[Music] Lucas Michael Yes Jean yes Jen Paula yes Mark yes Amy yes and I am here and we are in session and so somewhat anti
climactically I think we needed a uh a motion to adjourn we're going to discuss an executive session something briefly and then uh we will be back Mr chair I make a motion to enter into executive session to return to regular
pursuant mgl chapter 30A section 2187 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation to negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel yes Point order does
have a public budget hearing listed at prior to that we we have the public participation I guess that's part of that's the uh I was reading that as the public participation he but I guess that's part
of the yeah Mr chair I would withdraw my call okay I apologize I was misreading the uh agenda so this is we will open actually with the public budget hearing and then we'll proceed to the regular
meeting in which we'll do the executive session then um so for the public portion of the hearing we do have a lot of people tonight if you wish to speak please stand or raise your hand please identify yourself and um what town you
are from if you are um part of the regular Community if you are a public official um please State what position you are um and if you could try to keep remarks to about two to three minutes to enable everybody to have uh time to make your
statements i' appreciate that also um so just a for warning um we have this portion is the public portion the budget hearing is a public portion when we close that we will not
have more public commentary however when we get to the budget presentation um I may at my discretion allow um some clarification or discussion or uh points to be made from
recognized public officials or from the lead official from the slea okay all right with that let's open with the publication you want to go first good evening my name is Carrie maias I
am a parent of a seventh grader we live in Kingston School librarian I am also the slea secretary um I am here to speak tonight on behalf of the slea board our president has the flu as well as our vice president so I here today with my
colleague and tonight we would like to once again raise concern about the financial crisis in which we find ourselves our core programming and curring staff and levels for our schools are under threat as we fac severe budget cuts last March less than a year ago we
were in this very financial crisis in these past 11 months as some of our Sly Educators designed retired or vacated from the districts their positions were not filled our growing student population this school year has been
served by fewer Educators fewer teachers and support staff more students additionally throughout the school year we've done our best to work with a reduction in basic school supplies like pencils paper tape whiteboard books databases and more we have been left we
have been left able to support our students due to being short staff from Paris to teachers right now is a d of the moment an exact repl of where we were less than a year ago so with greater Stakes this time the Gap is what we need to get so
the L to be a level service funded as reflected in last Mon's release of the preliminary preliminary budget put us at a 2.2 million shortfall while we are under the impression that the number has come down the deficit Still Remains high
in the face of last year's crisis Town leadership in this room and town meeting stepped up to offset the budget deficits both here in Silver Lake and Kingston our Silver Lake sending districts of Halifax and Clinton did Fair as well and
experienced job losses an aary budget that took effect and has held since the end of last school year in the most recent school committee meetings halifa and Kinston School committees voted not to make the tier two and three cuts and to send the budgets back to the
towns school committee hold we do the same the floodgates are weary and worn and they are no longer holding back the financial crisis it is at our doorstep how do we get here when union leaders met with District leadership last year and asked how do we stop this from
happening next year we were met with the same response I don't know I don't know that's not good enough for our students here at Silver Lake and across the region why because what we know is that what is outlined in silver Lake's preliminary budget as will be deliberated this evening is nothing
short of catastrophic to our students education and future we are calling on community members to step up and advocate for our community's most precious resource our students speak out during public session reach out to your elected officials and school leaders to express your deep
concern that we are in such a precarious situation to not be able to fund our schools do not wait our under representation and silence as concern community members parents Educators alumni and all other stakeholders poses the risk that another program is cut
class sizes increased that our students core educational experience is deeply eroded and cannot be recovered the opportunity for us to weigh in on this is here our ask is not to cut any more than we already have further Cuts will break the system will will we be a regional school system at the middle and
high school level where increased class sizes an increased special education case loads reduced support staff reduced course efference offerings including fewer advanced classes like AP and honors among other devastating Cuts is the best we can offer to our students will the reduction of after school
tutoring elimination of late buses and the reduction and or elimination of sports in extracurriculars be what defines the experience of our Learners at the middle and high school level or will we invest in preserving and advancing our school systems quality education to ensure the brightest future
for all of our students and our region thank you hi for those that don't know me I'm Carissa I'm a senior here from Kingston and I'm the school board representative so I go to all of these um I'd like to start off by saying I know we're all put
in a difficult position between the towns not wanting to raise taxes and how expensive things are after Co I think I can somewhat say I understand the stress our community as a whole is under however as an elected official of my peers I would not be doing the job I
promised them to do if I would not speak on how the students are feeling I can start by saying we are scared we are scared of what is becoming of our school and our futures as someone who has recently undergone College admissions I can say firsthand how important the honors level slap courses
have been to me as long as extracurricular is provided by the school during the admissions process is not enough just to have AIDS you have to be great in all aspects I have been lucky enough to say on my transcript I was in a classes I was a part of
National Honor Society I am a part of student council but these Cuts will not only limit kids passion but also their Futures I am scared scared not only for the extracurricular side but for the academic side as well it breaks my heart
to hear that so many teachers will lose their job it makes me worried for those teachers that are staying and will have 30 plus class size with excess amount of students it makes me sad about classes but will no longer be able to teach them because
they do not have room in their schedule for it I am sad for the students who will no longer be able to take classes they want to like I have had the privilege of doing I have witnessed firsthand level of passion that not only the teachers have but the students have as well I've been a part of track and field and I've seen the dedication that
all athletes at Silver Lake have I've been a part of drama I've been part of the crew Department there I've seen a level of passion that they all share for the Arts and it breaks my heart again to see them no longer be able to have those facilities here I know I'm not fully
able to grasp the situation as thankfully I'm not well versed in taxes I'm happy to say I haven't had to deal with those yet but what I do know is high school and I know how important it is to all of us at the end of the day at the end of the day it's our [Applause]
lives other hello my name is Patty Doyle uh and I'm a sophomore from Kingston who attends Silver Lake Regional High School I appreciate the opportunity to speak in front of the committee today I'm here representing high school students of
Silver Lake because I like many other students feel frustrated with the possibility of cutting AP and honors classes teachers in all sports and extracurriculars this plan is not just a minor change it will it will it will affect students who attend sober Lake
now and in the coming years if the suggested cuts are made Silver Lake will lose its entire identity one example of this was shown in my AP seminar class we were tasked with conducting research to find what makes up Silver Lake and its
identity students were split up into five groups and then it was up to us to make the decision and explain why to no one's surprise all five out of five groups stated that extra curriculars in sports were the primary identity of Silver Lake this means that in that in
this context Silver Lake would have no identity and wouldn't stand out in a significant way to the students and others if it was eliminated sports are said to be cut in tier two this would mean all freshman JV and Varsity Sports would no longer run at Silver Lake this
would be catastrophic since Sports have been proven to raise students grades due to their love of the sport the national Federation of State High School associations States how students who attend Sports programs tend to have a higher grade point averages as well as better attendance records and fewer
disciplinary problems than students generally this study provides alarming data where we can see Silver Lake having a sudden decrease in grades attendance and an increase in behavior problems without having the opportunity for students to play a
sport extracurriculars would also be cut in with tier 2 this would mean that clubs and organizations such as student council best buddies National Honor Society drama and many others would not be allowed to run I can speak on behalf
of many when I say scrapping these organizations is the wrong decision ision Within These clubs students have had the ability to show True leadership follow their passions and talents and give back to the Silver Lake Community which all goes away with these major Cuts another important fact to mention
is mental health I know that I love playing the sport of tennis and many other students believe that Sports and other school-based clubs are the best activities that Silver Lake has to offer if they if this were to be taken away we will see students more depressed which will lead to an increase in mental
health problems this is something that I know nobody wants to see especially after having recently gone through a pandemic finally I'd like to comment on how the tier 2 Cuts what undermine our core values and how it is not the path Overlake should go down first there's a
removal of at classes advanced placement programs are higher level courses that are supposed to mimic a full College course and give students the ability to challenge their thinking and learn at a faster Pace if tier 2 cuts are made this means that students would not be challenged they would not get the
education they deserve americanprogress.org an organization that studies America and how it is moving forward states that because of how difficult the AP classes are the classwork provided helps students learn important skills and demonstrate competencies that are needed in
postsecondary education they also mention how these courses provide college credit which students are still provide college credit while students are still in high school this is influential since many colleges are competitive as well as very expensive so by taking AP classes students could get
into higher ranked colleges and the cost of college would significantly drop with the removal of AP and honors courses students will be forced to take cp1 classes however there are major problems with that there may be 30 plus students in a class of varying abilities some
students will need to move at a slower Pace to grasp the material others will be bored and want to learn faster this may in turn lead to behavior issues in the classroom with students acting out due to frustration or boredom or lacking any type of individual attention overall
I fully understand that the school committee cares about the students teachers and everyone in the community and wants what is best for everyone but coming from a student's perspective we need to find a better and more suitable way to approach the budget problems rather than making the huge decision to
cut AP classes teachers extracurriculars and sports these things are what makes so l the amazing school system we are without them Silver Lake would be a very different sad place to go to school thank you so much for giving me the chance to speak tonight and as we always
say together we are all Silver Lake thank you Daddy Paddy did you say that you were in the AP seminar I am an AP seminar an AP seminar is a brand new course this year right this for our as teaching it okay so if you have if
you're a parent and you don't know what AP seminar is that's what they do they're the reason I was able to get up and do this with all the sources and stuff so I it would be nice if they could take the video of this meeting and send it to the College Board and you can get your a CRCT for
that so well done excellent done who else Eric uh Eric CR I'm the chairman of the board of Selectmen in Kingston but I'm not here as an elected official I'm just here as as a parent I don't have any kids in the school anymore but uh my
four kids uh went through kindergarten through 12th grade here in Kingston and Silver Lake uh my last uh I a couple kids who are graduating um one this year and one the following year from college um so we're almost done maybe hopefully um but you know Kingston and Silver Lake
schools really set them up well um from Athletics extracurricular um AP and honors courses U my oldest son was able because of all the AP classes here when he went to school for the same amount of money Northeastern he was able to do a bachelor's and a master's because of all
the AP credits he got for the same amount of money so that saved us as a family um from having to pay for a masters that was all included in in his uh Bachelors um basically um and the other thing with extracurriculars um and
Sports I know for a fact that that helped all four my kids they were all very heavily involved in in extracurriculars and sports it helped them with time management confidence so many things um but then translated to helping them you know in college um and
I I know that for a fact um it's so important it's so part of of the kids education um also having served on this board with with so many of you guys for a few years I know that you guys know everything people have said you guys believe there's nobody on this board who
ran to dismantle education so I know everybody here um uh you guys are all very smart people you think outside the box very Pro education you guys you have a lot of experience on this board um the only thing I I would close with is um
you know the situation that that the towns are in and and it's all over the South schw all for Massachusetts um we all have issues so I just implore you to to um save what you can you know to try as as as he said you know preserve the
identity of Silver Lake um and and the education that that our kids get here um but be open to um whatever out of the box ideas you guys can come up with try to think out of the box as much as you can I know you do I mean you guys did
last year and and you continue to do so so and again thank you for everything that you guys are doing and continue to do thanks [Applause] um hello my name is Max petrol I'm a junior at Silver Lake Region oh High and
um I've been told by my friends peers and teachers that there is a chance we will be cutting funding on all extracurricular activities including Sports and drama clubs that require a stend there have also been discussions on cutting the clubs um
completely I am admittedly very shocked and appalled that this is even in discussion as I think that this is a very drastic decision that's not going to end very well and only exacerbate the problems um Silver Lake is known for the
football track and drama clubs all of them are what make us as a school us if they didn't exist the Silver Lake would lose the charm if we don't have clubs to express ourselves then what's the point coming to school to do the work
I do realize that the budget does dictate a lot of what goes on in the school and yes I do realize that it should be addressed and fixed accordingly that I don't disagree with but cutting funding that these clubs require including the sports teams
especially when they're doing as good as they are compared to last year it's insane but these money or these clubs rely on money to function cutting their funding would cause them to die we can't have drama shows we can't have
any football games we won't have blate buses anymore as it turns out with tier 2 we won't have anything without the money now honestly coming from a person that isn't in student council isn't a National Honor Society and isn't in sports teams and kind of coming here at
you know just I came here after I found out literally today that this is happening I do find myself a bit unqualified to represent my school like this I do believe I'm a bit of an educational peasant but in a lot of ways peasants
like me make up the most of a school and especially in this one though I am part of the drama club which is also affected by this tier 2 business and I heavily reject the idea of getting rid of that especially when it has done major things to my social
life Mr Pasa the person who runs the club does it fantastically and I feel like I've never had any issues being there I've never judged I've never felt alone I've never felt ridiculed it's been a safe haven for me since I've joined and it's especially important to
my mental health throughout freshman the sophomore year I wasn't doing very good but being in that club it changed everything for me it allowed me to meet people I had no chance of meeting without the club it allowed me the opportunities that I'd never have
without the club I made it into select choir because I was in drama and to be honest I don't want Mama Mia to be the last show I do here and I don't want to live my senior year without the things I love to do
with the people I like to be with and I think that many other people the same if the clubs aren't here anymore than a lot of people will not have the same chances that I did and their High School experience is going to plummet they're going to hate school and not want to
participate I saw I saw this myself at my old school not enough funding equals not enough fun equals not equals a lower amount of enrollment in short this idea of cutting all the funding make flock so badly that it may cause students to not
participate and might even cause people to transfer to another school if they can and I'm guessing none of you want that So for anybody that here so for anybody that is here that has enough power to make the decisions please don't cut the clubs don't take away the
lifeblood that feeds our clubs don't take away the things that make Silver Lake what it is if it does go through and we end up losing the drama club and the athletic clubs and all the other clubs that are affected there will be no point in saying go Lakers if we have
nothing to go for sorry my note just went away um the Silver Lake High School will probably just erode and rust away into nothing if this happens I don't think anybody wants to see a school rot away
