##VIDEO ID:FYiXzHb2rvg## e e committee meeting from January 16th to order at 7:01 we have one remote participant so we'll do a roll call all start so Chuck here Carla here Sean here Aaron here Sarah here and Tom here um quickly we'll walk through the agenda and then we'll Dive Right In um so anybody here from the public who has a topic of public well they want to make a public comment on that's not related to the anything on the agenda we'll start there uh it's usually 3 minutes um give or take U including your address and your topic if it's a regarding the agenda and you have feedback on that then we'll take that when we get to that agenda Point um we'll work there from there uh we do not have a focus on Excellence for this evening so we'll skip past that portion the agenda we'll move to our consent agenda um and then move to reports um as we get through reports move on to new business and we'll start with the FY 26 budget um FAQ process so how do we get feedback and questions uh sent in and how will we get the responses coming back uh we'll then dive into the FY 26 budget presentation working our way through all of the cost then ending with the capital plan uh and that will be the end of tonight um in there you'll also see the timelines um next week is our official public hearing on the budget and then our vote will be the last Thursday of the month as we go through it so okay with that said we'll start with any uh public comment seeing none that makes it easy we'll move on um and we'll move to the consent agenda so Aaron we have a motion motion to accept the consent agenda second seconded by Shan any questions comments concerns by any members of the committee see a head nod okay so uh we'll do a roll call as well on this so we'll start with Sarah yes Chuck yes Carla yes Sean yes Aaron yes Tom yes and it passes 6 to zero with that said we will move on to reports we'll start with Mr littlehill just here there you go that's it no other report no other reports okay so move on Dr St thank you um I just wanted to highlight two of our upcoming CAC meetings on January 22nd um at 7 o' they are sponsoring and understanding the IEP Workshop that the Federation is doing if people are interested in that and then on February 26th Dr sah Hardy and Renee Laro are and Erin as are going to be presenting about our screeners and reading and how we do some of that work and ready so two very awesome topics coming up and we just again we like to thank the CAC for their ongoing partnership and willingness to work with us and having such great topics and opportunities what was the date of the second one February 26 no is that sure that's a Wednesday is that right I think they switched a couple no okay so unfortunately we won't be able to come to that one because we'll be at a finance committee meeting that night but I can double check they're going to be sending out a flyer but they've been trying to switch nights because of several competing things they decided to change it but for now that was there if we cannot attend it would be great if that one could be recorded we been recording all of them great thank you any other questions or points from the committee okay Dr Hardy great thank you two items to share with I wanted to just remind our community that sure that this would be a smooth process for families name and date of birth on every single so this is much better we are Ting that families especially for kindergarten upload their registration by January 31st if possible um that way we are able to give priority to those schools as you um in our presentation tonight we're just trying to plan ahead and be proactive for whatever kindergarten so please really great highlight myself and OPP to visit.com it has of become AAL favorite for us but at the end of um students have prod really wonderful auth they create books on animals that research and so this is a really wonderful demonstration of the knowledge component of our ly program alongside really great explicit writing instruction and then of course the students are meing at length about their animals to break and so families were invited in it was wonderful parents having to share with their child and learn um I learn something about elepants to and you know I know the learn a lot so impressed with so just a huge shout out to the fourth grade teachers that we visited today and well you you can't tease what you learn we got to tell us what you learned about the bottom of their feet um absorb water and the student wrot like learn now and it's believed that the record for the length of a frog jump is over 33 ft wow didn't know that one either did you learn why they absorb water not yet did you believe did you learn how they figured out 33 ft yeah Guinness there and saying all right okay I remember that event from last year uh and it was unfortunate that I was so busy with work today but yeah it was it's always good last year I learned a lot about sharp teeth if I recall correctly so yep okay thank you any any other questions or comments okay Dr milesy hi good evening everyone just like to make the community aware the next week or two everyone in our RPS community and larger writing community and all of our Bost and Resident families will be receiving our 2024 annual community report which will be our third annual which uh highlights a lot of different successes accomplishments and goals of the district and I think is really exciting to uh help keep people informed what's happening in our schools so um just keep that eye keep an eye out our goal is to have it in mailboxes hopefully by the end of next week if not it'll the week after but we're really excited for people especially who aren't as connected to the schools to hear about some of the great things that our students and staff are doing St be on the lookout for that great I don't think there's any questions on that one so we'll move on uh we'll start with leaz on committee or mve to lead as on on committee since our student is uh busy studying for midterms so um Sarah we'll start with you Chuck no report Carla um we are excited to announce that um we for um Kellum School building committee that we will be going to um April and May town meeting and asking town meeting to um approve the project to go to um to a vote so we thought that that timeline for us was at the end of June now it is at May in May um at it's at the beginning of May so we are hoping for a May 13th vote um townwide debt exclusion vote on the project so um we are on target for we are under budget significantly under budget we are um on target for a huge submission to the msba on February 10th at our meeting um this upcoming Wednesday the 22nd we're going to be doing um we're going to be talking about our cost estimate for the project that we will be using those numbers they won't be exact but they'll be good enough for us to go um to the town and town meeting so we're really excited about that you're going to hear more about it um it it actually by by really kind of condensing our schedule it really helps out construction wise but we'll be doing a presentation to the school committee shortly can I clarify when uh town meeting votes and subsequently when the town votes will we know the percent we're getting from msba okay we'll have all the numbers all the numbers right now that number is around 32 million from from the MS reimbursement from the msba okay but there other things we can apply for from a rebate perspective exactly they not msba related there's the inflation reduction act and if that if um our new Administration um Federal Administration decides to keep that um or doesn't mess with it we can have significant um cost savings with that we actually actually bring on a a construction tax expert to help us because there's um there are different ways you can tap into that money um so that that will be huge the the 32 plus or minus million dollars will be huge if the the vote does not pass um we will lose that money and we will still have to figure out what to do with our school so thank you thank you okay uh Sean uh no report uh on behalf of I just want to remind everyone that there is a Martin Luther King Jr celebration here on Monday it's a wonderful annual event from 9:30 to 11: everyone is welcome there'll be a breakfast and multiple performances so if you're available on Monday I highly encourage you to come great thank you and I have no report as well so that means we get to move forward um into the budget process and Dr m Ki I'll let you and the team start with the fact process and go from there great uh we'll pull something up on our screen right here as well great so before we dive into the content of the FY 26 superintend proposed budget would just like to uh make sure the committee UND you know is uh here if there's any feedback or any ideas on our process for Gathering feedback and what's our church FAQ process so so as always it's really important that throughout the budget process We Gather as many opinions feedback um from the community as possible uh there's also a variety of ways that that can be done I would say I'll talk through the most formal mechanism right here which is if you have any budget related questions feedback concerns to submit those to Olivia Lun uh by January 23rd at 11:59 p.m. that is also the night of our public hearing so members can also come to speak next week we will then uh send out an updated uh you know budget book and also any FAQs in the school committee packet on January 28th in advance of the uh January 30th school committee meeting when the school committee will vote on the F 26 superintendent recommended budget I will share also outside of this process if there's any community members who has questions or would like to set up a time to meet I am more than happy to uh sit down and talk about any of the uh priorities of the district you know any of the you things that we've had in the past any of where we're trying to go in the future any of those larger conversations I'm more than happy to down so this is the formal process but again feel to reach out there other things that you'd like to know as well any questions or concerns with that from the committee I've lost the thread I don't think we have a rotation of social media Liaisons at this point um but we should probably tap somebody to I'll thank you I'll