it looks like Kim's in the Okay oh there she is she's I'll wait until she's she should join in momentarily all right welcome everybody to the April
10th 2025 meeting of the North Middle Sex School Committee it is 6:03 and this meeting is being recorded roll call randy
here june here lisa Bloom here will heckler here Tom Casey here Kim Craraven here and
myself and then we have on the call as well with us we have Brad Morgan Nancy Haynes Dr ree um Miss Olmstead and Robin Ivy all right moving on we are going to
do the consent agenda first and then move to a short executive session to approve some minutes um do I have a motion on the consent agenda so second that was June and a second by Will there are several minutes in here
thank you Robin for keeping us up to date on these and moving through approval anybody have any questions all right randy yes june yes lisa Fine
here will Hacklin yes tom Casey yes and Kim Craraven i'm going to be abstaining okay thank you and myself yes all right may I take a motion for the public we're just
jumping into executive session for a matter of five minutes to approve some minutes that we need to approve um may I get a motion from the floor for someone to move us to executive session i I can read it if you want
that works i was going to say either that or I got it i have it up okay go ahead Randy um I move uh that the school committee meet uh in executive session pursuant to MGL chapter 30A section 21A for the
following purpose um to discuss strategy with respect to oh just just seven so for purpose 7 pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws chapter 3A section 22C to review and
approve executive session minutes of the North Middle Sex Regional School Committees executive session meetings uh January 8th 2024 finance january 11th 2024 negotiations uh April 26 2024 finance
april 29th 2024 school committee uh June 13th 2024 school committee june 20th 2024 school committee july 3rd 2024 finance july 9th 2024 school committee
july 25th 2024 school committee october 15th 2024 finance uh November 6th 2024 school committee uh February 14th 2025 school committee uh March 20th 2025
finance and March 26 2025 negotiations all right second and that was seconded by Jim right randy yes june yes lisa Bloom yes will
Hackler yep tom Casey yes and Kim Craraven i'm seeing all right um we're going to jump to executive session please everyone just shut down your screen and join in a
different just to make sure that we're not exposing anything out in open session yeah just make sure they're uh audio is off okay all right everyone i'll see you there
all right we are back thank you to the people participating um for your patience as we did our executive session uh Randy do I have to read anything
since we came back in no no all right we will move to public communications i have a few Oh June yes Tom is in the attendee list now with his hand up added back in all right
thanks for the teamwork all right we're going to move to public comment the first person we have with a public comment tonight is Chelsea Carr and I'm just going to remind the public that we allow three minutes per
speaking is she adding Robin there's Chelsea hello chelsea can you hear me we can hear you would you state your name and the town in which you live yep my name is Chelsea Carr and I live in
Asheville um so I just want to come on and because I want someone to make this make sense to me um y'all voted to close Ashv in the worst way because our buddy Pat there said that it makes more sense
um when you have had res residents from Ashby Townsen and Pepper all providing data um I'm not sure if like officially they provided it or not but that proves that it in fact would not be the smartest and most cost cost-saving decision um and then you want to go and
charge for full day or possibly full day kindergarten but have you factored in like the busing from Ashby to Townsen for the kindergarteners on the half day i'm assuming that that's going to be more cost um and you want to potentially
increase preschool tuition once again from last year's increase um so are you trying to price out families from this district what about the families who can't afford all of this um but then you want to add more administrative jobs so
pretty much from my point of view what you're saying is screw these kids screw their editation um screw an entire town out of their property values and let's add some more admins for what a district that's slowly going down the toilet and
what about the um positions in the higherups like the superintendent assistant superintendent all of them why aren't they getting ra Why are they getting raises and not pay cuts to help save money um I'm just extremely confused and I just don't understand how
a um group of volunteers which I'm very thankful for um that y'all volunteer to do this and take on all this responsibility i can't imagine you know the burden that it can create um but I don't understand how
um volunteers can make the decision to shut down the only school and infect affect an entire town um where in towns in there are four schools and would possibly save more money um from listening to past meetings I have heard
nothing but negativity about Ashb and towns and residents throwing complete fits about their kindergarteners have to taking have to take the bus to Ashby and how detrimental it would be for their mental health and whatever else was said um but not even giving any care in the
world about Ashby's only school closing and having to bust our kindergarteners um I guess I'm just here to say the things that literally everyone else is thinking and I know I'm probably going to be ignored except for a very few um select who are actually thinking about
the district and you know Ashb um so I just had to put my two cents out there because none of this makes sense and none of in my opinion none of it is smart and most importantly absolutely none of it is what's best for these kids
thank you Chelsea our next public comment is Patrick McY i don't see him in the list patrick if you're here can you raise your hand please yeah I don't see him in the list as well
all right um Carrie Mahoney Battersby Battersby Battersby I think is Battersby yeah all right and her hand has risen yep can everyone hear me we can hear you
carrie please state your name and or tone my name is Carrie Mahoney Battersby and I live in Ashby um I am speaking today to express my disappointment with a few of the agenda items listed for tonight's meeting on the agenda an item included
was the reduction of middle school athletics personally my daughter Molly Battersby who is currently in the sixth grade plays field hockey through Hawthorne Brook this is a sport we pay for so she can play learn form bonds with her teammates and learn to work as a team sports are very important in a
child's education it creates camaraderie with their peers cuts down on bullying and helps children build confidence this also sets the stage for when our middle school students enter high school they will have the confidence to try out for the sports they've been participating in as well as a new sport if they so wish
my daughter has played softball for Towns and Ashby youth baseball softball since she was 7 years old she has played with these girls for almost 5 years and has formed bonds that I am positive will follow her through the rest of her public education career the second issue I would like to
stress is the proposal for additional administrative positions that would be the director of operations and facilities and assistant business manager you must see the terrible optics this is giving to our three communities we are currently in a budget crisis working with a roughly $2 million
deficit adding additional administrative positions while proposing cuts to middle school athletics increasing prek tuition again and the possible tuition for full day kindergarten is fiscally irresponsible it sends a message to the parents in our community that you do not
really have the best interest of not only our students but also our parents currently 243 school districts throughout the Commonwealth offer full day kindergarten 234 of them are free north Middle Sex would be the 39th school district to implement tuition for
all for full day kindergarten how will this impact future students and families looking to move into the district with Ashby already losing its only school and asking parents of incoming students to bust their five and six-year-old children to another town you now want to add tuition which directly affects
parents this has the potential to hinder the education of future kindergarten students while underpreparing them for first grade as someone who is running for school committee this year I am appalled by this the terrible optics that are presented on tonight's agenda we need to mend the distrust between our communities and the school committee i
hope we'll be able to deliver on this in the future thank you for your time thank you Carrie next is Craig Hansen all right Craig just state your name and your tone please y good evening Craig
Hansen from PPE um tonight I just uh wanted to take a brief moment to pass on a simple message to those who uh find themselves most likely in their final meeting as a school committee member tom will in June thank you thank you for your years of service to the district
service on the committee and camaraderie when we serve together nobody will say the journey was easy but I hope you look back and see the difference you've made for the children of our communities your efforts and your time it's all been appreciated that's all I had to say so thank you very much
Craig they're not done yet close enough but thank you all all right thank you Craig all right next on the agenda or not on the agenda we have
Stacy or Robin hold on one minute let me see if I can see it stacy if you Okay maybe hold on we will ask when she comes in and then I do have um two
comments that were sent in as emails i just want to remind you all right thank you all right Stacy would you state your name and your tone please stacy Oer from Ashby how are you
thank you i have a really easy last name but I married into a difficult one so um clearly I'm calling from from Ashb so you probably have a good idea of why I'm joining the call tonight um I do want to take a quick moment and thank uh a
couple of really strong advocates that have been on the school committee that have really um fought the good fight for helping maintain Ashby Elementary as a viable school throughout the years this has been a multi-year long process and
although a lot of venom tends to head the way of the school committee um I do want you to know that you are seen and heard and appreciated so thank you for your long commitment um as far as helping us to maintain our only school
in the district um so I have spent the last month or so re-watching pretty much every school committee meeting that has has been recorded um just to get a really good sense of the dialogue that's happened
throughout the years um and there have been some really strong conversations around uh why maintaining Ashby Elementary as an open operational school with students in the building is necessary and vital
to our rural community um and I do want to point out that Ashb is the only designated rural community in our district and that is a really important piece um as part of this conversation
um we are just being that rural uh community means we are really the most vulnerable population in the district and that is something we need to think about very seriously when we have these conversations about whether or not we
close the only school um as it's been mentioned previously many times throughout the years um closing our school would really impact our property values um I did a little bit of research and across the country the average property value loss would be about
13% and based off of our 2022 numbers in Ashb that would be a loss of about $52 million of wealth for our community um but that's an average town we are a small rural town without um other
services and so that percentage can be up towards 25% of property value loss which again based off of 2022 numbers would put us at about $100 million of wealth lost in our tiny town um so I'm
asking the committee to take it very seriously when we consider what we do with our school i was very hopeful after our last February meeting um there was a conversation about whether or not we
could maintain Ashby Elementary as an operational school um to buy the district or time to allow the state to get its funding practices um readjusted um I think that's a
beautiful option i don't know what the status of that is yet i'd like to piggyback on that option and just say that if that is a route that the district is able to go um that we need to really explore whether or not Ashb is
the right school to close for a one-year temporary pause i would recommend um that the committee take a peek at looking at potentially a townsen school for multiple reasons and I am so sorry towns and to say that um but for the
facts that it would allow us to maintain equitable busing as far as Ashby and towns and students go um and also I know that there was concern about um Ashby Elementary not being large in size i don't believe that we need that quote
unquote room for growth um immediately next year so it would actually make more sense fiscally to keep Ashby open and shut down one of our larger schools for next year um we could m especially if it's Spalding we could um save more on
heat and electricity and as it was mentioned in our February meeting Ashby Elementary actually has really large square classrooms and so it would give our students more space um to learn compared to some of the other classrooms
that are kind of funky in the district and so um I do believe if that's an option it really could play into the people on the committee that said teachers not buildings um it could help ease the fact
of instead of asking just one town to have 100% of their students bust 100% of their education um while the next town over has 0% of their students bust out of town for 0% of their education it
could be more equitable so I'm sure I'm just drowning on um food for thought so I ask that the committee uh resend the vote to close Ashby Elementary and then open the dialogue between the towns of which school
actually would make the most sense to put on a temporary pause for a year and that's all I have thank you so much thank you Stacy stacy all right uh Robin you have a few statements from people to read would you
want to read those for us sure thank you the first one is from Carrie Gallagher um to start I want to say that I realize none of these decisions are