because of a lack of funding but I also don't think anybody wants to go to a school that has nothing fun and exciting to do and that's really all I have to say so thank you for letting me speak I'm Jasmine Garis I'm going to be so for real I found about this out about
this like two hours ago I had no idea which honestly terrifies me because the fact that I found out about something that will change all of our lives two hours before the meeting is absolutely ridiculous we all I don't know if you've seen the student body we love to fund
raise 20125 we fundraise so much we have a great prom set up are you kidding me we want to help I didn't know that we were in this big of a mess I if I had known I would have started doing things to try and fix it you need to
communicate we don't know we we all care about this school I I'm in choir I'm in drama it's my entire life it's the how I figured out what I want to do I want to be a music ad teacher because I was so inspired by these amazing clubs and this
amazing choir program and honestly I had before choir I was in CT and I had no idea what I was doing I was just going through life I was just doing whatever I could to get by and I I hated school I hated so much I never wanted to go and I was acting out I didn't want to do
anything I love I love this school now I love going to choir every day I love doing Mama Mia I love being T now I love doing all these different things I did 24-hour plays and I realized I love directing I won six
Awards I won best show I won best script I won all these different things I love it we need this there's so I know so many kids that literally say they only show up for extracurriculars they only show up because they have a basketball practice they only um they only show up
because they have a drama thing the next day and more so I'm not trying to be rude but a lot of us are really poor this is how I'm going to get through college this is how my sister's going to get through college and it's not going to affect me as much cuz I'm a senior I'm getting out of here whatever you
guys go tonight it's not going to really bother me but it's going to it could ruin other people's lives we don't necessarily have enough money to get to College by ourselves about being so in debt that we maybe even need to drop out I'm going to probably be the first
person in my family to go to college because everyone could not afford to go and without sports or without extra curriculars we're not going to get the scholarships to go my sister she loves basketball her entire life she has school offers because of basketball
because of her AP classes where she's thriving without that she won't be able to go she won't be able to do her dreams we we need this we we can't just let it all go away way cuz otherwi we're just not going to show up we're I know when I
found out about this and I started telling everybody I was like please come tonight please like try and like vote on this or try and convince them to vote no on this everyone was like you know what I if I can't go and if they um vote that we're getting Riv it I'm transferring I'm going I'm going somewhere else I
don't want to deal with this because this is our lives we school is so boring we don't want to be in it we only we only are in it because of all these extra cular I'm going to be so for real I don't I'm sure you all have kids I know you all have kids you will come
they'll come home and you'll be like oh how School boring nobody's going to show up and we already are having such bad trouble of greens because nobody cares and the only reason a lot of us care is because if we don't if we get too low we can't do what we
love if I was a sophomore and I found out next year that I wasn't going to be able to do drama or I was going to be able to do fire I would never show up I wouldn't care if truy Court knocked on my door every day I would not show up cuz that's that's the whole point why
would you go somewhere if you don't even like even slightly enjoy it um so I'm Jon I um I'm on I'm also I'm from Kingston I am on the elementary school committee in Kingston I also have a senior who just got into five colleges
thank you and I a freshman and a seven-year-old who's able to First gr um but I did want to say tonight that uh I'm not here as a as a school Committee Member but I am here as a parent and um I was a selectman in Kingston for while so I do understand budgets essentially I
was on Kingston for 10 years so I just want to say that every year we hear the same thing and it really is that we have to C and especially at Cil Lake all I hear is cut cut cut cut I haven't seen them put anything new on their budget
and probably 15 years at this point and at this point to hear this and I can say that I am a director of admissions at a college and I've been in the field for over 20 years and the students are right you are ruining what could be their
college life because if you take away those Sports those extracurriculars the reasons why go to school and I can tell you I'm tired of heard about extracurricular this is part of their schooling this is part of why they go to school that's where they find their friendship that's where they find the
love of drama or finding the love of a sport that gives them the that teamwork that gives them that leadership that gives them the drive to want to go to school and to take those away that those students mental health is going to be
taken a toll hasn't already in the past four years of what they're already have to go and I get I don't like override either but I think that we deserve to have the towns people on the floor let them make that decision because we let
the school over here we let them say what they need and theyve cut and cut and cut and cut and cut and they can't cut anymore there's nothing to cut so when you say find more there's nothing more to cut so let the town's people make that determination if they want to
pay for these things and if they don't they'll say no to an override and if they say yes then we do it but let the town's people make that determination not by just the school board but by the town's people let the town's people make that determination if they want to spend the money on what the schools need
so uh hi my name is Brady flammer I'm a junior at Silver Lake Regional High School and I'm one of the three kids who pushed for the found founding of our boys volleyball team um so I've been in front of you
guys before if you remember me and I can say with certainty that when I came to high school um I had just gotten into the girls volleyball program and I had found the sport that I enjoy and that I've been playing since then for I don't
even know how long and I've gotten so much enjoyment from everything I've done for volleyball and I have so many other interests I'm in select choir I want to do drama I I'm in an AP class my teacher Miss Richie is
over there in the corner and I can say that without that AP class um I don't really know cuz without AP classes without Sports without extracurricular activities I don't even know if I would be standing in front of
you here today and I don't know if I would have the same drive to perform and the same drive to do well and be successful if I didn't have the opportunities that were given to me by this school and to be one of the people who have enjoyed their Sports so much
that they pushed for a whole new program to be founded and a whole new program to let other people find the same enjoyment and happiness that volleyball has given me um I can say in front of all of you that cutting any sort of sport or
extracurricular is a mistake and it's been my dream it's been what I've been trying to push for my entire life to be able to succeed in volleyball and go through college and let it get me a future and let my classes get me a future and let my grades get me a future
and none of that is possible without any of the things that you plan on removing from Silver Lake Regional High School and I don't know it's been my life it's been what I enjoyed Jo it's been what's keeping me going
and if you got rid of it I have to find something else to do and I don't really want to do that so um thanks for letting me speak and I appreciate you listening to
[Applause] me hi yes I just would like to speak as well my name is Jess kahill I'm a resident of Kingston I have kids in the district and I'm also a teacher um and I
would just like to clarify some things for the community and the parents our school whether we want to admit it or not has been struggling for quite some time over the past particularly four or five years there have been massive changes in the wake of
Co there's been massive changes to the infrastructure how we run the school we Chang the leveling and I'm here to Champion some of the students who aren't AP who aren't clubs who aren't Sports those children are my very own we're a
little neuros spicy family we got two kids on the Spectrum and there are plenty of kids that also deserve the love and help there's been a number of changes made without the input of the stakeholders the students themselves the
teachers themselves and we are exhausted and the only reason why this building is still standing is because we have passionate amazing children we have fantastic leadership within this building and you have some Rockstar teachers that are here giving everything that they can working extra hours with
those needy students who cannot grasp the concepts particularly because the fear of losing AP and talking about having the wide variety of levels within a classroom that's already here senior year Ela your options are AP or cp1 I
have students that did AP last year and students that are really struggling to read even at an elementary school level that is what we are working with and we are doing our best we want to do more for the kids but I want to also flag the need for a mental health crisis for
these students okay we also need to recognize that there are students that that really rely on the Rapport that your teachers have with these students we love these kids they I think like us
back although love to do our work right that is the core relationship I have been here 19 years and every single year there are budget cuts and I know it's not entirely the fault of the people who are signing up to do good and Champion education so thank you for being here
but we need stronger leadership because it is the unfunded State mandates that parents and students do not know about and while we have a lot of involved parents being here thank you also for being here we have a lot of bluecollar parents that are struggling and working
two jobs that cannot be here they are so consumed with just surviving as I know we all are that it's difficult to come and fight so I would like to see some leadership so we are not in the position same year after year after year
where we can try to be more creative talk to Beacon Hill and find ways to get our schools better funded that aren't always on the backs of the taxpayers and that is something that I just want to make sure that you know we we are already exhaused we're going to
do our best but when you cut and you cut and you get sucker punched every single year it's really hard to keep continuing to stay past our contracted hours which we do not need or should be expected to do and when it's our choice and we love these kids that's great when you rob us
of our passion when you take away our autonomy in the classroom and you don't allow us to really have that ability to even have those unpaid clubs right I just feel like there's a lot of burnout and I know everybody's feeling it and I really thank you know everybody here the school committee and upper
Administration for trying their best but there's got to be a way that we can rely on parents and be work smarter not harder we got to find a different way because this is not working and the kids are worth it and we need to do [Applause]
that anybody else sorry I'm Megan I'm a seventh grader at school I'm probably the youngest one here around um I just wanted to say a couple things about kids who aren't in
that many after school activities as of myself I am in student council but I'm not in J I'm not in a bunch of clubs after school but I also want to say how like important is to keep the regular
academics and the AP classes and not have everyone just like learning cuz I definitely feel like there are kids including myself who feel like we could be learning at faster Paces but then also being held back because we also
need to it's important I feel it's important because I do my goal is to get into y i that's my goal but without the AP classes without everything that Silver Lake has to offer I feel like we
won't be able and I won't be able to reach my goal I have heard so many kids say that they will transfer because there aren't AP classes and that everything is going to be cut I've heard so many kids say
they're going to transfer because Silver Lake isn't what we used to be and that we haven't haven't been able to have the classes that we need to be able to have to be a good community and to be together but cutting at school
activities is also not something I feel like that we should need to do and that we need to have to come to because for some other kids not like some of my best friends they're in drama they're in um
so many like other clubs after school that that's what they enjoy I may not I do enjoy drama but I would have always choose student council because I feel like being part of the community is way more
important and that we need to like know what is happening through our schools and I wouldn't have known any of this if it wasn't for my mom I probably wouldn't have been here tonight if it wasn't from her but a lot
of people don't know and I feel like communication is key to this and that we also need to communicate more to show more throughout the district so I'm here trying to say
that we have shouldn't have to have to cut everything if we could find a different way to be able to not have to cut AP classes or any extra curriculums including Sports cuz sports are great
and that's what happen like a school is also about sports not as much like it is academics and sports but that's what makes a school a school and without the school it's boring and without anything
else that is being able to like challenge our minds and be able to challenge us it's B and that's like having to be able to just have to sit there through classes
sometimes because I'm done like I have had to sit because I finished my work early but that was it so having to like sit there instead of learning things that I could have been learning more of
and challenging more of is also very important to me and I know a bunch of people even over the middle school not just the high school but even the middle school as [Applause] well I'm Jonathan ceing I'm the Halifax
resident also on the board selectman like Eric I am speaking tonight as a resident uh first off I just want to thank you guys uh we are in an untenable position right now it's not too unfamiliar to schools across the state uh where we're we're battening down the
hatches for some Rough Waters ahead um I want to thank you as I said I believe in this committee I've watched a lot of your work there are a lot of smart people on this committee um I ask you to overturn every rock as you always do uh to come up with ways to fund uh I also ask you guys uh to think about
sustainability because not to be Debbie Downer but uh these tough times unless things drastically change might be here again next year so the moves we make tonight I hope we have an eye towards the future um and sustainability uh and
again I have three children that went through the school I have a senior a freshman a seventh grader they are thriving because of Silver Lake um and I Echo the kids sentiments I don't want to I don't want to see things cut so as creative as we can be to try to get through this um and just know that the
towns are behind you as you work through this process thank you all right um take more and then we'll all right we'll do the these last two and then we'll conclude the public
portion hi my name is Jennifer aring I live on winr street I guess I feel like I'm in town meeting um but I I'm here to say I always support teachers I support the admin and everybody in the schools
as a parent and I have two very different children one who was diagnosed with dyslexia years ago when he was little at kees and could not have come as far as he did without the OG Wilson
program KES had somebody who was certified in that program kis had to contract that out the middle school had to contract that out to get him what he need not only him but come to find out there's five other kids who need it in his grade
at the time um I feel like and then I have another child who is on honors AP future classes and if th any of those reading Specialists or those classes
were to be cut it would be just horrendous um as well as Sports and the drama club and everything else but I know the money has to come from somewhere and I think we just have to think more creatively and I'm wondering
like I know some members were dead against you know charging for buses but charging for buses meting me maybe making special needs buses have one location that parents have to drive to pick kids up not going to every single
house all over timbuk to to get even just one child um I feel like that that's just a bleed it's just is never going to stop if we don't stop things like that um I believe every child deserves to get what
they need but I also think Silver Lake and Kingston needs to think about not Contracting out for all these things and finally getting things that are inhouse to cut the bleed and cut the budget
um it definitely costs more to contract these positions out and I also feel like we are still we are in this position with many of the same folks leading us and I just want to make sure that we're not doing
this every single year this is just keeps happening and happening and I personally can't afford it I can't afford our taxes just went up over $1,000 in Kingston and it's just ridiculous and I just think that if people did what their personal job is it
would be better and and helpful anyway that's all I have to say this will be our last comment over here Paul Pike from the town of Kingston longtime supporter of schools first of
all I commend every student here tonight Who's made a comment great job I only want to provide two numbers and that's because I feel I need to refute a bit of the sounds that we're always cutting
we're always cutting the total education budget in Kingston 8 years ago 2018 was a little bit less than $23 million the budget that we're looking at
right now in the town of Kingston without any education override is $33 million so that not only have we not been cutting budgets we've increased the amount of money that the town of
Kingston spends on it education over the last 8 years by $10 million or approximately 40% so just to make sure we all understand that we're not cutting F all the time thank
you all right so with that we're going to conclude the uh public portion of the hearing um I'm going to frame a few things too sorry oh motion toose the public I will second that all
right and we roll call that no all in favor any opposed opposed okay all right um I'm going to frame a couple of things first of all on the agenda um if you're uh looking at okay so when are they
actually going to talk about the budget and when are they going to vote if you look down under School District business um you're going to hear from uh Dr panares Who is is going to be addressing some of the um some of the notes that um
our second to last participant talked about um I'll explain that in a minute then you're going to hear from uh Sarah hickey our um financial officer and um let's see that is that will have the
