6:30. So, I'm going to call to order the regular meeting of the Nishoba Regional School Committee at 6:30 p.m. on January 14th, 2026. Welcome to the new year, everyone. Uh, please join me for the Pledge of
Allegiance if you care to. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Uh so the big event this evening is going to be the budget workshop, but we have a couple of housekeeping matters to get to first. So, I'll just run through the agenda here and um we'll eventually get to the main event. So, uh public comment is first. I have
received no public comments. So, we'll just keep on going to the consent agenda and I'll ask Amy if she has a motion for us. >> I move to approve the consent agenda of January 14th, 2026 as presented tonight.
>> I'll second that. Is there any discussion? >> Yeah. Yep. >> So, I had a couple revisions that I had proposed. Um, one of which had to do with Mr. McFarland's presence or absence at the meeting. Um, according to the
minutes, he was both present and absent. So, I believe he was actually absent for the meeting. So, I think that should be corrected. And then also, um, in the section in the finance section, hold on, I'm trying to
pull it up. section C and D in the finance section. Um, >> I made those corrections, Scott. >> You have made those corrections. Okay, great. So, that's it. Just wanted to bring those things to people's attention. Thank you. >> Awesome. Thanks, Scott. And thanks,
Alita. Any other discussion on the consent agenda? >> All right. Uh, so we're going to take the roll call. Uh, Amy, >> yes. >> Myself, yes. Scott, >> yes. >> Uh, Jillian, >> yes.
>> Robin, >> yes. >> Sharon, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Shandor, >> yes. >> And John, >> yes. >> Um, oh, and there's Matt. Matt.
>> Yes. >> Excellent. Uh, my window is too small. Um, I meant to say Alita, as you asked me the earlier question, um, Jackie is on her way. She's just going to log in about 2 or 3 minutes late. She said, >> "Madame Chair, real quick."
>> Yeah. >> Um, my screen just blacked out and came back on. So, I'm going to come into the meeting twice. I'm setting up my phone as a backup in case it happens again. >> Got it. All right, guys. So moving the agenda.
Uh next is a school committee chairperson update. That is >> sorry. Sorry. >> That's all right. >> All set. Okay. Um so nothing um unique for the chairperson update.
Uh so I see that Maria has made it to her computer and Ryan is here. Thanks guys for joining us. We have next the student representative report. I'll turn it over to you guys. >> Hi everyone. Um so
two I think two STO meetings ago school committee went and talked to us and on this stole meeting that happened just today we talked about the handbook and the things we would like to change like we would like see some change in and um
I'm not really going into it a lot right now. I'm just going to read some comments that some of us have done on the copy of the handbook that we have shared with all of us and majority is about the passes like our hall passes the snack shack um graduation
requirements and um um clothing dress code and cell phone cell phone policies as well. majority are about those which I'm
not going to get into a lot right now but that's what majority are saying and not all of us had time to go in and read and add their own comments so I'm just going to wait to see if anyone else will comment and wait until everyone has a
chance to go and read and leave their own comment and um some of us were also discuss discussing dis talking about um the midterm schedule
and majority of us don't like it and we also have heard from teachers that it's like it's it wouldn't be their preferred way of having this schedule. So, um, we're going to see what it's like and we're going to take some
feedback from us and from teachers and then next to com next, uh, school committee meeting, we'll provide the feedback for you guys and see how it actually goes because um, even though majority of us are kind of against it,
maybe actually doing it might be better. Maybe some of us will like it better once we've done it. So, yeah, that's cool. Cool. Um, so before break we had a fun pep rally. We had a student teacher
volleyball game which I was on the court for. I got pretty into it. Um, and then a couple different like races and events which was really fun. Um, we also had DECA where we had over 200 members and we're sending over 90 to the states. Um,
I saw Ava there so that was that was cool. She was a judge at um, Nichols. So, that was awesome. Um, and then a little update for the Massachusetts Association of Student Representatives. We're pl we're currently planning like a conference for the spring. Um, which is
where we try to have everyone from across the state to kind of meet up. Um, and we try to like expand our membership, things like that. Um, yeah, I think that about covers it. I I'll also work with Maria to um kind of
get different opinions on the midterm schedule um through the next week. So, I I think that's definitely a big thing that you guys could probably benefit from just hearing our feedback in general. Um yeah, any questions for either of us?
>> All right, thanks for that report, guys. Any questions? Um, as you guys dig into that handbook, the one thing that I would encourage you to pay attention to is all the disciplinary pro um, policies. I'll guarantee that
the way that this works is that kids who join student council don't normally mind what the discipline pro policies are. Um, so I want you guys to try to put your feet in other people's shoes. kids who might actually um really rely on kind of fair policy
there and try to imagine what might not be equitable and what might be problematic in the way that it's currently written cuz I know that there's like there's a marriage happening between the old law mass general laws and like the way that we're doing things now. So that part of the
handbook is a little jumbled still we discovered last year. So, just make sure that it's kind of dense and it's um it gets into the weeds a lot of the time, but try to pay some attention to it and if you need help, just reach out to the adults who are guiding you.
>> Thank you. >> Yeah. Anything else, guys? All right, guys. You're always welcome to stay, but I'm sure your midterms are pulling you in a bunch of different directions, so good luck there. >> Thank you. >> Thanks.
>> All right, everybody. So, moving the agenda here, we have um before we get to the main event, we have one thing called the NRHS building project electric easement, >> which needs to be discussed tonight and
even voted upon just because it is um it's timesensitive. So, I'm going to ask Kirk to explain it to the committee. And um Amy, I think, has the motion. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. the the um uh document in front of you is a boiler
plate document that we received from National Grid uh through Marian Williams, our OPM at Skanska. And this basically is giving National Grid easement to access to do electrical things they need to do that is on school district property. And so, uh Attorney
Melo has reviewed this. Correct, Mr. McCarron? Uh yeah, actually both attorney Melo [clears throat] and Attorney McNelte at MHTL, our legal counsel have both reviewed this and have approved >> and they've approved and it's it's essentially we need to authorize uh the
chair, Miss Vivivero, uh to um go ahead and sign that easement as it needs to be notorized and sent back to uh National Grid. So Alita Leah will need to get you into the office as Alita's a notary. She can do that in one
swipe for you. So that's all madam chair. >> Excellent. So Amy, why don't you put the motion on the table and then we'll discuss. >> All right. Um I move to authorize the school committee chairperson Leah Vivito to sign the first amendment to grant a
easement dated April 9th, 2025 between the Sugar Regional School District and Massachusetts Electric Company. >> I'll second that. Is there any discussion? Scott. >> So, I'd just like to request, you know, in future situations like this where
there's it's an amendment to a prior agreement and it makes reference to that prior agreement that you also attach the prior agreement so we have easy reference to those materials. >> You bet. And we did that in uh our school committee meeting several months
back. So perhaps we can even do that by the end of the meeting, reference that point and move that document over. Yeah. So that's it. Thank you. >> Okay. Are you comfortable taking the vote though, Scott, before you have access? Okay. Um that uh this might be a
stupid question, Kirk, but the easement does is it um does it give like a an end time? >> It does in the original agreement as Mr. Pal referred to. Okay. And that is to the conclusion of project. >> Very good. Thank you so much. Any other discussion?
All right, guys. So, let's take the vote. Um, I vote yes. Amy, >> yes. >> Scott, >> yes. >> Jillian, >> yes. >> Robin, >> yes. >> Sharon, >> yes.
>> Matt, >> John, >> yes. >> Lindsay, >> yes. >> Jackie, >> yes. >> And Shandra, >> yes. >> Excellent. Thanks for that. Um, Kirk, is there uh is that needing to be signed
like soon? Uh, tomorrow. >> Yeah, we want to get it back as soon as possible, but I I will leave it to you and Miss Mastersonson to arrange a time to do that. >> Okay. Alita, good luck. >> Hudson Road trip. [laughter]
>> Love it. Um, okay. So, let's move now to the main event here. I see on the agenda the FY27 budget workshop that is next. And so, um, without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Kirk and his
team, and he'll be walking us, uh, swiftly through a very long presentation. Kirk promises that it will be under two hours. Kirk, you're uh, muted not to >> Yeah. >> make this too. Yeah, there we go. >> Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes,
we recognize that even at one minute per slide, that would be an hour and a half. So, we will make sure to to breeze through the things and try not to be too pendantic along the way. Um, so thank you for that, Madam Chair. Um, this is
our annual budget workshop presentation. I'd like to remind the committee and all the viewing public that it is a workshop. This is not a presentation of what the final budget will be that will ultimately uh be submitted for the budget hearing in March, but rather it's
the workshop. This is an opportunity for the school district to show you the things uh that we need to execute our educational program and uh safety for students. And then throughout the season as we get factors in uh we will
understand uh if we need to make any changes how we prioritize those changes. But that is not for tonight's discussion. Tonight's discussions just to give you all that full general outline and Mr. Mccarron will go a little bit into that when we get to the
timeline. So next slide. >> Hang on one. Sorry about that. Great. We'll start off with some introductions and move into the mission, vision, values, and goals. This is important because this is what uh how we define our budget. Um we're going to
talk about what equality and equity means in school budgets. We're going to look at the school-based budgets, the department budgets, and then the total budget, wrapping up with next steps. Uh this is a night you're going to hear a lot from Mr. Karen in terms of some of
those processes and the budget crafting that's gone on. He'll talk a little bit also about how we are doing sort of a a an expense side of the budget presentation tonight. We will not be going into uh revenues tonight as
there's too many variables that are out there right now. And of course, we have notified our towns of our intention. So I would like to introduce our cabinet team starting with assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Laura Friend our assistant superintendent of finance operations and
safety Rosal Karen Royan de Manch our director of student services our technology manager and Jessica Murdoch our director of human resources currently we have an open position uh for a director of facilities of which we're currently in negotiations with and
we hope to be making an announcement to our committee And as we look to our school leadership, our six principles and their assistant principles are reflected here. Uh these are the hardworking people that have worked closely with um Mr. McCarron and
myself uh to look at all the needs across our schools uh in terms of ed ed providing a high quality educational program that is good for all students as that is our goal. Next, we also want to
throw a special thanks out to our team. These are, if you will, our B behind the scene folks who uh really work tremendously hard and uh getting us the information we need, processing the things that we need so we can bring this forward to you tonight. That's Renan
Hansen Sauo, our assistant director of finance and operations. Darcy Waldell, our HR payroll specialist, Christina Hayden, our HR benefit specialist, our executive assistant, Alita Mastersonson, and of course, Bridget Hanigan, our communication specialist, who makes sure everything we put out there is polished
and presentation ready. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Moen. >> Thank you, Superintendent Downing, uh, and thank you to the school committee, uh, for your time this evening. Um, I know that uh we say in justest uh about
being efficient with our time, but I think what we've done this evening is we've made this an efficient process in the sense that um what Kirk talked about as far as looking at the expenses. So, as he said, uh, our workshop presentation serves as a first review of
a preliminary budget. And as you can see on the timeline, over the course of the next eight weeks, we'll be making our adjustments as we make educational and fiscal decisions in the best possible interest of our students. The budget you vote on on March 11th will in one way or
another look different than what is presented this evening. As you provide feedback and ask questions this evening, we'll be taking notes. And I want to thank Renan Ansus from my office. He's at home watching and taking notes as well. So we will compare uh and sit down uh first thing tomorrow morning and go
over uh feedback and questions as it will help enhance not only your understanding of the budget but the public's understanding of the budget as well. What's important to note for school committee uh and the public watching is what Superintendent Downing already shared that we're presenting the
expense side this evening. Uh as members of the committee that have been here for several budget years, uh you'll recall that in the past we've presented the expense side uh in this preliminary form alongside what is essentially an unknown revenue and assessment side. We would
use prior year chapter 70 minimum local contributions and just have unclear understanding as far as what other metrics may come in. So what that method did was present at the onset of our budget season an approach that would be unfair and unrealistic to anybody watching and to the school committee
with regards to assessments. So, uh, with our Desian Foundation enrollment, uh, the governor's budget, chapter 70, uh, and minimal local contributions coming out in the next couple of weeks, we anticipate that those key fiscal metrics will be updated in our January
28th budget, and we look forward to walking you through the revenues and assessments at that time. >> Superintendent Downey. So as we move into talking about um uh before we get into talking about our budgets, we want
to talk a little bit about the core values, the mission, the vision of the school district as ultimately this is the return on investment. So the investment that we are putting into our schools will actualize through these things. So in our mission uh we inspire
and challenge all learners to realize their unique potential become active contributors to their community and so um in that way we want to be able to offer a diverse learning program and I think you've seen evidence with that with our engagement in in the innovation
pathways program the development of my cap at middle school uh the re-examination and redesign of a wide swath of curriculum in the district next. And it is our vision for all of those in
our care to be their best selves, pave their path, and impact the world. This is the vision that we tie to our district. And embedded in that vision is our core values of academic achievement and personal growth for all students to develop voice, choice, and agency,
lifelong learning, and provide a safe and caring inclusive community. focusing on collaborative partnerships, innovation and a sense of belonging. And that's what we want for each and every uh person in our care in the school district. So the theory of action this really is
you can think of this almost as a return on investment that through those communication systems and protocols clearly aligned and articulated curricula, innovative practices and shared leadership, equitable opportunities and outcomes for all and effective resource allocation. These are
all those things that are in the budget. we will be able to execute that mission of inspiring and challenging all learners to realize their unique potential and becoming active contributors to their community. So uh next I want to move in and and um
uh remind the committee that when we look at the budget and we articulate our priorities for the budget that there are many elements in our budget that are based on being equal or those equality standards and that's where you see the administration standards of 251 students
to one administrator. for our guidance counselors. The same ratio, one dean per 800 students per town. Standard class sizes not to exceed 24 students at the beginning of the school
year with kindergarten and through second grade classrooms not to exceed 22 students per classroom. Last year we really walked the line on those uh class size standards and we'll see that in some of the u enrollment numbers in the
slides that are upcoming. But this has been our definition of class sizes long before I arrived as your superintendent as this took us back to really as recent as a school choice hearing going back to 2010.