post it all right we did completely lose the thread so but I'll post it okay great we move on is that a record for the shortest agenda item no I don't think so start Tom I do to say all right so uh all right now that we've shared the process for giving feedback we're exited to enter into budget season and present tonight the superintendent FY 26 recommended budget uh I will share just kind of the overall quick very brief headline which I think is this is as you will see generally a level service budget which I think in a time when you see a lot of neighboring districts and districts across the streate state grappling with budget cuts really difficult budget decisions we are pleased and I think encouraged that we are able to maintain all the services programs and initiatives that we think are important to our district and you will see that there's also some very small ads in terms of quantity you know we'll see two ads one of them being a pretty significant ad for our community which is finally the transition to tuition free F day kindergarten uh for our community which I think is uh really exciting given all the advocacy U from the community uh from the committee from the town over the years I'm excited to speak more about that we just want to make sure to off the top emphasize sort of that's the big headline of this this budget so uh I'm going to speak first about where have we been the last couple of years which I think gives some context to where we're going in FY 26 speak in more detail about the two ads for FY 26 and also speak briefly about some of the things that have been discussed in our community that unfor for we will not be able to add as part of the F12 budget I then turn it over to Phil we will dive into some of the nuts and bolts on and some of the numbers broken down by cost so uh first uh piece I'd like to share that while I this is generally a level service budget I share I think um it's really important for people who maybe haven't followed as close the last couple years to know that hasn't been the case the last couple of years I think our community feel and our team and our district and our staff feel really fortunate that the last 3 years we've been able to add when you count the positions I'll go through in a minute over 30 close to 35 FTE in a threeyear period all which I think Have Been instrumental in uh providing a better day-to-day experience for our students and are also starting to translate into some exciting uh improvements of student outcomes so I want to take a couple of minutes just to revisit some of those additions very quickly uh if you want more context you could find sort of a write up of each in the budget book starting in f23 uh we added what were the five .0 FTE metco saxs which are spoke between the district operating budget and metco budget the 1.0 director of academic achievement which was at the time they stand role which is now Mor into the assistant principal role which sort of those responsibilities now one of our assistant principles we kind of see the fruit of the labor now here at the high school a lot of the as well uh in FY 23 also an increase of 1.2 uh staff in our MLL Department a point2 additional FTE they are stepping stone staff hole which used to be a 4-day week sort of Staffing model now 5 days also in 2.0 FTE increase from uh social workers and school counselors both Middle School level one General end one in our reach program a 1.0 nurse and a.4 FTE District data specialist those are all of our ads within the FY 23 budget process similar FY 24 is a year that we had a significant number of positions uh again a continued investment in our MLL Department .5 FTE given the significant increase in multi Learners in our community 2.0 really excited to K8 math coaches something had been a community priority for a long time I would say much needed with 5.0 Elementary assistant principles one schools bringing our metco saac model up to the middle school with one met coac who was split across the two middle schools a 1.0 uh one to one nurse given a specific student need but has now mored into a FL nurse position a 1.0 and Co coordinator at the high school and then two special education teachers one at the elementary level one at the middle school level and then a couple of position that uh also were High School counseling position one for stepping stones one for schoolwide counseling and one of rhs guidance and then 2.6 FD team chairs as the committee knows some of these were new positions some of these were positions that we just moveed from uh the from various grants onto our operating budget and then also in 24 was our 1.0 bcba and our 1.0 secondary transition specialist which was key in some of the recommendations from our program use and last but not least last year uh moving a speech language pedologist from point4 to 1.0 U uh increasing Staffing in our elementary lead program by 1.0 and adding a high school admin assistant at 1.0 and then last but not least uh couple of positions moving off the eser grant 2.0 uh FTE guidance counselors at the secondary level and one middle school special education teacher and then last but not least uh 1.0 FTE Parker middle uh that coordinator who had been a wonderful addition to the Parker community so as we talk about a a level a level service budget this year I also just want to continue to thank the committee for all of your work and all the Investments that we've had the last couple of years which again have been really impactful in our community so uh bringing us to FY 26 so uh FY 26 I Shar there's two like major I'm going to call them additions the first we should be celebrating this as a community this is super exciting assuming that this is something that the committee will vote for moving forward is our transition to uh tuition free full day kindergarten this is something that I uh know has been a priority for a long time in our community and it is really exciting to finally see it to a position where we are able to move in this direction it is not lost on the all the advocacy from Members up here on the committee advocacy for members of the community thoughtfulness and strategic planning by me many members of our committee Tom helped us map that that multi- model uh there's a lot of work and effort that we into making this possible and the the what's exciting for me looking at this timeline is thinking back in 2020 2021 the burden on families of $4,450 uh we were one of 23 communities across the state to charge for kindergarten um and that was the second highest tuition I still remember that was you know kind of right before I had started a family saying I had twins it was close to $10,000 to attend in so U not only do I have major concerns in terms of just what the the burden that that places on families but I also have major concerns in having access to what is most formative years and the child's educational experience now shifting down this past year to one 14450 but next year being able to move uh towards tuition free so really excited about that um I think that's a huge win for the community second uh ad is around a 1.0 FTE kindergarten teacher um I will you see on the left you'll see uh you know kind of broken down by school name and project and projections for FY 26 by school and also sort of on the right a table that outlines where we would need an additional class sort of where the plus one minus one on problems I want to share a couple of things about this slide too you'll see that our projection for next year is 34 that is a that is the high end of where I think we could be in the past we have looked at uh projections either using one of two data points either the Census Data or using the McKibbon study which we know we had a couple years ago we're generally pretty close at numbers but we just took those and those are the numbers we call our projections this year that number is a little bit higher than what we would have so the mcken projection this for this upcoming year is 313 we decide to go a little bit higher because we had also knew there was 20 students who were ready for kindergarten last year who had told us that they were going to stay one more year and kind of wait out another year and them come also there were seven students who were not that we already knew that were not identified on the census who had already reached out to inquire about kindergarten so we built those in the model here because they weren't already on our Census Data up to 340 we hadn't done that in the past so again I think this is sort of on the high end of where we could be uh we've asked the SAR families to enroll by January 31st we should have a better idea we are currently at 230 so I would be really surprised if we are even you know kind of in that 340 ballpark we thought it was really important that in the budget we have this position that we could be able to absorb the 340 if every single student on the census you know this student who registers we do not anticipate that that will be the case um I know that this also brings out some concerns around spacing and those are conversations we having with our principal we keep saying we're not going down you know necessarily too far into the planning until we see where we're at after January 31st and then we can make adjustments as needed as well so those are the two uh major ads in the uh 26 budget ask questions yeah any questions from anyone in the committee Sean maybe just something to point out well you know I appreciate that 340 is a sort of a conservative figure and we probably don't expect to actually come in 340 Tom as you and I discussed earlier today you know at any of the schools except for wood end if you dropped if we were off by 10 kids doesn't actually drop the number of classrooms that we need so I think the preparation here to make sure that we have adequate resourcing for for kindergarten is is probably appropriate um so kilum looks like it will have a number of grades collapsing um I know it's buried in the budget there's an actual do you have those numbers Handy by any chance the enrollment numbers yeah like where what are we collapsing uh there's actually no collap these are current cohorts so there is no cohorts in the budget where we are actually in so in some in some years if I I understand 3 to 3 4 to four okay got it diagonal okay thank you