this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers and there it is okay so it is six o'clock with a quorum present I am calling the meeting to order hi everybody hi hello
um okay so here we go we have the minutes in our folder does anybody have any questions comments or concerns from the January 8th minutes I move that we approve the minutes second any further
discussion all in favor I I okay good public comment okay I could bring my husband in here and he could say a few words I could bring I could bring my class of 2020 kid in here she okay circulation of warrants those have been coming electronically did
anybody have anything they wanted to ask while we're here okay I have no announcements or correspondence John did not share anything with me veto do you have anything that would fall in that category um no nothing that really didn't uh come in the uh
superintendent's report okay good um Alisa we've got your principal report in the folder is there anything you want to highlight for us us um bunch of Staffing changes that are in there um I think thought it was pretty neat that Mr hodon sixth grade
class is making the commemorative stamps to represent the 250th anniversary of Southampton they were wonderful he did a really nice video um I think that's going to be uploaded to the town website at some point or the 250th website at some point so I thought that was really
really cool um and then we had a really great professional development day on January 21st which was part of the two teach Global inclusion things that we've been doing um we bought this book called practical strategies for managing a diverse classroom in K through six and
we did sort of like a jigsaw so each um teachers were randomly selected um by a you know a picker online and Paras were included as well and they each read a chapter and there's a challenge also so there's these 10 chapters and 10 challenges they read them and then they
knew that they had to present to the rest of the faculty um what the highlights from the chapter of the challenge or what they thought was great and they did such a wonderful job we had people doing skits and we had people doing slideshows and we just had you know Stand and Deliver but it was really
good it was nice that teachers gave me feedback afterwards to say that they loved how they got to work with colleagues that they don't usually see like say a preschool teacher and a sixth grade teacher or special ed and elll so it was a really great day and I'm you know we're proud of the work that we're doing so
really we did lose a few school choice kiddos because a family um that was three students who were School of Choice moved into town built a house and the house was finally ready so they're here now and we took them off of the School of Choice side and put them on the the regular side so there was some movement
there but our enrollment is at 482 great thank you does anybody have any questions for Lisa have a question on the report but I I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the music program at Norris so we had our school council
meeting today at the high school and one of the things that came up was the lack of a pipeline into our high school band y so we do we have music classes where every student funnels through the music class uh here but for instrumental music
we have lessons after school that's what we have we don't you know I can't remember I I feel like it's the same thing that we had in the past um she does um do a couple concerts with the students that take the musical program
um couple so one is the Arts in the park in the spring and one is an after school um program for parents in the spring of the students who are playing the musical instruments okay yeah my daughter does it our second year starts in fifth grade
they can take an instrument um so she's done the clarinet this will be her second year doing the clarinet well that's good to hear yeah I mean we're just really we get a lot of kids from um Bergie because they have a strong music program but you know Southampton being the biggest school the biggest potential
theater I'd love to hear about what um Berg is doing so maybe I'll reach out to Stacy okay great thank you someone is ringing the door I need to just go see who that is sorry okay um veto we also had your report in the folder is there anything in particular that you want to point out
that you think is important for us to talk about yeah I think probably the most important thing um uh there was a lot of concern a lot of anxiety that was raised by some of the executive orders that were um made by the new
Administration and um the reason I say it is because it came to me from teachers and counselors uh at the high school and Elementary level and um there were families that were worried about
their status worried about their students worried about um their welcome in our schools based on the messaging that they were hearing uh in social media on the TV Etc so I sent out a
message to all stakeholders teachers students at the high school level and um parents just reassuring them uh that a Massachusetts has guidance around
inclusion of all students and of a focus on ensuring that we are um a following the laws of Massachusetts B adhering to the laws that um are uh are coming down to us from the federal level but
ensuring that our students are safe and that uh did despite status every student is welcome and we are going to make sure that they uh that we meet the needs of all of our students so I just I I wanted
to speak to that um because I did put it in the in the princip principal report excuse me and I did send out a talking points last Friday and part of that was in response to what I heard from stakeholders in the buildings and from