So the other element of our staffing involves equity and that's the complexity in the school system because that can be very dynamic and that's where when we're providing uh each and every student with what they need the targeted services that are necessary for
some of our students will be more intense than others. We often see this through special education program programming and students on 504s, our English learners, our title one program as well as our multi-ister uh
multi-tered systems of support uh through our high quality tiered one education as well. And the last element before we start getting into schools is to talk about um the district-wide staffing. And that
unit A are educators that require a desi license or a license of some kind. Um and unit C is our administrative assistants, classroom assistants, custodial staff, food service and extended learning staff. And if we refer to nonREP, that means they do not belong
to one of the collective bargaining units. So for instance, your superintendent is a nonrepresented employee as is assistant superintendent McCarron and assistant superintendent Fred. [snorts] Want to take a moment to remind uh the committee of what we did post uh voted
budget last year and that is uh we increased our world language for tenths. We had to add a fifth grade section at sender over the summer as we had a a summer enrollment that took us over the threshold. Um and then we made an adjustment of a 0.1 FTA math coach to
make it from a 0.9 to a 1.0. Uh we returned the deans to the school system because the differential uh post budget in insurance cost due to negotiating the insurance percentage down. Looking at our unit a educators, team
chairs, special educators, team chairs, and nurses, the net was a decrease of 9/10 FTE due to the decrease of a social worker that was expressed last year as guidance counselor. But as we uh looked at our lensure and matching up the programs, uh it actualized as a social
worker position that we didn't fill when um one of our employees uh uh had an opportunity to advance his career in another school system. We reduced the floaters and we redu and we had to increase team chair by6 after we did an
analysis of the reduction in the team chair of that budget. And then we also uh were able to reduce the unit C instructional assistance just a 6 uh FTE. So that's just a summary of uh information you already knew from the
beginning of the year. And let's now walk into our school-based budgets. We're going to begin in Lancaster with Mary Rollinsson Elementary and our estimated enrollment for next year. So you can see what our current enrollment
is. Uh 470 students that is uh based on our to-date enrollment and FY27. Uh we anticipate beginning the school year with approximately 464 students. We know this is dynamic. Uh the kindergarten uh
you'll notice there's a box in the kindergarten line. That's because we currently have three sections. We always start the budget process putting four sections of kindergarten for each school because uh we're just now beginning the
kindergarten enrollment process. So uh oftent times our numbers teeter on the need to have three sections or four sections. So we begin with four sections and uh we really get a sense of what our kindergarten numbers are going to look like by the end of February. So, we
should be more firm at the end of February if we need that fourth section of kindergarten at Mary Rollinsson. Um, uh, stay there for a second, Ross. I just wanted to take a moment to point out as well,
um, that as you'll see our second grade number up there at 72. You would be right if you guessed, well, is it that high in first grade now? It's not quite that high, but it will be. That's an example of where at first grade we had
uh three sections last year, and we did have a run on enrollment that happened after the start of the school year that took us into class ratios of 23 uh for MRE, which is why we're maintaining four second grades at MRE next year to make
sure we're back under the 24 threshold. Then you'll see also uh it's a shift in sections. So, uh, the summary here is, uh, needing to add a net 1.0 unit a teacher and a net, uh, 1.0, uh,
kindergarten assistant. You'll see another position that is an ask right here. It's the second request that we made on this position. This is one of those requests that did not, uh, uh, make it through last year, but that is to add a 0.5 secretary. You're going to
see that request in all three of our elementary schools. So, and I include Florence Sawyer with center school and Mary and Mary Rollinsson there. Um, this.5 SE secretary we think is very necessary uh for several reasons.
One is we need office backup for the unforeseen events and we currently don't have any. And um we also need that for when our assistants uh might not be able to attend to their duties. So we have some backup and we need support with our
uh attendance collection uh to to be operationally efficient during the day. But we've recently had two events that have pointed out the need for uh another secretary in the office. And that was one was if you recall the uh swatting
event that happened at Hudson High School. Um as well as we had the unexpected weather event where we had to call an early release. And those are two significant safety scenarios that we work through and working through our protocols.
Um the office secretary uh is a key role in those safety and emergency situations and has to be wholly tuned into uh helping deploy the students in the school. When we're doing that, we do not
have a person who is available to field communications from outside the school coming into the school. So again having a redundancy of that 0.5 secretary in the elementarymentaries I think would be critical. I will say um in my career uh
the schools are the leanest schools I've seen for office staff in any of the school districts where I've worked in. uh schools with 500 elementary students uh typically have two full-time uh assistants uh working in those offices
and we've been functioning on one with uh the reduction we had to make at center school last year uh to bring that into alignment. So uh we're beginning the year putting in that request for the 0.5 secretary. So you will see that uh in all three reflected for all three
schools Mr. McCarron. >> Yeah. Thank you, Superintendent Downing. Um, at the end of this presentation, we'll walk through the actual budget workbook. Um, but you'll see uh each school in each department will have an accompanying slide with their
consolidated budget. Obviously, what's written in blue here at the top is all of our salaries. So, you can see under the teacher Rollinsson salaries, the differential there, uh, if you go back a couple slides is what Superintendent Downing was proposing for enrollment changes and section changes. I want to
point out in one scenario that's applicable across the all of the budgets for K to8. So for K to8 we do a per pupil uh budgeting process. So each principal um takes their October one enrollment. So for Roland that's 470. Uh
and then I look at what was our uh what were our usage last year of these budgets. Do do we need to increase? Have we increased? So for FY25 to 26 I did not increase increase the per pupil aotment um for these different areas
which are written in black. Um so for this year we did. So for one example of that is if you look at the music supplies for Rollinsson it shows a 33% increase which is only $470 and that's because um the music supplies
per pupil for elementary went from $3 per student to $4 per student. So, one extra dollar per student is $470. It looks like a giant jump because it says 33% more, but in reality, it's only one more dollar per student for music supplies for the school year. So, that's
the majority of the increases here. And what you'll see, um, one thing that I'll point out is paper and copy and machine consumables. We run that, uh, analysis through central office, and what we did was we took their FY25 actuals, increased them about by 5%. So what you
see for a proposed for 257 is based on their actuals for 25. Uh we don't do a per pupil on that. Um it's always a little bit nebulous because sometimes when you get a new curriculum program you need more copies. Sometimes when you get a new curriculum program you need less copies. Um so you know again we can
continue to look at that as a as a cost uh and analyze that. Uh Superintendent Downing and to the chair as well. Are we stopping at each school for questions or are we stopping at the end of K to8? How would you like to handle this? >> Kirk,
>> Madam Chair, I think maybe we'll just go through the schools and stop there before we go to departments. >> Okay. >> Great. >> Okay. So, looking at Luther Burbank, you'll see that the enrollment, yes, that is not an error. It actually is
number to number uh in terms of our projection for next year. So you'll see there's no changes in sections needed here and we're all within our class size ratios and as a result we are not requesting any additional staff or adjustments for
Luther Burbank school. Mr. Moar. >> Yep. Thank you, Superintendent Downing. Um so the Burbank um budget, couple things that I'd like to point out. Obviously um we don't see a um change in
a significant amount of the budget um when it comes to the per pupil. I will let the committee know um that under music supplies um oh excuse me um under contracted services um there were some additional asks uh in the form of excuse
me move my page uh some transportation for the music festivals um as well as there were some requests for Um under other um expenses you'll see an increase of about 6,500. The majority of
that is the Burbank school is the only one uh without a tubular bell set. Um Mr. O'Shea put it under other expenses. It could go under music as well, but it's not really a supply. It's more of an actual one-time cost. Um so he's requested that as well here. Again, it's
the only middle school without its own set of tubular bells. Shifting our attention to Florence Sawyer School. Uh we're not requesting any additional sections. Uh you'll see the enrollment rises up that third grade will come down a section as second grade
increases a section. So this is where uh the position I described for uh Mary Rollinsson is expressed for Florence order school to add the.5 secretary for the same reasons noted. Uh and you'll see again uh changes in per pupil aotments here. Um and again if
you look under guidance supplies there's a good example. We increased that from $1, uh per student to $2 per student. And if you use that enrollment, there's that change. >> Moving into Center Elementary School, um you'll see the same uh effect that I
described for kindergarten with MRE exists at Center. We currently have three sections. And so we're beginning this budget season with four sections. Um, I will say we've gotten uh we've received our town census and we've cross-cheed it against our preschool
lists of students going to kindergarten that aren't on the town assessment. Um, and we are seeing uh early en enrollments indicating lower and we'll just see how those grow, but we'll have a better sense of that like I said
toward the end of February. Um, I highlighted the first grade here only to say uh the threshold for a fourth section is 67 students and I'm electing
to keep that fourth even though it's 65 right now which keeps us under the threshold of 24 per classroom. Given that we typically experience additional two to three students potentially at that grade level, I think it's wise to just continue to keep that at four. So
as a result that puts center school in a position where they need uh next slide please where they need a kindergarten teacher along with that assistant that would match it and uh reinstating the.5 secretary that was there previously.
So again uh for the center school you'll see the uh enrollment changes reflected in the teacher salaries uh along with the uh assistance as well. Um the one thing that I'll point out under contracted services, you'll see a large increase. Um so there is a there is a
need for vision services at the school that would not fall under Miss Deanch's um budget. Um so if a student is not on an IEP but requires vision services potentially through a 504. Uh that would be here. Um so I do know that actually
in my time I had the same experience u when I was a building principal that we had that as well. So, um, Miss Coer has that need for next year and that's reflected here. >> Great. Moving to the town of Stowe, uh, staying in the town of Stow, I should say. Here we have Hail Middle School and
like Burbank, uh, we don't see, uh, any enrollment shifts that would require any, uh, additional staffing here. So, we'll just move on to the schoolbased budget. And again largely dependent upon uh the
per pupil uh aotments um and uh underneath the professional development uh Mr. Grady is also requesting training and certification for the climbing wall. Uh we had a staff member that was previously trained uh for that climbing
wall. So, it's actually um something that we're leaving in the budget as of right now, but uh we have a principal meeting tomorrow morning and we're going to discuss is this something that can be used across the district um because if we either need to have more people
trained and certified based on the type of wall that they have in their gymnasium or is this uh one person who can be trained that can do the work across the district. So, um it's in there as of now um and we're going to move forward from there. Okay, moving into Noba Regional High
School. Uh want to give you that our first uh level, our first projection based upon the model I've shared with you in the past is showing us remaining pretty level. Um this uh the model of 192 students at 9th grade is based upon
the 5-year rolling average model in terms of the number of students that we lose uh to uh vocational schools or private school. go moving from 8th to 9th grade. I will remind the committee that actually went down last year and we had about 15 more students attend than
we anticipated. So, one data point is not a trend to make. Uh but that's something we'll be watching as well. But we are looking at a level year-over-year enrollment at the high school. However, we do have a need and so we're asking for an additional FTE for a math
computer science teacher and I would like to bring forward assistant superintendent friend uh to speak to the need for the math computer science teacher uh Miss Friend. Would you mind uh joining us? >> Sure. Thank you, Superintendent Downing, and thank you to the committee for
giving me an opportunity to explain the rationale here for this request. We are requesting consideration for the addition of a 1.0 FTEE for math and computer science at the high school for two primary reasons. First, to support the 4-year graduation
requirement for mathematics aligned with the district's updated graduation requirements, and second to strengthen the computer science program at the high school where current offerings are limited. This position would teach courses in mathematics and in computer science.
As a committee is aware, our updated graduation requirements now align with mass core and a key implication of this change is the shift from three years of mathematics to four years of mathematics for all students. This position would
ensure the teaching of the necessary sections for that fourth year. In terms of that fourth year, we are truly looking at this fourth year as an opportunity to expand our current offerings specifically with a lens on expanding advanced level options for our
seniors. The second reason for this request is tied to computer science and specifically to strengthen the high school computer science program for all students and to ensure the availability and offering of course work aligned with
the information technology pathway. This position would support instruction in computer science for all students both at the foundational level and at the advanced level. skills that are increasingly essential for students as they move away from us from Nishoba
while also meeting innovation pathway requirements for that strand within that pathway. So, in summary, this position would allow us to meet and sustain our graduation requirements while expanding access to high-quality advanced mathematics learning and expanding our
offerings in computer science offerings for all students and specifically those students in in our information technology pathway. Thank you, Superintendent Downing. >> Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Friend. Uh, Mr. Mo Karen.