financial report and then is it you Jo it's under um superintendent Dr crew um so if you see under D on the second side the district update and the budget presentation and vote so it is a little bit deep in the agenda um there are
variety of reasons for that but I would just want to give you the idea of where we'll be discussing it when we get to that point as I said um I may take uh or ask for consultation from some of our Selectmen who are here and some of our financial officers who are here um from
the lead rep of the SDA that sort of thing but um the discussion is closed to the general public and I want to be clear about that um for those of you who have not been following along or not quite clear on kind of why the situation
is what it is there were different people who touched on it and I kind of want to package those things together so that you can understand it uh more clearly um if you uh get the Boston Globe or subscribe to the Boston Globe you would have seen an article earlier this week about very similar problems
across the state and about state law lawmakers beginning a conversation about what is called the funding formula and that there are problems with the funding formula um if you want a really excellent discussion of that that um
Jason Fraser as our legislative rep who is probably the most outstanding legislative rep that we could have in the entire State and you know B in Beacon Hill and in Washington and stuff like that lobbying on our behalf and you can explain it more fully but the short
story of the funding formula is the Chapter 70 is what it's called um is distributed by the state to the schools they have an inflation formula and they have a range so last year they gave a
target range going into budget discussions that was something like 3 to 5% which we were all kind of horrified about because inflation was actually like 7 to 8% two years running State revenues did not do well
and so not only did they not do 3 to 4% not only did they not do seven or 8% or 3 to 4% they did 1.4% okay somebody here mentioned unfunded mandates okay we have a legal
obligation to provide the services that are necessary for special ed and children with disabilities and so on and so forth if those cannot be met within the district they have to go out of District at the same time as the state
said you're only getting 1.4% more they authorized providers of of sped Transportation a 15% increase in the fees that they could charge they authorized other providers like out of
District placement as much as 20 to 30% the opportunity to raise their fees 20 to 30% so Cardinal Spellman for instance went from 120,000 to 154,000 and we don't have a choice we
have to fund that we should fund that we should fund special education and particularly for our most vulnerable students and the students who don't have the capability to be here and give eloquent voice to how important their
education is so special ed the rate at which the costs have risen have gone way out in front of what um we have taken in from the state obviously we have a levy
limit that is administered within the towns it does not keep Pace with those rates of increases and so that's what's creating the tension um you can you know there have been lots of other things that are kind
of nickel and dime sorts of things but those are sort of the big eras one of the things that our second to last presenter said was uh kind of alluded to maybe you could provide more in District all right Dr panes I asked her to
prepare a presentation on this because if we were able to provide more in District theoretically the cost the you know the overall cost of providing special ed services might come down
the challenge with that is that it is a gamble it is a gamble in the sense that parents have the right as they should to negotiate with the school district and to potentially dispute um whether the
level of services is acceptable and so if not enough parents find the level of services even if we say we have them within the district acceptable we are still responsible for the f fing to send them out of District
so we can't guarantee the full use of the capacity of the people that we would hire which means if we spend a half million dollar to a million dollars to set up the infrastructure of having special education um more fully taught
within the district you could have a lag time before you see the return on investment and right now we're staring at a budget that is absolutely airtight now to this gentleman's point over here there have been no cuts to
money there have been Cuts along the way to Total head count that is within the you know as the teacher said you have not replenished positions and things like that that's true um we have uh an
Administration that really isn't very big um the state is on us about having more Administration to support our financial operations and considers it kind of a threat that we are not better staff there so we are not spending less
money the problem is the amount of money that we can spend even with its growth has been rapidly out Stripped by the costs that the state authorizes and has
not been backfilled by the revenues that the state provides and hence the tension and and the challenge and at least in some of our communities going and asking for more as some people allude to we have a
very workingclass Community who tons of families that we I mean we had a student here eloquently say I'm going to be the first one in my family to go go to college that's the situation for a lot of our families and so I am not going to
sit here and say as a steward of any of this that um it's no big deal to go to our communities and say we need you to come up with an extra thousand bucks this year that that for some of our families
is breaking so these are the things that we're living with but when you look at the agenda I want you to understand that Framing and those discussions so when Dr paner presents on special education
programming that's the context I'm I'm at least going to give the committee the opportunity to hear what's the level of investment that we could make and when if ever do we think we might see a return on that and do we have any tolerance for that level of
investment when we talk about when Dr F gives the presentation and Sarah gives a presentation on on the budget and we talk about the Gap the Gap is not from cutting the funding it's from going 4
million to 46 million in expenses and only having revenues to go up to like 42 milon all right with that we need a motion to uh move into executive session I make a motion to adjourn to Executive session to return to regular
session pursuant to mgl 3A section 2187 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel
second all right that's a roll call Jason yes Lucas Michael yesan Yes Ben Amy yes all right we'll be back shortly [Music]
let's come back to order we returning to open session let's see we're returning to open session um let's see uh we need to vote in Open session again Jason yes Lucas Michael
Jean Jen yes Paula yes Mark yes Amy yes um yes so we're back in session um think we've had a lot of public participation so I'm going to go past that and go to the approval of minutes
make a motion to approve the minutes of the January and 9th 2025 second all right any further discussion see none all in favor I I'm going to abstain all
right um we uh have discussed in uh executive session the um sending the contracts of our Middle School principal and our Middle School head custodian and our uh
Treasurer um for anybody who might be interested yes these are all included in our budget and part of our budget presentation are expected and we have to have these positions so um do I have a motion related to those contracts I make a motion that we extend the um Middle
School principal's contract Middle School head custodian and treasur contract has presented second okay any further discussion all right all in favor I any opposed very
good all right we are going to hear from our uh Police Association I believe Police Department dep how you doing John Lieutenant King police uh I kind of know that this is bad timing for asks uh due to budgets but there's a
reason for it I'll keep it short uh so basically we're asking uh due to the middle school and the volume of work that's kind of arisen since we started it uh we're looking to try to get someone up there fulltime uh there definitely a need for it we see it we
see the value of it and uh currently how it's funded is it's buil between palax and Plimpton um and it's paid like a detail uh everyone knows the budgets all the budgets are tough right now if those uh
line items of how they budget that money goes away same thing with us uh we kind of risk losing that parttime off up there so what the chief is uh trying to get is a uh a full-time officer up at the uh Middle School
and uh requesting that be partially paid for we would have the other part paid out of uh chapter 7 and I have the figes here I can pass up probably tell enough that kind of breaks down and it's
only the base salary it's not like the health insurance and everything like that so questions so I appreciate you being here this evening um SRO have been part of I've done here over the past decade um starting with a full-time school
resource officer paid for fully by Kingston at the school we paid for that um we have to we subsequently got Halifax and Clinton on board for the part-time school resource officer at the middle school which is paid annually by Town articles um for the first couple of
years Clinton passed its article uh Halifax did not had some problems with the methodology for which we were paying for that school Reon resource offic they actually asked us to include it in our operating budget so your proposal this
evening that Chief has come up with um for the town of Kingston to supply us a full-time school resource officer for roughly $60,000 would actually be a net even for Halifax in plinton it would satisfy
Halifax's long standing argument that that should be funded through the budget and we give Becky with all the DAT she been able to supply to us um the adequate resources at her school fulltime because we all know that behaviors don't wait for the parttime officer to show
up really appreciate the chief taking on the burden of the benefits package I know when we looked at the cost of a full-time school resource officer last year we reported what of $125,000 benefits so this is an
extremely fair offer obviously we would share that officer with the town Kingston during non school hours and during summer vacation as well it would be similar to uh What uh a Allen is up at the high school um the
fair basically from the Department uh internally is we understand the budgets um if it doesn't get funded things have to be cut things have to be cut and uh unfortunately that's one of those areas that uh if it's not if it's not a must
and we're not dictated by Statute to have someone up there then those other the things I think 30,000 additional well is to have a full-time resource officer short and these days and AG so thank you I have uh kind of the
breakdown that I was given if anyone wants them I'd like one and if any of them um if I don't have enough you can either email me or I can have a cheap sh up anyone else yeah thank
you one thank you sh oh wait do I have a motion you Mr chair I would request that we hold this information and this concept
for the larg budget discussion okay all right we can include that then in that discussion thank you officer bitman thank you all right uh uh Miss kette hi everyone I only have a few updates for
you um students are involved some of the eth grade students are involved in a geography be we finished our history B earlier in um the fall and so they're excited to get into the second and third rounds of that this week basketball season closed with a
successful um game yesterday against sandwich um both students and staff Alik have come up to me talking about the professionalism the coaching the sports sportsmanship on both teams we're really proud of that we will be hosting a student and staff basketball game which
we call March Madness on um March 20th anyone here is certainly invited and lastly um Leah Tyler was able to ascertain a grant of $1,810 through the Peter Marsh Foundation um which combines musicality
with Outreach to the community so you'll see that in one of your Excel spreadsheets in the drive that I thought it was worth mentioning today that is all I have do we need a motion to accept the grant no okay that's different than a donation all right thank you very much
it's my report okay thank you that's what I said I have a little bit of a longer list tonight sorry everyone um in your shared folder is a copy of the senior bulletin that's just for informational purposes so that you can see the different activities and events that we have planned for our senior class um also some save the dates as you
were all invited to attend graduation and so on stage with us and help me hand out diplomas Gordon um I have a few donation requests tonight if it's okay I can read them all and perhaps they can all be voted together do you want to that good all right fantastic um Kingston public library has a list of
books that they would like to donate that list is in the shared folder um we're also like to accept $400 from the fast family to update and enhance the Barbara F media center and then our credit for Life advisers would like to accept a few donations um $250 from
Eastern Bank $300 from our PTO $1,000 from Cape Cod 5 and a variety of gift card gift cards and raffle basket items from Keller Williams realy Julie Bellis um to help support our credit for Life fair that takes place later next month okay so I think we need a motion
to accept those donations I'll make a motion to accept all of the donations that Mrs Gil read second I didn't run down F sorry any further discussion all right see none all favor I promises thank you thank you
thank you um I have an out ofate field trip request on behalf of our carpentry program they'd like to travel to Bryant University in Rhode Island on April 29th um this year they partnered with an awesome um program called project Playhouse which is a nonprofit dedicated to building dream playhouses for
children with serious illness so in partnership with local Vocational High Schools wish granting organizations and corporate sponsors the program strives to provide children with a personal getaway that promotes healing inspires imagination and activates fun um our students were matched with a child whose interests include train space and the
Avengers so they've built a playhouse that will make sure everyone gets a chance to see it's an Avengers train with a lookout that includes a telescope it's painted bright fun colors um and all the schools that build playhouses are invited to attend the real reveal day at Bryant campus where children are surprised with their custom Playhouse
we'd love for all of our students be able to travel out of state for that big moment with your approval I will make a motion that we approved the field trip for the program to Bryant University on April 29th all right any further discussion
seen none all in favor thank you everyone um for our program and study updates for 2025 2026 um in the shared folder are two documents one is the full program of studies um and then I did a onepage summary to make it a little bit easier
to digest all of the additions are highlighted in red all of the removals the things that we're proposing to take out have a strike through through them um it includes updated mcaps and competency determination language to reflect the law change Following last
November's Mo uh vote and then some of the biggest changes that we're proposing is that given our mcast scores from the past five years and are concern that without that competency determination requirement for mcast scores may drop even lower we would like to restructure
our levels and add an accelerated level um in addition we're working to figure out a structured plan to provide more opportunities for co- teing especially in grades 9 and 10 Ela and Mathematics with a specific focus on improving instructional practice and providing grade level standards based instruction and so as a highlight in the updated
program of studies we're asking to um continue our final phase of removing College Prep 2 level courses um we would add an accelerated level that would be something new and then um we would revise the descriptions of our learning levels for college prep
accelerated and then our honors in advanced placement which would combine in that third level together um those course descriptions or those level descriptions are included for you if you want me to read them I can um we anticipate course selections beginning
per usual after February break we host the rising eighth grade families on February 27th and then we'll give the eighth grade class their presentation at the middle school on March 3rd um but we would need your vote to make all those changes possible first make a motion to
accept the course changes as suggested by the Pres any further discussion see none all in favor thank you everyone and then I'm going to turn over to everybody's favorite representative from the high school Chris Smith hi again for I have a little
happier news this time so um break is coming up I think we're all excited just one more day left um we decided to do March mania this year so that's going to um cuz March is a really slow month at the school so we're thinking it's spirit
week maybe like a pep rally some basketball game stuff like that um a big thing that we had is people were crushing school records like multiple times it's really impressive so we want to make sure that we like honor those
athletes that are doing amazing also another thing thing that's coming up is the Ramy run that's something that's like personally really important to me um I know it's a lot of people at this school
still like he's it's been a bit but I still personally remember him really well like he was my teammate so we all are trying to make sure that people show up to that and that that is well
advertised for um that's it thank you if you don't know our 4x200 uh Relay Team broke the school record twice they broke they broke the record then they broke their own record and um then I think uh will Hinkley will Hy set two
records in shot put so yeah we did a special recognition ceremony for them at last Friday night's basketball game will shattered a record that was held by one of Mr glass's good friends from when they were growing up so it's been a while since these records have been broken and they got Mr Swanson had these
amazing shirts made for them so shout out to that to that team great and our wrestling team is crushing it this season yeah that's all for the high school thank you okay all right so we'll go next to Dr panes and again I framed
this with the understanding that um she would be proposing or presenting on what some additional investment in special education would look like and possible returns from that this is not included in the budget presentation so the
expenses here nor the revenues are anticipated revenues or anything like that are included if for some reason anybody wants to try to you know add them to the budget they would have to be added and voted in so right Dr thanks
for building that context so this proposal um was built for um look the idea of looking and thinking outside the box so so when we trying to click it over there we go so one of the things
that we looked at is I chose what's the question that I want to answer what do we really want to see to what extent does the Civil Lake School District substantially separate programs that we have now in place actually meet the needs looking at the
educational benefits of students in accordance with Fai my second question was to what extent does the civil Continuum of services meeting the mandates of students to learn in their least restrictive environment meaning sub separate those students that are out