uh students who were raising uh concerns to their counselors and teachers and parents who had reached out to principles and counselors thank thank you all right um hold on I got to get back
to all right um John did anyone have any questions for veto okay um I don't have a chairs report because I'm not actually the chair and the chair didn't give me on so we'll we'll just we'll skip that uh however we do have our Hampshire
Regional school committee rep with us Margaret what's going on up there well we're we're deep in the throws of budgets season and so that's been a primary point of discussion and
agreement and disagreement and you know we're just kind of going through the process so we had our budget hearing on Monday with representatives from various fincom and select boards and the committee voted to push the budget
through we have a pretty good idea of expenses we're still waiting for some more information to get a full view of our Revenue sources and what school committee might be able to add to the budget um but that's kind of where we are and so our next meeting is in April
and then that's when we have to finalize no March sorry March yeah skipping ahead uh March and that's when we'll we'll be finalizing some things any questions for Margaret okay oh P next that's me so um
they're you know they're working on gearing up for their you know spring fundraisers uh one thing I do want to mention is they do have a fundraiser that they do it's um they have a Thunderbirds night and um they've been selling tickets to that uh that is going to be on March 15th at 705 versus the
Syracuse Crunch they also um they also signed up to and I don't Chuck a puck maybe people know what that is I do not because I'm not a hockey person but um they're also signed up to handle some of that so I
think that's also will also generate revenue for them at at the game so the tickets are on sale still um so if people are interested I guess reach out to Norris PTO I'm not sure Alisa do you know who they should talk to is there a
link somewhere on the school website or anything we have a bunch of uh QR codes that I can send out if you're interested um there's one in the main office I can't even think of who to reach out to I'm sorry that's okay but just so I just wanted to put it out there for you know anyone who's listening that you know if you're interested in going to a hockey
game and helping P Raise Some Money March 15 email me and I'll give you the information okay great thank you okay school council Margaret again yeah so um so we did not have our
meeting this week but we are continuing to uh work on this school Improvement plan and Alisa is doing some more work on that on her end and we'll come back to us the next time we meet with some you know with some drafts for us to look at the actual language and and make sure
whether we're incorporating everything all the good things that we're doing at at Norris March 11th is our next meeting yep all right so Dylan is our CES person and he's not here I think did you guys see the letter from Todd
gazda about uh CS is cutting back on some of their um programming looks like it's the lure program that they're um right that they're they're going to Sunset that soon so yes doing some reorganizing there I guess all right and
so that's really all I know about the CES and unless V you have anything you want to say about it but no and I did in my um my superintendent report that was shared there is the letter that Todd gazda sent and it was that's exactly what what you said him the licens your
program that had done some really uh pretty robust work unfortunately was one of the ones that was going to be um cut back and they had to let go of some positions but they're going to you know focus on those areas where they can be
most effective with respect to support and resources for professional development um I do not have a select board update from John so we'll skip that um which brings us to John scaparotti
hi hello how are you I will try to be brief um in that uh I know today is uh the superintendent's birthday um but I'll will be sure to cover everything happy
birthday all right so um in inside the drive is the um Financial activity to address the open items and um you know that's that 10-page document and I'm just going to highlight a couple some you've probably already heard about since the last meeting because we did
have an interim session with with a few people and it's number 12 on page three it says review and resolution of the central office allocation to Municipal schools um and the latest forensic activity showed that the majority of the
central office expenses in fy4 um have not been invoiced to the three Municipal schools um nor paid by them um though oh Kim's going to share that though
um the expenses to vendors and to employees have all been paid um these were amounts that were included in the fy4 budget for central office so they've already been appropriated by um approved
by the school committee appropriated by the town it's just they were never invoiced and when we were doing our forensic work going through things with the fine tooth comb we ident ified that and so we need to move forward with a
solution and I've been in touch with the the three municipalities accountants um and uh select board members and they are aware of it and we are working to come up with a resolution
what we believe the resolution for Southampton is going to be is to take the amount that had been budgeted and subtract from it those invoices that had been allocated out to Southampton