that makes me feel better um turn know I was like that's in some in some years there's a time where we'll consolidate from having three second BL crosses two fourth there's no uh spots when we consolidate the ship thank you thank you for clarifying good question we talked briefly the 230 is a higher number than you received last year Everything's changed in terms of registration process but what were the numbers at approximately in the middle of January last year we were still we were still under 200 last year at this point um I also in conversations with families we didn't put the that January 30 for tomat talk us we didn't put that January 31st deadline last year deadline um so we think that's a little bit more urgency from families to register right now when we trying to C be Pro our communication so I think last year there's a lot of f said oh I'll get to it and that's fine and we didn't pressure them to say you really need to get this in sooner so I expect that come January 31st it'll give us a better figure of where we're going to be than it did last year this time Tom go CH so we won't know the ACT we'll have already voted this budget before we actually know what will we have a subsequent vote uh if it because if it comes in at at 2:30 I mean that's that's significant I would say we won't have a subsequent vote we will not we will not right I mean what we do is that would probably fit into the budget more or less Surplus and we figure out what we need to do strategically otherwise there's no additional vote necessarily we just may not have to hire a kindergarten teacher but if you look at this and like Sean's point you know if kilum comes in at 80 you still need four classrooms yeah right if it if it unless it comes down to 66 right you're still going to need four classrooms and kill them using our our guidance right the 22 18 to 22 guidance so there's there could be some compression but more or less you're going to see a very similar number of classrooms it's it's possible with some movement and things like that you might be able to get one less classroom but unless it's significant and you and I know we've been through this many times right the numbers that are at the end of January they change at the end of February they change at the end of March they change at the end of July sometimes so we have to be careful about any sort of other adjustments but we'll have to know enough in May to post a position or something like that probably right yeah I just ask that because that we need to be transparent to the community that it's the expectation and when you go to April we have a better understanding but the worst case scenario we have to have staff right Aon go ahead do you have any sense of the students who registered how many of them are students who were eligible a year ago and the families held them out for one reason or another do we have that kind of data yet or no out of the families that decide to hold off on kindergarten out of the 20 that we knew of 12 have already registered okay so there still eight others that we're still tracking down to make sure that we're still okay thanks this is generally an item later in January or early February anyway so we're kind of hitting hitting it a lot early but yeah it's okay okay any other questions on either one of these or any of the previous topics we need to make sure we have a 2025 2026 zero Z line on that we put this out officially right or even more officially than it is already out there will be a lot of happy families I know for the oh yeah okay uh I'm not I am not going to go through each of the um items for future consideration one by one but I wanted to include these in the budget presentation for a couple of years for a couple of reasons uh one being we know that there's been a lot of other priorities you know surface either this year or the past couple years that just we can't fit in with our current budget limitations and we think it's important for the community to sort of understand what are some of those things that have been raised by the school committee by our Administration by our teachers and to make sure those are reflected somewhere in the budget you know documentation also think it's important that we've seen some of these you know items take years of kind of you know conversation to get themselves to the front like I think about assistant principles I remember when finally was ad CH you know you said it was close to a decade that something like this has been discussed and has been on just hasn't been able to be able to push over the top so from a financial perspective so there's a lot of items on this list that we want just to make sure the committee sees the community hears and then as things move forward that we'll continue to try to prioritize and invest where we can invest uh while being thoughtful about our budget constraints so you'll see some pieces on here that are around uh curriculum you'll see some pieces around additional Staffing like tier two uh you'll see here things around uh um uh Capital pieces as well which I'll get into right here which U they got rhs liveand and some other like creative outside the box thinking ideas like whether not we should have a building substitute so I think anything from Staffing curriculum programming Capital uh you'll kind of see listed on this list all the way through um and also you'll see just a list of things that were identified by the committee a couple of weeks ago I'm happy to pause there if there's any here that you know kind of it's all in the budget packet if there's anything that people wanted to discuss hear more about or whether wanted to continue to advocate for for us to continue to look at do have one Sean um I conducted a focus group of one coolage Middle School student today and um uh unanimous unanimously my focus group actually preferred having the PE teachers they're already familiar with teaching the health class versus another specialist that they would only meet you know when starting Health which S I caught me off guard I wasn't sort of expecting that you know that sort of um point I thought it was you know it's a fair one so um well I appreciate the sentiment behind this it might just be worth kicking the tires on you know what are the what are the benefits of the continuity of teachers that they're already familiar with teaching that class great question great point I'll add for those who maybe haven't followed this positions closely so I think before uh what I can only speak for the time I've been here over four years before there was a position at that was a 6 health teacher at Parker which is still in the budget uh this is the first year that we were not able to fill that position so we still have an open 6 position that will still remain in the budget but also we have been you know thoughtful between the two middle schools of if we are to add you know have our have a designated health teacher would that be you know would we only want that at one school or should that be someone that split across the two schools so something we're thinking about right now is as we build this model do we have a one point can we get to a 1.0 that would be split do we go with what that one coolage focus group was thinking in terms of just you know kind of continuing what we're doing right now those are all U on the table but I thought it was important to give the context on what's in the budget right now is that6 at perer is it is it feasible that any of our um PE teachers might be interested in getting certified or are they so full with the PE schedule that they can't do both question um it you know pursuing that license or additional training would always be on the table um it wouldn't solve the problem they actually aren't required to have that additional license the health license to teach Health um the concern that has been brought up and that we've talked about with the Middle School uh principles and with Katie Ferell um who is our lead for that department is is just because of how health is delivered in the Middle School it's just a very small portion of the students schedule and when we look at the content that we would want to be covering with our middle schoolers pulling them out of PE class for that content we just don't have enough time with them so we have to be very selective in what we're presenting and we feel like we're not necessarily covering some of the content that we just know that during those Middle School years because of the Social Development of our students it's so important so we don't we don't think we're quite giving them what they need thanks guess on this front and I think I sort of asked it in in my questions to you all was how do we how do we price this how do we prioritize this right I mean someone to Chuck's question if we come back and we say oh we actually don't need the one extra kindergarten teacher and therefore we have X amount where do we go on this list right and which one's the most important or ones as the case might be depending on it is curriculum the most important and if so which ones there's two's on here right is it another is this the teacher that we're talking about is it the rmhs tier 2 you know how do we look at that and push come to shove what is the administration's greater view on that and then it might be good to get that kind of feedback as part of next week's meeting and then potentially the final meeting so we know okay this is the final number we're voting because that's what we do but if there is a change where are we going in the queue and I know things will change between now and June right and it always does and things will change between now and September and it always does but at least we have a guide post right and and so as we look at this that would I think that's my my ask is some of some of this stuff is what is that guide post and the other thing and we've sort of talked about this in the past is some some of these other ones in the the bigger considerations do we foresee in our forward planning that there will be space in 27 or 28 as we understand things now that we should be talking about these and laying the groundwork for them some of these we've talked about that we want to lay the groundwork we want to have committees for ETC but if that's the case we need to start that not wait another two years