of District are the most restricted students they have no opportunity whatsoever to be able to participate in all the wonderful things that you've just heard happen at the high school and to what extent are the Civil a Staffing Resources utilized effectively and efficiently to meet the needs of the
general and special education student population so those are kind of the three things that I was really looking at and I kind of put that in the context of the cycle of inquiry these are just questions that I felt really you know I
would want to answer some of the background though information I think is important and our chair's already shared some of it with you okay Massachusetts school districts plac special education students in a district school placements at more than twice the rate of national
average this is fact the other piece that you should remember is that Massachusetts has a very generous and very um extending understanding of Eligibility if you look at some of our states some of our states have 13 to 14%
we are upwards of 21% and it's not because all the students with disabilities happen to live in Massachusetts there are about 9500 special education students enrolled in separate public or private day schools in Massachusetts in
2022 800 students with complex disabilities were in residential and right now there's a waiting list of approximately 2 2500 to 3,000 students that are awaiting placement from 688 into State programs
mental health programs that is so backed up so the number of students that are turning 22 that require now a transition of those Services there's a huge backup there the cost of sending students out of district has is fire outpaced
inflation increasing by 35% over the last decade and that was from the state so this is due in part to the rising tuitions and it looks like about 14% from 2013 to 2023 which doesn't sound
like a lot but then when you adjust it for the inflation it's an awful lot of money so the idea that we have a budget and the budget's gone up a lot of money we do have to take into account that that is inflation as well we just we
just cannot buy what we used to buy with funds that we had years ago this is another important piece and key factor that I looked at and it was the early intervention you can see that the increase of 7.5% you can see some dips you can see
the covid dip because nobody wanted to bring the CH child in for child find and you can see it's gradually going up and up and up and many of the children um with extremely complex disabilities we're extending their lives so we are
educating those students in our district so what are the objectives that we're looking for so we're looking for programming in the inter integrated preschool specifically for those students with the most complex disabilities we're looking at a middle
school consultancy program and the high school and possibly an program across the district at the upper level of inter of Elementary School we're going to be able to provide improved services and
support to the families and students with disabilities we will increase our family Network we will build more trust and more competence we will have Community Partnerships and resources programming will include professional development
that must happen the year before we implement the program we can't offer program you can't you can't run that ship okay without having the capacity you're going to set it up for failure so this has to be implemented in a very strategic way if we're going to do this
all the PD goes the year before who gets trained everybody gets trained the teachers get trained the Paris get trained the bus drivers get trained all those individuals interact with our students potential reduction in out District tuition cost could happen and
as our chair pointed out it's not guaranteed to happen because we have stport rights but if we have a high quality program that's run the right way we can offer not only our students placements we can look to other districts to place in our
school and that would be a big plus for school for for in the districts around here that are sending the kids to Boston if we have those specialized classrooms so we did A needs assessment or I did A needs assessment I took a a lot of the TFM data from the state
review of special education this year and we looked at the Historical special education student data what's the profile of the students that are most going out of district and staying out of District so that was one Deep dive we looked at the achievement gaps our gaps
are getting bigger they're not getting smaller so the difference between the general education students achievement and the special education students achievement is getting bigger and bigger and bigger so we have to take a look at that the feedback from the TFM classroom
walkthroughs their suggestions The District student data on the types of disabilities so for example when we look at autism we know that is one of the second you know highest um disability categories besides specific
learning disabilities but in Silver Lake it's health health is a second so we need to take a look at where are the children what are the profiles underneath a health disability and what are the needs that we have to take care of for those
students so we use that feedback the data that was used again most of it was from the student discipline data the TFM data that we had to all gather and send off to the state and the student achievement and initial program review
for the Silver Lake integrated preschool and that here's your collaborative classrooms this would be at the integrated preschool level the New England Center for Children serves students with the most complex autism disabilities they have a partner
program of $155,000 a year they provide professional development they come into the school they do all the training and you B can build teacher capacity that way and it's like a coaching model they're there the Upper Elementary social
emotional Learning Classroom right now we do have a couple of schools that are struggling our district does not have have a program framed around Castle which is the framework for social emotional learning we don't have that integrated in any of our schools right
now so this is another area where we're looking at the whole child and we're looking to intervene the consultancy program at the middle school next year we're going to have two classrooms for students with autism at school increasing needs of
students with autism at the school and we need to have the ability to be able to meet those students needs because if we can't meet those students needs those students will be going out of District the high school social emotional therapeutic classroom we do have something in place right now but
it's not as formalized most of the students that are out of District right now are at the high school level a lot of them have the health disabilities and they may not have gone out at the high school level they may have gone out in the sixth grade or the fifth grade and
never to come back because we don't have the effective supports and programming to meet those students needs so what do the Staffing requirements look like for the collaborative classroom you have one teacher four par professionals because
we really that particular program really believes in early intense early intervention and some of these supports we already have so it might be just be the cost of the partnership which is 155 bucks
the Upper Elementary seal classroom would require one teacher two par professionals one bcba that's dedicated to that program and one school adjustment Council that's dedicated to that program and the reason why those are dedicated positions because the
proposed program would take in all of the districts it would be Halifax Kingston and um Plimpton the high school sea classroom we would need one teacher two Behavior technicians hi trained Behavior technicians one bcba that's dedicated
and one school adjustment because what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of the mental health issues just really um being triggered on a daily basis with the least amount of demand put on students so what do the costs look like
so when we look at the additional power professionals at the elementary at the Early Childhood Program it's approximately $50,000 for two15 by for the neck partnership program when we look at the Upper Elementary classroom that's an
additional $50,000 additional teacher approximately 92 the bcba 92 and school counselor 85 and high school classroom you can read that it be $50,000 for the two Behavior
technicians additional teacher 92,000 bcba that's dedicated to that program and adjustment counselor as well the Middle School cons program would come under contracted services so what does that all roll up to you I didn't add it all together
because I wasn't sure you were going to pick and choose or whatever come add it all together can someone add that all together am's doing it and when we say uh two pair of professionals is that two each at 50 or is that no two would cost $50,000 it'll cost a 25,000 a piece
okay is that assuming then that they're doing this part-time and doing other things or is that no all day same place all day same place okay training specialized okay I'll ask a question can you share
them what's that can the middle school and high school share any of these have to be in one building or in the other building I think eventually that is a really good thing to think about at first I I wouldn't even attempt it okay at first I think you need to stay get
that program in place stabilize that program and then I think you probably could move to something like that but you have to remember we don't have a bcba really you know dedicated to the high school to begin with so I would look at those positions being able to filter out Beyond those programs to be
able to sport other children to prevent those children from going into the sub separates that would be the ideal Vision extra value added would see later is the additional physical needed to there would be and that's part of the timeline piece on the next slide thank
you Paul so one of the things that you have to remember is if we were going to charge tuition to other districts we would undercut what I know webly should say this out loud but we would underbid what other districts are paying they're going
to save in two ways they're going to save on the tuition and they're going to save on Transportation some of our kids transportation is almost as much as the tuition and and when I see it I just it doesn't sit right with me when I think
about it um so those are things that we can consider so another way we might want to view this so let me ask this to um is this so we would need all this on like September 1st of this coming year and to carry it
for a year with no tuition um I would say that we need the Prof professional if we're going to do something like this I would say we need to have at least we'd have to start the professional development right now go
through the summer of the professional development which would be costs okay and then halfway through next year you could probably be in a good position to open up these classrooms I would not open up these classrooms without giving the intense professional development that people need to make sure that we
have a high quality program and we're just wasting our money and setting it up so you're thinking that by January of 2026 we would have class do so we would so this is about $850,000 if if Amy's
addition is correct she's a math teacher coaches the math team so we're we're going to go by Amy um so it's $850,000 and we would start running that essentially this summer a run rate of
you know whatever and you think we would start accepting students with into these classrooms as of January when the professional development is done and the spacing has been organized and we can start taking students if we take that
number that Amy just gave us and thank you for that I could be wrong do we include the Upper Elementary I included all three I just want if we if we look at the idea in our budget though yeah because we're not our budget is only 7 through
12 in preschool so I include is it though because we we have all the special reconstruct another way to look at this is you take that number that we added it whatever it is and divide it by about
$75,000 and that's how many students we'd have to take from somebody else's District to break e so it's about 10 students um well we'd also have to I mean if we kept our own students in and we're we would have our own okay Jason
so it wouldn't be 10 students we don't capturing reue from January first on when the start I'm just thinking of a run R not not a but well I'm just thinking how the collaboratives have run their budgets and we have to do it based on when the
kid actually shows up y um and I love I love what's up here and you answered one of my questions with the approximate tuition we would be looking at I think the actual benefit is is for our own students it's not just the financial aspect of it but it's keeping
kids in their neighood school with their with their friends with their family we have better outcomes when kids stay in their home District I appreciate the fact that collaborators exist and private special ed schools exist very often professionals are actually less
qualified and certified than what we could potentially provide here in District so there's nothing but positives up on the and I appreciate being presented with this however in light of the current budget situation me considering $800,000 of extras while I'm
considering what I had to cut from my budget to make it work I would encourage us to ask the administration which one of these would provide provide the the greatest benefit to our students locally
if we were to invest in focusing on one of the over the next couple of years I can tell you which which one do you think would benefit our kids the most and I'm not asking financially right the high school seal I four kids
going out um the Silver Lake preschool right now has a consultancy model with with Nick if we didn't do that we'd still keep the consultancy model but that is where everything starts let's face it and
right now we have Kingston Elementary and Kingston intermediate that may have that as well if I had to look at it it would be the high school because that's where my kids are going out and you already have a program that would be a natural filter from the Middle School
into the high school for this program yeah yeah okay the planning and program timeline you can see here that we have you know what do we do the PD
first our next step and I just made just some fake dates there to move forward but you can see that in fiscal year 27 it's program evaluation so it's it's not enough to just put the programs in we have to evaluate ourselves as to the
effectiveness of those programs and if they're doing what we intended to do we will do that as we move along and tweak as we move along but it does us no good to Institute certain things and then not evaluate ourselves on how we're doing it so I wanted to make sure that people
understood that piece too there'll be tweaks there'll be adjustments um but I think that it it could be done it's a huge investment um this might not be the time for this but we do have this information we may
use it in the future one of us may hit that Lottery because I play it every week and you know what that may be something I want to do with my money so let's go back to the cost slide so Jason your question is if we
picked only one of these to fund Dr Pan's answer is the high school seal which would be be $319,000 right okay and we're saying we already have something in the preschool and we could we even choose to fund the
Upper Elementary no we we can't this committee can't choose that no okay so the best that this committee could do would be to choose to fund the high school seal at $319,000 with the hope of keeping three
to four of our own kids here and attracting three to four kids from other districts and that would be as early as January yes okay if we had the right hires we had everybody in place
everybody was trained and it's not just people that are doing the program everyone in the school has got to sign on to the training because when that child walks outside that door if that Community
isn't their Community it's not going to work think' seen studentes Mr chair I would encourage us to to consider just one until it proves though so we can focus our efforts onto
that One Singular item if we're going to consider anything at all and then once it's up and running and it's successful then we can consider the programat okay that would be my suggestion all right what's the training cost on so that
depending on the program so in my school what I had I actually had a separate Day School inside my elementary school when I was a principal I used Walker I had tried to enter into a collaborative type of agreement with
pack but I couldn't get a reduction of the um tuitions they don't do that um but there is another collaborative that does do that that I could look into and report back later on that um because that's ideal to have a collaborative in
there um and then get reduced rates because you're kind of getting Best of Both Worlds the kids have opportunities to be in their home school you have the collaborative in your school Becky has the collaborative in her school right now but they're not connected or aligned
to her program but I believe there's other collaboratives that I talked to um that would be able to partner with us and that might be another option and I could come back with that data for you at a later time okay um I think Jen's
question though was the training how much the training well I'd have to put the quotes out all right um Paula you had a question is if everything went as you described in January 1 we had a program
to allow students into is that an odd time in the school school year to launch something like that not really um our a district children there's a couple of a district children where their AO District placements are not meeting their needs and and as it was pointed
out before some of the people that are in these schools that are actually teaching our child on anywhere near as qualified as the teachers that we have in our own district and because there's waivers because there's a shortage we don't have any guarantees I look at
their mcast scores in their mcast all schools and I know this sounds terrible but if they're not good and they're failing then how do I know that fape is being delivered and if they're not good and those students are failing they're not accessing the curriculum they're not
learning and they might as well be in their home District because I don't see any benefit that's that's taking place for these kids so I I think that you know um looking at it from that point of view we
could it's at that break where the holiday December break is and some kids have wanted to come back I've had kids that have left their private schools and entered into online learning at the um online high schools
private online high schools right around that time we still provide tutoring for them and I have one graduating already so kids do at that age kind of get fed up with the private school business so it might be nice to be able to come come
back and graduate with you know your own peers if I could just add to that as the pack rep um when we go over the numbers every month at our pack meetings the enrollments are up down there are kids coming in and going out every month of the year so I I I basically agree with
what you're saying Christine that I think with some of these kids the idea of starting at a different School mid year is not as traumatic as it might seem and i' also like to bring up the point potential of taking 45 placements as well not just