already in June um there were about 70 something thousand worth of invoices that had been allocated and so we're going to subtract that from the amount of the budget and that would be the amount left over and that um Kim if you
want to bring it up and share it that would be in the drive under it's actually in the same um spread spr sheet as the as the accounting um contract yeah so if we if we skip down
past the accounting contract at the moment and I don't know if you can get that any bigger Kim um you will see the central office cost adjustment and the central office cost adjustment is
um yep and then just down a little bit perfect thank you can everybody see that so in fy20 it says fy2 it really should say in FY 24 the budget was $492,000 And1 um that would have been paid and to
South that would have been in the budget for Southampton and has already been appropriated um the invoices that have already been allocated and paid by Southampton amount to the 76241 and that remains um that leaves
$415,500 uh represents and the the full amount also represents the um the amount before any forensic costs I think that the previous business administrator had come to the ADC to
request additional funding and most of that funding as I understand it we're we're looking for the minutes to verify specifically but as I understand it that funding was taken out of Grants so it wouldn't be included in this amount this would just be the amount prior to the
forensic expenses in 24 um so that's any questions on that so this money should be sitting in an account somewhere in Southampton waiting to be paid out that's correct it should you should be if if all you had was the
school budget if all you had was the school budget you would be under your budget by this amount the the 45,7 60 um I have to work with Bradley to to validate that but because your
budget doesn't just include the school it includes Municipal expenses as well I don't know that he has the 415,000 under budget available somewhere that's what we are working on understanding but yes if it if we're
just looking at the school the school um there should be that money left aside now it may may not have been encumbered I don't know in Westampton it was encumbered um and I don't know that
it was in um Southampton typically to encumber something you would had to have contacted uh the central office would had to have contacted Southampton each municipality and said oh don't forget we have this invoice and we haven't and we haven't sent it to you yet or if you
were wildly under budget whoever was monitoring that at the Town level might have called and said what's going on here but I think the reality is that there were so many U moving pieces that year that it wasn't um immediately
obvious okay so any questions on that part for Don okay all right um so what we've what we've done with uh veto correct me if I'm wrong here I just I I think that when we've presented this to the other
municipalities they have just uh I don't know if they took a vote or they they didn't take a vote they just understood that this was coming and yes um they will be aware that we're moving this to the Town Administrator into the select
board for um placement on the next warrant yeah and that that's where the action has to happen um uh and any votes made uh but for us our purposes as Don has said from the start The Good the Bad and the Ugly we're going to share and so
we're being transparent and sharing everything as soon as we know um you know there's a lag because of the school committee meetings so um I think West Hampton might heard first or second um and uh so the bottom line is we're we're
trying to keep everybody apprised of what's going on and the action has to happen at the municipal level okay thank you and then um number 13 on the issues document uh which is on page four uh just mentioning that we
have we've been in touch with the various accountants at all of the schools um in in the municipal accountants specifically in order to reconcile the 24 actuals on as reported on the central office Financial platform
ledger to the municipal accounting ledgers to make sure that we have the the same numbers not only for what we just talked about but for all expenditures um and that typically should be happening on a quarterly basis
I don't believe it happened in 2024 so we've got the whole year to reconcile but moving forward um we will be um doing this reconciliation on a more timely basis so it isn't such a burden on
anyone okay and then um on the good news side on page five in the grant reconciliations the um the work uh that our grant consultant has is has been doing is progressing very well and um the final reports for Williamsburg and
there were 10 of them um have been filed um seven of the 10 have money um that need needs to be returned uh because not all of the grants were utilized um we don't want to be in that position in the future but there was money left on the
table in William BG and um we will you know try to avoid that for the future um then in um Chesterfield has come along and right now they're working in Southampton he's working in Southampton and we're making some good progress
there so that's um that's very encouraging so overall we are moving forward um with our plan and um what we'll say is on page
22 I mean page six page six on number 22 um we we as you remember we were going to file for an extension which we did with desie um for our fy4 end of year report they they gave us an extension until February 1 um we did not meet that
date and we will not be able to meet that date until uh the 24 reconciliations are done until the 20 for you know this big um pot that we just identified that we didn't know existed in terms of all of these
