School Committee: December 20, 2022

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:03 so nice to have you back in the office it’s good to be back

0:41 so I’m just trying to see who we have here um we’re still waiting on a couple people I believe are you guys having the feedback issue again

1:20 are we doing audio test for feedback

1:26 everything’s moving back to me right now

2:11 I believe we have everybody right now Alec and Thatcher are coming in as we speak

2:22 all right so I will call us to order then at 102 and open for a public comment if there is any threes your hands all right that moves us along to the FY 23 budget update and I’ll kick this off to Michelle

2:43 um I don’t want to certainly go over the entire report that I gave to the school committee um a few weeks ago but I did actually just email it to um all of the members of the town and school group here just so you guys would all have it um just wanted to mention we’re doing okay with our budget for the current year fy23 there are a couple areas that we’re watching closely um one is custodian salaries and over time we’ve been short custodial positions the entire school year currently have five vacancies we are just unable to fill two of those positions we’re actually filling with contracted workers and that is at a substantial cost um much higher than if we in we hired just employees to fill that role um so I wanted to mention that here you are watching

3:29 substitutes we seem to have a significant number of teaching absences we are able to attract substitutes but the the number just outpaces the number of substitutes available right now um so we might have a little bit of flexibility there utilities is another source that is completely uh volatile at the current time our natural gas rates are locked in through March but however as of the end of March they expire we had a three-year lock so we locked in rates from three years ago which was actually one of my first um

4:05 started in December of 19 I had locked in those rates and it was a great thing for three years however it’s no longer so great and a substantial increase for the last three months of this year in addition to whatever the next you know the coming years hold but we’re watching those rates right now we’re not locking in anything just yet um trying to notice that the electric rates are increasing in January um typically our annual electric budget is about seven hundred and five thousand dollars we take about 175 000 out of the Town reserve for the energy Reserve which our net budget is um

4:51 is 530 000 but with a 30 increase of 33 increase our annual cost is looking at increasing about two hundred twelve thousand so um about half of that so this year the electric rate impact is going to be about a hundred thousand hundred and twenty thirty thousand for this year um

5:13 and um that will carry forward into the FY 24 budget request as well and um

5:23 so far we’ve spent approximately 50 percent of our budget um a lot of the claims will fall off shortly because they’re only guaranteed up to six months so hopefully we will be able to um survive this year within the budget line item but it is something we’re watching and lastly is our special education costs um both in the areas of tuitions and transportation the costs have increased greatly since we last set our budget last year the finance committee was wonderful and actually gave us a 500 000 buffer because we had so many kids in the pipeline that we we knew our potentials and it was with the mental Mental Health crisis going on right now

6:09 um but as of right now our transportation line our commitments are 458 000 higher than anticipated already with our total budget and our tuition costs of 513 000 higher than our tuition costs were budgeted um we are okay still right now because we had a lot of um great things in our favor at the end of last year we were able to carry over um a little over 800 000 in circuit breaker which is a revolving fund ideally really makes fiscal good management to try to carry over about a million dollars in that that fund every year we were able to carry over eight hundred thousand which we can use if we need to um we are also able to prepay tuitions in the amount of 250 000 at the last

6:54 minute last year which helped us this year and our circuit breaker reimbursement for the current year is 220 000 higher than we had budgeted so that is an additional Revenue source that we weren’t anticipating so right now our total available balance for any special education tuition and transportation costs that we have we have an available balance of 478 000. however if we were to spend that 478 000 that means we will not have any circuit breaker carry over going into next year so I do want to caution that because right now that’s kind of our our Saving Grace so if we are to fully expend this we won’t have um that cushion that we have this year um and really that’s that’s where we are

7:39 for this year those are the areas of concern um we’ll just continue watching it closely glad we had these additional funding sources to absorb these costs um but it doesn’t seem like the Mental Health crisis is going away anytime soon so certainly this is something that we need to plan for something we need to anticipate and um there are a couple of things we’re already looking at for the FY 24 questions we’re hearing that some tuitions are going to be um significantly increased where they’ve in the past they’ve been increased two to three percent they’re going to have a significant increase for the FY 24 budget so just to kind of reiterate um what you just went through so there’s no surprises as we approach the FY 24 budget planning or actually we’re in the