easy and it's an unprecedented time to be a member of the school committee your job is not an easy one i've heard about some of your agenda items tonight and I would like to weigh in on one area in particular though I am passionate about all of these agenda items the area I
would like to focus on is the proposed cut or reduction in middle school sports offerings i beg you to reconsider removing these programs i have two children who have actively participated in these programs during their years at Hawthon Brook Middle School and one of them will start will still be in middle
school next year the impact of these programs are extremely beneficial to their middle school experience and truly make them a part of the we arem culture it allows them to form relationships with more students they may not interact with on a day-to-day basis helping them on a
social level as well they have had dedic dedicated coaching staff who have motivated them to become focused team-minded and embrace it's a bigger than you mentality that is so critical in the middle school years they remind the students the importance of academics and have truly become mentors the
students at Hawth Brook Middle School embrace the program offerings they want to be a part of them i uh I encourage you to at least consider some of these options if you need to make cuts in the area can you increase the athletic fees to help offset the cost can the teams
themselves or the PTO raise funds to cover the their programs the PTO runs a very successful faculty versus students game that raises huge amounts of money they also charge $10 per child for school dances can we ask the PTO to help fund middle school athletics with
requested donations by the school department i realize the PTO is outside of the school budget but there is funding out there lastly as an option can you consolidate Hawthon Brook and Nissatis teams in some or all programs i realize academics are the main focus
however please remember the importance of the overall student experience that includes athletics as well as the arts i'm willing to go out on the line and say that parents who feel athletics are critical will most likely be willing to pay a little more each season for their child to play i truly appreciate your
time your service and your commitment to our students all the best carrie Gallagher mother of two and M students towns and resident and I do have another one from uh Joshua Melo uh he says "My
name is Joshua Melo i'm the head coach of the middle school girls basketball team at Hawthon Brook Middle School my wife Tracy volunteers as the assistant coach i wanted to contribute to the discussion around middle school athletics and possible cuts to those opportunities for our kids we are
obviously in the midst of extremely difficult times for our district and I certainly don't want to downplay the challenges we are facing when it comes to finding a viable path forward i understand you have to look at all options with that being said I encourage you to carefully consider the cost and
benefit analysis of making cuts to these opportunities middle school athletes uh athletics cost the district a relatively small amount of money however the benefit they provide to the district and to our kids truly cannot be measured many of these students are future leaders in the district by participating
in middle school athletics these players develop leadership abilities learn how to be reasonable with their schedules and to keep their grades up while participating in their sports 5 days a week after school the kids who participate in middle school athletics develop critical and lifelong habits that benefit them greatly and have a
huge effect on the district's performance both athletically and academically in many cases these students are your validictorians your student council members your scholarship recipients excuse me and your school district's biggest advocates and proudest members participating in middle
school athletics definitely has an impact on where these students choose to attend high school when these students represent their school in the districts as athletes they feel more connected to and proud to be part of the NM community this pride is a big component to having a thriving and successful school system
without this pride and participation you are opening the door even further for students to choose to attend high school elsewhere decreasing student population and exacerbating our budget issues the memories that have been created for so many kids as a result of playing middle school sports cannot be overstated as an
NM graduate and someone who played middle school sports in the district I can tell you that if I hadn't had those opportunities my life would likely have taken a very different path please consider all these factors in your decision-making at a time of a huge amount of change and uncertainty let's
try to maintain one of the biggest sources of joy and enrichment for these kids please do not underestimate the importance of middle school athletics thank you thank you Robin all right um moving on to the chairperson
report so I do have a few things i do want to address that the the things that appear on the agenda the things under the budget like the full day um payment of kindergarten elimination of sports
things like that that are listed in that area are placeholders or discussion points that our committee may discuss during that time and I felt that a transparency was needed to the public to know that those things could be discussed during that time um and when
we get to that area we'll discuss those and the committee will have their input um the other thing about the two roles that you're seeing tonight with the operations director and the assistant manager when we get to those areas those
will also be re explained by Randy and by um Superintendent Morgan so everyone just be calm and patient we will get to that but I felt that it be important that we have all transparency to the public all right now
Craig Hansen did take some of my thunder here with him thanking some members that this could be their last meeting so Tom Casey Will Hackler and June McNeel I thank you for your time serving on the committee i know that it has not been
easy i will be inviting you back for a more formal thank you when we meet in person i would like to extend my sincere gratitude to each of you for your dedicated service to the school committee your time and commitment has
played a vital role in shaping the educational experience for our students families and staff at NM your contributions made a lasting impact and I am grateful for all the t important work that you have done thank you for
your service and leadership that's my first thank you so thank you my next one is extended to Superintendent Morgan Committee Member Kim Craraven Townsen Administrator Nelson Muie Peperal Select Board Member
Chuck Wakovich i thank you for your powerful advocacy and for taking the time to testify before the Massachusetts Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday on the behalf of Regional Educational Funding
your voices stories and insights play a critical role in highlighting the real needs of our students educators and communities speaking up in such a public forum requires both courage and commitment and your dedication to
ensuing equitable adequate funding for our schools and community communities is deeply appreciated your testimony helps bring attention to the vital importance of investing in our public education system not just for
today but for future of every child at North Middle Sex Regional District and our communities we are truly grateful to your leadership and your continued support of education then I have one more area and
it's about advocacy i now turn to our communities and I cannot stress enough how important it is for people to raise their voices all the way to the state house hold on i lost my place for a second the kids
testifying was very emotionable but the one most powerful moment was when I witnessed on Tuesday was a senator lifting a binder filled with 1,300 letters he received from his constituents about school funding too
often I hear from our communities "My letter won't make a difference but I assure you it absolutely can." Think of a snowbank it began with a single snowflake one snowflake becomes two then 10 then hundreds and soon it's something
too large to ignore that one letter your voice is a snowflake and just like the snowbank it grows that binder didn't start with 1300 letters it started with one people spoke up and their collective
voices became impossible to overlook so please write speak up share your story it matters and it makes a difference to our district and our communities all right on to Superintendent Morgan's
report thank you um so I I do want to start just a couple pieces of good news uh this evening i'd like to congratulate Becky Jackson who is the recipient of the Don Salvuchi Award for promoting civic education we're proud to share
that Rebecca Jackson a high school social studies teacher department chair student council co-advisor row kapper adviser has been selected as this year's recipient of the Don Salvuchi Award lorie Smith the principal of North Middle Sex Regional High School nominated Miss Jackson in recognition of
her outstanding capabilities and unwavering dedication to fostering civic understanding and student engagement through her leadership both in and out of the classroom miss Jackson has inspired students to think critically lead with purpose and participate actively in their communities the Don
Salvuchi Award is named in honor of Don Salvuchi former president of the Massachusetts Council for Social Studies in the late 1970s it's a tribute to educators who championed democratic ideals savvuchi was a visionary who embraced emerging technologies producing
the first NERK conference early in Apple computer and who helped shaped student learning through initiatives like the Constitution bysentennial events that encourage deep dives into local history the award recognizes classroom educators who bring the principles of citizenship to life connecting the past with the
present and empowering students to become informed responsible members of society rebecca Jackson embodies this mission through her work every day and we're thrilled to see her efforts honored on this level please join us in congratulating Miss Jackson on this exceptional and well-deserved
achievement moving on I would also like to thank Miss Lisa Camo um for organizing and running our first family literacy night on Tuesday March 27th at North Middle Sex Regional High School it was a very well- attended event by families and
staff and it was truly a community event that was filled with readalouds pizza and other fun activities so thank you to Lisa Camo and finally I'd like to thank Dr kevin Cormier for organizing NM's second annual credit for life fair which is scheduled for Monday May 19th from
8:30 to 10:00 a.m in the North Middle Sex Regional High School gymnasium this coupled with our personal finance courses at the high school level is providing our graduates with some muchneeded skills in this area which were a result of students who advocated for this with their civic action project
in 2024 so again this was something some of Miss Jackson's students who I mentioned previously for the Don Salvuchi Award bringing something very important to life and these personal finance courses are very important part of what we offer at the high
school i also just want to build on what Miss Martin said with regard to our visit to the joint ways and means committee meeting on Tuesday i'd like to personally thank our our two students who attended Keenan Francois and Shannon Kelly um I'd also like to thank
community members Kelly Kelly Gen 4s and Jackie White as well as Carla Lima and Rick Bailey and I'd also like to thank our school committee member Lisa Martin i'd like to thank Chuck Walovich who was one of our board of selectment members
school committee Kim Craraven and also Mr cormier who also attended um from the school district all of them took up a significant portion of their day on Tuesday to go to the state house and advocate for N&M in regional school funding it was an interesting day for
sure and I'm hopeful that the message was heard and that appropriate action will be taken in the very near future in the meantime again just to echo what Miss Martin had said I highly encourage people to advocate by writing to your legisl legislator whenever possible we
have to maintain this momentum it is the first time in my seven years in the district where I have seen some I I I feel as though there's there's some potential some some potential momentum to move us towards being funded fairly as I shared at that meeting it's it's
very difficult when you look back from 2001 to 2024 um our chapter 7 funding has only increased 2.5% and the state has increased 75% so we are clearly not being funded
properly and we definitely need your advocacy in writing to your state legislator so please reach out also like to provide an update on Ashb Elementary as many of you know N&M will be consolidating its physical footprint in FY26 due to the budget with
AES being taken offline for the year there were some questions around the overall impact financially as well as whether or not the Mass School Building Authority would require any action of closure to be permanent that said we have been advocating for a one-year
delay in making any permanent decisions and I would like to personally thank Secretary and Acting Commissioner of Education Patrick Tutweiler for his advocacy for NM the MSBA has authorized NM and has given us permission to wait one full year before making any final
decisions around Ashb and I would like to again thank Mr tutweiler for his support without his support and reaching out to MSBA this would not have occurred this is not something to my knowledge that MSBA has authorized previously so again thank you to Secretary and Acting
Commissioner Tutweiler an update on the on the potential move with the upcoming consolidation process up and running a team made up of NM staff has been formed the team is going through initial logistics that require a move to be successful and is weighing
between keeping the move in-house or contracting it out additionally debus has started examining bus routes and should have a con should have some type of a contract to us or proposal shortly uh for the upcoming school year finally uh I'll speak on some other