Years Mark I don't want to throw a wet blanket on the high school idea but the preschool would provide uh lower cost investment and you got to get an early intervention as you indicated in your presentation these kids go out they
don't come back if you never got if they never leave and you start it right um I would think that would be a better investment because it doesn't take many students to come up with a couple hundred, I mean you know almost one or two students and you're going to pay
that bill but the placements the only kids that going out of district from the preschool so far so far are the kids with a medical fragile um diagnosis and you're not going to be a it's the high school that I have the kids going up
okay that makes sense thank you all right um Jean I'm just wondering if we can table the discussion about a vote on this yeah I was I was about to say we don't want to vote now we want to have a part of the budget
so if our pack could change the rules all right so I just wanted everybody keep that in mind um so that when you hear the budget presentation and you're weighing things out you have this in the back of your mind and then we can either
decide to make it part of the budget or not part of the budget or whatever the case might be um Sarah thank you um I want to start off by talking about our submission to the Department of Revenue so as part of our
end of year submission for 2024 uh we have to fill out a lot of um online spreadsheets submit them um we submitted our uh data to the Department of Revenue at the end of December and heard back from them in February and we had to
do some revie and resubmit we met with Department of Revenue on Monday resubmitted on Wednesday and um so what I want to talk to you about is our un audited undesignated fund balance so this is
what we have presented to the Department of Revenue and then I I looked on the website at all the different things that we provide them and there's nowhere on the website that I can get a hint of what magic they do when they then turn
around and say okay this is what your end is so um I what I will tell you is our beginning undesignated fund balance from last year was approximately 1.9 million of which 1.5 million was
certified as end so our current year undesignated fund balance that was submitted to glr yesterday is uh 2. 25 million and again I wait to hear from
Department of Revenue to see what they will certify as end so there is something in your packet on this if you want to pull that up it's got um what Sarah's describing and if you want to ask questions now because
obviously um having e and D in play for the budget is um significant so just is that number was it limited last year on how much we can have an end or is it based on based on a
percentage or was it end is a percentage of your operating budget 5% of your total Opera operating budget and if you remember our operating budget uh increased significantly last year because of the restructuring so we should anticipate a slight increase to
match that increase if they were going to certify all of it yes seeing you're in excess of thank you Mr chair for you to the chair of safer do you have an anticipated dollar figure you need for your toal
plan for FY 26 wish you came to our meeting no s where I was I'll let Sarah cover that as I think she's got it um the short answer is we have a building study that was done evaluating all the things we need to fix and I won't get
into the details or the magnitude of what was highlighted but um with without that information which we received yesterday they weren't able to put together a comparable number I indicated that it would be no less in my opinion than what it was two years ago because
last year we took a substantial B on producing that to be able to help fund the budget with that b& funding so I think if we continue to not make our investment in these buildings we are going to be substantially behind the curve um so that was just my personal
opinion what was your investment two years ago uh half a million capit plan if I recall I don't have the exact number okay so round number probably looking at $750 to $500,000 in capital expenses for that
right right 750 would be great all right thank you any other questions I so the the preliminary facility study that we presented had uh was missing the school administration
building and the um wastewater treatment plant and the um and was divided up into three categories immediate needs need to be taken care of within you know a year or so and then medium-term needs and
long-term needs up to you know things that can be kicked down the road for 10 years and the scope one items were just the middle school and high school not including the water treatment plant were at $5.8
million right so so if we're looking at a number like that we need to bond we're not going to pay for it through so no no so 750 for and for FY 26 that's for sa potentially it's not going to be what it was last year no no
understood just trying to get a round number thank you um Mr chair hold on Jan was I was just going to ask because we you mentioned it in January um we have two more years on debt approv payment is that correct for our
district half of it comes off in May the middle school will come off in May of 2026 in the high school in May of 2027 and that's currently about a million and a half a year is that correct yes thank
you good and just to confirm the the cap on e and D balance is 5% of budget okay Jas so I just want to I have every
intention of the world to use end to help the operating budget again this year I understand the fiscal cliffs that this can produce but seeing that end could potentially be fully replenished this year I want to understand how it kind of got back to fully replenished
and see if that is replicable in future years or if this is an anomaly feel like this is a refund on my taxes I'm thrilled I'm thrilled by the number but I'm concerned about whether or not we can do this again and again right right yeah we talk about
sustainability right right so there were three main contributing factors to the end one of them was the turn back at the end of the year last year from Silver Lake unspent money out of the operating budget that went back and that was somewhere in my
notes that's probably sitting on my desk but it was around $300,000 $350,000 um we had about $127,000 in interest income and about 350,000 in revenue from the solar
project so we have about a million dollars in the turn a combination of turn back uh metering credits and interest income and we're saying that
our beginning balance was nearly $2 million um at the start of the year and we had to deduct from it uh 750 Grand and
then um we've brought on a million dollars or so and hence we're at 2.2 keep in mind that the net metering credits are part of as counted as
Revenue as part of the assessment formula so we can't count that twice okay but we have a current undesignated fund balance of 2.2 we started off it apparently started
off the year with 1.9 yes that was that wasn't started it was in February of last year we were at 1.9 and this year we're at
2.2 and we used 750 toward our budget and then essentially got that back in more this year yeah so I think Jason's question is is
something along the lines of let's pretend that we use $1.2 million um well it's the likelihood that approximately a million dollars is going to show up again and pump us back up to about $2 million in IND
that's essentially question I would say pretty good yeah but it's a cble listen I've been on the committee for a long time with Paul and Mark and a few of youve been here for a few years with us some people in the room know what I'm about to say we've been funding the building envelope program in this
district for 10 years now at 500 to 750,000 per year and every year I've been told oh you're not going to have the money to do it next year year but we end up having it through what just was described as some
of the money that's left over at the end of the year if we don't Wile our budget down to the bone every single year sometimes we do have a little bit of money in lines at the end of the year from a $40 million budget having about 300,000 left at the end of the year it's not as much as it might sound right the
net metering deal Joe chases thank you very much right $400,000 a year little bit here a little bit there I know that Sarah did some excellent work and found some money that we were we were paying twice on and we recouped
about $300,000 for D and last year from as well um I I'm just I can't sit in the room and not consider losing this money again this year to avoid everything we've just been
talking about and maybe we don't have to be aggressive as 1.2 maybe we can leave a little money in the cam in case we need it for emergency maybe we can fund capital a little bit higher to try and offset some of the things that coming down the road um but I really want us to
lean into to these unconventional methods yet again this year to keep our school hold and to just to add to that there's a middle school anticipated Revenue source of that
um Grant because of the so because of the AC we're putting in mhm so there's some money that we should anticipate next year but we have to install it rebate that's Sarah you were going to you raise your hand uh back in the fall I brought some unpaid bills to
you to pay out of end D and we voted on that and then the next week I took a course about uh from do and learned that that vote was invalid because end hadn't been certified yet for the year and so I
am I am going to bring that that back to you again those bills to be paid once end is certified because you can't vote end D until it's certified is that the 214 I'm sorry is that on
this page here is that the incumbrance what is that is that has that not been subtracted yet from E and D because we haven't I don't know what eend D is because as I said earlier there there's nothing that I can find on the do
website that's going to give me an indication of what they're going to come back at us with right Sarah but the amounts you just said we have to revote are they in the amount the total that we are talking about spending right now you have an undesignated 2.24
million yes they are part of that okay so what do so it's not 2.24 million it's 2 million no no no uh it's not that big of am an amount hang on let me pull up yeah if if last year was
undesignated at 1.9 1.5 by certified we can anticipate that the number will be lesser than the 2.25 million so we need to know what number we we have potentially in play here yes I understand that yeah and I'm
not going to know what end is until the do sends us the letter right so in theory let's say that the number that we talked about 2. 25 million let's in theory say that gets certified is that what we're looking to get
certified I guess my bottom line she submitted 2.25 to the deal okay that's what she submitted to be C okay so now the the bills we need to pay and vote again $3,427 38
300,000 thought it was something bigger too oh no okay okay so good just want to dovetail I guess on what Jason said Jason I am in the same mindset as you I've been on these committees for
nearly two decades now and silver Lake's the only one with end obviously Halifax Elementary doesn't have it I caution us and I don't think I'm I'm on board with you Jason because I don't think we have a lot of choice but I caution us and and this is always the
mindset of an operating budget you you spend that budget you don't you don't spend monies that are not Perpetual we're not guaranteed end D is Perpetual we don't
know what we're looking at next year so we're potentially kicking the can down the road again we have a sustainability issue here John Creed used to say it it it's been coming and and it's here
now I'm sorry Jas just one second I'm in I'm in I'm fully in your mindset I just caution us that we're really band dating the problem for this one year in lack of
State funding mandates and where is the millionaire millionaire tax money that was for Education guys we haven't seen a dime of it but all of these things are out of our control in the immediate future so I just caution us that we might get
another fiscal year out of this and then we're going to be hanging off that Cliff again next year Jason I appreciate you being on board with the idea I would argue back though respectfully Paula that it's not a sustainability issue if you and I had
both seen this replenish itself and we've been able to use $750,000 a year out of theer over a decade I am inent of the fact that this could evaporate someday and the next year might be the year where it doesn't manifest which is why I would encourage
us to pull on all the other little levers we can first and then only use as much of end as we have to use in order to make this budget work for our towns you know I I could not live with myself
knowing that we had $2 million in the bank and we're cutting programs and we're cutting step I don't think that was the intent of anybody on this committee or the administration I think that the administration had to give us the options knowing the fiscal realities our
towns were facing none of us wanted tier two and tier three to be realized and we're desperately clawing for ways to try and make sure they don't actually happen and we think we have a solution to the problem but it's going to take a little bit of time we need a firm number
from the Department of Revenue and we need to put Collective heads together to pull on those little levers to get us even closer to the number um last year I predicted that we would have a year where we could be close to zero I was wrong at Silver Lake um and it's largely
due in fact to things that have already been mentioned during the meeting so far this evening I was correct about the bounce back of the elementary FS so we can give some relief to the towns for the elementary budgets to be satisfied I am happy to KCK the can for one more
year us 12 more months to plan for7 and then just to reiterate again if we only use and I don't mean only as if 1.2 is not more than half this money it's about
60% I believe but if we were to use that 1.2 and then had another year where we have any money left to put back into it at the end of the year then we do potentially have enough carry us if we're in this situation next year prior
to letting the debt fall off the year following so that's a million and a half dollar that's going to be available for Revenue two years down the road taking away from our Capital plan though because we' saved the town's money by
funding our own Capital improve not improvements maintenance it is right so agree again though for long-term stability of that Capital plan I would arue that we need to get away from using end to fund capital and we need to bond it up I agree we need to come up with a
nice plan that we have the beginning an excellent plan there of how to take care of the facilities here and we also need to lean into msba funding for any reimbursement that the state will give us for any of the projects that qualify and hopefully there will be so in federal tax credits
that we can be reful as well there's a lot to investigate the problem right now is how do we keep those late buses going for students who need academic support whose parents are working and can't get them home from school how do we keep our Athletics going and our extracurricular
is going how do we meet the needs of all of our students to the best of our ability so they can all achieve their highest all right um can I just ask one question do we know between now and a year from when we're going to be sitting
here in the same position again what Kickbacks and what stuff that will be coming into us as far as seeing a profit come in like what was not not easily no not easily that that so what is
difficult to predict is like Jason pointed out if you underspend your line items a little bit it's nickels and dimes but it can add up to $300,000 you you can't project that in the budget um likewise something like
the net metering that comes from solar has a whole lot to do with the price of energy and so sometimes it goes up and really favors us and sometimes it goes down and doesn't favor us as much but um that's that's hard to predict and um you
know some of what it's just you know 2 million like $2.2 million is 5% of the budget and it's not budget even it's five but it is 5% of $40 million um which is a tad more than a
rounding error but not a lot more so just to sort of address that in a different way uh keep in mind that this building this beautiful new building is not a new building anymore and uh a number of our physical systems are at end of life so the you're asking
me to predict what's going to be added in and I can't predict no no no I'm asking what any stuff that's coming back to us as like a a a Revenue that we're going to see I understand that but but but on the other side I also can't
predict for you what catastrophic system if a major if a major AC thing goes then we have to aware of all the things that need to be taken care of so I think that brings up a good a good point I I think what she's what we're trying to say here is
that we need everyone to remember what your decision is and that we're not promising that systems won't fail because we can't I promise that and when we go to towns and we present things we sometimes face opposition as
to funding our budget with end D and we also face opposition with um not uh anticipating those kinds of failures and so we are we we need we need that to be very clear that we're not pretending to
know what's going to fail and when we know that these are expensive items we also can't promise you that you're going to get the same revenues next year folks are at 8:00 Paula we got a I don't need to beat a dead horse but
Sarah you've done a lot of Corrections a lot of fixing things a lot of reconciliations is there any piece of this amount of money that was found from
the work that you've done the good work that you've done that we know is not going to be repetitive next year that it's it's truly 200,000 of this guys is not going to come back to us because I corrected this I found this and don't
you know take it off the top just I need to be 100% perfectly clear that I rely on the district accountant who is brilliant and the the major portion if not all of the end work is done by her
all the work that I am doing is I'd like to refer to it as expenditure World our operation operating budget the chart of accounts and how how we're going to be spending the operating budget so um I'm on the outskirts of the the work that
the accountant is doing that's going into to do so I'm not going to take any credit for that and then to follow that up um any this stuff that's happening is completely unrelated to the chart of
accounts and the um making it so that our financial system works better for us so you're saying to the best of your knowledge there's nothing in here that is certainly a onetime non-repetitive there's nothing there that jumps out at
you correct okay Sarah if you would finish up your uh I have to wake up my computer to see what's next sorry grants donations Awards uh actually still on the financial report you had asked about
refinancing or it's called refunding The Debt I had a conversation with our financial advisor um and talked about two different things one taking the debt and and spreading it out over uh more years in order to make the amount
smaller that is I learned against the law and then um the amount of debt we have left talked to the adviser about refinancing or they call it refunding the debt to get a lower interest rate we have a fairly advantageous interest rate
right now and that um the between the costs of refunding the debt it's just going to make sense to pay it off it yeah it doesn't make sense to do that at this point in time okay and then um I
have the financial report for you and I would like your permission to just go every single meeting I go through everything on the report sometimes I repeat things month after month just looking for permission to just run through any changes to save some time