invoices that hadn't been uh allocated to the to the municipalities and every time we discover something it takes us off our main objectives so that is that is um that is a concern we did report it to
desie they understood why we couldn't do it um would you say that this month in our report veto they were much more gracious than last month I I would say that's true and part of the reason is that we um we started uh receiving some
Consulting support from do the department of um I'm sorry not do I apologize the uh the regional Association and uh Steve hemond uh gave us some advice and helped us uh complete some reports that uh desie needs to do
um uh some predictions for 26 so it kind of uh satisfied some of their need with the end of year reports though not all of the need and that kind of brings us to uh the the new business I don't know if there's anything else Don you want to
talk about there or if there's any questions um that you have for us about these things but um we are making progress uh we are gaining traction and unfortunately
you know we keep finding these things uh that we have to address and it does um frustrate things and disconcert us somewhat but we're just going to keep plugging on and um and making progress the best we can now I think the one
reason that they extended additional Grace To Us was number one as veto mentioned we completed one of the schedules of um the end of year report which was all about transportation and we did so based on a negotiated conversation between this volunteer who
works for the mass um uh Association for Regional Schools and he advised us on something he actually called Jay um Sullivan himself and said I think if you got this this this could be done and so we did that and that was basically just reporting our regional transportation
expenses and our Municipal Transportation expenses uh ju for the schools just um because he has to go to the legislature with some of that information so that took some of the heat off there um and also
in the last conversation we had with him he did suggest that we look for and that the superintendent um would be practical and come up with some additional support so um what we did look at um a scope of
service to identify what additional support we could get externally and um um and we um focused on fy4 and so we have um
approached um an accounting firm um some of these other Consultants who have helped like mass munin and others they're very good they just don't have any accountants on their staff and our issues are accounting issues and so we
have um asked them if they would um work with us to resolve 24 so that we can get our end information in so that we can get the end of the year reports done uh so we can really really it's not so much they would do the end OFW
reports they would get all of our information into the general ledger so that we could come up with balances that will help us in our 24 in our 26 budgeting um but we have to roll forward balances from 23 24 and 25 and they will
help help to do that um they will also get us in a position that we can file our end our goal and what we would write in the contract if all the school committees approve it we have gone to um three School committees so far and they've each um approved it we're coming
to you tonight in the new business section but I'm just explaining how this document relates to that and um the the contract would be written such that um the payments uh between now and uh the end of the year
would be $50,000 the end of the fiscal year and it would be allocated based on the central office allocation methodology as identified in this uh document on the screen and um now I said three so
Hampshire Regional um CG has approved it um West Hampton approved it yeah West Hampton so we're looking for tonight for a a vote from the school committee in Southampton and next week we'll be approaching Williamsburg um one of the things that
will be in the contract is that um the the payment and the scope of service is conditional upon uh providing the information that we need by the beginning of March so we can send it off to uh the Department of
Revenue by by their deadline um which I think is the 10th beyond the 10th of March if you don't have the information in they can withhold your state aid and so while we don't know that they would
do that because they know we're moving um towards uh getting everything resolved we don't want to uh further complicate things with our revenues so um that is our next move and we did
talk to the um we did talk with the with desie about the fact that we were going to be approaching the school committee to move forward with this and that provided them some level of comfort because they know what it's going to take in order to get this information
done and they realize that we even with everybody we have here we just don't have the resources to bring it in by the March date so go ahead V sorry Kim I was just gonna I was just gonna reinforce the the
the the message that we've been putting out there is that we're trying to identify the issues and then bring resources and expand our capacity to this forensic work so that we can get out of the hole that we're in and that's
really you know the summary of what Don just said um the funding source that we're looking to use would be rural Aid which is one of those um allocations that we know that each of the district districts uh excuse me or schools has
received and that there's um uh the resources available to to make it work so you confirmed that that money is still available in our rural Aid correct no I'm sorry oh I'm I'm sorry to say