items later on in the agenda but I did want to touch base on some of the reductions that we are looking at for FY26 and this was shared with the House Ways and Means Committee in total um at the elementary level we are looking at the reduction of seven elementary
teachers one assistant principal and 2.77 PAR professionals um the elementary teachers are from all three buildings um par professionals are from Varnum Brook and Squanakook at the middle school level the reduction of six middle school
teachers four from Nissatiset and two from Hawthorne Brook two PA professionals one from Nissatiss and one from Varnbrook even though it's a middle school uh position a lot of this is based on seniority as well as a 6 registered behavior technician from the
middle school at the high school level a reduction of three teachers and districtwide two custodians so in total it is 24.37 FTEES in addition to that we've made reductions in the areas of curriculum programming technology and
we'll be um reducing the PR firm from the budget or eliminating the PR firm I should say from the budget for FY26 that is all that I have for now um and we'll speak later on in the meeting on some of the other agenda items
thank you Brad um moving on we are to the FY 2024 audit review nancy hands yeah i'm hoping you can promote Rebecca Gamsby from CBIS she's going to give us
a brief presentation on the FY24 audit she should be all set welcome Rebecca hi thank you very much for having me go rebecca it's if it's okay with the committee I'm going to share the the presentation and uh Rebecca just give me
a holler when you're ready to move on slide by i will thank you are you able to see my screen okay yes now I can thank you Nancy so you can skip to the next slide if you
would like so I will give a brief introduction an overview of the audit process and then an overview of the 2024 audit results next slide so again my name is Rebecca Gamsby i am here with SBIZ CPAs i am a director
with CBiz and a shareholder with CBiz CPAs when we originally began the fiscal year 24 audit process the district had engaged with Powers and Sullivan powers and Sullivan was a small local firm in Massachusetts which in February of 2024
merged with Markham LLP a national firm then during the audit of fiscal year 24 and November of 2024 Markhamm LLP merged with CBZ and CBZ CPAs i would like to let you know that during that process there have been no changes to the audit
team that has been performing the district's audit for fiscal year 24 it is the same team that performed the audit for fiscal year 23 and we plan to continue that with fiscal year 25 we only have additional assistance behind us behind the scenes um the fiscal year
2024 audit was actually issued under Markham LLP next slide Nancy um this is just a quick overview but I did want to let you know that CBIS CPAs is a national CPA firm we are headquartered in New York we operate
under an alternative practice structure with CBiz Inc which is a business consulting tax and financial services provider so together we are one of the top 11 accounting firms in the country now there's a little bit more information here on the next couple
slides um we did the other important part of this is we do have a significant government practice now within New England prior to our merger you might be familiar with Meansen previously known as Meansen Heath um CPAs they also merged with Markham in January of 2023
so we are one of the largest governmental auditing providers within New England now we can skip to the next slide so to jump into a little bit of your audit overview the principal objective of our
work during fiscal year 24 is the expression of our audit opinions on the district's financial statements and on the district's compliance with uniform federal guidance which relates to your federal expenditures uh we perform our audit in accordance with the generally accepted auditing
standards in the United States of America and the standards for financial audits contained in the government auditing standards um issued by the comproller general it's also referred to as yellow book our responsibility is that we plan and perform our audit to obtain
reasonable but not absolute assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement and that they are fairly presented in accordance with US generally accepted accounting principles gap uh management however so Nancy and her team are responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of
those financial statements in accordance with GAP our audit process takes part over um two fieldwork segments we started preliminary audit work in May of 2024 during preliminary fieldwork we begin our risk assessment where we document
the district's internal controls we have discussions with management and staff we start our testing of controls and we do test compliance with laws regulations MGL um and grant requirements we also start to test your census data related
to your net pension and your net OPED liabilities which are the biggest liabilities that the district reports on your financial statements we continue our visit with Nancy in her office during um our year-end visit so once Nancy has closed the ledgers and provided us with the
final audit numbers the team went back out in August of 2024 we verify your year-end account balances we take a look at reconciliations we're testing all of those balances we make sure that the financial statements are in compliance with GAP that any new standards have
been implemented that there's appropriate cutoff procedures related to your expenditures we review your budgetary controls and we review your major federal award programs um if they are subject to testing for the year under
audit part of our process is that we have to review some of the significant risks management override of internal controls is always considered a significant risk for all audits we design our procedures to test and respond to this risk including reviewing
adjusting journal entries um significant accounting estimates for potential bias and evaluating any unusual transactions we may have noted so at the result of this audit we did not report any significant um findings related to
management override of internal control so while we're required to report this to you we did not find any deviations we further review for proper revenue recognition related to your major revenue um streams which would be your member town assessments and then your
intergovernmental revenues so state and federal revenue sources we also need to consider your IT environment which specifically relates to um the general ledger and some of the other systems used at the end of the audit we were able to
issue an unmodified audit opinion which is a clean audit opinion over the financial statements so they were fairly materially presented in accordance with GAAP we also were able to issue an unmodified so a clean audit opinion with respect to the major federal program
that was audited which this year the significant federal program was the child nutrition cluster so we took a look at the school lunch program we did not note any um instances of non-compliance or any other matters that would be required to be reported to you
we did not know any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies related to the internal controls either the financial statements can be broken down into a few segments when you're looking at them the first uh three pages are the audit opinion those
are the only pages that we as the auditors own the rest of the financial statements are a direct reflection of Nancy and taken um NY's office takes accountability for those they begin with management's discussion and analysis which is just a brief overview of the
significant activity for the year and the year end account balances they transition into the basic financial statements which are the most significant portion they have the full acrual statements that include your capital the district's capital assets the net pension liability the net op
liability all of your debt and your modified acrruel statements so your general fund which is what you're most familiar with looking at um the budget related to um there's also significant notes to your financial statements so your for your financial
highlights um looking right at the budget for the general fund for the district the final budget was 6 um $63.7 million the budget used 2 million of excess and deficiency
END to balance the budget for 20 um 24 revenues did exceed budget by $65,000 and expenditures and incumbrances were under budget by 1.3 million the general fund fund balance um
at year end was $6.6 million which does include the capital stabilization fund as required by GAP this can be seen on page 16 of your financials the general fund fund balance it did represent um 9.8% of expenditures and
the unassigned fund balance so of that 6.6 million 2.4 4 million was available for appropriation as a signed fund balance included $3.5 million so carry forwards of expenditures to the next year and then a use of END for the fiscal year 25
budget of 2.7 million as I noted oh go back one slide for me Nancy sorry thank you um as I noted before your capital stabilization fund is included in fund balance of your general fund at year end there was
$671,000 within the capital stabilization fund which does represent a $273,000 increase from fiscal year 23 um as you may know the district is part of Middle Sex County Retirement System so the net pension liability
reported is a direct reflection of the Middle Sex County Retirement Systems financial statements um the liability is allocated by their actuary at year end the district reported an unfunded pension liability
of 14.6 million related to the system and the proportionate share of that entire system or North Middle Sex is less than 1% there was a contribution from North Middle Sex to the system of 1.4 million for the year
the district's most significant um liability that's reported on your uh full acral financial statements relates to your net oped liability so your other post-employment benefit liability it's the unfunded portion of this future liability that's determined by your
actuary at your end you did have a trust fund that had a balance of 1.1 million included in there was preunding of $150,000 for fiscal year 24 the total OPED liability as calculated by the
actuary at um June 30 of 2024 was $90.7 million so that left an unfunded liability of $89.6 million that's reported on the district's bull acral financial statements um there's significant note disclosures
related to both the pension liability and the net um oped liability within notes 10 and 11 of the financial statements if you would like to see further information there's also trend information for the past 10 years within um the back portion of the financials
RSI the required supplementary information that can show you essentially what the net pension liability and net op liability have been for the past 10 years along with your contributions to each the last significant liability the district reports relates to your
long-term debt long-term debt was 27.7 million while short-term debt was $18.7 million at year end the majority of the debt that's outstanding does relate to your high school project um along with the general fund the district does report a few other um major funds within
the governmental fund statements they mostly relate to some of the capital projects that have been ongoing with the high school um Barnabrook Hawthorbrook and Squanook moving on to the town's SEIFA so the schedule of expenditures of federal awards sorry the districts the district's federal
expenditures for fiscal year 24 were 3.4 million as there was over $750,000 spent that means that the district had to have a single audit a major program audit of one of the significant um federal
expenditures up for a rotation this year was the child nutrition cluster so we do review in detail the school lunch program specifically we take a look at the program's expenditures um all the dispersements including procurement we
review student eligibility for free reduced price meals we do have to take a look at what students are eligible for um full free meals under state standards and under federal standards and we take a look at the meal reimbursements that are submitted to the state for federal
and state reimbursements during this review we did not note any comp um non-compliance or internal control exceptions as I noted before this also received a clean opinion the last few slides are really here um for your reference excuse me
there's some items here that talk about management's responsibilities for the audit essentially the fair preparation of the financials and reporting um all of the information to us during the audit that's requested um providing information to us the next slide
discusses what our responsibilities are when it comes to the audit um as far as expressing an opinion on the financial statements um the standards that we have to audit under and ensuring that we report any of the deficiencies to
management and therefore the school committee the final slides are again just a few areas of reference for you just some areas of audit um emphasis that we like to provide otherwise um I believe we covered most of the important aspects of
the audit so if there's any questions I am happy to try to answer them for you okay well this is your line of Thank you so Re uh Rebecca I'm sorry i'm the finance chair so we'll just start with
that part of it so um do you see foresee any changes in the state or federal funding coming forward that part has been hard to say we've been receiving that question a lot from our clients right now so unfortunately we don't have a crystal ball to necessarily help with that
situation um we tend to come in behind the scenes after your finances are done for the year is really where we stand yeah um do you submit a a management letter uh in this process so we do if there are significant findings and we
did not have any this year so we discussed prior management letter recommendations with Nancy um noted that they were resolved and did not issue a management letter for fiscal year 24 okay um is there any way to see anything you know from NM versus other districts
or somewhere we can see that you know like financial results i mean you mentioned in your first slide or something about you know you do 400 other municipalities and districts you know is there any way to see any like where we stand versus some of the others with some of these pieces so most
districts I would say do post their financial statements on their website many of them do there's also a few resources where if they do have a single audit that you are able to search for them within the federal audit clearing house database their financial statements that have been issued to date we can certainly provide that link for