8:26 middle of it we know about um roughly a million additional out of District than we did last year um and we don’t have the circuit breaker to carry over like we did last year to balance that long so we’ll need to include that in our upfront funding which is what is fiscally prudent anyway um we have an additional 212 for the rate increase for electrical loan natural gas we can assume there’s going to be an increase however we don’t know what that is yet um and we know that there’s going to be as proposed right now A 14 versus a two to three percent for our out of District placements which are currently in the

9:12 four million dollar range so you multiply that out by 14 and that’s substantial so just we’re looking at a significant increase just to say exactly where we are right now

9:34 so those are the main kind of as we work our way through the year main items outside of like what I’ll call your normal contractual obligations that as of this point you’re you’re highlighting to us that as you’re developing your um you know fiscal year 24 budget you’re going to have to take into consideration yeah these are the items that are impacting us for FY 23 right now but certainly it’s going to carry forward into FY 24. 4 okay and also there’s the typical you know curriculums that we have to update because you can’t I mean as we all know School curriculums update and changes time goes on we can’t continue to never invest in curriculums um so we’ll have whatever curriculums are identified by Dr Bucky and um the

10:20 assistant superintendent of learning as well as any other things that we we identify that need to keep us going without having students and staff run at a deficit for educational purposes I mean we’re definitely not looking to do anything above and beyond in a major way but we do Beyond contextual obligations there are you know when we don’t have a curriculum that is current we do we do have to meet the the deci requirements and the guidelines and that stuff okay okay um yeah that’s a helpful update appreciate it um and not something that you know you

11:07 had you had already shared some or Dr Bucky had shared right when you got it 10 to 15 I think it was 14 was the exact number that was a month or two ago so um that’s something certainly we’re gonna have to navigate I think special education has been a main piece of this budgets challenge since I’ve been looking at it for the last five or six years and probably even before that so as we said last year I think the more detail we can get on the history of that um you know how it’s been going up year over year actuals right in the last few years also what we’ve already increased year over year um like last year I think we we added an amount that we were determined that the town could support that didn’t go into

11:55 um the additional request on the warrant um you know just that history so this story and then we’ll we’ll blend in the forecast to that as well like it’s always good to have the right story because I think that is a real challenge to this budget and that needs to be highlighted very well um to both us for our review but also the town and town finance and everything else so our last meeting I asked you about being Michelle to provide us I always like to look at a three-year look back but considering that puts a smack dab in the middle of coved um I asked for a four-year look back so that we can see the trends and see if there’s patterns um in our ad adjustment placements because every year we go to town meeting with a number and by the time we’re in September October we have every year had

12:40 additional out placements that occur you know during those negotiations in the summer months um so I just ask asked for them to give us the four-year Trend and look back so when we’re planning it’s it’s database and if we see that we’re constantly um seeing a minimum of a certain increase I would Lobby that we in in prudent fiscal Management try to allow for that so we’re not digging into other line items mid-year yeah and then the other thing that I think we talked about last year um and you did show us but maybe as part of that kind of three year four year look back and then the forward forecast I know that in your line item historically in your budget it’s kind of

13:28 a net number of in in uh you know in tuitions that have been going down plus out of districts going up right because Marblehead can collect revenues from students that come into the system but my understanding is that’s been going down over the years so so that is impacting that net number to the extent we can have those numbers gross of one another and show the trend of money coming in going down and money going up um and just you know the data on the history the funding and then you know where where the requests will be in the future and then to me I think we brought it up last year I’m still interested in exploring how we can better manage or utilize the Reserve accounts that’s been created for this because I think it’s been funded it maybe hasn’t been

14:15 drawn from because it’s you know outside of the reserve the ordinary budget’s been increasing as well on top of the reserve so just the history and then you know as we develop a plan to address what I see as a very major challenge of your department um you know how do we use that better if we can I don’t know if you guys have ideas around that yet but something I was thinking about okay I don’t know I wonder if it might be useful for us also to have a sort of a high level uh um so the management discretion you have or don’t have around um out of District placements negotiations with providers rates locations I mean I recognize there’s a you know an individualized planning process with every student but