that until we have the balances we won't be able to confirm it we know that you received an allocation in rural Aid um but Don just just to be clear we're talking different years right so we know that 24 there was an allocation of rural
Aid we don't know the balance of that we do know that we got allocated a new round of in 25 so that hasn't been hit yet so we're talking a couple different years of rural Aid so uh we're both
right uh 25 hasn't been touched yet 24 has been we just don't know to what extent and what balance would be remaining to roll over that's part of the work that the um the accountants are going to do but but do we know that we have at least
17,190 yes I was going to say the 17,190 is a small enough number so that um we would be able to to um identify that yes from 24 all right so since we're on this we might as well stay
onless is there some reason we have to talk about the bus contract before we talk about this or no no okay why don't we just stick with this then um uh Margaret or Jen do you have any questions about this no I don't this is
just to help pick up the slack and fill holes correct that's correct exactly so what you need from us then is a move to approve up to $1 17,190 out of rural Aid to fund additional accounting support and fiscal
25 yes is that the ACC it then that's the motion that is the motion any mov so moved second all right so Margaret had Margaret made the motion and Jen seconded that we move to approve up to $1
17,190 out of rural Aid to fund additional accounting support and fiscal 25 any further discussion all in favor by hi hi all right there you go got that thank you
thank you thank you okay next up why don't we why don't we deal with the bus contract okay and the bus contract is also oh look at Kim she's right on there um so the the contract um was originally three years with two um two one-year
extensions and um we have been in discussions with the with the um Durham bus company you'll notice that the option to renew um for four for years four and five would be at the negotiated price of the previous year's amount plus
4% and we were able to talk with them and that 4% would be there in the yellow under FY 2526 um it would be 1,999 160 and in 2627 it would be 2,791 126 and um in our
conversations um he the negotiations went well and I asked them if we could get a reduction for being such good clients and such good customers and so he actually did give us a reduction in the first year from four to three and a half
and in the second year from 4 to 3% I did ask if we could flip those flipflop those because um well not only the compounding but also because next year's budget might be tight and um he said he wasn't able to do that because they'd recently had a boiler failure failure
themselves and he has to cover certain costs so overall um that's going to be almost a $40,000 savings over two years and we were very happy with that so um what I'm looking for is for the school committee to approve um entering into a
contract at with those terms so is this is this enter like saying yes we're taking both of these years yes all right okay and I think Kim it's good to understand or to remember that there has
there was only one bid um for Transportation uh the last cycle and so uh because of the situation we're in currently and that fact we thought it would be best to extend and Dawn did a nice job negotiating the the decrease so
that was why we're making the recommendation to um to enter into year uh four four and five at the at those rates clarify that it was a twoe thing that we were talking about not it is y it is two years and one of the other uh
things that I will say is we also checked with other schools and going out to rebid the contract um f they're finding that there's double digit increases and so we felt if we could keep it down um you know at four or below that we would that we would come
out um in the best position Jen you have a question are all the other like points in the contract exactly the same as it has been yes so nothing has been like changed or negotiated or whatever in the
contract it's this is no the one thing that the one thing that I will mention um Kim if you could Advance it to the third page where it where it lays out um yeah and in the blue this was what was negotiated for 2223 um and then you know we've just
brought those forward now you'll see chestfield Goan Southampton Westampton Williamsburg and Vocational so this this Transportation contract covers all of those expenditures and um one of the things that I I want to look at so this isn't
part of the contract I just am bringing it up because it's included in the contract um one of the things that we need to look at between now and the budget the end of the budget cycle is
how these costs are being allocated to each of these schools TOS um right now Hampshire Regional is picking up about $990,000 of the 1 million n that we're spending this year and uh we just want
to make sure that that is accurate and that the local schools are also have have accurate allocations so we're trying to um go into the archives and determine how this was done and just
update that but that's not a function of the contract that's a function of what we provide to the vendor and then they um invoice accordingly I just wanted to let you know that's something that's being done so the only change in the contract
then that we're being asked to approve tonight is to go from a 4% increase down to a three and a half in year four and a four and go from a 4% increase in year five down to a 3% increase yes and to renew for four for years four and five