Nancy um so we can't hand out other client financials but I can certainly refer you to areas where you certainly can find them okay um and do you guys you know publish any like best practices for districts or anything like that we do not specifically publish any best
practices no okay um usually that's more of Desessie's area all right masbos so Desi is a good place for those best practices on that side of things yes okay thank you
you're welcome anyone else thank you Rebecca thank you so much for having me and thank you to Nancy and her team for all the assistance that we've received during the audit thank you very much for coming coming out tonight of course happy to be here
all right we are moving on to Pittney Bose that is NY's area as well with Pney B's postage meter all right Nancy um we have included in the packet uh a couple of options that we've been
looking at we we need to renew the uh the postage meter and the postage meter rental we plan on using a state contract of 39 and within that contract we have the option of choosing how many years we would like to go out for um the lease
it's essentially a lease and a reduction in postage cost to use that um the OFF39 um the one that I'm suggesting is the to continue for the 5-year which is
60-month um is the the greater savings if everybody was comfortable with that and anything over 3 years requires it comes to the school committee for approval uh right now I'm hoping to um I think it would save approximately
um just just around $2,500 to do that over the over the contract um so it will be a savings to go the longer distance um if we think we are not going to need postage in 5 years it may not be the best but I'm pretty comfortable going
forward with the the 5year 60-month option and um I just don't know if there's any specific questions about the lease or or how it works or or if you want to make a motion to authorize the superintendent to enter
into the 60-month agreement or Randy I think you were up first sorry I thought uh Jim was there first um just um yeah just like the potential savings
statement from Pittney Bose is that our usage or is that um just a general from Pittney Bose i think ours is in that uh package i'm not sure where exactly you're Yeah north Middle Sex District
okay yeah um so what's the majority of the first class letters that we're sending out because it looks like it's uh over 4,000 um I'm assuming per year um that we're sending out it's really varies we we do have obviously we have um checks that go out every single week
we've got letters to families uh there's a fair amount of special education flats that go out okay uh it does change different times of the year there are letters that might go out or food service notifications things of that nature okay and uh the price uh that
we're quoted for the 5-year contract that's just a steady no matter how much we uh mail or uh we also have to purchase the um the mail the postage as well it's it's a discounted rate though it's a discounted rate
okay all right uh has our usage gone up or down over the years or is it pretty steady right now uh you know honestly I hadn't looked at that i think it's very steady we don't I don't know of any in fact it might have gone down slightly because we had uh there's a lot of things in the district that were no
longer um mailing hard copies but you know we're ma we're doing it electronically so there's quite a bit of that there's still some reliance on you know giving people a hard copy of specific documents i did look at the smaller um
mailing system there's two options um the different the main difference is the feeding so when you feed the letters in on the the lower cost one you have to manually literally feed them in one at a time um so if you have 60 letters or 60
checks every single week you're manually feeding it i I felt like that might be might not be the best approach and and and the manpower to do that would be kind of painful i I wouldn't suggest that with the with the
volume that we have but thank you yep i did look at it though nancy um June did you have a question um well I I was just looking at the form that shows our current monthly was
24732 um so what's being proposed is almost $100 less as far as the um machine renewal is that am I reading that correctly yeah it will be less money um for the renewal and it'll be
regardless of the even the um the length of term that we select but I think that is the fact u that that pity bows themselves have come down in the state contract and re you know after a certain number of years they do rebid these things so we were able they were able to
lower that that lease rate okay that's great thank you all right anyone else have any questions i will move uh that we approve the fiveyear lease
um for $159.15 monthly payment i second all right so that is Randy and Lisa Bloom just a question anyone have a question the mo the motion was saying that we authorized the superintendent to
execute the contracts for this Okay don't we need to do that Randy i apologize i was I I wasn't looking at the agenda when I did that so okay i will move that the school committee author uh vote to authorize the superintendent to approve and execute
all necessary contracts and documents for up to a 60-month lease with the Pittney Bose for posted services per state contract of 39 second so we have Brandy Ral or Randy and
Will all right June yes lisa Bloom yes randy yes kim kim that's okay uh she'll abstain will
he yes tom Casey yes and myself yes all right moving on to the next topic out ofate trip requests we have Miss Olmstead would you make the
presentation sure we have two outofstate field trip requests one is for our choir to go to Delta Dental Stadium they will perform the national anthem there um that field trip is taking place on June 7th um it
does not require any buses there are parents who are bringing the students there um and we have funds in reserve in case anybody cannot afford the cost of the ticket which is about $12 [Music] any questions for the field trip randy
um how many students do we have in the uh choir these days we have um if we're looking at both the choirs put together probably around 75 oh that's fantastic congratulations to all of them and good luck with that thank
you all right anyone else have any questions can we just put these two together sure we'll go now we'll go to the next one okay yep the second field trip um is
to bring choir and our band students to Mystic Aquarium um or to Mystic Seaport rather they will do an outdoor performance there um they'll attend a presentation and then they have an opportunity to explore the exhibits that the Seapport has to offer um they'll
also visit the aquarium and learn about the animals there um see a sea lion show and you know experience the touch tanks that is another opportunity for both our band um and choir students to be able to perform in
public um similar to the other field trip um there were fundraisers that were optional for students and families who wanted to participate in order to be able to afford this opportunity um but our band is very much looking forward to attending
are they going on buses yes okay any other questions all right i will take a motion to approve both of the field trips so moved all right second
so we have June and Lisa Bloom we'll get the second all right june yeah randy yes lisa Bloom yes will he yes tom Casey yes
kim yes kim just shake your head yes all right and myself yes i hope the kids have a lovely time on the field trips thank you i appreciate it all right we are moving right along
and we have Dr reese who has the next four presentations for us yes good evening everyone uh Miss Martin do you want me to just briefly go through all four since they're all four grant approvals and then answer any questions would that be easier yes that would but
before you do that I want to congratulate you on your and you're going to have to get me right on this what you were appointed to so can you explain to everyone yes thank you very much for bringing it up um I am uh was appointed to the
executive board for Nafipa which is the National Association of Federal Education Program Administrators currently I represent Massachusetts as one of two members on the the general board and so now I will serve as an
atlarge member for the executive board and we provide support and advocacy for federal education programs title one title 2a title three um nationally all right thank you and congratulations
thank you um so we have four grants for approval uh this evening the first as doc uh Mr morgan mentioned earlier is the credit for life fair uh thanks to the work of Dr cormier we were able to get an a grant for the second year in a
row through the state treasure treasurer's financial education innovation fund and essentially this will provide funding for us to be able to just implement the credit for life fair uh which is currently planned for May um for our senior students and it
gives them an opportunity to explore what it's like after high school after college um they get to pick a career they get to decide make decisions around whether they want to rent live with their family buy a house and kind of
learn what the implications are as they make those decisions even down to whether or not they want to have a pet when they and what the costs are associated with having a pet um so it's a it's a great opportunity for our students uh they really enjoyed it last
year and we are happy to be able to offer it again to them this year um the second grant is through the um again it's through the through the uh Commonwealth of Massachusetts it's the mass farming reinforces education in
student health grant and um this grant came to my attention thank you through um Carl Edmonds uh up at the high school and really what we're going to be using the funds from this grant for is to um
enhance um the greenhouse he wanted to do some work on the windows and provide some automatic um ventilation systems through that as well as elevating our garden club and giving students in the
garden club an opportunity to create some lessons for our middle school students and elementary school students um around just what it means to uh farm locally and uh getting a
better understanding of eating healthy um they'll also um be working to do some food tasting at the schools as well so we're we're happy to be able to to offer that and again thanks to Carl Edmonds um
and then the final two grants which are actually pretty substantial but they're both um over three years uh the 18 Foundation which is a local or nonprofit organization that supports schools across Massachusetts in implementing
highquality instructional programs uh they had two grant programs or they had a number of them we applied for two this year one was for the uh open sed program which is a curriculum for uh science
instruction um our middle school teachers had an opportunity to visit Fitchburg High or Fitchburg uh to learn how they've been implementing the 1A program or the open sad program I'm sorry um and we're really impressed with
both the curriculum as well as the alignment with the highquality instructional practices that the students have currently been using through our ELA and math program so this grant um that was received for both uh Nissotis and Hawthorne Brook will
provide three years of professional development and materials for our teachers to be able to implement the program um with integrity um and then finally we also got a second grant through the 18 foundation to upgrade or
um enhance our eighth grade civics education program by using the DKP program which is the dem democratic knowledge project curriculum um and again our teachers had an opportunity to meet with the staff that um have an understanding and implementing the
program and selected this as a real strong program that's in alignment with the practices we're currently using across all content areas so again this will be a three-year grant that will cover the professional development costs for our staff
thank you Gary um any questions about these grants uh Randy first uh um as usual thank you very much for going after these grants i think uh it's a great opportunity for our um students um and for the staff for a lot
of these uh grants uh my question is do any of these have um funds that we need to lay out um either uh matching funds to go with the grant or future funds for um uh non-renewable uh materials or
anything like that for these programs sure so um with with the science program there is some consumable items that we would have to purchase each year both middle schools have line items in their budget that this wouldn't exceed the cost that we're currently covering
through those um the DKP civics program does have a $300 annual fee that we need to pay through um for both middle schools to participate again those funds are currently allocated within our our local budget so it's not adding anything
more to our local budget um and both programs are online open- source curriculum materials so there wouldn't be any additional curriculum costs beyond the three years and are these replacing uh certain curriculum or programs that we have in place now yes
so we have been using for science um probably about six years ago our teachers worked with other districts across the state to develop kind of our local statewide grown curriculum um with changes to the curriculum standards and
expectations that work that was great and that the teachers you know worked hard on it just needed to be updated because it wasn't wasn't reflective of the current standards so this this replaces that and they had been using
for civics in grade 8 um loosely the I civics program um but at the time that we had implemented that there wasn't an extensive amount of training so the teachers were kind of using that as well as building in their own practices so this will just provide greater
consistency across the two buildings thank you welcome all right any other questions all right i am going to ask that each statement be read that but can be read as a group because it does involve money
amounts does that make sense to everyone all right who wants to have the I move ahead we vote to accept the $3,125 credit for the LifeFare grant from the state treasures financial education innovation
fund i also move that we vote to accept the $6,500 Mass Farming Reinforced Education Student Health Grant as well as accepting the $33,600 for the HBMS and
$44,100 for the North Mills uh this middle school open science ed grant from the 18 Foundation and lastly to accept the $7,70 for the HBMS and $12,840 for NMS Democratic Knowledge