because then it'll be too late again so as we think about the strategic planning as we think about the forecasting where do we think we might be able to slide some of these things in so we can be proactive about it as we have been with some of the other stuff we just talked about begin this meeting okay on you guys back back great so at this point I'm going to turn it over to Phil I need thatone you want to pass this down oops all right put that there all right Tom can you flip to the next slide so the budget as the superintendent mentioned last night is a level service budget uh it meets the finance committee budget guidelines of 3.5% increase for operating funds and accommodated cost increase of 4.6% um we have that one add the staff so any [Laughter] questions okay um I I do want to make a a few um context statements because you know I every time you get a new business manager we all have our own things that we like to do and our own way of doing things so the budget book that you've got tonight is sort of I'll call a transitional one you know I trying to make some changes I think that might be some improvements in some of the presentations and things like that for example we added FTE into the charts this year much to my srin on Monday but um so I'm looking at this year as sort of transitional because I I started so late in the process you can only do so much um so I make sure I go through all my notes so we tried to use the same charts that that we've been using the last couple years but we reshuffle the order try to bring them together so there's no longer one big chart of all the detail the details been split so each cost center you start with the overall summary chart then the bar then the uh the pie chart and then the details right behind it that way you can go from the summer and if you want to get lost in the detail you can so that's all in there as well um I also do have to say you know one of the things that I was really working on this year is I wanted to get FTE into this because I think that's important to show people you know how many positions that we have and how they're being paid for um I do apologize that some of the slides you're going to see tonight are different than what you got um earlier in the week because the Ft FTE numbers were not correct and that is on me um I I will say on a personal side I've had a medical issue in the family that's um kept me out a few days that I wasn't expecting so I apologize for those late changes because I hate those in presentations as well there are no changes to the dollars just to some of the FTE numbers um and then with that so make sure provid that oh the other thing that we did and this will answer one of the questions that we got earlier is we one of the things I wanted to do was to get the budgeting especially for the non-personnel lines a little more realistic we have for the last couple years because the non Personnel lines have basically have been flat we've just been rolling the same budget numbers over and over so what we did for fiscal year 26 is we sent out to all the budget managers a report that showed their actual expenditures by each budget line and what we told them is your overall non-personnel amount doesn't change but we wanted them to go in and change their Alliance so it was more realistic and lined up with how they're actually been spending their money just not how we've been budgeting for the last X number of years it's also the same way that when I do budgeting that I look at trying to budget other things say uh revenue for a revolving account I look at the last three years of what's been going on try to understand what's been driving that and then figure out what is that going to do for the following year so talking specifically about the question we got about Athletics that's what we did now I know we've talked about Athletics previously and we really need to look at Athletics to better understand what's going on with the participation and what we've been bringing in for student fees we will get to that but unfortunately didn't get to that in time for this budget so you know some of these things that we've done if ID had a little if I'd been probably on board a little early we would have been able to do a little more into it but you know I've done budgets now for 15 years in the public sector and that's sort of the process that I do when in doubt let's look at what we've been doing and then going forward cuz the other option would be the swag option but I won't say what that stands for um so with having said that um as we showed up here we know the budget is coming at 3.5 meeting the uh the finance committee's guidelines so if we could pop ahead so the the next slide show you the recommended budget by cost center um so a couple of things on that in terms of the dollars if you look at it regular day is only up 1.6% year-over-year which is you might say well that looks low but what's driving that is primarily two things one is we had a significant amount of turnover Savings in terms of hiring for fiscal year 25 we had budgeted up here and the person left are retired and we were be able to bring a lower number so therefore we could roll that lower number into fiscal year 26 and that represented about a 1% uh Savings in terms of the overall projected increase the other part is and this is where I will make an editorial comment um the way that the budgeting is done here is we use offsets and it makes it somewhat difficult to do a year-over-year comparison because the offsets change from year to year so another reason why regular day looks increases only 1.6% is that the amount of offsets that we are utilizing to reduce the regular day budget has also gone up and that represents about another 1% so in reality in a worst case scenario the increase for regular day would have been closer to about 3.2% rather than the 1.6% now I will tell you in terms of budget presentation I don't like the way this is presented because of the offsets it sort of makes it very to use an overused word it's very untransparent in my opinion and trying to get this put together so one of the things I'm hoping to do and I know I'm saying some of these comments may be made out of my own ignorance of the process here and I could be totally wrong but one of the things that I'm going to strive to do should I still be here um is to make next year for 27 a little more detail to better understand where the funding's coming from so that we can make more easily year-over-year comparisons so that's a goal for coming down the road um if you look at all the other lines there's really not a whole else uh going on in terms of some of the changes well we can talk about special ed you know special ed sh an increase of 88.8% year-over-year uh what's driving that primarily is internally there with some positions for fiscal year 25 that have been budgeted in regular day that should have been budgeted in special so we've moved those over as I like to call I as the term that I like to use is those are geography issues Jo overall numbers dollars are right we just had it in the wrong place um but we also run into a problem where we had to move nine par positions that for fiscal year 25 were being paid out of the idea Grant we had to move them into the uh general fund excuse me my mouth is dried out on me here now there's there's two reasons for that one is for fiscal year 25 we actually moved six pars out of the operating budget into the Eda grant for this year because we had excess carryover funds so we're able to do a one-time change for fiscal year 25 we don't have that carryover anymore so now we've got to move those six back plus we had to take another three out of the grant to move that into I keep calling the operating budget this is really the general fund uh budget in order to make that work you know the challenges that we have is we settle the contracts with our pars um they got some significant increases because you know we all know that was a priority of the school committee but unfortunately our entitlement grants whether we're talking Title One um title two idea and it's title four right because we don't get title three um those have been pretty much flat if not title one's been going down for everybody year-over-year so we have Le less and less ability to pay for positions out of those grants and you're really seeing that in terms of your Paris for special ed so that's part that's a good chunk for your increase in your 8.8% it also accounts for a big increase in the number of FTE that we're showing going from 186 to 200 and this gets back to that problem where this budget doesn't show everything because if it looks like we're adding 14 positions to special ed no we're not we have nine that we've always had but the funding source has gone from Grant to the operating but we've never shown those positions as far as I can see in this budget presentation for the last number of years that gets back to trying to change the presentation so it's a more comprehensive present more comprehensive budget we see all of those lined up that way so we have that plus we had some internal transfers again we had we had a couple of Pars in regular day that belonged over in speci special ed and we had two um I'll call them teaching positions that were um budgeted in regular day for 25 that should have been budgeted in special ed you know when you got 600 oppositions you're going to have that occasion occasional um mistake with that you know one of the challenges that we have is we don't I'm sorry and if I insult anyone either one of my colleagues can um yell at me later we don't have a really good system for tracking staff we use munus but munus has a lot of drawbacks so I've been working Kate and I have been working that and also working with Michelle to figure out how we can improve that to make it easier to track all this one of the changes we did make this year in terms of tracking staff is we uh have created unique position codes for every position that we have so now when we have positions or people changing we're no longer talking about that you know Mary Jones is left and is being replaced by Sue Smith we say that kindergarten teacher number five has left and that's the position that we have open so now we can track what we're spending on the position far easier than we could in