>> Yes, thank you. So, what you'll see here is a consolidated version of all of the departments uh in your workbook. It is all broken out as well as in the executive summary, but that obviously would not all fit on one slide. Um so, this gives you a a sense of the the
salary and non-sary um expenses under the non-sary expenses, the buildingwide non- salaries, essentially the main office um what's run by the main office. And then the departmental non- salary expenses are those that are run uh by the department heads and obviously any
purchasing they do uh goes through Dr. Boon as well as through myself and the the approval process. Um so some increases and decreases in the departmental um pieces. I do know that the science department which did AP chemistry books uh in the FY26 budget is
requesting AP biotechbooks uh in the FY27 budget. uh the math department is taking on some curricular changes as well. Um and then also in the the guidance department there's some decrease in cost as we move uh from the
Navvian to the school links uh product and I see uh assistant superintendent and friend nodding her head so I got the school links name correct so thank you um superintendent downing uh this this does
the uh departments as well but I know that you wanted to cover it here uh and then maybe we'll stop for those questions. questions. >> So, I'm just I'm pointing uh you all to um what we're going to hear from our folks coming up because you will hear in the student services presentation a
request to reinstate the evaluation team chair to a full 1.0. Uh Mr. from will talk about the building operator position uh that we're requesting as it's related to the new high school and um assistant superintendent friend will
talk about reinstating the director of English language arts and social studies. Next slide. So just as a summary uh personnel summary of what the asks are this slide gives you that. So you see at MRE and
center school the kindergarten teachers along with the high school teacher and the team chair for unit C it reflects the kindergarten assistants as well as the three half-time secretaries and in the non-rep uh you will see that it uh
addresses the director of English language arts and social studies and building operator which will be spoken about in the next uh part of the presentation but uh that will conclude the schools, Madam Chair. So, uh, happy to take any questions on the schools to
this point. >> All right. So, I'm just trying to adjust my screen so I can see as many people as possible. Do you guys have any questions? I see Jillian's here. >> Thank you. So, I apologize. This is my
first budget workshop, so I have some questions that may seem obvious and just bear with me. Um, so I was looking at the yeah the center school that uh cohort for grad year 2037
with the 65 kids moving to four sections and I think my question was Emory has a cohort for grad year 2035 with 70 kids that's only three sections and I realized that one kind of falls in that K through two bucket and you know
another is in that you know 3 plus bucket. bucket and I was wondering, you know, sort of how you make those decisions and would you, for example, if we were to add that spot for center, would you then consider
collapsing it back down um once that cohort enters grade three or sort of how does that work? >> Well, that would be uh so looking at the Mary Rollinsson, you would see that all the class sizes are within our class size standards.
which is >> yes but that center school would also be within class size standards you said right so it would still be within so I guess that was my question is just how do >> you have a smaller class with >> K1 and two >> K1 and two are a classroom size ratio of
22 to1 >> grades three four and five the classroom ratio is 24 to one >> so number 70 if it lives in grades K1 and two would trigger a fourth section But it is grade four. It's the older
students. So it's three sections. >> So that yes, I understand that. My question is if we were to approve that extra teacher or that extra, you know, center section, >> does that stay permanent or does, you know, if you maintain those, you know,
65 kids going into third grade, do you collapse that back two, three sections or does it remain? Okay, that was my >> uh Mr. Now I understand. Thank you. Uh yes and as a matter of fact we've done that in past budgets and had have had to do that education of our families that
we we do collapse it from four to three when we're in those thresholds. >> Awesome. And then I just have one more question. Um the I was looking in the school budgets and this might be a little in the weeds and maybe we'd get to it later but I did notice that for hail it looked like they had model UN
math club gaming club listed under two cost centers. So they were duplicated. So they had those items listed under contracted services and under other expenses, different dollar amounts in each one. So I guess I was just
wondering looking, you know, for a newbie sort of looking at these school by school budgets, how why would you have one item kind of split between different cost centers? >> Uh you would not and likely that is an
error. Oh, okay. Awesome. So, >> thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> That's why you're reviewing the budget this evening and moving forward. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Miss >> W. I will double check and confirm, >> Mr. That's what makes this a workshop as we uh we look to everybody to comb through it. So, uh thank you for that.
It's uh notated. >> Thank you. >> And if it isn't a mistake, Ross, you'll let us know what the difference is. >> Correct. Yep. >> Absolutely. Yeah. There may be a fee versus uh contracted service for the bus. Like I will confirm all of that. Yeah, it's
and likely it's potentially an error, but I'll double check. >> Yeah. >> Uh let's see. Scott was next. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um so I'd like to talk about the dean positions for a minute. Um, in looking at the school
budgets, you know, a significant contributor to the large percentage increase is related to the dean positions, which was a a choice that the administration and the committee made last year as a redirection of, you know, some insurance savings funds. Uh, I'd
like you to remind us of the the function what the deans do and why they're important to the educational outcome of the students in the district so we can en ensure that we want to continue supporting that role. >> Yeah. Uh the deans are are critical to
the daily function of the school. Um they are a frontline person for safety. So when it comes to uh bringing the students in, collecting them, ensuring that students are in the places they need to be, the dean plays a critical role. The dean is also the focus point
for all the middle school attendance uh and has been uh charging those efforts. Uh I recently checked our attendance. We're tracking really well this year. Um most recently up to 96%. Uh so the deans are heavily attributed
to that. They also run our um advisory programs that are in our MI middle schools. Those are curriculum programs that are done through the advisory model. Um and then they also work with uh students and teachers to work through problem solving conversations uh and
daily situations that happen. So they're boots on the ground uh working with students and that enables the the principal to focus on being the instructional leader of the school, be focused on the instructional program, working with students and families uh on
the work that they need to do. So it's very much in collaboration with that principal. >> You called me. >> Thank you. >> And she says, "Oh my god." >> All right, let's go over to Jackie. Yeah, I
I apologize. I usually um like to think about this a little bit more, but I was just curious. I know that we've done this now, this is the third year for me going over um our equality [clears throat] staffing standards and how we consider um
equity across all the schools. And I was just wondering, is it possible in future considerations that we think about the staffing standards for the schools that support
programs um for special education, knowing that in some of those schools requires more I I think to your point boots on the ground people to support um behavior and supporting students. and
whether or not that is a factor currently or I guess if it's something that we can consider in the future. >> Dr. Reiner, that's actually reflected in the student services budget. So all of our students that are tied to our specialized programming are not tied
into the schoolbased budgets. They're tied into the district special education budgets. So, we do have those and we do have those boots on the ground and the extra support and you you'll see um a graphic of that later in the presentation. >> Okay, Jackie.
>> Sure. >> All right. Thank you. >> Can't wait. Thanks for that. Uh Amy, >> thank you. Um, my question is around Florence Sawyer. Uh, I think it's grade six. I'm trying to get back
to that slide. Looks like there's 95 students. Um, with one section that's at 25, two sections that are 24, and one that's at 23.
So is that how does that work? Like if if you have I think that the our classite standards for this grade level are 24 students per class, right? So would is that just an error where the to the
section with 25 students should be going from section one to section three to even that out or are we is this a situation where this might actually bump to four sections because you have one section with 25 students in it? >> Well, our middle school model won't allow for that the way we have that
structured. >> Yeah. >> Um so we'd look to support in other ways. Uh the reason why it's 25 would be based on a school-based decision of when a student was placed, you know, like a move in for instance. Yeah. Uh and that would have to be based upon um it could be related to the alignment of of
programming for that student. So um like I said, we begin the year in those places. Um and then of course each year we make the adjustments uh from sixth to seventh grade, but those dynamics do change um throughout the year as we have
moveins come in. Cool. >> Um I'm I am stuck on that a little bit. So we're going to have a section of 25. Doesn't that exceed our our standard? >> Yes, but this at the beginning of the year it didn't it was not 25. >> It's it's expressed as 25 now because it
reflects what the current fifth grade looks like. That's all. So, it's just walking over the four sections of fifth grade to sixth grade. That'll be redistributed uh redistributed uh uh for those class size standards.
>> So, we're not predetermining. Yes. One's a 25, the other are of 22 today. >> Okay. Yeah. >> It's just the way that they are today. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. All right. because we do have to
accept that there is going to be some classrooms that exceed this under kind of extenduating circumstances like moveins etc. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um any other questions?
I I just wanted to make a note, Kirk, that it seemed to me and I really just am trying to look at this fairly quickly as you're going, but it seems to me that the changes that you made at the middle school have created a dynamic where the class sizes are more kind of class
sizes. >> Yeah, they are now. So, as we look at our middle school and that's particularly eighth grade, it reflects um um exactly what you're saying. Okay, great. All right, I'm not seeing any other questions, so I think we can
move on to the districtbased. >> Well, I will be happy to turn over to Assistant Superintendent Mularen. Uh you're going to be hearing a lot from Mr. McCarron from here on out and I'll do my best to support uh where needed. So, Mr. McCarron, it's all yours.
>> Great. Thank you, Superintendent Downing. Uh and Madam Chair, I would assume that we would stop at each section uh for questions as they're so different um and in what they serve. Okay, great. Um so we're going to jump right into it.
Um you know, this was the major uh concern last year was our our health insurance. Um I'll start at the bottom, which is actually the good news. So, our operational I call it operational insurance and benefits which is our our um you know uh auto liability those
types of things came in under budget this year. So our our budget for FY27 is based on those actuals. Um so we're in a good place there. We did get our Worcester County retirement assessment. Um and that's the actual for FY27.
We pray we paid that right on July 1. So we get a small discount. So that's reflected in the budget. So health insurance, um we did uh a little bit of an overview of this at the budget and warrant uh subcommittee last week or two weeks ago, whatever it may be. Um and
you'll see some of that here as well. Um so overall, our enrollment is down. We have nine people that took advantage of the opt out program that we put forward last year. Um we have instituted our insurance advisory committee again and met several times. I'll talk a little
bit about that. Uh thanks to everyone that's involved including uh school committee representative Scott Powell from Stowe obviously and Jess Murdoch our HR director. So we'll get our range from the uh trust um at the end of
January um and the actual increases uh will not show up until um next month at some point and and and applied. But I'll talk a little bit about that here. So under the uh collective bargaining agreements, we have what's called an
insurance advisory committee. The districts on its own cannot make plan changes. This is a uh a contractual obligation uh that we have to convene this insurance advisory committee. And thank you to Mr. Kevney uh the president of the NREA and his uh constituents who
have met with us several times. Um we've researched and reviewed options that are available to school districts. So, here's where we're at as of today with our potential options. So, option one in purple is that we stay with MYA, which is the Massachusetts Interlocal
Insurance um association. That's a trust uh with dozens upon dozens of other school districts, municipalities, and regional school districts. We'll get the the range published at the end of January. Hopefully, we'll know the range and I can update you in two weeks. uh
but their annual convening is that last weekend in January and they'll publish the range. Now what that range means is that every single entity within that trust will fall between X and Y. So last year it was approximately 10 and 20%.
Um we'll get our actual rates midFebruary um with no plan changes. Uh so it's it's one rollover of the plan that we have. Uh members of the committee that have been here for a little while remember a few years ago we instituted a deductible for the first time. Uh and that
essentially brought our increase down to almost almost zero. Uh at that time it was like 1%. Um we can't keep pulling those levers. The co-ay levers don't work. Um there's really not a lot we can do within our current plan. So uh if we
were going to accept what Maya puts forward, we have to approve that by April 1. You'll recall last year that after your budget vote, I went back to Maya and said, "Hey, I'm hearing other districts were able to negotiate. What can we do?" And they put two pilot
programs in place, brought our rate down a little bit, and that savings has materialized into the deans being with us this year. You wouldn't need to do anything. There's no ratification. I just simply sign the agreement uh and we all move forward. Option two is what we're currently also doing side by side.
Um and that's called a broker of record. So, we've begun working with a broker of record. They're going to use our data uh of usage, of plans, of rates, etc., etc., uh to shop the plans for us. We'll
get this about the same time we get our Maya rate, which will be a really good uh market uh study for us. So if we're going to move forward with that, we would have to review those proposals within the insurance advisory committee
under the contractual language. We would have to have consensus there and then that plan would have to get ratified by both you, the school committee, and by the membership of the NREA. Uh what I've done, excuse me, what I've done is um
put this down here that we will use those Maya rates uh and the FY27 budget uh unless we see another up uh plan option ratified. So while that work underneath the green box is going on, please note that whatever budget number
you see, unless told otherwise, and I'll probably be a broken record this year, uh is that we're moving forward with the Maya information. So for budgeting for health insurance, um reviewing enrollment trends, uh
looking at our budget versus our actual and I am using an assumption of a 20% premium increase this year. I think last year I put out about a 10% increase because that would have been the highest point of the range that we had ever seen and it came back as double. Um I've
already built in a 20% increase. I'm using current enrollment as of today for budgeting. There's no buffer built in. This is our actual enrollment. So, just a few reminders. Employees that work over 20 hours per week are eligible. We offer three active employee and
retirement plans. And then there's the additional Medicaid plans for retirees. By contract, the district pays 70% of the premium for active employees. They pay 30% and it's a 50/50 split with our retirees. So, here's our overall enrollment in our
health insurance. Has been relatively steady. We're at our lowest that it has been. uh in a number of years. Again, we have nine people who have done the opt out program. So, that's driving a big part of the drop from 380 last year to 365 right now for the budget. So, here
are the plans that we offer and the enrollment that they've seen over the last several years. Uh and again, over on the right hand side, you can see that in the middle here, you'll see these blue choice New England individual and family plans. We no longer offer those
as new plans. Um we do have people who may switch from a family to an individual uh but we don't have anybody new joining those plans. So over time those will be phased out. So as you can see here's the enrollment trend for each one of those plans. Uh
I'd like to point out the top two which are our most popular plans. The blue line is the HMO blue family and then the HMO blue uh New England. Uh those are as you can see sort of almost inverses of each other and that could partly be attributed to uh as we've had more
people retire who are on family plans and we have new people coming on who are in individual plans who are stepping in for those staff members. So in budgeting for FY27 again I'm going to keep reiterating this. As of right
now we're using a 20% increase on the premium. So, what you'll see is each one of our plans, um, what the total monthly premium would be at 20%. What the total annual premium is, what the 70% district share of each of those
plans would be, times the number of counts, gets you the total projected cost for FY, excuse me, FY27 at the top there. Um, I will go back and fix that. Um, these are FY27 counts and FY27
uh projected costs. Uh, but our FY27 projected cost is just over 9 million. We built in another $50,000 to pay for the opt out. Again, if somebody who's on an individual plan gets 2500 for stepping off, there's a savings uh for
what they didn't uh use that materializes and it benefits the district. Then we have $600,000 in offsets built into our insurance, which brings the actual budget number to $8.5 million essentially.