Project DKP grant from the8 Foundation do I have a second i second that was Will Hackler and Lisa Bloom any more discussion all right then we will vote june yes
randy yes lisa Bloom yes kim Craraven okay uh Tom Casey yes
will Hacklin yes and myself yes all right moving on thank you everyone yes thank you Dr moving on we are moving to the flagpole and plaque
dedication all right everyone could see in the packet uh the pictures of a flag pole and plaque that were installed on the on the campus of the the high school and they also did wind
wraps around the dugouts um this was done by the Arshambo family donated these and I have a letter from Lynn Arshambo that I Lin Arshambo Dawson that I'm going to read after my dad's death in 2023 our
family decided to ask for contributions in lie of flowers to the NM booster club my dad was a founder of the boosters in the 80s which has raised many thousands of dollars over the years for the sports teams in the district according to the
according to Hall of Fame football coach Sandy Rugles the NM Boosters would not exist without Frank Arshambo he was also very involved proud parent and grandparent and an avid supporter of NM sports
watching his children and grandchildren play in 13 North Middle Sex sports he was the president of the pil youth little league which oversaw softball at the time and also was the pil recreation committee was on the pil
recreation committee so he was an integral part of athletics and developing athletes from an early young age in his death he raised about 4,000 from his services and our family met with Matt Dawson the athletic director
to discuss where these funds were mostly needed the boosters and Matt agreed that the school needed a flag pole at the softball field with a flag and coverings and wrappings for the dugouts mike's daughter Emily plays for the softball
team so it seemed very fitting that we could help in this way through several meetings with stakeholders such as the Brewster Club members Brad Tim McMahon Dave Amari and Nancy Haynes we were able to get these things implemented for the beginning of the
season last year and that was from Lynn our Shambo Dawson who is Frank's daughter um any questions or comments and so we pulled this out as a as a
dedication since it is a dedication to someone who has brought um many memories and things to our community and made a great contribution to our
um sports athletics teams any questions randy uh first off I'd like to thank the Ash Bolt family um and it's always uh great to hear about uh you know people before my time um but giving to this uh
community giving to the school um community and and the greater community uh so thank you very much and thank you for honoring him uh with this flag pole um not to take away from the dedication very much in favor of it um just so that
everyone understands uh this should have come to the school committee before it was erected uh we are um approving this or we're going to vote to approve this uh hopefully um in retrospect um to when that happened um but for anybody who
wants to dedicate going forward anything this does need to come through the school committee before any funds are donated and before um anything is erected uh we do appreciate uh all of the um the sentiment uh we have a number
of different things in the district that have been dedicated um we are open to dedications um but state law says that the school committee does need to accept beforehand all donations so
thank you Randy anyone else all right can I would somebody make a motion to accept the the donation from the Frank Archin family i will move that the school committee vote to approve the dedication of a flagpole and plaque in
honor of Frank Archinbolt second and that was seconded by June so we have Randy and a second by June sorry Lisa all right but I'll let you vote first Lisa lisa yes yes all right randy yes uh June yes
will yes kim yes and Tom yes and myself is Yes and I thank the Rshambo family for their donation to the district all right moving on to the
tennis courts can we add Robin will you add Alan Lao [Music] y should be all right can you hear me yes so Alan I'm going to only give you
about three minutes to explain this all right all right all right thank you North Sex Regional School District School Committee members for the opportunity to present this situation here um I am the chairman of the Pero Recreation Commission over in the town
of Peril and we have been looking at the site where the former tennis courts were at Varnham Brook that are in disarray the pavement's been scrapped the the fences have been scrapped and it's in pretty tough shape um
unfortunately well the prepole itself takes care of this area usually and takes care of the fields and in terms of mowing the lawn seeding and whatnot so what we've done is we we're looking at we have a master plan that want that's
that has directed us to look at creating softball fields here because what we have right above that area which is what we call lower Varnum there's there's three leagues that v for that space annually and it's a big fight every year between
softball softball lacrosse and um soccer so part of the effort of getting rid of the congestion on lower varnum is putting softball fields where the tennis courts are and then also decommissioning the softball field on town field so that
we could hopefully put pickle ball courts on there or tennis courts because one of the one of the idea is get anything the public would use during the day off of property that's near the school i.e where the tennis courts were it would never make sense to put those tennis courts back there so I come
before you today to see if we could get your approval to have a a an engineering architectural and site plan study done for this area to see if it would work um and how much it would cost to do that so it's two this would be a two-step
process this is merely for the for the engineering firm to do those three things to this area so it's not to go forward with it uh we would definitely approach your body this body again if if it comes that the town would want to go
forward with this um but right now we have money and just to give you a quick background the uh community preservation committee has awarded us $15,700 to get this study done but we need it's
contingent on the school committee approving it uh saying that's okay to get the study done and then we get a written letter maybe from Nancy that says everyone says this is okay um and then we'll go to a town meeting and a town meeting will need approval there as well so it's a lot of different
processes and you have no clue of how many people had to be involved in this before you even got here so that's it um and I'm happy to answer any questions all right thank you Alan um so I do want
to say that if a study is conducted it will be offschool hours or it will be conducted and they will give us notification if there are going to be people on school grounds just so that the public is aware if people are looking at the property yeah 100% all
right we should let's let's make sure we clarify that too in any letter provided the this body approves this thank you and again this is just a study i know that it's in listed on the agenda as use and development but it's just a
study to see what the use and development would be yes correct all right anyone else we need to modify the motion then yes yes we will modify the motion so I move the school committee approve the study
uh whatever the filing of the study for the uh Barnum Brook Tennis Courts by the Prol Recreation Department randy I will come to your second Lisa okay so we have the motion on the floor
all right any questions randy um Nancy um all of the land over there I'm always confused with is this land that we are leasing from the town and we'd have to change our lease if we gave it over is this something that we own that we have
to uh give back um what is where where does that piece of land lie as far as the school committee's ownership the Barnabrook parcel in land that goes directly behind including the tennis courts and the back fields is owned by the school district
uh there's no lease here uh I think what would likely happen is if there's we were to move forward with a project we would need to have some kind of agreement with the town of PRO um laying laying that out uh like a facility use
agreement or some type of leased lease trans um contract okay um is that piece of land just as far as to think about it is it kind of like right in the middle of everything that we own um is that the far end of
something that we own it's it's past if you if you're looking in you're in the back parking lot of Varnbrook and you keep walking straight it's that back piece that just goes is that the end of our property or is do we have property beyond that uh no that's that would be
the end of the property other than Nissatissa which is to the right but Nissatissit is actually owned by the town of Peril so they do own some fields to the right of that yeah i was just trying to think about how it was going to if it was abudding their land you know or in the middle of ours and how we were going to parcel
that out if it came to um actually giving that over to them yeah it's right at the end there before like the soccer fields and I know physically where they are up i just don't know where our boundaries are all right any other questions tom Casey
sorry I know the motion's already um been made but I'm wondering if we wanted to add something um just in the language in terms of like at at no cost to the district we probably do want to amend the motion well will you amend your motion
of course i don't even know what I said uh I move to approve the study at the cost of the PER pil recreation department for the tennis
courts or former tennis courts at Varnum Brook Elementary School and you put the money in there right like not contingent on us providing money i think so just to re start again or Robin did we get it yeah he said at the
cost of the Pepper Department okay got it y I'll second the amendment okay thank you june so that was will amending and then June all right so let's vote on the
amendment correct i have the order correct all right june yes randy yes lisa Bloom yes will Hackley yes tom
Casey yes kim Craraven yes and myself is yes so that was the amendment now let's move back to the original motion i'll start with June
yes randy yes lisa Bloom yes will Hackler yes kim Craraven yes tom Casey yes and myself is yes all right thank
you thank you thank you Alan all right thank you now moving on to the preschool tuition we have Miss Upton here to present
hi um would you like me or present the proposal that is in the agenda or is that not necessary do we have a copy right you have a copy in the agenda yes okay if you want to yes um no that's
okay so in in um preparing this proposal for you tonight we took a look at nine area districts um including um some single districts as well as some um regional districts to compare our rates
to other districts to make to um make sure that we were not proposing um too much of an increase and in looking at um what other districts are charging we felt as
though a 4% increase i believe in the agenda it accidentally says we were proposing a 5% increase to the tuition rates i don't know if if that was a mistake or not i am sure we would be happy to go with
4% okay so we calculated a 4% increase which is um a a small increase across the board we also are proposing some fees um that are in alignment with the current extended day fees um so the registration
fee exists currently um but an insufficient funds fee of $30 a late payment fee if a payment is made more than 10 days after the first of the month um currently we do have a wait list for
our tuition paying paying districts how many I have a question how many um students do we have participating in preschool in our tuition paying students how many
are there um sure and like all and overall tuition paying and then how many students overall in our all of our program i don't have that number up i'm sorry that's okay i can look that up
anyone else have any questions randy say I know you're new in the role do you happen to know or maybe Brad or Nancy would know when was the last time we raised these and how often are we raising for these prices brad or Nancy do you want me to answer
or do you have the date i I have it in that uh fee schedule i can pull it i think it was might have been last year or the year before i I believe it was last year too i'm trying to find it last year there was a 5% increase approved
i don't know about the year before i was going to say there was a 5% increase i remember voting on it last year and and that's really a lot of this is in line with um increase in special education costs as well yeah it was definitely last
year anyone else have any questions sorry one more um the insufficient funds and the late payment fees are those new this year or Okay uh so yes that those are new proposed fees and the um the cost aligns
with the extended day program so we took a look at the the fees that they have there are have been some situations where um there have been consistent late payments um and we wanted to also um you know
include the insufficient funds which is also part of the extended day um fees just to bring district-wide alignment with that program all right june Oops you're on mute sh that's okay sorry
um do we have any families with multiple children um in this program i'm just wondering if um if it it's possible to offer any kind of discounted rate when when you have multiple students is to to
me these rates already seem high and I think that every year I'm a little removed from preschool age at this point um so I understand everything has gone up um I would be interested in actually seeing the list of the comparisons of
the other schools too um I don't know if that's something that that you have handy if you can kind of reference like what the um other towns are that you looked at and what their rates were um but like I said it's a
little bit of sticker shock every time I see this and every time we go up on it um but I keep thinking for for parents that have multiple children in the program that you know could be become a hardship as it has increased um quite a
few times in the past few years so um yeah you want me to add to that Aaron a little bit if you'd like uh so I I just wanted to add again this although it is a preschool it's an integrated preschool
um and that comes with certain requirements as far as the way the population and how the population for each classroom is made up um so it's not a traditional preschool it is something that um comes at a significant cost to