the past to me that just helps in terms of analyzing where we're spending our money um so in terms of the overall changes I mean there's an overall increase on this of 10.5 again it was the nine that were coming out of the Ida grant that have to come into the general fund we have the uh one kindergarten teacher ad we had a slight FTE change on one PE one PE one fizet teacher thank you that was budgeted at 0.9 it should have been a 1.0 last year so we've corrected that for this year um we missed one team chair position in the fisc year 25 budget so that's now in the fiscal year 26 budget and we moves um about a half half of a FTE off of the general fund budget onto the Meco Grant budget so that's why altogether it's about a 10.5 FTE change but again I want to make sure every understands we don't have an increase of 10.5 FTE in the district it's just because the funding sources have changed that what we're charging to the general fund is gone up but overall our FTE are up one as a superintendent said previously so I I hope I've confused people enough on that one um so that's the overall if you want to go in now look by can we pause there for a second Phil um not to interrupt your train of thought but all of what you're saying is valuable right I can't hear you all of what you're saying is is very valuable and I think we should think about how between now and the 30th we represent that somehow right it's not represented in the current budget book and packet the way you've explained it um and so we're going to get this question at town meeting I can guarantee it right so let's prepare ahead of time that we can show and maybe it's not going to be perfect or anything else like that but you have it already I'm sort of seeing in my head position type funding source from previous year funding source from current year Etc and some sort of some sort of presentation or table that can be added as kind of the summary at the beginning of it because I think what you just said is very important and we will absolutely be grilled on it later so let's make sure we're PR heard if you would to look at the budget book and look at the detailed budget sections initially Kate and I had put a column in for comments mhm but again unfortunately because of my family situation I just lost the time to get the comments in there so based on that feedback I think what we'll do is we'll try to put that comment column in there and then we can put comments for each of the lines just some I think you even make it simpler than that I we can talk about it offline a little but make it simpler than that and just one one one one portion of the of the thing that's just one chart that shows last year and this year and demonstrates actually what's new versus what was funded differently in the previous that's a good idea all right we will take that back and we'll make that change questions or thoughts sorry any other questions I'm sorry okay right go ahead all right so one of the other changes that we made previously right now I'm showing eight cost centers um in previous years the last four have been all bunched together as other but because of the way the database is set up it it's just easier to present them all so that's why now seeing eight cost centers instead of five um again looking down this is just is this the percentage chart because I can't see from here y um so we're just showing again um the percentage breakdown between the different cost centers again if you look at between regular day and special ed that's 90% of your budget right there um you your administrations 2.4% I'm pretty sure that that's below the state average for what's done for administration if someone wants to check me there's plenty of charts out in Desi where you can see where we rank um and then you know Health Services technology um I will make one comment about technology um there is some work to be done within technology in terms of budgeting especially for um uh technology uh replacement Cycles on the the PCS and and other things I know that right now there is a every year in the town's budget there is within the capital budget money for technology but that's currently being used to upgrade I think the phone system and a few other things we've got to really start looking at a funding source in terms of an ongoing funding source for technology replacement and I will also make the comment that we also need to the same thing for curriculum replacement you know we've got some curriculum that's coming up that needs to be replaced we've got to have a plan as to how we do that is that operating coming the operating or can we get it out of capital I know historically the state wouldn't allow you to use Capital funds to buy textbooks well no one buys textbooks anymore it's software and everything else so I think there might be a way that if we can get the capital funds we could use Capital funds to set up and be able to pay for uh curriculum changes you know that's a little further I need some more research research but just trying to figure out ways to get that done cuz those are going to be some big numbers um so again that's the overall uh the next one is the administration um there's no real change there there's been no changes in terms of Staffing and again the um non-personnel has been uh held flat now that's also an issue that for the most part outside of Transportation um and special ed tuitions all the other lines have been held flat at some point we're going to need to start making some more investments in terms of buying supplies and things like that so just putting that out there as a 27 issue and a little bit beyond that we need to start looking at our non-personnel lines as well because you can always squeeze so much and those lines have been really squeezed editorial comment by your business manager um back to my point about prioritization of yeah well I you're talking about the kindergarten thing right or anything right I mean that the the greater list of next things we want to fund I mean if these if there's an agreement that that should be there then it should be on the list and it should be prioritized on that list all right so the next is that special ed yeah so again Special Ed we've talked about it we talked about what's pretty much driving the 88.8% increase you know it's the Staffing changes and uh where the Staffing is coming from it's also though being driven by the real budget Buster these days which is special at Transportation costs they continue to increase at unsustainable rates for every District I mean we're up oh I should have gotten the number straight in my head but you know we're we've overall budgeted over another half million for that a lot of it's uh um being budgeted out of the accommodated costs but it's a huge expense and then also in terms of the out District um increase osds um increase for fiscal year 26 on special ed out of district tuitions is 3.67% and so that's above the 4.69 for this year and we all remember our favorite year fiscal year 14 I mean fiscal year 24 where they went up by 14% which means over the last three years on a compounded rate they've gone up just under 24% in 3 years and I I know we all know none of our funding sources have gone up at that rate over the last three years so I that's special ed um reason we need to continue to invest in IND District yes absolutely um regular day is the next one again as I explained earlier about the what looks like to be a low change of you know 1.6% again that's driven by the increase in the offsets that we have in a lot of the turnover Savings in terms of the Staffing um overall the FTE are down a little bit as I mentioned earlier we had two pars that we had in the general in the regular day budget that should have been in special ed we moved that over over um we had two other teaching positions that should have been a special moveed that over and then we added back in the one kindergarten teacher but overall the FTE are done I think it's about 2.5 but that's all an internal Shuffle with the exception of that one add the staff for kindergarten um Athletics so this is the um portion that's paid for of the general fund um and again this is one of the this goes back to trying to be clear as to how it's budgeted we really sh for athletics have what's being paid for out the general fund and what's being paid for out the revolving account so it's easy to see what the total overall budget is or the total spend is for athletics because right now because this is being reduced down by the amount that's com through the uh revolving account it looks like your overall budgets inner thousand in reality it's 1.2 million so again that's just a terms of a presentation that I would like to work on for fiscal year 27 uh nothing else really uh that's going on here Phil hold on a second we got a question so oh sorry so not maybe not for you Phil but just for the superintendent of the broader committee we talked uh a while back in the fall I thought about fees in general I haven't seen anything in this budget about rise about athletic fees any of that was any of that considered when when you were putting this budget together or just not making a recommendation to increase anything at this point or you are uh for us at this point we thought that we had gone through last year several of the different sort of uh fee structures for our community we thought that it was important if we could to be able to have a year where we'll be able to hold and then revisit more holistically next year um and we thought within this budget we would be able to withstand in the way that we need to with our current fees but I I think as you know Phil shared there's a couple that we think we need to look at the short term Athletics being one of them we just didn't feel like given again last year so of the increase of the birdge on families now the right time to do that that's fair I just didn't see anything in the narrative on that so I was just that's a good point maybe we should add it to the narrative based upon where things were what we added last year is we've decided to keep fees flat yeah for the for this for this cycle sort of coming off that um I think we've already announced that we're making changes to the Rise program we're going to have more slots available more 5day full-time slots so we are expecting that there