tonight sure so on page seven of the financial report you can see um there's a deficit because I moved nursing to contracted Services where it's an appropriate line
on page eight there's a deficit due to an increase in cost in custodial supplies and on page nine same thing with the high school grounds line there's a I'm sorry the the building maintenance line for the high school there's an increase of cost in
maintenance supplies and that is causing a deficit page 12 and 13 with the special education costs there are a lot of moving Parts with special education costs with Transportation contracted services and tuitions those three things
are funded by the 240 Grant and the operating budget so the special ed bookkeeper keeps a separate spreadsheet that she updates prior to each meeting and I like to share with you that at this time there's an overall Surplus in
those two accounts the operating budget and 240 grant for transportation tuitions and Contra Services any questions about that moving on uh grants donations and awards I have
four things for you tonight the uh Mass hire Southshore Workforce board is donating $2,000 to the credit for Life connecting activities um there's $5,600 from the8 Foundation which is for
the applied learning leadership Discovery program program um the Peter R Marsh Foundation wrote a check for $1,810 to the middle school for music education
expenses and we received a an emergency assistance shelter grant uh I'm sorry shelter fund reimbursement from the Department of Elementary and secondary education for $ 15,936
71 that is a total of1 $ 6,346 71 motion to accept the grants as listed by our Director of Finance further discussion see none all in
favor um Mr chair y I'd just like to uh to note here for the first time in Silver Lake we've got the 240 Grant approved um extraordinary amount the $1,000 um we took on a lot of special ed
costs and you know it's no small feat to get grants approved I know it's kind of perfunctory but it's a lot of paperwork um just appreciate the effort that was put into that thank thank Dr paneri it was a Herculean
effort on all four of the 240 grants this year really did but it was worth it it was tough because of the shifting of the money so it looked like we weren't pay we weren't spending as much money at certain schools so there was a
lot of um we had to verify the fact that these students went to this school so their costs went there that won't happen next year thankfully the last part of my report the corrective action plan in December I
submitted the Silver Lake Regional School District federal grants manual as a part of the remedy for the FY 23 corrective action plan and I'm waiting for a response from desie again I submitted that by the December 23rd deadline and I'm going to have to go with what my mother always said no news
is good news if they had a problem with it I assume they would have reached out to it but but I'm not quite sure uh we've been working with the auditor on the FY 24 audit for which I expect there to be continued findings necessitating another corrective action plan for this
reason as well as my retirement at the end of FY 26 I continue to encourage you to consider additional staff for the business office as requested um Dr Clifford if you could try to be as essential and brief as you
can I will I will be as essential brief as I can um just a few updates uh first one is the literacy needs assessment which I mentioned at the beginning of the year is really a look at literacy K 12 the hill for literacy completed that
um assessment which was of surveys inventories and interviews with uh faculty and staff um they met with the district leadership uh literacy leadership team on the 23rd of January and um basically we're going to be
meeting on March 6th to create a district literacy plan um there are five different categories of which we will build that plan on with action steps um for that for that plan and I'll be back to the committee and share that plan once we've done that work on March 6th
the other piece is that um the math curriculum steering committee continues to meet what is um most particular to Silver Lake is the um seventh and eighth grade teachers are looking at a math um program um to implement next year and we will be back in the spring to talk more
about that and present some information about that committee and what they've been doing um and I'm doing entry find entry visits to both the high school and the middle school which I've completed and done which have been very informative and now that is a that's record that's a record place I'm going
to turn um it over now to um Dan and Nicole to talk about the mcast update okay thanks hi everybody nicoa FAS Ela coordinator good to see you um in your shared folder you should find um the report that provides you some update information that um Dan and I are going
to share with you um starting uh just this December for the first time we expanded our star assessments um through 10th grade in both reading and math prior to December um after Elementary School where the students you know are
regularly assessed uh using starve we only had star reading in grades seventh and eth so this was a big um a big change and our um our teachers and our students um were were excellent at helping us to to be able to do that um star assessments do provide us with
foundational and screening information um that's really important for us as we make instructional decisions and as we um you know look to to sort of tailor um to our to our student needs so we have some data that we share we we took a look at some cohort data and Dan we'll
kind of talk you through what that looks like yeah so the data that we are sharing with you is sorted by grade level cohorts and so each graph that's in your um file has four vertical bars the two on the left are math data the two on the right are Ela data and it's a comparison of the most recent
administration of mcast that that cohort took against um what's called a consolid ated State performance report which is provided by star to determine student performance out outlook for the mcass um and that's based on the most recent Star Administration in December so it's a
side-by-side comparison of math scores on both instruments and then Ela scores for the same cohort um so you'll see that as you go through we can see that for our um seventh eth 9th and then 10th graders of course um we did make the note that for
the 10th graders the side by side comparison would be their eighth grade um mcast that would have been their most recent mcast um you know again we we think that these these assessments are important to us as another tool that we use in addition to our common
assessments um in addition to formative and summative assessments that are given by teachers um and as we as departments um look to to check for curricular alignment to take a look at you know where we're seeing um levels of success versus levels of need um toward each of
the the standards that are assessed by star um we're going to continue to use this information um to to help us to to plan instruction we'll continue to do so to help us identify students who need more support um as well as to adjust instruction as needed our next screening
is planned for March um for again that would be in both reading and math excellent thank you all right Dr brw I think you're up okay I have have one item in the folder tonight that um highlights uh students
leaving the district using school choice I'm happy to report that this year uh it is our lowest since the 2016 2017 with a total of 17 students um leaving the district using school choice uh the second thing I'd like to
introduce is the budget presentation for this evening and I'd like to say that although uh the majority of the presentation tonight will be uh done by our Director of Finance and operations uh that um she has been asked we have all
been asked to work together to present to you a number of possible options if in fact we need to reduce the budget in order to meet the 2% goal um but that in in an effort to kind of streamline the presentation most of the presentation
tonight will be uh presented by our uh Finance director so I'm going to turn it over to Sarah I'm also going to ask if possible if we could hold questions to the end tonight you're also going to see the assessments and so some of the questions that you may have may actually
get answered as we go along thank you talk approve the school committee asked us for 2% increase over the Silver Lake Regional School District budget for FY 26 2% increase on the FY 25 budget would be 404644 40 the Silver Lake Regional
School District level service budget for FY 26 is 44,7 67,8 59 that number is different from what we presented in January because uh principal Gil and I did some work with
the athletic the requests from the athletic department and the athletic revolving account we put some um costs that were previously in the athletic revolving account back in the athle revolving account and that is the change
that you see there after deducting anticipated grants and revolving totaling $3,186 th000 there's a difference of $1 1,1 17,41 to be addressed the total budget is an increase of
12.6% this is an increase of 4,998 ,800 more than last year payroll and benefits are 66% of the budget health insurance is expected to increase and I've budgeted to increase at
8% we have two known retirements at this time the estimated Savings of $128,400 6 remembering that the sixth grade students coming up that are out of District are going to be in grade seven next year so the cost of the transportation intuitions are going to
filter over into the middle school when I broke it down from the preschool the middle school and the high school you can see that we have the differences are with the total total tuition difference just for tuition is 1,128 124 with approximately
720 well I can't count that 53,6 $55 of that cost being for the grade six students transferring up to grade seven the next slide this looks at the transportation and this is the one that
I get nervous and I get really upset about because it's so much money but if we look at the differences between fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26 with a 3% increase which is what the state allows us and which we should do because that's what our vendors are charging us
the difference is 347,000 $979 and the cost for the six students that are coming up from the elementary bless you to grade seven account for $26,670 million we are not estimating the the extraordinary relief because we don't
know if we're going to get that not so it's best to not count on that and then have to tear it out later the fiscal year 240 Grant is going to be $495,000 and because we put our grants in now by each district the Equitable prop prop prop share amount for every
district has increased so there is a decrease in that amount there and then the 262 Grant which goes over to the Early Childhood is usually around $227,000 so the main driver for the increase in costs for Silver
Lake um the increase in salaries attributes to 1,388 629 um increase in special education out of District a little bit over a million recall last year that we offset
tuitions by uh $52,000 using the 240 Grant so you're seeing that $52,000 in the increase we had a $52,400 increase in transportation costs and there is an increase in the budget
uh $3,765 which is the increase in food service supervision so if you recall last year you voted to put the food service director into the um into the revolving account count I'm going to request that we move the food service
director and the uh and the her secretary into the revolving account and make that um kind of like an until further notice type of thing so I don't have to keep coming back and asking that each year
no later if you'd like so I put together a a graphic for the um the analysis of the increase so you could see um the bright blue piece of the pie salary increases 27.1% of the overall increase special ed
tuition increases 20% of the overall increase at the yellow piece of the pie um at the bottom that's that 500 $22,000 that we used last year from the 240 to offset tuition the increase in insurance is the green piece of the pie
10.2% the food service supervision 3% that is the little orange piece um increases in transportation you can't really tell from the screen but there's a pale blue almost turquoise going off to the left and then I put um that last
piece which is 22% of the increase is just due to various things so cost of toilet paper went up the cost of paper towels went up cost of utilities went up the um the inspection certificates for
the elevators that's all of those things that the everything else that aren't the the big buckets Michaela would you like to talk about the possible Revenue sure um at our last meeting these have not been added in correct correct correct at our
last meeting I was asked to look at any other potential Revenue that we could generate and so earlier this evening I presented to the um safer subcommittee some possible sources um the first one that I presented that was not really endorsed
or supported or a fan favorite was potentially adding an activity fee for students who participate in clubs where there is a staff stien to help offset the cost there um because so many students participate in multiple clubs um the estimated a revenue um
increase of about $110,000 um the three fees that were endorsed by the committee um were to increase our athletic and extracurricular fees so instead of $300 which our students currently pay our families I should say we would increase
that to $400 per student with the $200 sear charge for ice hockey and a $100 sear charge for gymnastics and swimming these are sports that require the of renting off-site facilities which would yield um more than $50,000 in extra Revenue we also discussed increase in
the annual parking fee which is not increased in at least 15 years from $50 to $100 for a total yield of 28,500 which would be an additional 14,000 each year again these would be costs that could offset um maintenance cost to repair the parking lot um we paint the
lines fixing poles seal coating signage things of that nature um and then we ALS also discussed proposing increasing our preschool tuition this is for the preschool that is housing our CTE program not the Silver Lake integrated preschool um tuition for the two-day class is
currently $660 we're recommending we increase it to $1,300 to the for the year and our three-day class would increase from $760 to $1,600 for the year still the best deal in town um it it matches market prices if not beats
them all and um aligns with the Silver Lake integrated preschool prices um and that would yield an additional $23,660 to again help offset some of those costs what the total of those about 90 grand about 90
grand right small so the number of students in private schools um is at 70 I believe if my eyes are still working and my
contacts are correct um it's been pretty stable since 2021 and the next uh slide is our Charter School enrollment um which has increased by three overall our next chart is um Charter
School tuition expenses Charter School tuition expenses there which um are highlighted for you the uh the estimated costs are listed out there um an increase of 4.3 4.9% thank
you all right sorry I didn't think that was my slide but I'll do it next year if you want me no sorry I can't load the pages to see the budg five meetings in four nights got it um so Silver Lake uses What's called the statutory assessment method the step one
of the assessment method is we start with the Silver Lake operating budget so in order to do this I used the 2% increase over FY 25 um so you start with the operating budget subtract out the costs that are
included in uh Silver Lakes net School spending so subtract out the transportation equipment costs subtract out any revenue and that gives you uh gives me a number for starting point to in step two of the assessment method um
adding in the minimum contributions for each of the towns the required local contributions um step three isn't a factor in in the assessment process anymore but it's still in the slot step four gives us the amount to be
assessed after the minimum contribution step five gives the net Transportation assessment so that's where the um net non- net School spending amounts are added back in in Step six there's an
assessment for the equipment step seven is debt service assessment and step eight when you add up steps two through six that gives us the operating assessment um plus step seven gives us
the total operating and capital assessment so this is the the process that I go through in order to do the assessments um at the bottom of this slide are the percentages of the um students enrolled in the Silver Lake schools the prek and the middle school
and the high school by town and so those percentages the certifi the um October one enrollments are what the assessment percentages are based on our Revenue sources for FY 26 you can
see that the the bulk of what we get on the right hand side is state aid um that is state aid less the transportation reimbursement um on the left hand side those are our local receipts and this is broken down a little bit better on this
slide here so our local receipts the pemro insurance reimbursements Silver Lake pays for and is reimbursed by the town of pemro for insurance to retirees retirees from Silver Lake that
are the responsibility of Silver Lake I'm sorry responsibility of Pembroke after the split that number goes down every year um and will continue to go down the other the next local receipt
the orange part of the graph there is the estimated preschool tuition that is the model peers for the Silver Lake integrated preschool if you compare this slide to last year's slide that that orange piece of the pie last year was bigger and it was CTE tuitions
and estimated preschool tuitions there will be no CTE tuitions for next year uh local receipts power purchase agreement is in there under Revenue our preliminary shared
costs um the big blue piece of the pie there on the right is our net state aid less the transportation and then the assessments the Big Green portion is the bulk of our revenue for the year so our preliminary FY 26 assessment
based on the current versions of the budget um the so taking into consideration the four factors the budget the revenue the Chapter 70 funding the minimum contribution by town the preliminary do Revenue cherry sheet
based on the governor's budget calls for net state aid which is education aid plus offset receipts less estimated charges of 10, 87,4 126 which is an increase of $1 17,745
from FY 2025 and I have to admit I would when I saw that number when I saw the cherry sheet and I did the math out I was a bit underwhelmed with that feel free to contact your state legisl so for for example
Halifax um increase was $129,800 over last year Kingston's 57853572 so when I look at the big picture of things I think okay it well at least it was an increase so that's good
news that represents an increase of 0.17% thanks for that wow that's amazing so then the next piece of this slide is the minimum contribution amount
so the 16, 84,4 36 based on the governor's budget is an increase of $97,700 over the fy2 minimum contribution so one of the things that
um that happens with Regional Schools is we get um directed from Department of Education this is what each town is responsible for in order to make uh to provide an adequate education for the
children so this is that's the bottom of that slide so that brings me into my um the assessment components so what I am going to tell you is this slide is different that left
hand column on the if you look in the school committee folder there is a um there is the presentation and then there's an updated presentation because the numbers I had the fy2 24 numbers in the Le hand side and as I was making my