so the contract um requests has to have an affirmative renewal and that's what you'd be doing we are renewing at these new rates okay but everything else about the cut so the number of buses all of that has stayed that's correct right that was my concern is that we have I know how we
switched this the calendar for this year the days that we can offset and be different than the high school or any of the other schools you know what I mean like that part of that contract I just want to make sure that all of that is still the same and the only change is the decrease
in percentage of increase I guess yes yes that that is my understanding you know I mean that yeah I'm glad you thought of that okay so nothing else has changed just the only change we're looking at is what Kim is showing on the screen right now that's
correct okay well somebody wants to figure out how to make the motion go ahead yeah so I move that we extend our contract with Durham school Services um for two more years uh at a rate of increase of 3 and
a half% for year four and 3% for year five perfect second any further discussion all in favor I I all
right thank you and thank you for renegotiating that Don M thank you I'm glad it worked out yeah me too all right school choice is this our annual vote to be a school of choice and and I just for my sake I just
wanted to understand the process that has happened over time in in Southampton uh there's you know there's a little difference in everywhere I've been um by Statute you only have to take a vote if you're not going to participate in school choice um so so and I know
Lisa youve looked at your numbers and and we're going to participate but uh just so I understand you're going to uh make a recommendation for where the seats are open and then the the school committee is going to weigh in on that correct right but that my understanding
was that that was not happening tonight so okay so normally what happens and I don't know if this is correct or not correct based on what you just said but this tonight I was prepared to just you know listen whether we were going to accept School of Choice students for next year whether we were going to
participate or not right um and then at the next meeting because once we just got our census numbers today and once we go through all those and sort of look at who we have in preschool coming up and who's at home that we don't know about that we found out about today um how
many kids do we think we can accept for school of choice in kindergarten at least and then look at the rest of the building too but it looks like we would probably only be looking at kindergarten um and then but we don't have have that number yet of how many spots we would like to accept Okay understood and and
just so everybody knows I have to complete a survey by June one so that fits right in with our timeline so um I just want to make sure we're all on the same page yeah I think it used to be there I think there was a time where we had to take the vote annually to do it
and I think that we got into the habit of taking the vote annually to do it so I guess is anybody making a motion to not do it definitely not no okay then I don't think we have to do any more with that
tonight right I just say for the record we have the highest number of students coming into kindergarten that we've had in a very long time we already have 48 so we like to see the number a little lower because we know there are people that did not fill out the census that we
sort of don't know about yet that will show up you know in the next six months so that's kind of a high number to start with but we'll we'll go from there are we losing a kindergarten teacher no we'll still have four okay it's interesting how these bubbles
come through it is BU it man' all right um security upgrades update is there anything to report there Alisa uh yeah we have our last training which would be Tuesday February 18th during vacation we have the company coming back in again again to go over
everything with us again our passwords our how to set and and deactivate and activate and things like that um answer a couple questions that we still have and then we should be good to go after that right and and to be clear sorry Kim
uh the uh the work that you've done for access to the building the the everybody's all set with that correct yes yep all the teachers are in agreement yep fantastic great work thank you is it anything else that we need to
talk about before our next meeting yes what's that Miss bu that's just um the we might have talked about it last time but I didn't see it in the minutes and and I can't remember when is the
Southampton um review of the budget when did who who reviews it is it the finance committee is it the select board after the school committee but for example in West Hampton the the school committee and the finance committee coordinate because the finance committee sits in on
those um on those hearings Etc and I think John handles this doesn't he Margaret doesn't he us take the lead on this yes he does okay okay so then we don't because because he's on select board it it's kind of that makes it a little bit easier but it it it is done
with the principal and school committee and then it goes to select board and fincom okay great so I'll just talk to John about what dates he's thinking of yep yeah wonderful thank you yeah and then we'll we we will have to schedule the public hearing and do the whole
advertising seven days ahead and all that stuff all right is there anything else no all right then I guess we're done all right nice job I can just adjourn us say I move
that we adjourn okay oh second okay good everyone all in favor thumbs up all right bye thank you everybody every e