would be if that goes through and it populates way we think it will that we may have the revenue will be higher than what we budgeted again as I've said before I like to be very conservative in my budget budgeting so we have not reflected any potential increase in the rise tuition fees in this budget also want to point out that we also have only I think there's only one or two retirements that are represented in this budget so if there are any additional retirements that come through that and they get replaced at a uh lower salary there will be hopefully some additional turnover savings I I try to U make an argument to put a line in called turnover savings but nobody wanted to uh go along with me for that one so that's not there just to clarify the rise we're not saying the fee is going up the collection of fees might go up because there might be more students the collection of fee SCH but we're also increasing the number of 5day full-time slots above what we have now so because we'll have more students yes I mean there is a waiting list of what like 140 I believe but we're also removing that one afternoon class too so that's a little bit of reduction so it's it's pretty small yeah it's pretty it's really marginal anticipate but again we're going through the enrollment process right now too so we a better idea in the next couple of weeks hopefully in a couple more years we have more couple more classes hopefully space for two more right M all right so that was Athletics next one extracurricular there's really nothing to talk about there that's primarily funded out of the student student activity accounts this is just what the portion of that gets paid for staff who um assist with that um Health Services um it's up by 72% uh that that increase is primarily driven by step and calling changes for the staff that we have there unlike the the teachers where if you look at the distribution of the teachers you know our distributions like we have a lot on the on the high end tail our uh nurses we have a lot more on the lower end so there's a lot of step and column changes which is driving that number up in terms of the overall salary number um non-personnel expenses are unchanged and then finally for technology again we uh technology is one of my my I I really like to get involved in technology uh We've flatlined everything in terms of non Personnel we know that we need to do some work there um we've got to get our a better understanding of all of our software costs and everything like that um one of the things that I prefer to do and I'm not sure what the philosophy is here is really to consolidate all technology within the district within the technology department with the exception of things that are truly educational technology but you know I I'm just trying to make sure I I can grab and I know how much we're spending on technology right now and again it's more woring that I need to do in the next couple of months Tom can so uh was a few weeks few meeting couple meetings ago we had the students in here and they were we were talking about techn technology replacement and batteries and all that is that is that all contemplated in here uh that's part of it I mean we we do have a we do have Capital uh potentially but what what's in here in terms of uh uh device replacement I guess well it's my understanding and the superintendent can correct me that what we've done for Lisa the last few years is that we've when we got to the end of the year we looked at what we had available in terms of funds you you typically from having UND spent on the salary lines that gets reallocated year end and we do that to make our technology spend for that year that's a process that I want to change and actually get that into the budget as an explicit line because you know we're depending upon having a good year or a bad year if this is a year where you know we don't see as much in terms of hopefully slight under spending than how we going to pay for our technology replacement spend that year so that that kindergarden cushion is is uh evaporating quickly well I I will say when we're looking at sort of our end of year projections we are looking at in our allocation at this point being able to allocate $2 to $300,000 like Kim system with where we've been the last couple of years for technology refresh yet we know it would be a a better strategy we have that money allocated up front where we're not where things can shift to the budget and go during the year but still we're on track for technolog everything has to be the lost time right if kids are charging and teach you know they they're charging their things and teachers are charging and you know the principals you know can't even get through half a day without having to charge your computer yeah I mean that was we heard that loud and clear that would be my first priority if could and didn't go through position okay sorry all right so facilities again this is a I think a really good example of um trying to do that year-over-year comparison because right now facilities says it's down 6.57% well it's really not what has happened is that um we've we have increase the amount of offset that's being booked against facilities I think and this year we were planning on uh I think 82,000 as an offset and then for fiscal year 26 we're upping that up to 250,000 so the the spend hasn't changed the Staffing hasn't changed it's just that because we have other funding sources offsetting some of that cost which is higher than what we had budgeted for this year so that's why to make that year-over-year comparison the 6.57 is for lack of a better word somewhat misleading in terms of you know what we're actually spending do you want to speak quickly about why we decided to charge the 30% charge no that say that 30% of the this custodian salaries oh yeah so one of the changes that we also did in fact we talked about this I think before I even came on board was um we are charging off part of the custodial salaries to the Food Service budget because they do spend and we went through and asked the folks to look at how much time are they spending and I think it was like 20% or thereabouts of their time for some of the staff is spent servicing the cafeteria so we're charging that now against the Food Service um uh budget which we can do because food service is operating really well you know with the fact that there is the students don't have to pay anything for their lunch the particip the participation rate is has been increasing and Katherine has also done uh from my perspective an outstanding job managing that program and improving the quality of the food so the kids want to eat more and so you know it's you know we've got our fixed costs and if we can get more kids to eat you know that's really just improving the bottom line so if you look at the revolving account um for Food Service you know under the regulations of the state or the federal government we're not allowed to have more than it's either three or four months operating funds you know left over at the end of the year in our account um I personally have trouble with that because if you're doing really well well then why can't you have more so um again another tutorial comment on that one but so since we do have the ability to do that we're now charging off some of the um custodial staff salary to the Food Service program as well as um a little bit of some of the lunch Paris salaries as as well so again we have identified a new funding source would you say most of that negative pertains to that that's um probably 23ds of the change I'm sorry it's all of the change yeah so you know from the 85,000 which is around typically what we've been um charging back up to the the 250 so again it's just I think it's a prime example of If We Had Each funding source there you'd see what was going on Phil can I ask a question about um facilities in terms of um their budget comes partly from the town and partly from the schools this is just the schools portion of the overall budget so we're paying for a cleaning service and I guess the custodians as well as the um oh what's his name God I just talked to him today Joe Huggins Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin G Kevin and Kevin salary as well so we sorry Tom okay that's fine we we would typically vote two facilities budgets one for schools and one for Town that's how we usually do we vote one for schools but town meeting will vote two right so the town so but we but we review it here the town one no we don't not their budget I think so no cuz Joe Joe officially rolls up to the town manager he dotted lines to Tom um but we vote just the school facilities budget go ahead Carl so the um the director assistant director roll up into the town's budget um Kevin gersner and the staff staff that custodial staff for the schools are in our budget and the town takes care of their own um and of course I'm thinking kill them um and the additional needs if we have an energy person and who eats that cost um a what person DPW facilities right energy person well since all of the cost for for all of the uh electricity and gas and everything is paid directly out of the the town's budget I would guess that would go to the town side I think you're right good answer just to be just to be consistent but you know again I'm speaking out of ignorance so in terms of that but yeah the only use cases our so that'll be interesting it's a point of discussion so um so those are the uh that's the review of the uh centers are there any other questions that I cannot answer okay uh the capital plan um this is this comes straight out of the um the town's meeting book that they put together the capital plan um and so you can see this is you know been updated a little bit they've got some things on here for a water heater at uh wood end for 26 uh further down the road there in terms of school buildings some doors of window repairs and they do have in here uh food line service for both Birch and barrows I know and speaking with Katherine uh there is a need to do some Capital work in the Food Service uh lines and a few other things that we need to do you know we can get we can utilize the funding that's in here from the town but we also may have the ability to use some of the um um I won't say Surplus but the balance that we have remaining in the Food