notes for the meeting it made no sense and I fixed the slide so um if you refer back to that refer to the updated transportation and for everybody in the audience this is sorry updated presentation for everybody in the audience this is going to be posted on the district website tomorrow
morning so the assessment process starts with the operating budget so if I go down the FY 26 column using the 2% increase the
operating budget for Silver Lake for next for FY 26 would be 4,564 $ 4,340 and the that is a 2% change over FY 25 the insurance reimbursement that's
the revenue for the pen broke retirees again that number is going down it would be $76,900 or a 99.6% increase the capital budget 1,364 6606 cents again this number is going to
go down because this is paying off the debt and it gets smaller and smaller overtime state aid 9 9,291 700 a 1.9% increase Transportation
Aid $795,000 um so that is a decrease of 51.6% shared costs which are included in the budget but have not been voted on um anticipated 1,659 1115 that's a
37.8% increase and I level funded the power purchased agreement uh Revenue at $400,000 so that is a 0% increase so base B on a 2% increase for Silver
Lake that puts the Halifax operating assessment at 8,610 322.00 which is a 5.9% increase the Kingston operating assessment at 6,433
45338 a 3.4% increase Clinton's operating assessment 3,172 , 22311 which is a 8% increase the exempt Capital this is the
debt for the middle school and the high school for FY 26 Halifax's responsibil responsibility would be $444,999 that's an 8.4% decrease Kingston
$783,000 increase Clinton $136,300 79 which is a 13.8% decrease so the total assessment for each town for FY 26 Halifax would be 9,
54,074 69 that is a 5.1% increase Kingston 17,27 3894 6 C which is a 2.8% increase Plimpton 3,
38,5 2391 that is a. 1% increase the next slide these are the uh FY 26 Town operating budgets I highlighted in
yellow um what uh the current operating budgets are the on Monday night the Halifax Elementary School voted a budget of 8,247 1011 that's an 18.4% increase over
the previous year on February 3rd the Kingston school committee voted a budget of1 15,590 184 that is a 7.1% increase over the previous year uh climton has not yet
voted their budget for this year um what was presented in the preliminary budget was $ 4,652 53 that is a 177% increase over last year and the next slide um is what I
refer to as the total cost of Education this is the elementary budget plus the assessment um so Halifax total cost of education for next year keeping in mind what was voted by the school committee
and what is uh the assessments based on a 2% Silver Lake budget Halifax total cost of Education would be $17 M31 85617 M 31,8
5669 which is an 11% increase over fy2 Kingston's 32,8 4,193 46 which is a 4.8% increase over fy2 and plimpton's total cost of
Education would be$ 7,960 th000 $ 55769 a 99.4% increase over FY 25 so keeping in mind that
the assessment process the preliminary assessments are based on the um the direction of the school committee to produce a Silver Lake budget with a 2% increase over fy2 the administrative team met um many
many times and what I'm going to do is go through with you the tiered Cuts so the tier one Cuts keep in mind that we have a a reduction of a 1.2 million $ 1.02 million goal in order to meet that
um 2% threshold that we were asked for so the tier one Cuts these are cuts that have already been made and are in the line item budget that's in your folder tonight um point of order just to clarify that sorry if tier one's already
been included if we accept tier one that will not move the 1.02 million or will it the 1.02 million is on on top of the tier one which already happened in December thank so the tier one cuts that have
already been made were $1 15,792 they were a reduction in the technology budget the curriculum budget eliminating equipment uh new equipment reducing Supply budgets and reducing subscriptions just another point of
order the um retirees the attrition is $128,000 if we don't replace those positions is that already part of the figure or does that come off of the2 million if we accept the
the the the retirees were already figured into the into the budget that's part so there was a reduction in the Silver Lake budget between the preliminary budget and what I'm showing you tonight part of that
reduction was the work that principal Gil and I did with the um Athletics expenses and part of that work was us happily finding some retirees thank you these are the tier two I'm sorry I didn't click these are the tier two cuts
that were presented to you on January 9th um we've made changes to these tier 2 cuts and so what I'm going to be presenting to you in these next few slides are some options um so if you
recall in the tier 2 cuts from January uh there was uh elimination of Athletics and extracurricular activities um and that was a significant cost savings for the district and what we have put
together is uh some options one eliminating the extracurricular activities and one retaining the extracurricular activities so if you consider this to be option one which is eliminating the extracurricular
activities in option one tier two would cut $71 15,375 from the budget that would eliminate late buses safety supervision data coaches the Food Service supervision athletic stiens freshman
athletic stiens extracurricular stiens Middle School athletic stiens Middle School extracurricular and the athletic trainer if those cuts were made in tier two in order to reach the 2% threshold
then at tier three the cuts would be one slea position one slaa position five par professionals and three support staff option two that we're presenting to you tonight maintains the
extracurricular programming tier two would be a 151,00 $55 uh cut that would be the late buses the safety supervision the dated coaches and moving the Food Service
Supervision in order to maintain the extracurricular programs the tier three Cuts would total $860,000 that would be seven slea positions one slaa position four par professionals and
four support staff so uh in in summary main I'm sorry cutting the extracurricular programs at tier two means your tier three would be these uh
reductions here one slea position one SLA three civil uh three par professionals and two support staff the decision to keep the extracurricular in athletics would mean an additional six slea positions would be cut an
additional SL par par professional and an additional two support staff the last slide is a proposed motion to vote the budget um so at this point it would be appropriate for discussion and we will adjust the last
slide as needed Jason I have several do you know how much the toal cost just just the high from which from it was 319 the 319
yeah so we said 319 for that additional investment yeah that was 319 Sarah um I I saw a number for the two business office Personnel members um do you recall a round number of what that is and I know those would be shared C
positions $250,000 thank you very much and that the total not just silver share that would be the total okay all right so can we go back to Circuit Break um I had one other clarifying
question you said that there was a the food service we were needed to move into the revolving account would that reduce this 154,000 yes okay so if we vote to move food service and keep it in the revolving account
that takes 154,000 off the budget it likewise if we vote to increase all the fees that increases our income $992,000 what's that 87 87 okay sorry so just being clear on what those numbers are okay go ahead Jason so I'd like to
go back to the beginning where we indicated uh that circuit breaker was $2.5 Million yeah so let's talk about circuit breaker sorry guys this
one I was fervently clicking so I'm sure you can anticipate my question but at our meeting on January 9th and that slide show we indicated $2.5 million for circuit breaker that
was prior to house one coming out we've never been so aggressive and so late prior and I don't know if we were this year and assuming 75% way back on the 9th of January
so when I see 2.5 now that we know it is 75% I really want to understand we anticipate 75% for Silver Lake for circuit breaker way back on one down or are we not realizing $500,000
from the 62% assumption to 75% our understanding yeah I just need to hear need to talk this up because it makes no sense our understanding is that we we we are under the impression that we went to the
75% because we knew how difficult this budget was going to be all right but if I'm incorrect I would ask the special education director to correct me I there's been so many numbers and so many revisions so I have to go
byy yeah I have to go buy my sheet I think we might I think it's true I think we used the 75 for a couple of reasons because we were anticipating that extraordinary relief even though we didn't put it here we felt safe with the 75 and I'm not sure if that makes sense
so which brought us to the one 498 so we were rolling extraordinary relief into the regular circuit breaker no we weren't rolling it in I think we felt comfortable saying we're going to take the 75% because we it's likely we're going to get the extraordinary relief so
for Silver Lake I think we did use the 75% there were two figures and one was $1.8 Million the other one was 1.4 rounded up to 1.5 I think I sent those out this afternoon those are the sheets that actually circuit breaker sheets
that we use that my bookkeeper uses to actually claim CC breakup that is the tuition and then I took the transportation and that's a big guess too right and I did the 75 as well and then there was the um money that we had
from $500,000 I believe from last year that we used that somehow facted in there and I'm not an accountant I can come up with numers that I can give you as far as transportation and are you referring to the 500,000 for the 240
Grand yeah I'm not okay okay you're not so we won't even we won't even Cloud that yeah my confusion simply comes from every budget I've ever done on the elementary side and silver side in the time I've been on committee we've never
gone to 75% with our preliminary budgets before house one or House 2 comes the governor's budget because there's been many years where the governor doesn't get us 75% it's not until we get to the Senate way needs comme we finally get to it and some years we don't even get the
7 so I just I wanted to make sure that our numbers are are as clear as they can be um because we've already used a couple of the numers right to get us down to the 1.02 million doll and I was hoping potentially there
would be more in the ciruit number here at so so that's where my confusion questions come I appreciate all of you guys trying to to explain it to me today and my emails to you it's disappointing I'm sure you guys
would be thr if it was all right thank you other questions or thoughts folks um I have the question for the safer sub committee why did you the $10,000 in activities fees we always
have the precedent of U waivers for kids who are facing economic challenges well U there was some discussion and um we felt that the activity fees that we have having kids involved in activities especially if we were going to get um the rest of the stresses within the
school was a small number and we felt that having kids F that they should be able to volunteer primarily we were trying to offset the initiative was to offset those that have stiens for um so You' you'd have those kids paying and
then you'd have some that don't have correct don't have um a stien uh facilitator that would in fact um be still able to go free so you're discriminating against particular programs that because they have a
stiping and I would in able to get into the weeds we didn't feel comfortable doing that that's enough to explain I appreciate some insight into the decision Mak process Grand Am I Paul okay sorry Paul I just
want to make um one comment and Jason touched upon a little bit in some of the math he's he's calculating down there um and Sarah brought it up I don't know how much longer we can ignore the underst staffed situation we
have in the accounting area um we're going to be doing another directive action plan again this coming year and at some point you know the state's going to ask us what why do you continue to give us corrective action plans and not take the corrective
actions so I just want to say in a very tight budget scenario I think we really need to give some serious thought to increasing the staff in her area just in the budget now it is
not because that's an add yeah that's what that was the 250 she mentioned 125 yes Amy um so just to to go back to the user fee um both as a mom and as a
teacher in a district that has the two-tiered program we have non- stipended clubs we have stipended clubs everybody paying a fee I advise one stipended and one untied Club everybody going in understands the user fee is
helping to offset the stiens especially given the waiver process I don't think anybody feels discriminated we also have and then this goes into negotiations we have a protocol where if there's a club that's been meeting regularly for a number of years and keeping Good Records
it can be it can become a stien in club and likewise if there's a club that's in the list of stipended clubs that nobody ever shows up for they can take that one out so I don't I don't think that that's necessarily a reason to take that potential source of Revenue off the
table I know 10,000 is a drop in the bucket with what we're looking at but we've been tasked with outside the box every little bit helps and that's that's more than a little bit I think so just wanted to say that and then Jason when
we were going through what numbers to use we had to look at some comps local what they're also paying but also I wanted to make sure that we also kept the cap on what families are paying so that there isn't you know we're not
trying to say that this is going to be for every sport you know there's still going to be a cap on there and I respect the decision of the sub comme I just want to understand yeah and to that note we wanted to bring it to the full committee for consideration we just don't have a recommendation one way the other yeah so
if somebody wanted to vote it now ahead Mark what was the safer committees recommend recommendation for Capital plan this year um we had insufficient information to make that because we got our comprehensive study back late because we okay that's right we talked about this
so and we sent it out late we didn't ask for it time and and so we had said 500 to 750 some there is Jason um Mr chair we considered uh adding a Silver Lake meeting after the
joint meeting the Tuesday after vacation so meting extra data could have fallen into place and we don't have to spin ours too um yes I think it would probably be a
pretty good idea to give um the group here some directionality of where we're going okay um um I would say that we don't want to take any of tier two or tier three
options I would be in favor of taking all of the user fees increases but would defer to the safer committee hi I don't want to take any of the tier two or tier three right I am open to taking all of the user fee increases okay
um I'd like to see if D can be certified so we can have a fir number to work from and then we could potentially consider how aggressive we want to be with the school business office the Ro and the special air program here at the high
school trying to keep that number that we saw as the assessment no higher and potentially even bringing low Jane I actually sat in on the safer meeting tonight because I wanted to understand how the fees um were going to
be presented um and I have heard quite a bit that you know the $300 that Civil Lake charges is quite a bit lower than some of our surrounding towns and one of the things that I proposed to principal Gil and um the new athletic director Mr
Swanson was that we um look at all the options to perhaps make our Athletics a self-sustaining program um unfortunately I think even just the simple math would show that that would um be substantially more expensive um on our families than
what is currently being offered um even with the $400 increase I mean that's again only 50, more in Revenue but um I think there is still some room that if we are in a similar situation next year that we consider um I know for hangam
just was recently quoted in the newspaper that they've gone up to $750 for a first sport if it's football or hockey and then $200 each subsquent sport um so perhaps they're charging um but I mean a simple MTH that could be
potentially $1,150 where right now we charge $300 for a student to participate in three Sports um and speaking as a parent that's going to have three children in Silver Lake next year that's going to be a huge um you know increase for my
family but I think that looking at a way to offset the costs as opposed to cutting them is what we need to do um to sustain these programs we just heard from all of our students tonight that um benefit from both the extracurriculars the drama as well as um our sports
program and in my opinion cutting those is absolutely going to be a detriment for our high school and um I would be opposed to any of the extracurriculars or activities cuts from tier two and um being that I think to move the meeting
along we do have a potential not Revenue Source but a potential source to help us get through this year I think that we need to um talk about what we want to do you know with the shared cost meeting and stuff that's coming up on the 25th and then um we can have some firm
numbers to send to the towns um I'm trying to make sense of it Kingston but I know that there's you know our Halifax um Representatives as well as our Clinton that all want to know what this means for their towns in terms of um potential
overrides and um what the burden on the taxpayers yeah I I think we might need to give our towns like a provisional number so to speak that we have agreed on and possibly voted on agre so what Jason is proposing Jason do you want to explain what you're
proposing in in the simplest way I can I'm proposing that the number that was presented tonight by Sarah for the assessments for our TOS that we go no higher than that with any offsets that we can provide through Cuts fees
or but also would encourage us to consider seriously looking at funding the school business office positions SRO position is nomal and consider the special ed program as well so I think we can safely say to our
towns that the assessment numbers presented today are the sealed and that we intend to see if we can bring those down even more programs [Music]
um so we're saying that's the ceiling um are we are we so I want to I can we go back to the assessment number he going to replace all these
Cuts propos three do you want the assessment number or the total cost of Education assessment number all right so right now this is a a
3.2% increase are we talking about applying um so we're talking about applying fees toward it we're talking about moving out a position and to Shared cost services are
we talking about applying any end toward it as income yeah we have okay close to a million dollar at this point okay so um you can buy back so in which case we would not be sending a 3.2%
increase we would be sending a what that depends if we had back remember s already has this calculated as if we got rid of the million right so us using a million in just gets us here I got you okay okay and if we use the
levers of the P that's another 100,000 yeah right and then we we see what the certified is a big difference if it's 2.2 mandator we have to send back anything over five and then we can engage more than if we want if it comes back at like
1.8.7 it's not likely that e is going to ask to be sent back because the 5% remember that the Silver Lake budget increased due to the restructuring last year so 5% is is more now we have to be over a million right no 2 million right and we still a vote to move the