So again, you can see that built in here uh under the active employee health insurance. Um our retirees um while it says 5%, it's higher than that. Uh we have a lot of people who are switching to uh less expensive plans and within
the counts. Um, but I'll take any questions on uh insurance and benefits at this point. >> All right, guys. Any questions that weren't answered for you? >> I have one. I haven't >> Yeah, go ahead.
>> Yeah. Um, so actually I have two. The first is, can you explain how the $600,000 offset um works and how you're able to use that?
>> Yeah. >> Age. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um so, a couple of places we have um uh employees within our food services and within our extended learning, so we can charge their health insurance and offset health
insurance that way. Um there's also the school choice um uh use. So when we get our school choice revenue in uh our our tuitions and it does not count as a revenue. It goes into a revolving account and we use that to help offset
our insurance costs. So when we get to the budget uh document walkth through uh Miss Cohen, I can show you where those offsets live uh and are summarized uh for everyone. >> Okay. Thank you. It sounds familiar now that you're saying it. remember that
explanation from last year, but it wasn't obvious to me looking at the >> and and I'll and I'll say now and I said it across uh last year um I will you know uh be the one to put the brakes on where if we're pushing our off offsets
too far where they're unrealistic um you'll hear me say we we can't go any further with offsets from this account. >> Okay, >> so those are all realistic offsets. My second question is, and this might be an oversimpl simplification of things,
but right now the slide you have up is showing a 10% change in insurance and benefits total, but you've stated a few times so far that you're assuming a 20%. >> So, it's it's 20% 20% increase on the
active employees premium.96 here, but that's because our counts are down. Okay. Yeah, I was trying to reconcile the numbers. So, it's really just on this one line item, the health insurance for active employees.
>> Yep. The budget is based off of 20% it increase on the premium, but because counts are down and because um and I'll just back up a couple of slides. So, if you look here under the total district cost per plan, so uh $30,000
per plan. So, if you have, you know, five people opt out on a share of $30,000, that saves the district $150,000, right? Or if you have five people leave, or if you have three people leave, the
blueare elect family, uh the district sees a cost savings of $120,000. So, it's just based on the counts and that's why it doesn't show as an actual of 20% here. Uh because the num the the
dollar to dollar only changes about 15%. But the the model is based off of a 20% on the premium. >> Okay? And >> instead of just looking at one big one big line and saying just add 20%. We're we're doing it count by count.
>> Okay. And then related to the 20% increase that you're factoring in here, when we get our final numbers from Maya, I feel like last year when we got kind of their final premium increase, it was after we
had voted in a budget that assumed kind of like a 20% increase. >> Correct. is are we going to be facing the similar timeline this year where we might vote in a a budget that assumes a higher rate increase and then find ourselves with
>> No, because what I would do this year and again that was a a piece that I learned is that, you know, it's when I heard other districts were having some negotiation points with with Maya on their rate, I took our 19.92% and went back to them and said, "We've been in
this trust for a very long time." uh you know somebody new gets to join the middle at you know 15 or 16%. This is unfair. What can you do for us? Um this year when we get our rate I will be pressing and pushing back as will Mrs. Murdoch. If we feel like it's
unrealistic uh based on our utilization and and what we feel we should be getting we'll push back and say we need our our best and final before the budget vote so that this doesn't cause uh confusion or uh adjustment after the fact. >> Okay. Awesome. Thank you.
>> You're welcome. >> Yeah. >> All right. I'm not seeing any other hands, so I guess we're going to keep going. >> Great. Uh, so systemwide, so a couple of big pieces here. Um, the OPED trust
contribution. So, it's important to point this out every budget season. A few years ago, uh the school committee created a uh uh OPED, which is its own acronym, management, uh um uh subcommittee, advisory committee, and
they came up with a recommendation. Those are the presentation and the recommendation are both linked. Uh Mr. Pallet presented that at the November 29, 2023 uh school committee meeting. So each year,
uh, it's the recommendation of that of that subcommittee that we increase our trust contribution by $25,000. Um, so therefore, it's $125,000 for FY27. Um, I will not bore the committee with the ins and outs of OPED, but if you
want to review those materials, um, the OMAC, that group did a really good job of summarizing them and putting some educational materials together at that time, and those are still available. They're also on the finance and operations website. Uh so another big piece that we need to be aware of is the governor's proposed budget doesn't just
include chapter 70. It's not just about foundation enrollment, but we'll also get our ch our charter school tuition charges for what will be used in the FY27 budget along with [snorts] our school tuition out. So just like we take students in through school choice, kids in our district go through school choice
to other districts. Um, currently in the budget lives the FY26 um, uh, budget that was finalized in the summer. Um, and you'll see those there, but again, we'll update those once we get
those numbers hopefully in in less than two weeks. Our transportation costs are based on the contractual rates and our debt our debt service is also documented within this uh, cost center. So, if you remember at the last school committee um which was almost a month ago um back on
the 17th of December, you can link uh or hit this link here to go review those. But essentially, here's the debt service. And again, we talked about we do not anticipate taking any new debt on for the high school construction that would impact FY27. And you'll see that
throughout the budget uh this spring. So, here's the proposed systemwide um budget and uh you can see the charter school uh those accounts and the school uh choice out. Um the debt service is
relatively level. Um we're still paying off our track and field as well as the Leechfield. Um the tuition reimbursement for unit A and C are contractual obligations and reflect those numbers. Um, and then other than that, there's no other major changes that I have not
highlighted already. >> All right, everybody. Any questions up to this point? >> All right, not seeing any. Ross, you can keep going. >> Thank you. Uh, one, excuse me, madam chair. One thing I would highlight under contracted services, uh, the some school
safety uh, pieces that used to live in the health and wellness are just now reflected here under contracted services. You'll see the differential in that budget coming up. >> Actually, I see two hands up the >> Oh. >> Oh, very good. Uh, go ahead, Scott.
>> Yeah, just really quickly on the transportation line. I was curious, do you know what the rate because the numbers the increase number seems very modest. >> Uh so we're we're down a bus this year, Mr. Powell. And so because we're down a
bus um based off of what was budgeted uh for 26 plus the increase and yes, we do have that our our contract runs through the end of FY27. Uh Amy, >> yeah, I was wondering
where for the salary line items in this category >> is where would I find the FTEES that go? >> We're we're going to talk talk about that and walk through that at the very end when we walk through the budget doc. >> Oh, okay. All right. Sorry, I didn't get
to the end of the slide deck yet. Um >> that's okay. And then the other question I have, and this might seem uh a little like getting into the weeds, but photocopier expenses. >> Yep. So, we we have a new lease. Uh we
have a new lease. Um we budgeted a $60,000. >> We which was I think at the time last year was about a $12,000 increase over our previous lease. It It's just the market condition right now. we went with the the best possible
lease we could get and it was still um over budget. So that $75,000 is actually what we're paying on our lease this year for all of our our copers >> and we have a three-year lease. So this is this FY27 would be year two.
>> All right, I think that's all the hands. Go ahead, Russ. >> Uh, just some uh adjustments um for our actuals. Uh we're increasing these um we just we see the need to um you know uh
these budgets continue to to go forward. I'll say in the long-term substitute, you know, you can't predict uh somebody might need a family leave or a medical leave and they wax and wayne. Um the other thing we have to consider with the long term is you know um we don't know
there's no one set cost uh for a long-term sub because it may be 4 weeks it may be 12 weeks we just don't know. Uh and then certainly you can't predict necessarily the the the need for for regular day-to-day substitutes but the
cost obviously increases based on the usage and that's just reflected here. Any quick questions on substitutes? >> Are you seeing the um the use go up? Is that what you should what you said?
>> Um as far as a dollar amount, yes. I'd have to ask Mrs. Murdoch to pull actual counts uh to get that that specific on numbers. Yep. >> Okay. I know that Desi is tracking this
as well. So, this is kind of front and center. uh teacher attendance. >> Yeah. And in all likelihood, you know, there's always the the translation of how Desi ends up publishing the number, right, based on how they see the metric
versus what we may see, >> right? Because they mix in long-term leaves, maternity leaves. >> Yeah. And and Superintendent Downing and Assistant Superintendent Friend would be a much better uh knowledge based on the DESI indicators than I would be.
>> Okay. Um, but you're pulling them apart here, right? The the regular >> the regular line item is just like you have the flu, you you need a sub. >> Yep. >> Okay. But but you're anticipate like those are going up. It seems quite a bit.
>> Our actual our actuals are going up. >> Okay. Any other questions? All right. Madam Chair, I I think I would add to the substitutes conversation is the actuals going up is not
necessarily bad news. That means we're finding subs to fill seats. Uh whereas in years where we weren't using those lines, we had frankly what's a worse problem and that is no substitutes to cover our teachers that are out. So it
doesn't necessarily reflect an increase. It does reflect an increase in usage, but usage for a good reason. It's it's covering teachers who are out. So, we we are seeing improvement on our ability to get subs
than we have in the past, but we're a long way away from pre-COVID days. That's for sure. >> Okay. >> Great. >> Okay. So, health and wellness, Mariah Wicker is our director of health and wellness. I know that Rowan Demanchch,
this is under her department, so she's going to add in some information here. And um Miss Spanish, you want to take it over right now and then I'll talk about budget? >> Sure. Thank you. So for health and wellness this year um
as we know last year safety kind of moved over to under the assistant superintendent's um purview. So this year we don't anticipate much changes. We're sustaining um the current nursing
staff that we have. We continue to seek out um substitute nurses um as as needed. Um so we don't anticipate any changes um uh coming into next year.
>> Yep. So you see that reflected in the budget and there's that um under contracted services that differential that went down. That's what walked over into the systemwide contracted services that's now under uh a central office purview versus in this department. Um
and other than that uh no major changes. Any questions on health and wellness? >> Not seeing any. >> All right. So um I will give Mr. Freezewood credit for c um and I will uh now take over uh as the interim director
of facilities. Superintendent Downing appreciates it when I wear my giant set of keys around the central office. Um so uh as we build the budget obviously we think about strategic plan connections and you know we uh you know looked to be you know
forward thinking in our facilities department while also understand the fact that we're we're very reactive as well. Um, I will say I am now the one receiving the middle of the night alerts along with uh some of our other district personnel and they're frequent um and
you know goes down or a piece of equipment goes down overnight or isn't reading correctly. We need to make sure that that's that's corrected and up and running and functional by uh the start of the school day. You know certainly along with with uh with the snow and ice things that come forward uh we're
hitting a nice little sweet spot right now. So, um, but in general, you know, it's a it's a 24-hour day operation. Uh, the facilities department does not close. Um, so we do try to maintain, uh, obviously our equipment. Uh, we make
sure that we're in compliance with regulatory agencies. This, this body is not, uh, you know, unaware of the, you know, water testing that we do in the district and the notices we put out when something's not right and how we, uh, work to correct it. Um, and then obviously we work to be energy efficient
and I'll talk a little bit about that in the budgeting. Um, one new ask is that uh there is a 2005 Chevy passenger van that was used over in Burbank uh for the special education program there. It can also be used for athletics and other clubs. We replaced the high school uh
van of this uh nature in the FY26 budget and have a three-year lease underway right now. Um but um it'll mirror the same lease that we have now. Uh but we do need another vehicle that 20-year-old Chevy. It it does not drive off the lot
over at Burbank right now. So we'll be asking for that within the budget. Um so uh there's an FY27 new ask for personnel. Um if you'll recall last year at this time we had asked for a building
operator as well. um we pulled that back due to budgetary constraints for FY26. However, we've thought about this in a different way and I want to be clear that this is not part of an FY27 operating ask but merely at this point to put it in front of the committee so
that you're aware that this is going to be coming forward and continuing forward uh uh as we go. So, a facilities building operator, the the big purpose is to support that technical work that I just talked about with some of those overnight and the on calls and building
expertise in those building systems. Um, we're going to be onboarding a new building at the end of the fiscal year that we're talking about. So, at the end of FY27, we take the keys on a brand new state-of-the-art high school. Um, we're going to be doing some work in the first
year or two with a uh consultant in the building and working with the building and that's part of the building project to make sure those systems are efficient as possible from the get-go. And we want to make sure that we can replicate that in our other buildings. We would want this position to focus on our HVAC
systems, the preventative maintenance and repairs of those systems. And we would put the position at the high school because we would want them to learn alongside the vendors, the technicians, uh our OPM that will stay on site as we open the new building.
Now, it says a.3 FTE. Um that would be a full-time position for four months. And the reason we're choosing those four months at the end of the next fiscal year is that they would be there as that building is turned on, as the HVAC system gets turned on, as the alarm
systems get turned on, as the secured everything gets going in that building. Uh we would want another person there from the district alongside our director of facilities to learn that system with uh the custodians in the building. Um,
we would fund the FY27 portion through the facilities revolving if the funding allows with a proposal for FY28. That may be fully in the facilities revolving. It may be partially the operating. We're going to check our forecasting at that point. Um, but
again, this is a new ask, so it would still need to go through the personnel subcommittee and your approval for the job description and the range. But again, we're putting it on your radar today just because we're talking about facilities and future forecasting. And again, no impact to the FY27 operating.