the school district um just again through um the the special education teachers service providers and there really is a very limited number of general education seats in the district um that are available so that's why um
that's essentially the reasoning behind the annual cost because we're trying to keep up with the increased costs elsewhere so that it does not come it too much of a loss to the district it's it's not a program that is operating um
operating for profit uh June uh do we frequently have a wait list uh because it seems like we have students or or families willing to pay these prices um that we're turning away would
it make sense to expand this program at all is that possible or is it just too cost prohibitive i I mean I think if we could get more paying families in that that may help so the percentages have to work out um
so that there's a certain number of um special education qualifying students in the program so we can't expand the program unless we have the students who qualify for the program not the paying students but the um qualifying students
in numbers in order to warrant the increase is that fair to say Erin yes that's correct randy interesting i I always thought I I I I thought there was a maximum of um
percentage of uh the need students with the general ed students i didn't realize that you couldn't go lower i thought that was better for the for the special uh ed students to have be with more gened so they can I answer that yeah
sure go ahead so um so the the cap on the classroom is 15 students alto together the ratio of students with disabilities to students who are not identified is um 5149% so we can have up to eight
students who um do not require specialized services and we can have up to seven students who do require specialized services any more questions is there a motion on the floor or does somebody want to make a
motion i move the school committee approve the proposed 4% increase in the NMRSD Squanakook Early Childhood Center preschool tuition for fiscal year 26 do I have a
second no second i'll Randy second all right so we have Will and Randy all right any questions all right
Will whoops hang on Will don't answer that uh June I'm sorry was there an answer on the um the families with multiple children's in the program as far as any sort of discounted rate
i I I don't believe it's something the district can can afford just because of the cost of the program okay all right all right we have a motion on the floor will yes randy
yes kim yes lisa Bloom yes uh June McNeel yes tom Casey
yes myself yes all right thank you Erin all right moving on we have the Valley Collaborative Board of Directors brad do you want to speak to
this this is just a motion that we make yearly sure so so this is for uh both Valley and Keystone uh I sit on the on both boards so their agenda items 11 and 12 i sit on both boards with other
members um as a board member I am able to attend monthly board meetings um review the budget look at potential tuition increases for our students um and have voting rights as a board member uh generally speaking um Valley is made
up of all superintendent and Keystone um you would have the option of having the um either myself or a school committee member attend the meetings but um generally speaking it has been me in the past um I I have had some schedule
conflicts with them they tend to pick the same dates to meet once a month which tends to be a problem but they have been working with me as of late because I'm the only member that belongs to both um so it's been less of an issue in the past um past two years so it is
something I believe I can continue doing i do have to attend um 60% of the meetings at both can we like appoint Gary as a sub in these alternate in these cases no so um
so Valley it has to be um the superintendent and Keystone allows for the superintendent or a school committee member it's in their bylaws okay all right i move that we appoint Brad to the Valley Collaborative Board of Directors and Keystone Educational
Collaborative for the terms July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2026 all right and Randy has a second so that was Will and Randy any discussion any
questions all right thank you Brad for for serving no you're welcome all right we'll start with you Randy yes june yes will yes
kim yes lisa Bloom yes tom Casey yes and myself is yes all right moving on the next request is um maybe or a
request to change our organizational meeting to April 30th that is right after the elections but it's right before town meetings if people would be open to changing that date it's on a Wednesday April
30th any questions concerns Randy i I would be very concerned that any new members uh that get elected will not have an opportunity to either get sworn
in um or even to get an email and get access to anything or be able to uh speak with anybody about what the organizational meeting is i typically have been meeting the last few years going over the policy manual um for the board of governance kind of just going
over the actual policies on what the school committee is what the organizational um com you know meeting is for what the different um subcommittees that we typically have um in this kind of time frame I probably wouldn't even be able to get in touch
with them um with that short of notice all right June um I agree i was going to essentially say the same thing that it's very short notice um and I'm wondering again why
why did you want to move it up because typically we do have the election and then town meeting and then the organizational meeting um because it changed a few years ago because Ashby I think Ashby moved their date to the
first Saturday always the first Saturday of May so how it so how it's happened because it was usually where it was the pil meeting and we'd have the organizational meeting and then that following Saturday it would
fall so just getting people in before the town meetings cuz then it was pil and towns in because Peril's a Monday Townsen's the Tuesday yeah I I honestly don't think that there's any reason why we
need to um as far as uh Ashby now being for a few years before uh the pepper roll meeting i think that just has to do with how the dates fall as far as the first Saturday of the month um so I it hasn't been an issue before
as far as I know we don't do you know typically haven't in the past had except for the last two years had actual business usually is just the organizational meeting and then we're done um then that doesn't have to happen um you know before the town meetings it
really is just organizational can happen at any time oh anyone else uh June um honestly I don't think it is important to have them um in their place
or before the town meetings anyway because um they're not going to be able to speak to the conversations that we've had where they're brand new members and haven't participated in these meetings anyway um and if they want to speak they
can speak you know anyhow but I don't think there it matters if the organizational meeting is before the town meetings or not i think it's better to let them come on get their feet wet make sure that they can access their email access the packet um and get a
feel for what subcommittees they might want to be on and just have time to transition into the role before being thrown into a meeting anyone else randy I'd be open to moving it to the Wednesday since um I know I
don't know about anybody else but I know Patrick uh now cannot make Thursday meetings so yeah April 7th I think it is on that Wednesday um I'd be open to moving it uh you know till then or anytime that week but give them at least a week uh to to kind of get everything
settled anyone else uh Robin is there anything happening or do we know the um schedule of the high school because it is an in-person meeting uh I don't I don't have that in front of
me um are you planning to hold it at the at the high school yes yes it's an in person usually we'll do the organizational in person so we'll look at the date and we'll figure out if it's the 7th or the 8th i think that's the
best all right is everyone good moving on kim has her hand up yeah okay thank you thank you Will um Madam Chair I don't think you could see my hand in the light okay um that is u May 6th is the town meeting
night for Townsen and depending on the cadence um they may go to the seventh yeah right i I'm just suspecting that it might go to a second night so then we'll probably we'll have to
keep the ETH because I know how PEL has already scheduled two days for theirs so theirs is going Monday and Tuesday and then Townsen will probably go Mon or Tuesday and Wednesday so we'll probably keep the eight and and and I'll check in on that for you just to confirm but I'm
I'm guessing that we're going to go two nights okay all right so we will probably keep it to May 8th all right um MSBA response which
um Brad touched on when he spoke earlier do you want to touch on it more Brad um so I think I pretty much shared everything again secretary Tuttiler who's also now the
acting commissioner um was instrumental in um working with us and working with the MSBA on giving us a one-year pause on any decisions uh permanent decisions around Ashb Elementary so again I certainly want to publicly thank him
again for his advocacy in this area um he's come out and he's met with me twice um so you know he's certainly invested uh very willing to listen and the fact that you know he's he's one of the few people uh that I've reached out to that has that has come out to meet with me so
um it's it's it it's been it's been great and I appreciate everything he's doing for us all right and thank you Brad for reaching out to Tutiler and I know that you talked to John Cronin and Kennedy and Margaret as well yes so I thank you for your
advocacy at that level all right moving on let's go to the director of operations and facilities Brad sure um so before I go there I I I actually
just got some some good news uh from the state that um I was hoping I could share before I go over that something I think people might be interested in and again really push for some advocacy yes because I am getting my phone is ringing off like other people are texting me
about this good news so okay so um so just wanted to let everyone know that House Bill uh 4005 has now been finalized is House Bill 401 4010 it's an act making appropriations for fiscal
year 2025 to provide supplemental certain existing appropriations and for certain other activities and projects so what it basically means is the house has passed this bill which allocates um up up to 1.3 billion in one-time funds from
the FY24 millionaires tax surplus and it has now been referred to the Senate some of the um things that this bill include is 100% reimbursement for regional school transportation
um which is up from 80 to 82% 75% reimbursement for FY25 for out of district uh special education students uh transportation costs through circuit breaker and that's an increase from 44%
75% reimbursement from FY26 for out of district special education transportation costs and finally a muchneeded uh directive for the office of the inspector general to review school transportation and provide recommendations by February 2nd 2026 to
reduce costs enhance purchasing power and streamline services so um again this is $1.3 billion from the millionaires tax surplus from FY24 that um the House is recommending be streamed um towards
the school districts um that are in need so this is great news um so it sounds like our message was heard um but certainly I would encourage anyone that's on the call to um continue advocating and make sure that um the
advocacy now switches from um representatives to senators because it's going on to the Senate now um that's all I have on that which is again some great news so hopefully we are being heard and we are moving in the right direction um can I move on to the director of
operations at this point randy you want to raise yeah that is fantastic news and Nancy um when you have time to sit down and absorb what that is in that bill is there a way that at some point you can just kind of send out to the school
committee an approximate amount of money that we might receive from this thank you no problem and it does look like portions of it may have to be used for FY25 which is um seems to always be the case but um it
would be nice if all of it could be used for FY26 but may maybe we can find some uh some ways for it to benefit FY26 as well and Kim has her hand up if he can't see yeah Kim yeah I was just going to say that there's um it's still subject
to a little bit of movement in the Senate so we might want to wait for Nancy to do um her magic so she doesn't have to do it twice while we're excited we might want to wait um what I what I did um think was wonderful and um
superintendent might just not have had a chance to see it yet um it was 140 um in favor and 14 against so it was pretty overwhelmingly passed in the House um but I think it's incumbent upon
everybody that is in the audience tonight to u refocus efforts on the Senate and make sure that this does get passed um halfway there more advocacy yes more advocacy and education
yes all right June whoops you're on mute June last meeting you know it's okay it's okay i'd have this um so two questions do we have an idea when this would come before the Senate
like when we would get any sort of final answer on you know whether the schools actually will be getting this funding and and how much it may be and my second statement is if our
district does receive funds that um exceed the amount from the elementary school consolidation i'm asking the members that will still be on the committee at the next meeting to please reconsider
Ashby Elementary keeping it open we've already had the amount of young families I've seen put their house on the market in the past few weeks is off so please
reconsider all right any anyone else all right um Brad director of operations yes correct okay i just wanted to make
sure so just to clarify um I I know there was some public comments made tonight that this is not a new position um it's it's a position that has evolved uh from a pre-existing position but in years past um we've not always been consistent in following all SP policy
specifics when creating new administrative positions while they've been included in budget discussions in the budget approval process the job descriptions themselves have not always been approved this was the case with the director of operations position however