revolving at 153,000 okay so what I want to make make clear to the audience is what we're what we are prepared to say to the towns as a committee is that we will not be
adopting uh the cuts to extracurriculars nor the cuts to headcount we will of course the tier one Cuts have already been made we'll live with those we will not adopt the other cuts the difference the million doll difference that would
get us to this number here will come in an presently undetermined mix of end possibly adding back this and that um possibly increasing fees
Etc so what we're prepared to direct our towns is this will be the number without the reductions that had been proposed have I got that
accurately Paula with the footnote that end D comes back certified in the number that we sent yes we have to we have to give I mean we've got several things that will still need to be voted
including the shared costs including um or we can go ahead and vote the transfer of the of the food services tonight but um we could also hold off on the feed
discussion until we know for sure what the certified em is is everybody clear on that slea are you clear on that take okay audience is everybody clear on that it's then the committee needs to
vote that we need to I I don't think we need to vote it formally tonight I mean we could sort of straw pull you can nod your heads if you're in favor or not um but as a as a
as as a number to give to the towns what we're saying is this is the worst it's going to get it will it will be no higher than this with the caveat I don't like this right we need
to V clarify question does this mean that the program that presented not no we would still discuss the three things I want us to
consider as a one guy right Buzz up J right SRO the school business officers the two of them and the special ed program for the high school I want us to to see what we
can do and see if we can make it work actually or if we can get that number even lower potentially okay we have to we have to figure it out and maybe we'll hear some feedback from our finance committees and from our
selects we have a couple weeks we get some input but we so Karen we will need to have another meeting um that will follow the joint meeting Jill I was going to recommend that it follows the joint yeah so we'll
need to have another meeting that follows the joint meeting cuz we'll vote the shared costs at the Joint meeting we'll have that solidified hopefully we have the do solidified and then um I think again committee members and
AER heads this what we're what we're going to give is Direction I one I I I just have one question it appears that you're using the revenue um from the end twice to offset the the
tier two and tier three as well as add those programs which I support adding the programs but but you've also going to restore which is already in the budget the tier two and tier three this these cuts are already in here no they're not no they're not they're not that's
why which AR only the tier one are in there well and and the two loss of two positions through yes not that's correct yeah so so as of right now these these are the additional cuts to the number so
okay there aren't positions lost that number for the retirements um replaces the two positions oh so we are so there is savings that's that's what I was just trying to ask that's one that's represents savings from
the that was awesome mistake I actually I actually I followed that earlier and then I was trying to I just wanted to say Obviously from the town's perspectiv all three towns any money that you can send out is obviously going to help us because we're all
looking at um problems with our with our own budget with with Elementary and what not and and you guys are doing a great job you know taking outside the box looking at at at other means to try to not cut that's amazing um but going
forward been talking about this forever how we need help from the state aren't working NTA came talk to our SEL meeting for kta but they said that the MTA at the state level is trying to Lobby the state with with a lot of legislation to
help the funding formul this we need to I don't know what we need to do but maybe if we can form more of of a lobbying block between the pre towns and the region between selectman finance committee what can we do
um to beat up on our reps and govern would you like to give your legislative report yeah I'd love to give my legislative update thank you Mr chair so um I've been rubbing shoulders with Mary
bour and she's the executive director of mass Association of school superintendent and matx Paige who's the president of MTA um relentlessly over the past nine or 10 weeks um we do have a collective effort already underway um
pressuring for long-term fixes and fixes to the FY 26 budget obviously Governor Healey's budget especially here at Silver Lake under to say the very least um some of the things we're
pushing for currently right now is an immediate increase of circuit breaker to 90% for tuitions um we're being happy with the 75% right now we're getting for for U Transportation reement um we're
also apoplectic and continue to be so over the inflation increases of the past several years um some of the Gateway cities right now have a coalition who are pushing for immediate refund of all of the funds from Chapter 70 they have not received U due to inflation over the
past four years um there's a moderate group that I'm a part of that's saying we need to have it at 4.5 for series of years until we fully recuit the chapter 7 and we've lost out them so those things are already happening um the fact
that required net School spending is increasing for towns above 2 and a half% year in and year out is absolutely a non-st started right from the beginning so there is a coalition already working together the
superintendant the school committees and the teachers unions I'm working with the F also so um we're in lock step on this there's there is no space between any of us on this issue Mars is involved I know you've been a member of Mars in the past um and so aren't the school business
officials Association um we're we're working on it so here's the thing that I want you to all think about first of all um Federal funding for education is not going to go away okay I was with Senator Marky last
week we need to be on alert but we don't need to the alarm going off 247 okay um all of title one idea Perkins was established prior to the Department of Education so even if the Department of Education goes away we're not likely to
lose those funding sources um I would encourage you all to work on the following it's the keep our promise to Americans children and teachers pack act this is federal
legislation and this would bring title one and idea to full funding at the federal level Title One is currently funded at 50% of its statutory requirement so we were just talking
about title one here um tonight um I have the numbers in case anybody wants to see it I believe Silver Lake is somewhere around $170,000 in title one we could see $340,000 from Title One if the federal government would fully fund it idea is
basically the federal version of circuit breaker the federal government is supposed to give us 40% of extraordinary cost to educate our children with special needs it's it's not just a legal thing it's a moral thing right to take care of our most vulnerable students Ida
currently is only providing 12% reimbursement 12 right and we just congratulated our administrative team for putting together the tireless piles and of paperwork to get the
$500,000 well multiply that times four that's what we should be getting from the federal government so again that's to keep our promise to America's children and teachers pack act it would fully fund both of those over the course
of a 10year roll out and then make it statutory obligatory for Congress and the Senate to fully fund it year in and year out um we have a a lot of work to do I will tell you right now that our legislators are part of the team they're
not part of the problem I I I work with Chris Jean and Kathy latra incessantly I'm sitting down with Dylan uh Fernandez on Saturday morning um I've already been with his staff he's a newly elected state senator but he's been in the game
for a few years um he's leaning into right now I don't know if you know this we lost our rural lead at Silver Lake this year right which was about $157,000 which is kind of ironic because we got about $157,000 for our shelter kids right um
Dylan's going to put caveat into that language that um our our October one enrollment we can't be penalized for any temporary um shelter students that we have in District against our real age right so we are doing all these little
things um it doesn't hurt to hear from constituents if you want to raise your voice with me feel free um I have a list of bills that I've had filed for us that will continue to push on this and move the needle in the right direction and I'm happy to work with anybody who's
willing to work with me so appreciate you bringing that up um the news from the state is not awesome and that's where we really need to apply all this pressure right now and there's a significant chance we could see some movement between house one and the Senate and the house versions of the
budget another area where we could see some relief especially Halifax and I'm always thinking of my friends in Halifax because I know how difficult budgets are there thank you welcome sir the governor put a $60 per pupil minimum inurement this year last year we got it all the
way up to 104 we were asking her to keep the floor at about 100 bucks so we're really disappointed to see it go down to 60 we're pushing with a coalition of Education um entities to get it to $50 for this fiscal year right so that would
be an improvement of $90 per student for you at Hala Elementary k k d it here at Silver Lake we're pushing we're pushing and the revenues have been starting to show some improvement of the state L but we don't have consistency enough to really lean into it and I know somebody
brought up um the fair share dollars tonight um they have been applied to to K 12 education they have right none of our families have to worry about feeding their children breakfast or lunch anymore right and I don't know how big
of the deal you know what it is but as an educator who works with kids every single day some of my kids come to school just get breakfast and lunch and not having to have that pink slip instead of the do25 the hand is a game changer for the confidence that
kids feel everyone is on a level playing Ground um we also got $150 million of the fair sh Amendment dollars put in this year to help with special ed circuit breaker costs additionally to that we also put
$75 million into expanding CTE as we all know uh we're going to lose our Ember kids because we have so many Silver Lake kids want into CTE we have a waiting list now which is a wonderful problem but it's still a problem we need to expand capacity of our CTE program which
is something that Lucas has been trying to do for the past several years right here in this building right and again with this budget becomes very difficult to do so that's my legislative update all right so we are not going to vote the budget tonight because we are
going to wait until we have a few more things solidified but to the towns um directionally speaking Sarah I understand that you're not voting anything I would like you to vote on The Food Service position and then I
can update that update that and then if the any of the retirements have not been taken out no they are already factored in okay I will make motion then that we move the food service director and secretary revolving account for the
amount of $3,759 I have a second second any further discussion see none all in favor Mr chair need to vote for the keys y um just to if I could uptail quickly
on what Jason was saying and just to give you guys a picture of what we're facing in Halifax um we have approximately a three and a half% allotment for Education this year and as you probably saw the education allotment for HS was north of about 20% um if you
guys are able to somehow come up even a best case scenario with with a zero contribution for Halifax at the Silver Lake level still we would take that money put it towards HS would still be about $900,000 short so Halifax in order
to avoid those significant Cuts would look at an override um my fear is that uh if we go with this you know a plan like this and we're looking at an override the following year I just concerned you know number of overrides are hard to pull off
anyway um and if it didn't go through and and we were looking at a repeat override there would literally be nothing left to cut and I would worry about the functionality of alifax elementary school so again I can't underscore Jason's comments enough the
the rules of this game need to change and fast because uh the way it's run right now it's it's not rning through you Mr chair um I was with MMA on Tuesday local government advisory commission with lieutenant governor
Driscoll and it came through loud and clear from all of us that we're all broken and the state needs to step up and um we made that call last year when we saw a dramatic rise and overrides in the Commonwealth and we had predicted
that we would see an increase this year over last year and we're already there we are not unique right we are not unique these costs are not made up numbers it's it's the true inflationary pressures finally catching
up with us and it's that dramatic rise in special end and us being stuck with 2 and half% plus local growth unsustainable without help from the feds and from the state and I think we're more likely to get some help from the state before we get it from
fance thank you for your effort all right so um we'll have that separate meeting we have a number that we can directionally give to the town um that Sarah's going to adjust based on the vote that we've just taken um and with that let's try to get
through quickly the rest of the agenda slea oh that we already spoke what's that we are we already spoke so okay thank you um admin review part shared cost be part shared cost okay uh
CTE okay um I have had some correspondence from from a handful of people who obviously were deeply concerned about the budget and I've explained much of what we have talked about here um we heard the legislative agents report um we I think have heard
from negotiations and employee relations with the vote tonight uh pack I had to miss the meeting due to a late night at work so okay uh policy um I would appreciate a motion to wave the actual
read of policies so moved second just so you know the policy sub committee met about two months ago went over all of these and we gave our input and approval there's several members of the committee here tonight who were with me on that call so I will then just go
through and make a motion to accept as a first read policy b e DB b h e EFC e f d
e h a a e HB GB e e i j n d c j i c j k d c k d CB and K HB and k h c good job
my eyes are [Music] do all right we need a motion we had a motion yeah I did make the motion okay all right all in favor okay uh say safer okay we've uh
touched on our fees I don't want to beat that up again we did uh uh touch on a couple other things including the uh admin building uh issue that we have we're talking about adding staff to R admin space and uh we have an Antiquated
building we have yet to get the expense of what is broken and what needs to be fixed in it but um we have decided to go uh move the admin building and our overall facilities uh report and the magnitude of the tens of millions of dollars that are in that um and I'll
give you that as a scope to a trown meeting to bring this up and discuss with the board of Selectmen and the uh and look forward because this is a as Paula pointed out a uh problem that is involves all of our towns not this
committee not just but we have to come up with a capital plan uh whether it's uh borrowing money or you know Bond whatever we have to keep that and we're going to back package that up Paul has offered to assist in uh putting together an agenda for a tri child meeting at a
later date to address these issues specifically so um we looked at a Middle School uh queuing of uh parent pickup uh which has now become a problem it's queuing out onto uh Route 27 in the afternoon
particularly on Wednesdays and Fridays without late buses um we have a substantial number of parents that are uh providing this door to-door service for their for their students I'd like to remind everybody um we are in television that we pay for bus seats for every
single one of our students and even though we're getting reimbursed by the state this is an expense that's out there and I'd like to ask the parents to please consider this drop off and pick up uh as a an exception we have students that this is necessary and I understand
that but some of our students it's a convenience and and um I it uh it would really help with the issue with uh um principal uh bgy has uh has come up with a a reroute of the queuing
process to accommodate more Vehicles it's well staffed I observed it yesterday afternoon and it was phenomenally efficient um to my to my surprise um it was really well done and um um I wouldn't make a lot of changes to it we have a couple of tweak points
that we suggested um other than that um what else do we look at anything else I can think of do we need to vote on the fees Mark the fees um we're not going to vote on the fees yet because we're going to include
that fin vote did you want to vote but um yeah so all about all about the uh activity fees and um you know we wanted to bring that to the full committee I don't think anybody was animate we just didn't have the research necessary to really and and do you want an estimate
if it's all students who participate in a club as Amy suggested not just the ones that have a stipend sure yeah if we want to go that detail but I don't I don't think it's going to change my vote one way or the other I've been sting
um Elation the daycare we had what's that building forms oh yes we did so we change some of the use fees to make sure that our janitorial fees and everything down to the toilet paper is covered in the fees um to our best estimate because
it does if we use our facilities and we rent these out there's a a lot of associated costs and um that they're are associated you know with that um that said our custodial Force I'd like to personally uh thank them because
this school is in is great shape even though some of the numbers and some of the stuff you're going to see when we get to that report don't indicate that it is still in much better shape than a lot of schools that are 20 years old thank you that's all I got treasur that's not all I all right we
have 19 warrants for uh vendor warrants that have been circulated two activity fees uh funds three payroll warrants and let me read the uh the accounts payable at 2,952 72
$2,654 um and the total of uh payroll was 2,922 71416 grand total of 5,875 44,7 okay Union 31 we have a meeting on the 25th and I'm happy to make it a
joint meeting um if you're going to call a one just following um to be looking at all the shared cost contracts that are up and that's 6 o' okay do we want to make
that a joint meeting 5 o' is 5 o' and then 6 o' y thank you is that going to be in person Gordon or we going to make it online um in person I think in person
and then saying call was that speaking of in person we're working on trying to get a permanency made for the option for us to be remote because it will sunset at the end of match that's right sorry single signature
warrants there was no single signature warrant between when we lost s each other and now all right believe I need a motion for adjournment so moved Second Jason yes Lucas Michael [Music]
yes you [Music]