15:02 you know is there any ability to influence where we send students and what the cost structure is um choices we make about in-service or sorry in District Services we provide that might satisfy some of the needs that are out of District placements I guess for me it’d be useful to have a little bit of an overview to make it clear where our choices are if any to either provide more in District or to provide a little more um a little more negotiation going out of district and I guess you know that’s that’s I mean I know something about it but enough to be dangerous not enough to really understand the options and so maybe not an in-depth presentation but maybe something just gives us the terrain of the special education uh in District and not a district placement situation yeah and just to give you like a

15:47 hundred thousand foot quick synopsis on that is by the time they get an out of District placement they’ve had to show show over such a period of time sometimes years that we have not met their needs and that is typically determined through attorneys and through the courts the system could um if we if we take it through the court system um and correct me if I’m wrong Dr Bucky if it gets so far in the the decision before we make a settlement one of the pieces of the settlement is then we have to pay their attorney fees and everything as well so sometimes if it looks like the courts are going to find in their favor we make that settlement before it gets to the court because that’s actually a savings because once it gets to the court we own the full boat of everything plus if they’ve had

16:34 Advocates and attorneys going back so many years as well

16:48 am I hearing somebody coming through yeah it looks like we’re getting some feedback if everybody could just mute

16:58 I I just have a comment so I’d rather not mute just yet um okay and I’m assuming you can hear me okay it’s kind of following on the management discretion if I meant from camp and and that is I think one of the things that might be useful and we for for the school committee and the school department to um to investigate and then report to us we don’t you know we’re just looking for the in a lot of cases we’re just looking for the end result but that would be to look at the types of um special education services that we are providing or and are and need to

17:43 provide and see if there’s a cost benefit trade-off to trying to um keep the placements inside our our district by hiring um staff that can address that I think that to you know that that’s a trade-off that I think is a really important to um to provide because um we need to I one of the things I think that we collectively are looking at in the finance committee is trying to do a forward-looking um multi-year look at what potential expenditures are going to be if in fact

18:31 we need to do a general override we would we seriously want to have it be sufficient to support the services that the town needs more than just next year we don’t want to be doing this every year I don’t think the school department does either so um that’s that’s I think that could be a critical

18:57 um piece of a an equation to try to determine um and and to mitigate some potential longer term costs to to the district um and and why did you pick a four-year um four years uh Sarah looked back because I think three years is a pretty good standard for looking at fiscal Trends but because three years landed us right in in the middle of it yeah I wanted to go back an additional year to see if that’s a big outlier then I would go deeper but okay um considering how tough it is in our systems to get any data reports I would be hesitant to start asking us to go back any further because it’s it’s incredibly laborious

19:43 um we don’t we don’t have an easy um way to give those reports but if that one is a big outlier then I think we would need to look deeper um and actually Pat I have asked a couple times this year and I know Dr Bucky is is working with our um special education director to get us these reports so we can kind of look at those Trends because it’s to me it’s all about data and Trends we can look at the trends to see is our outplacements always in one area are we losing a lot at a grade point is it in a program Point can we bolster or or scaffold what we’re doing in-house to keep some of those things in-house can we design a program in-house bring in a consultant to help us design a program in-house which again is an initial cost but the the return the ROI on that is much

20:28 better so we’re we’re having these discussions and we’re looking at all of that um you hear heard Michelle say social emotional um crisis that we’re in one of the biggest that is a big driver right now and those social emotional outplacements that we’re having those are the big ticket ones if we outplace a student for that it could be in the two to three hundred thousand dollar range for one student so and those are the ones that we really you you can’t build a uh an impatient Hospital unit for you know what I mean these are the things that no District can do in-house um so us being where we are in life in the crisis um the Mental Health crisis this is really affecting our bottom line as well and I don’t want anybody to think I’m talking about students in regards to a