Um, but we want to let you know that that's where our head is at. So, cost changes within the actual facilities budget. Um, we're decreasing some of our scheduled maintenance. Uh, most likely, uh, excuse me, most notably because of our equipment that we're
going to be sort of, um, decommissioning at the end of FY27. Um, our water and wastewater need to continue, uh, to stay within D compliance. Um, uh, we continue to be in collective bidding. So, we're in a consortium for collective bidding for
fuel oil. Um, which means we're part of, uh, several districts that are, I think it's over a million gallons. Um, we're 110,000 of those gallons. Um, but again, we get a really good uh, procurement on that. We have a consultant for the procurement of our natural gas and
electricity with the exception of Stow because that's Hudson light and power. Um but again um they help us pick the best rate and the best product available. The difficult part is you cannot uh build in your delivery charges and anybody who gets a utility bill
knows the the problematic pieces of those delivery charges that show up they show up for us as well. So we we build in uh money for that as well. And then we just go to market for our propane because it's uh it's our small smaller utility. Um and then other adjustments
within budget are just based on previous actuals. Um so again, here's a place where we split out the actual administrative costs under the director facilities. Uh the facilities department salaries and then the rest of the salaries are here as they've been before. And then you can
see all the budgetary categories um that are here. And again, anything that you see that's a decrease is likely based on the fact that our actuals are just not there. So underground supplies, you'll see a decrease. Um we're down a significant chunk of fields and uh we
don't have as much uh happening at the high school. Um so you'll see some of that savings here as well. Um I will say um that you may see a change in FY28. um that will be and we'll try to pull it
out specifically for the new high school because the energy models that are built for the new building, we'll have to hold those up against our next contract for electricity. Um and we are up for a new contract for electricity um at the end
of FY27. So, we'll be going out to bid again then. Um and you'll see uh an increase likely as that's a mostly electric building. Any questions on the FY27 budget? >> Uh, Scott,
>> so I'm I'm going to apologize if if you covered this exactly, but you I think I saw you say you're replacing a vehicle that's not running correct. >> Um, how are you if if we need that vehicle, how are you currently filling that need? So we're we're we're not
filling the need in a lot of a lot of instances and other instances we have to try to share vehicles and it just makes us less flexible and have less availability for other other things. >> So it begs the question if we actually need to purchase a vehicle to fulfill our needs or if there are other
mechanisms like leasing or renting to potentially fulfill that. >> So it is a proposal for a lease, Mr. Powell, just like we did for for our our other van that we started a lease on this year. um it's not for a fall purchase. Uh that helps keep the cost down and helps keep the vehicle new. Um
I will look into usage and I can certainly get back to you. >> Okay. Um, and the other thing had to do with you were proposing bringing on a new facilities person at the end of next fiscal year to learn about the new
systems, which I think you said you're somehow absorbing that cost in existing with existing funds, but but presumably that's going to be a person that would stay on after fiscal 27. So is that a cost that you're setting us up to need
to decide on next year or what what's the >> Yeah. So the the the process would be um to again we'd have to bring the job description forward. We'd have to bring the salary range forward because it would be non- wrap. We would also need to have a conversation about here's a
solution for FY27 for cost by using the facilities revolving. What's the long-term plan? um and deciding at that point uh and you would have leverage in the FY28 budget as well as during FY27 where we we you know this is a proposal
right now uh we're giving you uh advanced notice. We'll be talking more about it in the fall uh because we'd have to have all those things buttoned up before we post. I would not uh and I can't speak for Superintendent Downing or Miss Murdoch and HR. I would not expect that we would bring a position
forward that we know does not have funding beyond FY27 and post and hire or try to do anything with it. Uh it's letting you know that we're going to bring it forward and have no impact on the operating for FY27. So that's why you don't see a change in the FTEES in
the facilities department. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Sean door >> uh about that new position is is some of the idea that it is uh provides backup for the director of facilities if they're not
>> Absolutely. Yeah, we need to be able to share those on calls um you know with a new as Superintendent Downing said we're going to be we're in contract negotiations and and hope to have an announcement soon. part of the entry work under my direction for the new director facilities will be tracking off
hours um calls alerts things like that because now that I'm getting that I'm seeing them in real time uh and they're not they're not infrequent they they happen um and we can work with with flexibility of hours and sharing of that
for sure >> um I I mean I do I do see this as a challenge right it's almost like a catch 22 because you would be training a ghost almost where if we aren't able to pull that position on full-time the following
year, which is a pretty big ask. I imagine it's 80 to $100,000 more, maybe more. Um, so like we would be we would be putting a lot of energy into training this
individual that we're not sure we would be able to keep full-time. Yes. And I think to what I was saying to Mr. Powell is we would not hire if we felt like if we knew it was not funded beyond uh and into FY28. >> So but so what's the backup plan then?
Um would it just be the director of facilities and then um would it just be the director of facilities who would have to play that role? >> They're playing that role right now. Uh you know that's what that position does right now. Um,
>> yeah, it is. I I will acknowledge, Madam Chair, that it is a conundrum that we're going to have to solve, which is why we're just signaling tonight that we're going to need to have these conversations. So, we're not going to have answers to all those things this evening, but we need to vet these out clearly. Um, because we need that on
call response for all of our schools. We need the technical expertise that's going to come along with the high school. And so, that is that is what we need. That is what we need to flush out. >> Okay. Any other questions? All right. Seeing none, you could just
keep going. >> Okay. Without further ado, uh introduce our assistant superintendent of teaching and Laur learning, Laura Friend. >> Thank you, Mr. Malcaren, and thank you to the committee and thank you to the
chair. Um, just to begin, um, we are grateful for the support we received from the school committee and our larger school community. We are continuing to make steady progress towards school and districtwide priorities outlined in our strategic plan. We've made great growth
and there's continued work to do. Um, of note to help further support our work beyond the operating budget, um, as I know the committee is aware, since the spring of last year, teaching and learning has successfully secured seven competitive grants totaling over
$500,000 that have helped accelerate and support our work and the work of our strategic plan. and we we would like to just recommmit to um teaching and learning. We would like to recommmit our commitment to maintaining our district strategic work and seeking out
competitive grant opportunities to help support the operating budget. So with that said, I would like to move into our requests. And we have three slides here. And I'm going to provide a highlight of the teaching and learning requests. And I will certainly answer
any questions on the other side of the slides. In terms of curriculum development, we are presenting a slight decrease in our requests from FY26. As the K the committee is aware, curriculum work is ongoing across all
grade levels and content areas. And at the same time, the district's curriculum review schedule provides a focus through a cyclical 5-year process that prioritizes specific grade levels and disciplines each year. Priority areas
for FY27 include curriculum development, continued curriculum development in grades 6 through 12, English language arts, world history, US history 1 at the high school and grade 10 mathematics, as well as a focus on curriculum based assessment development at the high
school level. In addition, we are looking to continue our work with the development of enrichment and extension task for learners who are ready for additional challenge. Next year, we will work with a specific focus on mathematics K to8.
Um this work on extension enrichment is currently being um worked on with our instructional math coaches under the direction of our curriculum director Candace McBry. And the request here is work is working to support resources for next year's implementation.
All of this work as it relates to inst extension and enrichment supports our multi-tered system of support and the wide spectrum of of needs of learners that we're privileged to support. In terms of textbooks, um the textbook
line here is actually reflective of textbooks and student consumables. This line is seeing a slight increase in large part due to our 6 through9 mathematics curriculum and student workbook need. This is the result of the
conclusion of grant funding that supported the launch of the work this year with curriculum selection and initial implementation of our new math program. This FY27 request reflects the transition to sustaining the program
through the operating budget. Moving on to foundational literacy materials. I would like to note to the committee and to our community that in grades preK through three, the total for these requests is actually $33,000,
but we are looking at an $18,000 offset by the anticipated Prism 1 early literacy continuation grant. FY27 would mark the third year of our fiveyear prism grant. This reduces the impact on the operating budget while sustaining
our work in early literacy and implementation and growth. And then finally here we see a request for K to2 English learner instructional materials. This request here has actually been moved from the curriculum development line where it has resided in
years past. It's more appropriately reflected in the textbook and instructional materials line as it really reflects curriculum materials and student consum consumables to support our English learners. In terms of curriculum membership and
dues, um this line reflects district-wide memberships for state and national core curriculum associations including Matsol for our English language learner department. Next slide.
The FY27 systemwide professional development request here sustains district-wide instructional priorities aligned to our strategic plan. As with textbooks and instructional materials, preK to 5 literacy professional development
totaling $49,000 will be fully offset by the anticipated Prism one early literacy continuation grant. While remaining funds will be directed toward core professional learning structures such as content and pedigogy focused training, mentoring and
our continued work at um PLC coaching and consultancy particularly with a lens on the high school. Next slide. Our FY27 instructional software request reflects the most notable increase within the teaching and learning budget
and is driven primarily by the cost of the Renaissance Star learning suite. To provide some context here, Renaissance is the district's universal screening tool assessing students reading and mathematics skills three times a year
through grade 10 in mathematics and through grade 8 in literacy. This tool assesses student reading and mathematics. Early literacy screening was adopted by the and it's mandated by state requirement by the board of elementary
and secondary education that was initiated in 2022. In addition to assessment, the Renaissance suite provides adaptive practice tools aligned to Massachusetts standards that work to support our MTSS system.
So, while Prism grant funding has supported several of our instructional areas in FY26, it did not offset the cost of the Renaissance universal screener as anticipated. And I know Mr. Mccarron is going to address this um at the end of the teaching and learning presentation
here. But as a result, the FY27 request reflects the full cost of sustaining this required system within the operating budget along with continued investment in high value curriculum online instructional tools and some modest industrywide price increases for
instructional software. And then moving on to contracted services. The requests here include a request for funding to support our ongoing district equity and inclusion work, specifically professional development in line with
our equity audit recommendations. Multilingual learner translations. This request here supports translation service and interpretation services for nonsp specialcial education related translations
specifically interpretation services to support openhouse parent teacher conferences and document translations. And then finally we're seeing here a request for funding for our open architect data platform. This platform
replaces an additional paid data feature which was previously associated with Renaissance that the district has trans transitioned away from. It is not reflected in the FY27 Renaissance request in instructional software. Open
Architect is a far superior tool. It is an integrated dashboard system which integrates across our platforms and focuses on the student as a whole. It provides a stronger integrated view of a student which includes assessments,
student profile, attendance, MCCAST access, grades, and student growth data. And then moving on to staffing needs, unless the chair would like me to pause before moving on to the request for the
reinstatement of the 1.0 curriculum director. >> No, I think that's quick. So you can just include that. >> So this um staffing request asks respectfully for consideration of a reinstatement of the 1.0 curriculum director for ELA and social studies K to
12. The scope of ELA and social studies under this position is broad and includes oversight and support of quite a bit. early literacy implementation, writing and reading instruction, social studies and civics instruction, support of our district-wide literacy
specialists, monitoring of universal screening patterns and trends. This work has taken on increased importance through our prison work and our prison funding with a heightened emphasis on literacy systems, coaching models, and data informed practice. Without a
dedicated director, there's a limit to the level of focus, structure, and coherence this work requires. In order to transition the current work being done to long-term instructional improvement and outcomes for students, we are requesting consideration for the
reinstatement of this position. That concludes the department of teaching and learning presentation of our requests. >> Thank you, assistant superintendent friend. Um, so you can see those cost changes reflected here in the teaching and learning budget. Uh notably, you'll
see the inclusion of the reinstatement of the proposed uh director of ELA and social studies. Um I'd also like to point out so you'll see within the FY26 voted budget does not include the cost of approximately $100,000 to cover the
Renaissance assessment and platform that um assistant superintendent just superintendent friend just spoke to. We had anticipated that Prism early literacy grant being able to cover that when we budgeted in FY26. Uh but due to the grant constraints uh we would not be
able to cover that in the teaching and learning but uh budget. However, it can be covered within the tech budget because our technology department got a $100,000 earmark uh through the state this year that we'll be able to utilize. um we're simply just adding that back in
uh to the FY27 budget now that we know the restraints of the grant uh relative to purchases of that type. Any questions on the teaching and learning budget? Uh Madam Chair, >> uh let's have Jillian start us off. >> Hi there. Um I just had a quick question
about the reinstatement of the curriculum director. So I I take it from that wording that there was once this curriculum director and I just wondered why the position was originally eliminated and um sort of how long that
position has ceased to exist. >> Thank you. I'll take that question. Um Miss Rashuda, that position was reduced last year when we went through the budget and reduced 19 positions. And so as we pulled from each sector of the
organization and each unit group, the unit A, the unit C, and the non-REP, where we reduced in the non-REP last year was in two places. One is that curriculum director. The second is that our administrators took a 0% increase
plus whatever their benefit increase was. They so they got that increase for their cost, their benefits, but took the zero there. And so, you know, our plan all along was to come back for reinstatement of this position to say we can bite the bullet for a year and and
get through this this difficult time because we really had been uh pushing over the previous oh three years, Miss Friend, with uh transitioning our literacy instruction. Um but we feel it is vital to reinstate.