this position was created outside the budget process as the FY24 budget had already been approved at the time it was created this was a position that was essentially created I believe thinking back now in in May or June of that year
um and the position came into existence after the retirement of our former director of building and grounds which occurred at the end of FY 2023 this position was created through the reallocation of some responsibilities between the director of technology and
the new director of building and grounds through this process the director of technology became the director of operations as the role became responsible for some crossover items between technology buildings building and grounds as well
as assuming some direct responsibility for facility use student registration and state reporting the position along with some other additional shifts that occurred in FY 2024 resulted in a savings of just over
$60,000 and excuse me resulted in a savings of just over $60,000 for FY2024 um so again this is not a new position it was formerly the director of technology um it was changed because the job description of the director of
technology changed again due to some buildings and grounds being uh brought on board uh primarily security um security cameras things of that nature as well as um building entry uh student registration uh facility use and
state reporting so this um it's it's really again it's it's not a new position it's just a new title so I would like to formally have the school committee approve the position and job description uh through a vote
all right thank you Brad andy um I would like uh the school committee and uh the community members who are on to understand um this is something that I asked for i I came upon uh the director of operations title um I knew
about the um the responsibility changes um and realized that the job description was not approved by the school committee when this job uh was transformed uh for the director of technology to go into
this position it is the um the right of the school committee and we are the only uh entity within the district that can that can create a new position and a new job description and so looking back I want to make sure that we are following our policies and I asked the
superintendent to bring this forward so that we can approve this it may be retro um but I still want to try and follow our policy so again this is not a new position uh this has been in place it's been working um it didn't cost the district any more money uh but I'd like
to try and just follow up with our policies and make sure that we are following them all right any more questions i do i have a motion for the director of operations and facilities i move the school committee approve the position of
director of office operations and facilities as outlined in the job description i second sorry Lisa that Bloom got that i'm going to give it to Will and Lisa Bloom all right any questions
all right let's take a vote uh Randy yes kim yes lisa or Lisa Bloom yes will Hackler yes june yes tom
tom did you i mean yes he said yes all right yeah and myself is yes all right the director of operations and facilities is approved right moving to the assistant business manager Brad yes so the
assistant school business administrator um so again this is something that is new um as many of you are aware our business manager Nancy Haynes will be partially retiring at the end of the school year but she's agreed to stay on as a point 6 i think all of you have
already heard this evening through through the through the audit process how valuable she is um just with the way that whole audit process went um Nancy is invaluable um you know being a regional school business administrator is far more complex than being a
business manager in a comprehensive school district the funding formula the way towns are assessed END um everything that goes with it is is just extremely complex and she is invaluable and I'm thrilled that she's um staying on as a point 6 uh for next
year that said business managers are one of the three positions um that are appointed by the school committee they are also among the most difficult positions to fill in the state for comprehensive districts never mind regionals which are more complex as I
said the position was posted on Schoolring which resulted in seven applicants there were eight in total one of them withdrew none of the eight who applied were licensed with that I'm recommending the creation of a new position assistant
school business administrator once appointed this individual will be coached by Nancy Haynes and enroll in the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials MASBO one-year lure program while other districts are also in the market for the for this role this
is our best course of action to ensure that we maintain a licensed business manager of record while also training a successor it's very important to point out that the state of Massachusetts requires that the business manager be licensed having an unlicensed business
manager is not permitted in the state of Massachusetts and as I said we did not have any applicants who were licensed and there are several districts out there who are looking for a business manager as well um so this position along with some other minor shifts will
result in a savings for FY 2026 in just over $58,000 so it is not coming at an increased cost um it's coming at an actual savings um in part due to um the reduction from a point 6
from a 1.0 to a point 6 for Miss Haynes so I would like to have uh this position in job description formally approved by the school committee as right now it is our only course of action to ensure that we have a licensed school business manager in place when Nancy does retire
thank you all right i move the school committee approve the position of assistant business manager as outlined in the job description hang on Will we have to change the name on that because I think it's a business administrator all right
what is the title it's assistant school business administrator okay also I would like to um have this temporary i don't want this to go forward this is um strictly for training the next um school
business manager um so when uh so I do not want two positions going forward once we have a full-time person back in place um when Nancy leaves although I'm not sure Nancy can be fully replaced but thank you for all of your service and
everything you've done for this district Nancy she's not gone yet no and I'm very very happy about that thank you so much for helping the district out and staying and you know um you know we've been together for quite a long time you and I in this
in this district so um very very sad to see you leave but um happy to see you going on and and doing uh what what you need to do for yourself no and and thank you for clarifying that um Randy I'm only asking for a temporary position at
this point not a permanent so a temporary being one year yes is that what we're assuming for the FY26 Mhm school year all right okay will can you modify
your We didn't get a second on it okay i'll ask Lisa her question first and then you work on your wording all right lisa Bloom um so is this um just clarify is this position full-time and then Nancy will be
part-time or will Nancy be full-time and the position be full-time um Nancy will be part Nancy will be part-time the position uh will be a 215 day position so close to full-time um but we still
have to maintain um Nancy again as the business manager of record as required by the state because she maintains the license um also the the actual MASBO program the lensure program requires a licensed coach um so that Nancy would
also be serving in that capacity okay all right thank you all right uh June okay so to be crystal clear the savings would be 58,000 between the two positions that includes adding in this
the second position between Nandy NY's partial part-time position and the new trainee yes okay and Okay and we're Will's going to make a new motion with it being a
one-year a temporary and that it's a business administrator assistant business administrator is that the correct title Brad that's a correct title that we want yes the assistant school business administrator all right the job description in the
packet says assistant school business manager okay you know what um it's I I I will change it to uh manager on my part too it's administrator and manager are I'm fine to go with manager
i did not realize that i apologize okay all right june did you have a question uh I changed my mind okay all right are you ready
Will he's not ready yet going back to the motion I move that the school committee vote to approve the position of assistant school business manager as outlined in the job description for one
year all right do I have a second second that is Randy will and Randy all right kim I'll start with you yes and if I may
add thank you for your creativity for Oh I thought it's hard to hear when you talk so so I'll say it now but I I don't have any questions i just very much appreciate um the effort and the creativity to make this happen because we would be in a really difficult
position so thank you Nancy um thank you Brad for for um thinking this through and and making this happen because without it we would be in a really tough spot all right anyone else have any comments before we go randy since you Yeah we
haven't voted yet one thing I didn't add before was um so everyone understands the importance of this business manager position um Nancy in her position controls all of the money in the district so anything that we can that we
are doing everything for the students for the programs that we have um is all controlled by Nancy as far as the funding if something were to not be done correctly on a grant we might have to pay grant money back if uh we are not
paying per some contracts uh or uh loans and that money is not uh properly accounted for and paid we could have penalties so there's a lot of responsibilities fiscally with this position it is extremely important that we have somebody very very qualified
coming in after Nancy um and I think the um the superintendent uh seeing that there are nobody that there is nobody that is coming to us with the experience that we need in this position especially for a regional school district that we are looking to develop somebody and I
appreciate you looking for a way for us to do that thank you thank you all right okay can I just add one more piece that I did forget to mention again i don't mean to muddy the waters but I do think it's important that the people on the call here um essentially if we don't have licensed
licensed candidates the only real option that we would have would be to look to bring someone in who's retired um and bringing in someone who's retired would likely mean again we get someone that has the qualifications but business managers um
and superintendent often find their way um into the news um when mistakes are made um and it is something that happens unfortunately fairly regularly and just because we bring in someone that's retired and someone that may possess a
license does not mean that they're going to be proficient in handling the budget of a regional school district and if we were to do that keeping our business our current business manager on at a point 6 would result in a budget increase um
because we would have to in essence hire a retired full-time school business administrator and maintain the 6 or risk going without the 6 in our current business administrator and really taking a calculated risk uh that whoever we
bring in could handle North Middle Sex's budget so I just wanted to put that out there it it's it is a very very important role and it's it's very important that we have the right person in the position um and be trained by the right person and I feel very strongly
that Nancy is that right person and I am going to add to that because several times Brad has commented that Nancy has kept our district together and has helped us financially and that he rates you among the best business
managers he has ever worked with so so thank you Nancy thank you that's very nice all right now we're ready for a vote any other anybody else all right i will start with Will
yes lisa Bloom yes june McNeel yes tom Casey tom I'll come back to Tom uh Kim yes
i did hear Tom tom gave a yes yes and then Randy yes and myself is Yes thank you all right thank you all right moving on we are on to the FY26 budget i
am handing this over to Will you are the finance chair sure i I'm gonna hand it to Brad where are we going from here and it's FY26 yes um so is it okay if at this point I talk about um fees and things of that
nature yes does that make sense yes those are Okay so so I I I did you know certainly there was some public comment made tonight around kindergarten middle school sports increased fees um increased user fees are something that we look at annually um again staying in
line with what some of some of the um other districts are doing uh we don't have any formal recommendations at this point in time but when we were talking about potentially the elimination of middle school sports um and potentially um having a fee for full day
kindergarten that is based in if the 2.25 budget does not pass so the current budget that is before you which is again that 2.25% 25% increase um all the reductions that we've discussed and have been shared with you are the reductions
um what's going to be really difficult and that's why the advocacy is so important to your state senators now is that if the 2.25 budget does not pass we go from potentially reducing 24 teaching positions to somewhere in the low to
mid40s so it will double um because we've basically cut our budget by two million at this point we'd have to cut by close to another two million to get us um to zero which is what um we will be at if the
2.25 does not pass um so at this point in time again still looking at athletic user fees activity card fees things of that nature um that were all discussed last year um but as far as um fees for
full day kindergarten um and in in cutting programs um athletic programs programs in in the arts that is not on the table but it is something all of those things would have to be considered if we don't get this
budget approved that's again why it's so important um that we get the money from the state but also that we get the support that we need um from the towns um so that we can get this through does that
answer does that does that address the issues on the agenda yes I believe so is everyone satisfied with that response any questions oh Randy I was waiting for your hand