Service yeah um account to to pay for that I know she wants to make some pretty I wouldn't say significant but some changes at the high school to be able again to improve the flow through because you know one of the things we got for feedback is that you know more students would eat but it takes it was taking too long to go through the lines so you know I think I've already mentioned that we've worked on it that there we should be rolling out soon the ability for them to use their ID cards to pay for no longer have to put in their four digit pen so that should improve the throughput quite a bit Yeah so I think a couple things real quick as I look at this um there's 222,000 worth of Food Service capital in 2027 you just said you want to talk about capital for computers and other things and we might historically we have over the last three or four years have extra excess money in the revolving fund there might be a trade there to be had the other thing is the lift van maybe should replace the food service van in this plan and food service can then van could be purchased potentially out of that revolving fund so there are some things there where the town essentially we can take something off the town but get something else back that we want if we're smart about it and think about it from a budget perspective and if it complies with capital expenditure rules as historically we've been told computers do not because individual computers are underneath the cost so things like that let's let's look at but it seems like there's a logical trade that we can go through potentially in that space yeah but you can also see in terms of districtwide Technology projects they do increase it from 150 in 26 to 250 in 27 I will tell you honestly I don't know what that entails or what the plan is for that to be used on that's something that I need to um do my homework on yeah we we we need to be more specific that someone read that they think we're putting in a new system or something when some of it's probably replacement of of equipment a lot of it's been maintenance of of network lines and phone lines and other things like that historically I I've have been heard and have been told that one of the frustrating issues especially in this building is the uh Wireless connectivity and that I think that needs to be looked at absolutely it does did I understate it no very good for years one one or two times we've said that problem so you know that may be something that you're right in terms of we could do some of those tradeoffs then that would free up money perhaps in the operating budget in terms of uh funding the line for um the technology replacement because you're right um all laptops and everything are expensive these days because that's just the way they do it unless you're buying servers that cost 10,000 bucks then you can capitalize what is the arc flat Hazard study I do not know oh and now I owe the superintendent $10 I'll have to get back to you on that one that's how we're going to make up any budget short B I think Joe answered that last year I think that question came up last year so if we go back to last year's Capital recording we probably can answer that it's like an electrical Transformer thing or something if I remember correctly okay we'll find out yes um I I have one other question and Phil it's probably not for you given just when it comes from but Dr Cor and others um the vehicle barriers for all schools wasn't that part of that building security project at one point yes yes yes how did it end up here as a separate Capital item does anybody remember this how that unfolded this is when I learned what a Ballard was yeah it was never completed at the time for one reason or another um and it might have been Capital budgeting more than anything I just I don't remember it coming out and I don't know that I've ever noticed it on the capital Plan before so okay I'm pretty sure it was there last year as well is it okay what is it referring to it's it's referring to in front of big poles that block so that no car can drive right through the front door of a school okay which we already have in some places not in all places yeah but I mean as we I'm sorry no go ahead I mean that would certainly be something we would want to discuss before we do I mean that's several years down the road y agree as we see like the technology the infrastructure around like safety is like changing by the day too so what the you know what that may look like right now is the best way to keep our school safe may be very different in 29 so that's just I think something we should keep closer right yeah you can have a force field that stops the car before he gets to the door living in Star Wars era or Dune or whatever yeah okay all right um budget timeline you know superintendent has pretty much I think already gone through this so we're good with that um under fund under other funding sources um I do like this one because this do a very this one the fisc year 26 offset summar does a very good job of summarizing you know the other really what are the other funding sources so you can see that you know overall we're increasing the offsets um by almost um $600,000 and we've got a big chunks the school lunch program um we're utilizing more of our school choice funding because um we've I don't know if we've had an increase but we have like 50 kids school choice in so that's always um good to hear uh I just want to mention one comment on the 252 for the school choice in appreciate the committee's thoughtfulness on that the last couple of years and I think to think of we didn't have that 250 in the budget what things would look a little bit different right now in terms of the financial Outlook too so I just want to make sure to uh raise that that's been helpful in us being able to be in the positive budget position that we're in right now as well I did also want to point out you see the full day kindergarten offset um goes down for fiscal year 26 and that's still in line with the plan was um there still will be an offset for fiscal year 27 then I think we will wipe out the balance in that account and the other graph just shows you the offsets by the different cost centers again I think this does a nice job of summarizing where the offsets are I would just prefer to have these up front and not just in something in the back way back here um Phil before you move on can you talk a little bit about and you maybe this is what you alluded to before but you know if you look at the 25 versus 26 rise numbers going from 350 to $550 in the offset that's the $200,000 increase in offset y we're not having $200,000 additional in Revenue so can you talk through the thought process in ,000 difference yeah um that is a a reflection of the increase in the overall balance in that account um we are anticipating that the balance in that account I'm going to have to pull out the sheet because I want to make sure I get my number right here so the starting balance in the rise account the revolving account this year was 288,000 in the beginning of fiscal year 25 it is ant anticipated that the ending balance will be 420,000 so it's going up by 140,000 because tuition is coming in at 500,000 but the budgeted offset for this year is only 350 so that's why that now we're going up to 420,000 so that means the 26 we're going to start at 420 we have flatlined the tuition at a half a million and so we've budgeted the offset to be 550 so we are estimating to have an ending balance at the end of 26 of 350,000 so yes it is more it's but our ending balance the end of 26 is going to be higher than it our beginning balance was for 25 again we got to be careful because you know how sustainable is this going to be again if the changes in The Rise program leads to additional Revenue that 550 probably would be sustainable for at least the next several years thank you Aaron is is there a way to articulate the school choice alsoa it's the only one in here that isn't directly affiliated with what it's offsetting like it's it's basically like a addition to our budget right yeah and it's the 2 the 22,500 if you look on the right TR on the right side you'll see under the cost center school choice is being used to offset costs in the regular day program there I know it's hard to read it's very small oh okay okay thank you and if I recall correctly School our our practice with school choice is we use the collections from the previous year to fund the next ort of the same way the exact same way that we do it with circuit breaker right the difference is circuit breaker is by law we got to do it and this isn't you know by uh school choice policy I personally like to use school choice as as another place to build up reserves if possible because you know other places you know we've got to we got to spend our grants within a certain period of time we got to spend circuit breaker if we have some flexibility I like to build up those if we can and also because it's fully under the control of the school committee um the next page is um the uh they call special Revenue funds are really our revolving accounts um and I'm going to go back to Athletics you know we're based on flatlining the um Athletics offset uh we're getting by the end of fiscal year 26 we're going to be down to like 30,000 in that account which is why we really need to look at what's going on to make sure that we don't end up ending up each year at zero and starting over again like any of these accounts you always want to have some buffer in there just in case you know something happens say like a CO problem and you thought you're going to have lots of Revenue coming in for school sports and now you don't have it but your budget believes you you are going to have it gives you some flexibility on that um you know we talked about I think when we did the q1 presentation that there were a couple of revolving accounts that were really old so we are cleaning those out and closing those down they had you know very little money in it um so we've taken care of that in terms of some of our housekeeping um and again um there's not much a whole heck of a lot else going on there well you know I know this was raised earlier again we're keeping an our eye on the extended day program to make sure that you know we keep within the budget on that and once we once I we get through