>> Great. Thank you. I think Jackie is next. >> The software that we have to purchase, um, is that a onetime cost or an annual cost that we'll be looking at in the future? >> So, correct me if I'm wrong, Mrs. Friend, but we do have a three-year
contract. So, it's once uh is per year uh for three years. FY26 is year 1, 27 year 2, and 28 would be year three. Is that accurate, assistant superintendent friend? It is accurate and I would say that un
universal screening we we value the information that we receive from our universal screening system. Um but universal screening with approved screeners, Renaissance being one of them by the state is required um
um by the regulations and and that was initiated in 2022. So there's a mandatory compliance requirement to this request as well. >> Thank you. This is a great example of those unfunded mandates that we get from the state. >> Yeah. Can I just actually say something
in follow up to that? >> I think it would be there's always opportunities to not look back and change what we did then, but thinking and moving forward when we're um pursuing grants is is there a way that
we can obviously you don't know what you don't know until you know it. Um, but a way for us to be able to have accepting grant money and then being able to implement it to the fidelity
that teaching and learning wants to implement it for all the reasons why I think we all are in this room wanting to make sure that we have the best outcomes for our students. Um but where I that this is it was a considerable amount of money and so I was just I know
that we are moving forward we you know this is going to be the platform that we're using but um just wondering if we can think about that for future opportunities. >> Thanks Jackie. If I'm if I may, um
>> the the um Renaissance suite is >> required beyond prison funding. It's required by every district. Um ESSER funding um was used to support initial implementation. This is actually um the
fourth year Superintendent Downing that we've engaged in um in the mandated um screening requirements as a result. So beyond our our prison funding where we are required um to implement universal screening which we believe in the cost
of these screeners um is high. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I I anticipate this is going to continue to be a part of our operational budget in perpetuity. In in essence, we need these tools. Uh it is the cost of
doing business in our business. Um we're always going to be chasing down grant resources where they apply in these scenarios to help offset those, but I anticipate these as being baseline costs for which they'll be built upon next year.
I heard you say though that we're going to be able to offset the second year of this through a tech line item. >> No, we're doing that this year. Um, so because we didn't get the at the budgeting time, sort of to Dr.
Reinhardt's uh the point that she was making at the time of the budgeting, we knew the essentially the the amount of the PRISM uh grant. Um, we did not know the constraints as to how it could be spent. So, in budgeting last year for FY26,
we applied it to places that we knew it was necessary, uh, including, uh, our universal screening platform. Um, so when we found out that couldn't be done, um, you know, we looked at all what will need to happen and obviously with a $100,000 earmark coming in from the
state for technology that we can use this year, um, we can move forward. And again, to Superintendent Down and Dian's point, this will be part of the budget moving forward. it just happens to stand out because of the the mechanism of the grant. >> Yep. Just to follow up with that, I I
appreciate you sharing that and it's really important because when our community members look at the budget and they're calling attention, like these are the types of things that I really appreciate each of you taking the time to explain um because it makes sense to educators and people who work in the
field and I want it to make sense and be meaningful for all of the residents in our three towns. So, thank you. >> Yeah, agreed. Any other questions on teaching and learning? All right. Thanks, Laura. We appreciate
that. We'll keep rolling, Ross. >> So, I'll turn it over to Rowan Demanchch, our director of student services, who's going to be presenting the uh department's budget, and I know that Superintendent Downing will be involved in this section as well. >> Great. Thank you, everybody. Um, so I
want to just start out. I know that often times student services um is kind of a big broad umbrella. Um so we wanted to start out by reminding everybody about the certain types of positions that fall under this department. Um and
so what's in front of you is really a current um spreadsheet about uh the roles that sit within our schools to support our students every day. And a lot of these decisions about where students or staff are um aligned with
are based on the team meetings that uh our staff run on a daily basis for to determine the best educational um programming uh for the students that they um evaluate and that they uh
service. So, our department currently has a variety of positions that um we will at times move across the district. So, you'll see the top three positions um which could be our team chairs, school
psychologists, um and our physical therapists kind of they work throughout the district. So, that's why they're kind of aligned with the central office. Um but all of the other staff in the buildings that you see um stay within the context of the
building to support um the work every single day. >> So the proposed budget is uh >> forgive me uh Miss can you go back to that slide? >> I just wanted to capitalize on an opportunity um to circle back to Dr.
Reinard's question when we talked about uh the school staffing. Um, I'll point out here and and I'll I'll just looking at the uh Mary Rollinsson column. You'll note where you see specialized programming teachers. These are teachers
that are in those high needs programs. You'll also note uh an elevated number of instructional assistants at MRE and it's because there are more people that are assigned to the students that have evangelized programs that require that level of attention. So, Dr. Ryan, thank
you for your question earlier. This gives us an opportunity to show how we're using our equity principles to match staffing with student need as opposed to just equal standards like class size. >> So, thank you for that. >> Great. So, the proposed budget for the
student services department um is not substantially um different from the last last year. We still can have to consider the needs of our students with some contracted services. Um we have certain services that we do
not have full-time staff for that we have to contract out. Um and some of those are our teachers of visual impairment. um our bilingual uh evaluations, transition assessments, um assisted tech
evaluations, um and orientation and mobility uh specialists. So, we have to contract outside the district for that. Um and again, some of our contracted services also support some of our ser students um
needs within the classroom. So sometimes we do have to temporarily contract for additional services especially um in the BCBA, the board certified behavior analyst position um while we may see a
student um engaging in uh the beginning plans of a behavior plan to support that student. So that would fall under those contracted services. Um the department is then requesting um additional funding 85,000 this year for
testing and materials and licenses and this supports our testing um that occurs for all our initial evaluations and three-year re-evaluations. Um we've seen an increase this year in some of our platforms that are
requesting individual licenses per teacher for us to um engage in the work uh for the these evaluations. We also are looking for um additional contracted service support um that kind
of aligns with the u multi-tered system of support. Um again this is in the behavioral realm um of supporting students um in our um social emotional area and our contracted
services for professional development. So, we have to uh our staff currently um throughout the district in grades uh kindergarten through middle school. We are looking to continue to have them
train in Orton Gillingham. Um and so our staff are in a variety of places with that from introductory training to a full year's orientation so that they become um very proficient in um Orton
Gillingham. We also continue to support the professional development of safety care training for our staff, including um giving our uh each building an identified trainer uh for that um
professional development. Russ, so the new ask, well, this isn't new. This is a reinstatement request. Um, we I would like you to consider um placing
the team leader up uh at um center in Hail and Stow back up to a full-time position. Currently, right now, between the two schools, there's 180 students that we um need to run meetings on and
address their needs. Um, and with having a staff um that has been less than a full-time position um has really uh caused a lot of concern um with communication,
running meetings. So, we'd really hope that you consider to reinstate this position to be a full-time position um coming for next year. So, and then this is another big part of our budget as we know um we do have a
students that um we do not service uh within the school our towns. We um make decisions to place them in other schools based on their needs. Currently, right now, we have 42 students that are
accessing some level of out of district placement between our collaboratives to a private school um or residential placement. Um since the beginning of the year, we've had four movein placements that we will see the cost um for for next year.
Um and the district currently has placed five students out this year. Um we always see a cost um escalation. It's uh OSD is recommending a 3% increase unless the school um a private
school has made an individual request to uh increase further than 3%. And then we also have um our special education transportation. Um so this varies uh throughout the year depending on student needs uh the
decisions made at the team meeting as it's a related service to support students. Uh but currently in add uh 17 routes and out of those 17 routes five of the those routes have monitors.
Um we have one wheelchair van and we have one route that um we have extra mileage. Um this year with our contract um they had a stipulation in the contract that there is an additional $5
increase um over every um past 30 miles. So we do get charged for that currently. And then our in district route is we currently run 14 routes and uh we have four monitors with two wheelchair vans.
And so that totals up to um that three 3,366 uh,000 uh dollar uh cost. um and and varies because of team meetings and um
students that may be placed out of district or move into the district. >> Mr. Man, if I'm interested in on that slide, >> I just want to uh we need to update this slide. the 17 out of district routes
that you're seeing, these are the routes of which we're contracted uh with Cabs for Kids through the Aspet Valley Collaborative. We actually have seven other routes that we run that are managed directly through our office and
so we just we'll include those on the table in the next iteration. >> Thank you. >> Yes, >> it doesn't change the dollar amount. That dollar amount is the base dollar amount for transportation. >> Yep. And I think um Superintendent Downy's going to speak a little bit more
about that on this slide as well, but we have seen an increase in our costs for out of district. Um so I'll let you talk about um kind of what's been happening in that area. Superintendent Downing. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Manch. So as we are
looking at transportation uh for out of district and in in district special education um we've brought forward to the committee the challenge of what these rising costs have been. We've engaged with our state leaders. Senator Kennedy has been in an active discussion with us for a couple of years on this.
Um we have uh been working with Asabet Valley Collaborative on finding efficiencies for our roots. One of the reasons why we're seeing such an increase in this transportation is for the schools where our teams have settled
on placement for students. We're not finding the ability to ride share with other districts. So, we can't take advantage of the collaborative pricing in the way that we re originally wanted. So, uh we have been working with the collaborative. We also have consulted
with council about uh the binding agreement of our transportation contract with Aset Valley Collaborative and just like we have an agreement for our students who might attend one of the programs. For instance, we have a couple of students in the reach program um
we are not bound to send our students to ask valid kuram. So in that same way, we are not bound to use the transportation contract that they've negotiated on our behalf. If we do use the collaborative,
we just have to use that contract. So after consulting with council, we have decided to do rootbyroot analysis and begin contacting vendors now to see if they can transport our students um currently at rates that are more
favorable to us. And this is work that we think uh as we work on this plan uh we would ultimately transition to manage um special education transportation internally and no longer utilize ABC for
those purposes. Uh so that is a work in progress that we're currently uh building upon and we will come back to update the uh committee on that progress at the February uh madam chair help me 11th meeting I
think it's the February 11th meeting uh we will come back to you with an update on progress for how we can look at reducing out of district and in in district special ed education transportation costs as I think uh we're seeing some opportunity to do that. We
are just not uh we don't have the detail to present that to you tonight, which is why we used ABC pricing to build the budget currently because those are numbers that we do have available to us. So, here's the entirety of the uh
student services and special education budget. Uh again, we've broken out the administrator versus the team chair. Um those were combined in years past, but you can see the changes here. Um also, one thing that I'll note is the transportation for McKini Vento. So that's uh you know, students who fall
under the Mckin Vento act. Um that transportation is managed by the student services office. It was living in the systemwide budget. We have moved it in here because it is under Mrs. Damanch's uh purview. Uh so just a note for the committee. Um so you'll see um the costs
here. Um you can see the increase in transportation as Superintendent Downing said we'll bring be uh bringing forward updates on that. Um the out of district transport or tuition uh while it looks like it's going down uh it's just a reminder uh that that's due to the
number of of student counts in those position in those placements versus the actual cost per placement. Um so it's not like the placements are are going down. It's just the students that um are no longer in those placements. So, at this point, I'll stop.
>> Uh thanks, Ross. Uh just really quickly, are we using the McKitty Bento money that you need to double it? >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. Uh let's go over to Amy. >> And I'll just add in, Madam Chair, if I could. Uh mostly that's subject to the
fact that those students are not they're not on our regular transportation. they need that that van or or that uh smaller bus that might be, you know, we try to cost show theirs with the other districts. Uh but again, that's those transportation rates have gone up in
tandem with the special education transportation. >> Yeah. Uh, Amy, >> Amy, I think you're uh muted. >> Oh, thank you. Sorry about that. >> I'm trying to tie um the numbers in the
slides to this table. And I guess what I'm just realizing is that I'm wondering if there's a typo in one of the slides because I've been looking at the slide cost called fiscal year 27 cost increases for transportation
and it says total 3,36613 and I can't find that number on this table but I do see 2,666. >> Yep. That's because we have an offset from the IDEIDA, which is the special education grant that we'll talk a little
bit when we look at those offsets in the budget document. So, I guess the reason why I'm confused is because it says the dollar change from last year to this year is a million25470.
But on your slide you're saying it's 3,366,613. >> Yep. So the total cost in the operating budget is 2.6. The total cost of all the transportation is 3.3. >> Okay. And where are the other transportation lines other than the
McKenna Bento? >> Uh there aren't any. It's the total the total amount is offset by $700,000 through the grant. >> Okay. I I I know this is just the workshop. I think some that would be an
important thing to point out on Absolutely. slide so it's more clear because that's a big number. And um the other question I had was um
let's see I have to go back to my notes here. The sped team chair um line item should that be chairs? That is that referring to sped team chairs at all the different schools for that
dollar amount. And also can some can I guess we get an explanation on the 22% increase on that line item. >> Yep. So the 22% increase is because of the increased salaries of the people currently in those positions
>> as as well as the additional.4 being back excuse me it's really a 1.0 0 because the FY26 budget um did not have the addition of the 6 that we brought back in at the beginning of the school year plus the point4 being asked. So the
re the real the real change in personnel is a 1.0 >> and we'll see that when we go through the budget notebook >> salary tables. Yep. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, Jackie, are you asking about those same things? Because I have a follow-up
to Amy. So, just really quick, the the point4 chair, you want to push the center school personnel to a full-time position. Is that commensurate with the other two towns? >> Yes, because
>> Yes, because if you recall, we we pulled back a team chair position last year. Then once we had uh were able to to shift some things and adjust our strategy post budget, we hired a 6 team
chair um and we augmented that with our assistant principal, Miss Senko is taking on team meetings uh this year. So we've been able to if you will sort of uh manage the tide uh but that's not
sustainable. We need the point4 chair to round out that position so it's fully reinstated back to a 1.0. >> I see. All right, Jackie, go ahead. >> So, I just I wanted to point something out for anyone who's watching, but then
also ask a follow-up question. Um, I think it's phenomenal that we're going through the process of training people in evidence-based practices like Orin Gillingham for reading. um o or OG, some people are more familiar with that
because that creates internal structures uh for our students. I'm wondering it's beyond the scope of this conversation, so it's something that maybe we could I can follow up with someone. Um I'm just thinking about uh
staff retention for those people trained. um knowing that it's a fairly significant process and it is very expensive um that once we have these amazingly trained educators um what are we then doing to keep them in the
district? >> Dr. is that a question you would like to hear about today? I think that if it is appropriate we can talk offline but it I do want our um community to understand how important these positions are.