Randy um took me a moment there um just uh so we're going to go down the list and discuss these uh because there's two of them at least uh that say update on um or is this just you know I'm not sure how are we going to be
having conversations on these now or so the um are you looking at the two potential revenue ones yes the opt out and so the the early retirement incentive um that is not something um that we'll be pursuing
again that's primarily in our discussions um with the teachers association that is not something that we will be pursuing um we're not able to get agreement there and the health insurance opt out is still a work in progress so we are still
working on that um we're working on that with um again with the collective bargaining unit and seeing if we can get any interest there on potential savings for the district so that is something that
is still in prog in in progress so on this list and as I said earlier I forgot we we are reducing the PR firm for FY26 as well and the activity card um I know we went we were going to implement that last
year um you decided uh you tried a fundraising campaign instead it was unsuccessful yes um is there any opportunity to talk about the cost um you know I know it was quite steep uh
for what we were talking about at least in my opinion uh the committee voted uh for the higher rate which is fine but I would like an opportunity for the school committee to maybe discuss what is needed um and whether we can lower that down and they'd be willing to lower that
down um going forward sure and I do think that there's there's certainly opportunity to to discuss it at the school committee uh would that's something that the uh school committee would would like to do um just keeping in mind that the other thing that's
difficult with some aspects of the activity card is that we do have several service learning um organizations who are working to um raise funds make people's lives better um
and they could be charged a fee um which that's certainly something we need to talk about because you started coming in as we wouldn't do the service learning but what qualifies as service learning so that the whole program really kind of needs to be detailed out and discussed on
exactly how it's going to work uh more detailed than we did last year but I'd like to you know if it comes to having to do activity cards I'd like to have it in the context of exactly how much money do we need to reduce by and have that conversation again as far as the level
of what it's needed can I bring something to the um committee in May around activity cards and user fees that that would work does that work for everybody thank you you're welcome
anyone else have any comments or want to talk about any of the topics listed in the list uh June I'm just going to throw in my two cents now while I can um that we did discuss
the kindergarten fees before and um there are very few school districts in the state that have um kindergarten fees for full day um for a reason we it
really puts one set of kids far behind another if one set of kids are in half day kindergarten and one set are in full day which will cause a lot of problems for our first grade teachers and um
potential more special needs u more IEPs um I think it will actually cost the district in the long run um and the other point I want to say is with Ashb students currently planned to go to
Townsen um the I I know the longest bus ride mentioned was 80 minutes each way that's nearly 3 hours on a bus for a 5-year-old that we're asking parents to to do um
we're asking parents to send send their kids out of a town that they grew up in and then to ask them to pay money on top of that is just really insult to injury and I really really hope you do not
explore that route um I have a feeling we will lose even more families um and it really is going to kind of flip our district upside down um with the decrease in Ashby enrollment so I just
want to speak against that at this time when you have that future conversation please keep that in mind thank you Jim just a point of order um Robin uh Kim Craraven had gotten bounced and now she's uh in with the participants or the attendees rather if
she can be let in as a panelist please thank you Randy all right any anyone else any questions about the budget FY26 all right seeing none we will move on to the
subcommittee reports um Ashb Elementary June um we haven't met for a while with everything kind of up in the air um and with me stepping out of the committee at
this point I'm not sure what if you want that group to continue or not i know at one point there was um talked about having an overall maintenance committee for all the buildings combined um if Ashb is on a pause and there's certain
projects to be done I don't know if we will still if if we will want that committee going forward or or what the general feel is of this committee um I'm not sure if I would want to continue chairing it i may or may not but if
there is a committee going forward I I would certainly want to participate in that um in whatever degree is needed so we have we haven't met for a while but um you maybe at the time of your organizational meeting if you want me to
attend that meeting or if you just want to let me know what you decide at that meeting um either way but it's it's something to start thinking about all right thank you Jim and at the organizational meeting we'll figure it
out with the members and figure out where this committee stands and if it needs to be dissolved and recreated in a different form we'll figure that out out at that time as well all right accelerated repairs in
building um we are close to getting this but it's still going to be until October of next year so this committee will be around just a little longer all right then we are on to Will and there are some transfers will in
your finance area all right so we have a budget transfer that's in the packet therefore I move the school committee approve the FY25-1 budget transfer as follows reducing the appropriation categories of the budget operations maintenance
technology by $15,3622 instructional support by $754,12585 insurance retirement funds by $35,540 and adding to the appropriation category payment to out of district tuition transportation school
assessment $84,972.7 do I have a second second that's a second all right any discussion and Nancy do you want to explain first before can Nancy explain before I take your question randy um it actually is on
um the motion on and it being made i kind of touched with Will and I think Nancy heard about it is looking a little bit more into this um I'm not sure if the motions that we've been making are fully covering all of the um transfers
uh so the school committee is responsible for approving all line item not just the large buckets going back and forth the information is presented here so it is being given to us in the budget detail but in certain
um larger buckets it it's a net zero so there's just money moving around within that bucket and so it doesn't show up uh you can see in the motion uh one second um you have administration uh legal audit salary and then there's a zero there
that actually means that there there were transfers but it was a net zero within that category and we're since we're not reading that as zero um I'm not sure if we're legally actually approving that
like we should be the tent is there but I'm not sure if the motion is covering it so um I I'm not sure if there needs to be another line or what just to make sure that we are covering all of the
transfers that are happening does that make sense i mean you could um if you have a minute you could just add the language as as as and all detailed transactions or all detailed transfers as provided in the
detailed budget report yeah something like that would would would uh would cover something yeah april 3rd I think it's April 3rd budget report so that it's linked yep okay yeah um that should work if
everybody looks in there in in the on the detail budget there the 43 detail budget everything in the yellow line the requested budget transfer those are the transfer line item transfers that we are being asked to uh approve all right so to technically do this did
I get a second on it or not a second robin yes june seconded okay so we have to amend the motion and then we'll mo we'll vote on the amended motion and then we'll take
the entire motion so Nancy did you have the wording or Randy uh yes so I would like to amend the motion to get here [Music]
um one second just looking up uh want to get it right yes so um I move uh to vote the school committee approve the FY25-1 budget transfer as follows reducing the appropriation categories
budget operations maintenance technology $15,3622 instructional support $754,12585 insurance retirement funds 35,540 adding to the appropriation category payments to out of district tuition transportation and school assessments 84,972
uh7 um including all uh TRA um all other transfers within the 43 uh 2025 detail budget as presented
second all right so that was Randy and Will and this is on the amended motion any questions all right randy yes will yes
lisa Bloom yes june yes tom Casey yes yeah and myself is Yes that was on amendment you forgot Kim oh Kim sorry yes we're in the middle of my screen
kind of okay kim said yes as well all right that was on the amendment now we'll go back to the motion randy yes will yes lisa Bloom yes june McNeel
yes kim yes tom Casey thanks and myself yes so that is the transfer is approved thank you i'll be back okay we're almost done all right policy randy anything in
policy no not not at this time warrants patrick is not on the call negotiations we had our negotiations meeting and it's move forward and Brad has answered we've done the opt out opt
in those were all done all right uh Randy anything with non-teers no um community outreach and town maison June anything um yes actually um I did
speak during a couple um town meetings from since our last meeting to not town meetings excuse me select board meetings um but I also wanted to share the experience at the special town meeting um Randy and I were both there in Ashb there was only um one article on the
warrant and the meeting was um about an hour long um and so all we talked about was the school and pretty much every single person that got up to speak which was a lot of people and we actually had a pretty
packed house we had people sitting all on the sides of um there weren't enough chairs anyway it was it was a a highly attended special town meeting um and every person said they're not against
giving more money to the schools but they would never vote yes for that approving a budget that included closing Ashby Elementary um so the optics were very very clear and I just wanted to relay that to the rest of you
um since you didn't hear what they were saying um and the you know like I said a lot of people spoke and they said a lot of the things that we've heard during public comment here and that have been emailed to us um but I just want to
reiterate how important the school is to the town and that town support really does um hinge on having our own elementary school um so that was the
message that that the town's people really wanted to convey and I just wanted to make sure that that was very clearly conveyed because um it was a resounding no but that was why um it's not that they're not supporting the district it's
just that they want to keep our one asset in town our hub of our community in town so I wanted to make sure that you all understand understood that that's all
all right thank you and I I am Pepples and I attended their town meeting it is going to an override on the 28th it's um at 380,000 approximately i think that was the amount that they are seeking for an
override to support North Middle Sex and Nishopa Tech so that's the update that I have from Pil all right Will do you have an update from
Townsen or Kim can help you out with with it as well if you'd like or however we had a very confusing meeting and um not sure where we stand so
So I'm pretty clear on where it was not confused at all if you would like me to give any clarity sure okay yeah go ahead Kim so there was a budget summit on um March 1st where there was a
statement that there would be an override for 1.3 million clearly the school did not have that it's also on record um that there would be extra about 250,000 and that it would be okay it
would be kept which we know is not possible or practical um we know that sometimes when meetings are long people might misspeak so we waited until town meeting um at town meeting that same figure came up and the special town
meeting turned into a discussion about a bit of the town's budget um luckily um there's some very smart women that were in the room and understood things that have happened and so to preserve um the
town's budget and the school's budget there was a motion on the floor to put an override in for the school and we amended that motion to put
$200,000 into the free cash which has precedent in towns and town meeting this was not the first time that the school budget has been paid out of free cash and for clarity it is not the lowest
that townsman's free cash has gone so any of that um discussion is um conjecture so 200 out of free cash and the balance direct out of the operating budget so that there wouldn't be an
override um certainly um the town is the town and the school is part of it um the the town is choosing to go for an override um of 625 um it did list that the schools are
included um not sure why because it's explicit that the schools are not so there is advocacy work of folks doing that um to make folks understand it is not uh required for the school and um
there will be a budget meeting um the board of suckman has yet to give a budget to the fincom and there's yet to be a budget that shows the override amount so to Will's point there is some confusion but the school's budget is
clear um 200 out of free cash the balance out of the operating budget for the next fiscal year um so not not sure what what the chips will fall for Towns in itself
but the schools was out of um general operating and free cash all right any questions any other business we are not I do not believe that we need the executive session as we did approval of the
minutes and we had the discussion about adding the assistant business manager all right i make a motion to adjourn this will Is this going to be your last motion as a member
okay as your last and then I will go with Tom to answer first tom no no i'm kidding yes all right thank you guys for your
service before we continue so okay tom June yes will yes kim yes lisa Bloom yes
randy yes and myself yes thank you everyone have a good night