written in the minutes.
Please move. >> Second. Roll call vote. >> Sarah Montigue Arlington, yes. >> Linda Herbison, Bolted, yes. >> Dort conquered, yes. >> Marquee Dober, yes. >> Sharon Mel, Lexington, yes.
>> Jeff, yes. >> Yes. >> Okay, so we're about to move to the finance report in which I'm going to uh turn it over to Sarah. She's going to lead you through our three key votes and for each of those votes, ask whatever questions you want on that item
regarding the budget. That's how we're going to handle it. Three questions, three votes. So, take it away, Sarah. >> Nikki, do you mind pulling up that last slide? Not at all. You're all set. Oh, of course.
Great slides. >> That was my fast version. >> So, we have um three votes to take this evening. So, the first one is I'd like a motion to approve the fiscal year 2027
budget of 32,432,132 as presented. Moved. >> Second. Second. Okay. >> Okay. Are there any questions before we have roll call vote? >> Alice, >> it's not a question. I'm just going to remark that I'm going to speak with my
state rep and emphasize to her even though the regional transportation is in this part of the budget and it's up that I really appreciate that it stay up and that it is very very important to regional districts to have that regional tra transportation funding and
appreciate Thank you, Alice. Nikki, um >> I just wanted to note reading through the governor's budget, they did say that 87% was conservative. So, we will see as we go through um the House and the Senate, but um we'll certainly keep you
updated as we see any um changes to that. >> Okay. All right. So, I think we're on item number one. We're ready for a roll call vote. Sarah Montigue, Arlington, yes. >> Linda Herbison, Bolton, yes. Dortner
conquered yes. >> Marqueely Dover, yes. >> Sharon Mosto, Lexington, yes. >> Jeff Staden, yes. >> Also, Joe, yes. >> Okay, thank you. We'll move on to item number two to approve the fiscal year
2027 preliminary assessments of 26,710,366 as presented. Could I have a motion, please? Moved. >> So moved. Second. >> Any questions or comments before we take a roll call vote?
>> Okay. Sarah Matigu, Arlington, yes. >> Lind Herbison, Bolton, yes. >> Dort conquered, yes. >> Marquili Dover, yes. >> Sharon Mel, Lexington, yes. >> Jeffen, yes.
>> Lucas, yes. >> Okay. And our last item to could I have a motion to authorize 650,000 from the excess and deficiency fund to reduce member town assessments for the fiscal year 27 budget.
>> So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call vote. Sarah Montigue Arlington yes. >> Linda Herbison Bolton yes. >> Dorder Conquered yes. >> Marquili Dover yes.
>> Sharon Mel Lexington yes. Jeff Dan needen. Yes. >> Alice Lucas show. Yes. >> Okay. I think that concludes our items this evening. Thank you again to Heidi, Nikki, and the administration for great
detail um along the budget planning and revision process. We appreciate that. And as a final comment before we adjourn, just for the record, uh uh the meeting to um approve these items was
very short. I want to make sure that people understand that this is not a rubber stamp issue. These are the reason that it was short is because the FINCOM has seen this presentation I think four times already with commenting back and
forth and revisions along the way. and the school committee has seen uh this is the second time at least they've seen the full presentation plus they've seen the detailed written documents twice. So there and over a period of time. So
the reason that this meeting is short is because the um uh the boots on the ground work has been done prior to this meeting. So we all feel confident in doing it. I'm going to second Sarah's comment. The pres
presentation is very clear and transparent and that also of course makes it very easy to say yes. So thank you Sarah, thank you Fincom, thank you administration. Thank you school committee members and I would like a motion to adjourn please.
>> So move >> second. >> Good roll call vote. >> Sarah Montigue Arlington yes. >> Linda Herbison Bolton yes. >> Dorter conquered yes. Mark Healey Dober. Yes. >> Sharon Mosto, Lexington, yes.
>> Jeff Dulan, yes. >> Lucasto, yes. >> And so we've completed one of our most important tasks of the year. So um uh good night school committee members. Good night administrators. Uh good night Julia. And and and please watch out.
This weekend is going to be a doozy. So keep warm. >> Thank you every night everybody. >> Appreciate it. Thank you >> Julia. I'll bet you budget those notes. >> Thank you.