>> I think the first thing to point out is we have a very high retention rate in Ashoba all across our staff. Um the sector of special education I will admit to you today that is if you will
in terms of movement across districts is the most volatile sector that is out there right now. Every single uh school district has dealt with transition of special educators uh moving uh across districts even midy year. Um and so you
know in terms of our ability to retain those educators um they are unit employees so there's nothing contractually we can do to retain those educators because of the negotiated agreement. And so what we work hard to do is provide them high
quality training and and uh the experience here in Nshoba that is proven to retain employees over time. >> I see Jillian's hand. unmute myself. Um, I had a question about the out of district tuition and again this is likely revealing just my
own naive as a new member and someone who's never worked in primary or secondary ed, but how how are these out of district placements determined? And I also wondered is there ever a point at which um these
placements um have sort of served a purpose and maybe the students return to Nishopa and what is that process like? It's just such a huge line item. I was I was wondering about the mechanics. I'll take that one on. Um, so, uh, when
we determine a student is required more or a higher level of service, it's it's a very intensive process that, uh, all of our teams have to go through. It includes an additional evaluation cycle,
a lot of discussions, um, and a lot of implementation of a lot of other um, strategies in the schools. And that's why you see a lot of money in the contracted services. We we do our best to support students um within our school
district at their school. Um but there reaches a time sometimes where students just need a more intensive program. We always start with the least restrictive model which is our collaboratives. We're part of the Asabet Valley collaborative but we also have
other local collaboratives. And so we base those referrals on the presenting student because every collaborative has different types of programming. So we base that um referral
on what they service for programs and um what we feel like the student um could be successful in in the least restrictive environment. If a collaborative is not um going to help service a student, then we start to seek out a private school um special
education school and our obligation is to um start with all of our schools that are approved through the Department of Education in Massachusetts. Um and they have a list of those schools. um the state dictates the rates for
those schools and the tuitions and so we have no control over that. Once we make a decision, we're obligated to that tuition. Um those private schools also can seek increases um whenever they choose throughout the course of a school
year. If they have um increased in needs, they can seek out that um increase through the state. um our collaboratives um their rates and tuitions are set by their board who are often um controlled by the
superintendence of that collaborative and so they have a voting board that sets the tuition rates. But once we make a decision and we have to commit to uh sending a student out of district and we choose a school, the parents get the
option to visit those schools and see them and um and then once the decision is made, we sign a contract with that school and are obligated to that tuition rate. So there's a variety and sometimes
you see like Ross uh um had said there's looks like there's a slight decrease but at any point we could have a student move in from another city or town that has an IEP with an out of district placement and when that happens we're
obligated to follow that IEP. So that that cost is so variable because it could increase um in in a very short period of time. >> But you you um Rowan have seen kids come
back to Nishova after out of district placement. >> Yes. Thank you for for reminding me of that. The once even when they're out of district, we have an out of district team chair that um has meetings every single year. So that process is looked
at annually. Um we we want our students back in our district. We um have frequent meetings to take a look at who is an out of district placement. Uh could we potentially program in district for that and um so yes, it's always a
consideration um uh during their annual review. >> That's super helpful. Thank you. >> Yep, >> Amy. >> Yeah. Um, just very quickly, I'm um very curious to see where the
exploration of um I first of all I want to say I'm I'm thankful that we looked into you know our um contract with the Asabet Valley with the contracted transportation services
and and that there's now some ability to see if we can um shop the transportation costs a little bit more. Um I think that that's really important work that needs to be done considering that the increase at least
on this table from year-over-year isn't as is a million dollars and that this line item was such a topic of discussion last year that was a budget driver. So um thank you for identifying that as an area where we might get some cost savings.
Um, I would add to Kirk and maybe Ross the the the spreadsheet that you guys offered of the roots. Um, it shows an increase, but I don't know that I've ever seen this from previous years.
So, it's saying that this is like 17 routes, but I think you said it's actually more like 22 or 24. >> Yeah, there we have we we are running seven routes in district already. So to give you a sense that under our current model where students need to go out of
district this year uh we're running 16 vans through C for kids through ABC next year it would need to be 17 vans. Remember we if we ride share with the van with a district and say that district student moves out and we're the
one left on the van you got to pay the full cost of the van at that point. So that's some of the complexities that just hasn't worked out. Um, so yes, this is something we want to bring some more we're going to bring you more uh detail to this at the February meeting so you can get a full scope of it.
>> Yeah, because it's it's I mean this is a gigantic increase, right? 62% increase on sped transportation again. >> Yeah. And so for instance, when you have students that move in postbudget that you're obligated to for your transportation as we did last year, you
wouldn't see that in the $1.6 $6 million from last year because you got to and you have to pick that up. There's no option uh uh to do that. So that's where some of those co that's why the the sped transportation and sped tuition lines are two of the most volatile lines in
the budget uh for those reasons. >> And um didn't you say last year that the legislature came in at the highest rate in a long time to reimburse us for transportation? >> Uh yes. And uh they they did that also
they did some backfilling through through the millionaire's tax money as as one-time funds, which is why we're going to be really interested to see the governor's budget to see if that changed the function of the baseline reimbursements that we're getting. Uh
the actual rate that we got this year on reimbursement for transportation did not actualize at the promised 75% rate. Mr. Manch, do you recall uh the number off offhand of the reimbursement rate we
ultimately got for this year? >> I believe it was around closer to around 72. >> Yeah, I remember being at less than that, but we'll we'll bring that. >> I'll figure Yeah. Yep. >> Yeah. So, yeah, the next time around
maybe even more granular detail on this item because I think it might amount to the largest increase in all of these lines. >> Right? So, Madam Chair, I just want to reiterate for the committee and the public,
we brought this forward to for the purpose of showing if we use just fixed pricing models the way we have them today. The cost that you saw on the previous slide would be the $3.3 million
with the $700,000 offset due to the grant. It's 2.6 million on the operation budget. And we're so we're painting a picture of the work that we're doing, which is why we're going to give you a more detailed explanation at the
February 11th meeting on this sector as we dig into that. So what we're we're painting for you tonight in the workshop is like what's the worst case scenario and that's what you're seeing and we're going to work our way back from that
>> yeah just before we end this discussion I'm just wondering if the slide is supposed to say in that increase um I think maybe that's part of the confusion the fisc year 27 cost increases. I think
it's just the fiscal year 27 cost. Um I don't see a slide number, but the one that's showing the transportation summary, could you just check that for the next version? >> Are you talking about the previous slide or the slide that's on the screen right now?
>> The previous slide. I think it's a previous slide. >> Mr. Moar, will you go to the previous slide, please? Mr. McCarron. Uh, go to the table. >> This one. >> Yeah. >> No, next one. >> Back to the table. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, so I I understand what you're saying. Just explain total cost and then we'll add the line of what what the grant offset is and then show what the operational cost to the budget is. >> Yes. And and maybe clarify what's an increase versus what's just the budget
for this year. I think that's part of it. So, Yeah, because if you interpret this chart to to think, oh, there's 17 additional roots from last year. >> Like this this chart is confusing me. I
like it. It has enormous potential, but it's saying cost increases, but it's giving me root numbers. I don't know what last year's root numbers were to understand. >> So, if it if it says FY27 cost, that's different than cost increases. >> Yes, >> we hear you. We'll just fix that title.
No problem. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And I do want to share, I looked it up last year, circuit breaker reimbursement was 61%. >> 61. >> Oh, wow. Um, just uh to belabor this a minute. Um, the number of roots I know
that we have had people want to understand this better. The number of roots last year versus the number of roots this year, that is part of the increase. But there's also an increase that's because of inflation, right? And them just
raising their costs. >> And so I think that we need to call those two separate things out so that people can fully understand part of this is because we're transporting more kids. Part of this is because they're just increasing their prices. >> Go. That's right.
>> Okay. All right. So she has been so patient and um maybe we should keep going, Russ. At this point, I would like to introduce our technology manager, Sue Chi, who I'm sure has more than read the room and will be brief. [laughter] >> Thank you, Ross. >> Go ahead.
>> Yeah, thank Ross. And uh good evening everybody. So, the type budget is quite straightforward. Um there are three major parts, it's contractive services, um hardware and software. So, for the contracting services, the the big items
are Comcast um and also firewall cost. So we have been the district has been using Comcast fiber to connect all buildings and also pro provide internet access for all buildings uh for quite some years. So right now we're on a three-year lease. Uh the current lease
will end um the same same time as a new high school um come on board. So we got we got negotiate a new like a three-year lease at that time. So we might see some increase um but we will try our best to you know get the best price.
Uh the second part is the the firewall. So we have one single firewall um protect the whole district um and also protect all our in internal network you know including like access and also all equipment. So that is for the um
contracted services. Then for the software part uh there are three major operations. So first one is a school operation. So software like um the Microsoft office and also Google apps you know for education and the student
information system like p school and those are covered under that and second part is for the business operation like the the budget sense like the accounting and finance software and also for HR like the mandatory training like uh RX
is a kind of a training for all the stuff and also for So uh visitor management meaning like uh when people visit all schools they have to present ID we make we check their background make sure you know they're safe um to
access our buildings. So the last one is also um the last last like a category for software is technology operation which is a software we use to to manage all the network you know manage all the u laptop desktop the software for that
kind of thing. Then the last one is the hardware. So the hardware pages cover both the bike and the server network equipment and also the front end like end user device like Chromebook, laptop. Um so this these three are the major
categories for the um Pike budget. Um next slide please. So we do see some increase for the software increase. Uh on average the software license increase five to 10% uh each year. it just it's it's a very steady pattern you know we
see in the past years same as this year so average like you know I think we increased six to seven% this year then the hardware increase um we see quite a bit increase for hardware uh I think everybody's aware uh because of tariff that's number one and also because of
the recent um the AI you know this industry uh there's a high demand for all this chipset and that really drives the price up a lot So based on the number we got as of um last month u we
see 27% increase already you know that including the um cost for laptop Chromebooks and u all the vendors I contact with already mentioned like um so nobody really knows in six months you
know that's when we normally purchase new hardware uh what the real cost will be um but it's kind of where we at all. >> Thank you, Chi. So, Chi's already sort of done my work here for me. Uh, you know, again, the the major increase here
is the hardware due to the increased cost on chipsets for, you know, market demand as well as those tariffs that we're seeing from overseas. Any questions on the tech budget for for SUI? >> I'm not seeing any hands.
All right, looks like we can keep going. Thank you so much, Chi. So, I will put on my athletic director hat as well. Uh, our athletic director who is currently at a wrestling uh meet this evening. Um, so she's provided her
slides. So, no major changes in the athletic department. Um, you know, obviously the strategic plan connections uh not only does, uh, Tanya do a great job, uh, but our coaches and our student athletes are obviously amazing and our participation is so high at this at the
high school and within our middle schools. We do have our fee increases um that are set uh by the inter uh Scholastic Athletic Association for Massachusetts and we have contractual transportation increases because we utilize our DB bus
contract for our athletic buses as well. Um so just looking at the uh changes here um just again to point out that the athletic transportation has gone up. Uh but you'll see Miss Cohen when we walk through uh there's offsets to this as
well. Um so um the the actual cost is a little higher but we offset some of the transportation uh through use of those student athletic fees uh that come in. So any questions on the athletic budget. >> I am not seeing any questions.
>> Great. Okay. So we are at the end of all of our expense uh proposals for this evening in the preliminary budget. So highlighted in yellow, you can see the operating budget uh as proposed this evening at uh
74.9 million. Um that includes um everything that you've seen this evening um with our debt broken out as well. So our operating cost increase is just under 7% at 6.99%.
I'm going to do a quick uh screen swap here. So you'll just have to give me a minute. I will fill the time, Ross, by just making sure that my committee is okay hanging out after 900 PM. Uh, can I just get a thumbs up if you can give us about 10 or 15 more minutes? Everybody's
on board. Very excited for your finale, Ross. Is everybody seeing my Oh, how about now? Everybody seeing my screen? Okay. >> Yes. >> Great. Thank you. Um so what I've done is I have just opened up the PDF of the
budget workbook that you all received uh and is also posted on our website. So um it begins with the executive summary. So each section of the budget as we uh reviewed it this evening is broken down as well. It just happened to start it
happens to start with the departments versus the schools. Um but um it breaks down the exact same way that you saw this evening for each one of our departments within the executive summary. Um when you get to the end of the executive summary, bear with me trying to get anybody any motion
sickness here, but you'll see the overall uh budget broken out here. Near the bottom, you see the debt service. We had a slide on debt service. It was presented last uh month. Um there's no major change on debt service because we're not taking any on on any new debt
next year. Um but again highlighted is the operational budget and the increase at 6.99%. As of this evening, but to Superintendent Downy's point and my point, what you see tonight is not what you're going to end up voting on eventually on March 11th due to a number of factors.