this this week I can breathe for a moment or two going to go back into down with the folks and look at where we are year to date in terms of that because when I looked at the other day today um the revenue seems to be lagging where I thought it would be at this point so I'll have an update on that when I do the uh Q2 update which I'm hoping is not going to be March I want to get that done in February um then the next page is the federal state grants uh this just shows you the 24 and 25 if we have money left in the fiscal year 24 grants you know this is the quarter 2 update in fact um Kut is done early because this would be in the Q2 update so um one of the changes I think I would like to put in is to show a history of maybe the last 5 to 10 years of the grant amounts leaving out the SR funds because you know those were one time but our our typical entitlement grants so we can see what the trend has been in those because again they all federal grants for the most part continue to shrink there's a relationship there with a lot of them in terms of number of students that we can apply for is part of that too right so we need to make sure there context in any chart we put out there EX for example in order to be eligible for title three money you have to have at least 100 students who are um what's the term now multilanguage Learners multilanguage and so when I was at a previous place I was at the charter school we finally got there and it turned out that we got about $122,000 I mean it's $112,000 but it's not going to solve you know the funding choices because if you look at um the demographics right now I think for last year we had 75 MLL kids and you go back 15 years we had about 15 so you know that go that that's something that's very hard to see reflected in the budget but the needs for that type of student are different than the needs of your your typical student that we've had here in reading for many years but it's hard to show that in the budget y I want to make one comment on the uh the Metro Grant so as the community knows that we're currently in a uh a little bit of unique Leadership Model where we have co- inter directors we've gone back and forth with them and with all of our you know metco team and our principles our staff around what model is best for us for the future and I think at this point we're still kind of assessing whether this model right now is better or having just that one lead director make sense uh we should know more probably at the end of February we want to at least get through the enrollment and application season given that's a heavy season and see sort of how we'd be able to balance both the workload on their part and also being able to bounce their day-to-day duties too so that's why you don't also see kind of anything specially named around that code this budget as well but are we is that because we're carrying forward the position correct so it's like we haven't cut it we haven't so there's no ad it's just a carry forward as though we might fill it at some point in time corre correct okay and that I believe is the last slide any other comments questions from the committee Sarah looking at you anything any comments or questions from the public okay um I'll just share a couple of my points of feedback that I had given Dr meski earlier um one is on the revolving funds I think it's going to be important that we look at those as you've explained income outflow where's it going to end right so that we can we can tie back that um offset and make sure we're comfortable with it from a financial transparency and a financial accountability perspective we need to make sure we're clear on there I didn't say this to Dr mileski but I do appreciate the charts at the back that kind of show the historical trend of student profile I think that's really important to understand and because that does drive a lot as you as you mentioned Phill in terms of how things work there yeah and I created those charts frankly at the beginning for me so I could get a sense of the history of um the student population in Reading over a period of time because again there is some correlation between the type of student you have and the type of needs that they have and again looking at you know the changes in your typical reading student today is not the same as it was 20 years ago and that has all sorts of implications for the budget and cost and everything else just try to give some perspective on it I think we're all committed and we continue to say all means all we're going to hit them we're going to teach them all we're going to bring them all up um but it's important to understand what we need to support them and that goes to 23 24 and 25 investments in many ways um so it feel told Tom it felt weird right when I was looking at this budget it was almost too simple right um so it it you know it is what it is and we know why it is um and I appreciate showing all of the stuff we've made Investments of in the past um and we've already and the community we'll see it in the community report we'll show some of the returns of those Investments as well as those come out um but I we also need to look at these and say we almost before we finalized this we should go back and look at town meeting from last year and the year before what questions were we getting there and how do we make sure we're addressing them um as much as possible and there's always going to be questions at town meeting but some of them are consistent what's that they'll still be asked they'll still be asked but it's fine we'll have it we'll have it ready and we'll know right U and some of them are consistent so especially those that are consistent we should make sure we're at we're prepared to answer like we it's not our budget right um but how many kids are is the town paying for that goes to vocational schools um we do actually get some income from that right in the town from from the Chapter 70 budgeting perspective so is something we should be aware of because it does come back to us to some degree although it goes right back out again um but it's still some of those things that we always get asked we might want to think about where they fit and how we answer some of those questions as kind of the periphery related things as well um but again I appreciate the time and the effort of of the team and I'm sure the rest of the committee does as well I see a lot of nons so thank you and we'll look forward to the public forum next week uh Dr corm you want to ask a question or make a statement yeah just few coms Jefferey Corum Ridge Road also um finance committee lay us under the school committee um so on the federal and state grants is this mostly for regular day and special ed or are we going to get a breakdown like you did for the revolving funds about where the grants go into the the different cost centers um I don't know if that would be helpful or just you know in terms of breaking things down also if you back up to the slide with the um the one more I think yeah here you have districtwide um which I kind of personally I'm you know I'm more familiar with it I I kind of liked there sort if you when you broke it up into the eight different cost centers that was kind of more you they're just such small buckets it it I liked it better when there was grouped together but if you're going to split it up in one place you probably ought to split it up as well in in this chart where you have districtwide for for some of the offsets there um when you went through the the Dr meski when you were talking about the considerations for future funding I didn't see anything specifically about kilum I don't know you know to what extent there are you know if we're expanding rise or something or you know what else about that building are there are there other expenses that aren't part of the regular budget that as we build a bigger building with different um different programming going on it and different you know maybe different heating sources or something are we going to have different expenses that are going to going to show up um yes I think yes right so so you know do we need to at least mention that in the you know where you where you listed out and I I like seeing that you know here are the things we didn't do in this budget um and I think like the half day Fridays is kind of mentioned at the the very last but I I would think that's another one of those things that's been in the in the works for a number of years I mean we actually brainstormed it um also you like the health teacher like when my daughter was in my oldest daughter was in Middle School we had health teachers in the middle schools and I guess they they disappeared and now now they're going to come back okay interesting all right um so that's all I have thank you add cost this yeah the version we have yep any other questions or feedback from anybody else okay so maybe we should go back to the fact room real quick just to remind people it's not we're going backwards in the agenda but just as a a reminder for the committee in particular but anybody else in the public you know any questions that you have you know go through it with your fine Toth comb one more time if you haven't already I'm sure you all have gone through at least once but go through it again any questions that might be out there that you think might be you want to know or you think other people may want to know let's get those questions off to Olivia by next Thursday night um some of them might come in during the public forum as well um and then we'll get those answered before uh we vote on the 30th okay and you'll have time to receive the answers before the vote as well there's any other considerations any other transfers anything else you want to push out there let's let's talk about that as well after the The Forum next week and then we if we need to make any adjustments before the final vote we can do that too okay all right 8:30 we cover 5 sl8 um you know budget categories in in less than an hour and a half because we had the first part of the meeting too so all right with that said any final motions motion to adjourn second seconded by Carla motion by Chuck roll call uh we'll start with Chuck yes Carla yes Sean yes Aaron yes Sarah Tom yes 831 one we're Jour has everybody had a chance to go through the warrants and sign them I coms