Every year we broke it break it down by salary versus non-sary. Um so you can see that by each department here. There's no salaries within insurance and benefits because nobody technically works under that um department, but you can see how each of these is broken out
in the individual slides. You saw in the executive summary, salaries show up as blue lettering, black is the non-salary, but they're broken out here as well. Over time, we've also tracked what are essentially the budget drivers. So, these are the major pieces that drive
the changes in the budget. So, of that $4.89 899 million increase. This is how that's all broken out in the underneath the one-year change on the second to right column. So, and you can see where it says the uh percent of the total
increase. So, you can see that in salaries for existing personnel is 52% of the total increase that we're proposing for next year as of this evening. Insurance and benefits takes on about 25% of that increase and so on.
uh to the offsets. Um so this is where you're going to see all of those offsets that Miss Cohen had asked about. Um I'm going to move ahead a little bit and then I'll come back to this to show show you how you can trace these back. Um in the salary table, this is where we've tried to break out some of the
administrative costs in FTEES. All of the FTE changes that you see today are the ones of going from uh FY26 to the proposed FY27. Some of those uh Superintendent Downing explained uh as we had some postbudget
changes for personnel. Those show up in the FY27 as do our additional asks that we've talked about uh this evening. So, one example would be right here in the teaching and learning administration where it goes from 2.0 curriculum directors to 3.0 know with the addition
of the uh proposed reinstatement of the ELA and social studies curriculum director. So you can look at all of our salaries here at the very bottom is the >> me would you mind going back to the sped salaries there's one >> of course not thank you
>> I want to just point out because as there have been some questions around what administrative costs are this these first two lines special education admin sped administration special education team chair used to live under just the title sped administration
we've broken those apart so that you understand clearly One is the director, five are the team chairs. So, we've done a little bit of breakout to help you understand that better. And then at the very bottom, it all
totals and ties together uh with the salary totals uh for or FTEES and the amount from FY26 to 27. And again, these are operating uh positions. You would not see food services or extended
learning within here. And again, uh, this may or may not, uh, be updated. Um, so one thing that I will point out, and I'm going to go right to the special education. You'll see more detail on here. This is what is submitted, uh, to my office from the departments
and from the schools. I'm going to go to the special education budget real quick to Miss Cohen's point. Give me a moment. So, what we've tried to do uh beginning a couple of years ago is to really pull
out these offsets right here. So, where you see districtwide sped transportation, the FY27 request is that 2.6 million. In the right full column, you'll see it's 3.36 million with a budget reduced by a
$700,000 offset. If I go back up to the offset page, you'll see in that last almost column that IDA grant $700,000 offset that special education, special education,
transportation before offset is 3.36 million offset by 700,000. The total offsets for that budget line are 700,000 and it reduces it to 2.6 million in the operating budget. I'll just pause there because I know that's that was something that came up. I just want to make sure
that people understand how to trace that back. Any questions about offsets or the rest of the budget document? >> I would love it. And does this make sense from your perspective, Ross? If down lower in the special ed line item,
could you say offset $700,000 idea grant? Uh I could um >> to maybe get like that much full >> we can get a little bit more specific. Let me just take a look at it with the folks in my office. Uh but that's you
know noted feedback that we'll we'll look at. Yep. >> Okay. Any other questions? That's super helpful. I really love the addition of this. >> Great. Okay. So, back into
our Oops, wrong button. Um, so at the next meeting, we'll take a look at the portions of the budget workbook that have revenue and assessment. Uh, once we have that information. So, moving ahead, um obviously on the expense side that we've
talked about this evening, we'll get updated governor's proposals uh proposed budget with the charter school and tuition school choice tuition out um that will plug into the budget. Again, we've talked quite a bit about uh insurance and benefits, and we'll continue to update you on the range and
then the final rates for the district and any new proposals that are accepted through the insurance advisory committee as we receive um uh potential uh changes back from our broker of record that's working to shop that for us.
on the revenue and assessment end uh for the budget ahead. Again, we'll get our chapter 70, our regional transportation reimbursement, our charter school reimbursement, which all show up on the revenue side. Uh we'll update our foundation enrollment, which per the regional agreement dictates their 5-year
rolling average that's used for assessment, and we'll update the minimum local contributions as those are shared from the state as well. That's the the mandatory piece that each town has to pay. um which the uh uh the other assessment is added on to when they get
their full assessment. Um I'll continue to update budget and warrant on the excess and deficiency certification. You will need a full certification of that to be uh appropriated uh or under consideration for appropriation in the FY27 budget as a revenue source. Uh and I know that we'll talk a great deal
about that moving forward. Um I just want to talk a little bit about some federal forecasting. So last year during the FY26 budgeting process, we had a lot of questions about the federal budget um being tailored or as it were. Um and as
I reminded people then that the FY26 federal budget is an FY27 state budget. So we will see an FY27 impacts of that. um it's unclear on what those funding levels and the guidance will look like and how will it will change how the
Massachusetts will implement and we may be impacted. So we have three key items to watch. Number one is our ESSA grants. Those are titles one, two, three and four. Um that would impact those programs and activities. Those are supplemental. Um
they do not supplant anything in our operating budget. Those are additional pieces with the title one literacy and math support at Rollinsson and Burbank. It helps support our mentor program under title two. And we also have ELLL supplemental service uh excuse me um
activities and and professional development through title three. Um again, there' be no impact to the operating budget except potentially uh pieces of the mentor program that are paid for by title two may have to increase in the operating budget. But again, we won't know the answers to this
really until the summer when we get uh our allocations uh for this for that grant. Uh the next one has me more concerned. That's the idea 240 and 262 grants. There would be an impact to the
operating budget. Um, so those grants because we have $150,000 in contracted services offset as well as that $700,000 I just showed within the budget workshop uh budget workbook uh is offset to uh by our IDA grant. If our IDA grant is
impacted, we would have to find a way to cover those expenses within the operating budget andor have a conversation about the use of excess and deficiency uh in the future. And the last piece is Medicaid. That's a revenue source. Um, we're just going to keep an eye on it. Um, that's a federal program.
Obviously, we've seen uh some good reimbursement on that over time. I don't have any indication as of yet. We've been relatively steady. Um, but we'll certainly get forecasting from our consultant on that who helps prepare our Medicaid sub uh submittals. Um, but it's
just something to keep an eye on because of our use of that as a revenue. And then lastly, uh just our budget timeline is always reviewed at the end of each budget meeting. So on the left hand side, well really in yellow, you see everything that's going to happen moving forward now that we've checked
off the budget workshop. On the left hand side, I've just summarized the school committee steps uh with our four budget updates, your budget hearing on March 4th and your vote on March 11th. And then working with our member towns is just our ongoing communication. We'll have our joint advisory and fin meeting
on the 24th with those boards. and then we'll present at town meetings uh in May um for each one of our member towns. So we did it 9 uh 11 in the evening. Uh that concludes I can take any questions
on those last few slides, madam chair and and if Superintendent Downey has any closing words for this evening. >> No, thank you very much for allowing us to present this budget. Um any questions from the committee? questions or
um requests even. Obviously, that was a lot to take in everybody. So, if you um if something comes to you, you can certainly funnel all of those things to me and I will put them together for Kirk and his team. Um I think I saw Jackie's hand.
>> But yeah, I was just thinking about the I forgot what they called it. tritown meeting or >> there was some so this is more of a question was there I my understanding leaving that meeting was that there would be some kind of
opportunity for followup with between FINCOM our select board and elected um school committee members would that be for next year's budgeting process only >> I think the proposal that was laid out
at that meeting and I don't want to get too far into this but um maybe it's under next steps >> was just kind of making that more institutionalized and there was a suggestion that that should pick up in October.
>> Um but for this budget season I don't think that's going to be redone. However, on Ross' timeline and by the regional agreement, um there is a meeting that is set up between the the FINCOM/advisory
committee and those are the entities that um advise the town meetings on the budget and that's why our superintendent will avail himself to those groups to kind of keep them apprised and and have
two-way communication. >> Thank you. Amy. >> Yeah, just really quick that um last point that Ross was making, there was a I think it's slide 18 out of
56 that showed the breakdown of the district operating budget salary summary with the FTEES. Could you just clarify for me the first line that's the administration salaries? It's showing 3.5
um full-time equivalent positions and it lists one superintendent, two assistant superintendents, and then 6 co. Is that communication specialist? Is that what that's >> Yes, it got cut off, Miss Cohen. >> Okay,
>> we can we can fix the formatting on that. >> Okay. And then um that means that under the teaching and learning administration budget that doesn't that doesn't include assistant superintendent
of teaching teaching and learning that's carried above and that's >> correct. >> I asked Mr. Mccarron to put the superintendent and the two superintendent together. >> Yeah. as we are the the executive board for the district and uh to include uh
the communication specialist as Miss Hanigan works directly out of the superintendent's office and the assistant superintendent's office. >> Okay, thank you for clarifying that. I know it's late late night and that that's all. >> Mark, her the other point for Miss
Hanigan is at the high school. >> Yeah, that's the innovation pathways coordinator side of her job. or is that under Lauren? >> It's not it's not expressed in the operational budget because that is that element of the salary is is uh offset by
the innovation pathways grant. >> Got it. Scott, >> thank you. So, it's past my bedtime, so I'm not interested in getting into the details of the budget at this point, but um when will we have an opportunity to give our thoughts and feedback about our
priorities for the budget? Um, can you give me an example? >> Well, just in terms of, you know, where where we would like the budget to come in and, you know, what areas we might be more willing to give up or what areas, you know, we have a higher priority in
keeping. So, you know, I mean, if if we just did if we did none of the increases that the administration is asking for, we're looking at about a 4 and a half% budget increase just from insurance salary and healthcare cost increases. So, you know, it doesn't give us a lot
of room to maneuver. And so, when are we going to be able to have that debate? >> So, I think that what we've done tonight is not provide the other side of the balance sheet. And so that 4% is actually still out of
context, I think, Ross, right? Because without understanding all of the revenue, we don't actually have a clear picture of what the increase is yet. >> Well, for for expressed cost and expense only, Mr. Powell is accurate. Uh I'm
sure within uh pennies on the dollar here. um what you're I believe uh alluding to uh Madam Chair would be the assessment. So the the realization and the actual
impact on assessment really can't be known until yes, we know the revenues um and how that ends up shaping the assessments for the towns. So, uh, if Chapter 70 comes in at $30 extra per student, that's a different conversation
than if it comes in at $150, uh, more per student in our school district and how that would impact the assessments to the towns. So, again, strictly from an expense side, um, Mr. Pal is is is likely accurate, but to
your point, I think is the assessment impact won't be known until we have the governor's budget. So, Scott, maybe so we were talking about having the governor's budget. Um, Kirk, are you going to be presenting the assessments at the January meeting
or the February meeting? >> January meeting, we should be able to bring the initial number knowing, but we also we're going to have factors that come in after that. So, we're we won't get the insurance factors till midFebruary. So, we may or
may not have insurance for the February 11th meeting, for instance. We didn't have it for that meeting last year. So, this is where we're in the woogie time of year of of getting all those variables in. So maybe at that January
meeting, Scott, when we see a clearer picture, um we could also have an agenda item where uh members are able to weigh in on things they would like like you know
because we can put a gigantic budget to the towns or we can work together to trim without cutting programming. And so would you would that suffice at that January meeting to have a
discussion then on priorities etc.? >> Yeah, I mean that that would be a good time to have that. I just as long as we're having it sometime before we get to the budget vote in March, then we're good. But I think for the admin for the administration's purposes, probably the sooner we give that feedback, the better
for them as far as working through >> the priorities and how to execute them. But so yeah, that would be great. I I think I would add into that is um I I don't see where we're going to have one conversation about what priorities are. We're going to be talking about
priorities at the January meeting. We're going to be talking about them at the first February meeting. We're going to be talking about them at the second February meeting. We're going to be talking about them at the hearing. It's a process because I I'll give you an example. Let's say our kindergarten enrollment doesn't warrant four sections
at the school at the schools. That's going to be a significant drop. uh in salary. So um you know that there there are some some factors that will play out but I think we just begin to have those conversations each meeting.
>> All right. Uh so guys with that we have reached the end of the budget workshop element of the meeting. Thank you for all of that new business to Kirk and his entire team. Thank you so much to everybody for being here. We really appreciate all of your hard work
here. Um, we have no unfinished business, but I wonder if any subcommittee wanted to be given an opportunity right now to share something vital. >> School building committees meeting tomorrow night. Looks like a pretty standard business meeting tomorrow night.
>> Excellent. All right. Not seeing any subcommittees with anything burning to share. Um, I know that DRJ is going to be bringing um a revised equity decision-making tool um to the committee and I'd like Matt to
put that on the next agenda so that you can share the revised trim sleeker version so that the subcommittees can try to start implementing that. All right, everybody. So, I'm moving for items on the next agenda. I'm looking at
the planning calendar. Um, I can very quickly share it with you. I have no idea what you can see at this point. Sorry. Hold on. [clears throat] Go away. So,
January 28th, you guys can see what we have here. So, uh, we'll be having an executive session that will dovetail with the budgetary conversation as well. Um,
anything that anybody wants clarity on or anything to be added? I can't see your hands, so just yell it out. is the draft of the school committee web page provision. Um, do we put that there as a placekeeper or is that on track to
happen? >> What do you think, Kirk? Is this still on track? >> Yeah, I believe so. Uh, is Miss Hanigan still in the meeting today? >> Yep, I'm still here and we're on track to be able to bring it to the January
28th meeting. >> Awesome. Thanks for hanging out till the bitter end of this. [laughter] >> Hey, M. >> I'll I'll remind the committee that we're going to be putting um the finance updates within the superintendent report
moving forward. >> So, where we have them, we'll include them there. >> And then anything else goes in the consent agenda. >> Great. All right. And I'm going to stop sharing. And is there anything else anybody wanted to add?
I'm seeing none. Thank you so much everybody for hanging in here. I'm going to move to adjourn. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Very good. Jackie, let's take the role. I vote yes. Jackie, >> yes. >> Scott, >> yes. >> Robin, >> yes. >> John,
>> yes. >> Sharon, >> yes. >> Amy, >> yes. Matt, Shandor, >> yes. >> Jillian, >> yes. >> Uh, Lindsay, >> yes. I >> think I got everybody. You jumped a
little. All right, guys.