21:15 bottom line but we we are here for the the fiscal attribute of our area of things no but that that’s great and I is keep keep looking at it I think it’s I I also think it’s a very valuable perspective and and I did listen in on your previous budget subcommittee meeting and one of the things I never got a chance to get back to you thanks for returning my call but um was I was just going to mention that I was encouraged by your comment that um you’d like to um have a forward-looking um perspective

22:00 on the potential expenditures two three five years down the road and that’s exactly the kind of thought process that I think we as the finance committee are are looking to try to develop across all departments throughout the town not just not just the school committee so yeah this is great and and the only reason I was thinking kind of a five-year look forward which is why I thought maybe a five-year look back might be something to consider but just see what see how it shakes out thanks will do definitely um if there’s no other questions about the FY 23 budget update although it Bridges quite a bit with our next agenda item I will move us into the FY budget planning and discussion um we had developed it was the first

22:47 time we kind of did this at the subcommittee level

23:00 okay sorry about that um we developed I don’t know how much did you hear any of that no okay so what I said was we’re just going to move on to FY 24 budget planning and discussion items because it Bridges really the other agenda item um this is the first year that we as a subcommittee and then again as a committee have developed a document for Budget priorities that would that Dr Bucky is then going to use with his leadership team and kind of just brought us in sooner to the process gave us a little more ownership because you know the school committee does really own the budget here um and then we everyone knows what our concerns are so as they’re presenting them at um from the principals and from the

23:46 directors they’re addressing our concerns um I don’t know Dr Bucky did we get a chance to share that those priorities out with the group uh no but I can send the map for this meeting okay um essentially we we want to make sure that we’re taking care of everything from our planning for Success documents we want to address the special education concerns um while providing inclusion for our students um there’s several items on there none of them would be surprises or all things we’ve talked about um we want to explore new revenue streams whether those are grants through a grant writer or what they are um I think where are inflation and our costs are growing as I think every school district in every town is

24:32 um quicker than our revenue streams are I think it would be really prudent for us to start looking at being more creative with some of those revenue streams which our only other option is some grants so we we wanted to explore that um and then we want a we want to not just know what the three the four-year look back is the look ahead but we also want to present to you and the town what an education in Marblehead really cost right now we um present what it costs Marblehead taxpayers but it really costs more than that we have quite a substantial portion of our budget that is also Grant based a lot of those are entitlement grants that if anybody has questions Michelle can always answer that we have a lot of

25:18 private money that comes in too um excess of a million dollars for our ptos and friends in the Marblehead public schools that are that these programs well in other districts might be full uh funding things like field day here they’re really fun and curriculum for us and our concern is if that private money dried up we would not we would still have the need for that curriculum you know at the brown school they’re paying to meet our science curriculum through the garden program and things like that so we’re going to in our budget this year show what it costs with all these additional revenue streams and Michelle will make that a part of her budget book so I will kick the budget planning and discussion back to Michelle if she has anything to cover

26:08 um nothing in particular um we’re working on our budget requests right now John and I have meetings with all of the peoples and directors set up um beginning tomorrow and we will be meeting with them going through their budget requests just trying to um figure out you know what page we’re on and um we’ll be putting the books together our school committee um budget meetings I believe are January 9th and 10th and we will review those um budget requests at that time the budget books um will be available mostly it’s going to be electronic I will provide school committee members that want a hard copy of the binder with a hard copy copy otherwise they will actually be on the website um you know by the week of January 9th and so um the public will be able to see

26:53 all of our requests in addition to anyone else who who was so inclined to review our budget um and we will we’re we’re trying to capture a little bit of a look forward um this year we did ask them not specifically what are your numbers for you know the year after next but what types of things and what types of larger expenditures do you see coming down the pike so we’re trying to grasp you know whether our curriculum cost is so you know just half a million dollars for FY 24 well what’s that going to look like an fy25 so we’re trying to get a little bit of additional information there and as Sarah mentioned we are doing a look back with this special education tuitions um and whatnot so we’re trying to look

27:39 back but also as Sarah mentioned the soft right system is extremely difficult to get any information out historically and that is actually only Limited in terms of what was actually put in through the system so if something else was paid from another funding source and then journal entry out so when we’re going back to FY 18 and FY 19 that is when the fiscal nightmare happened and the budget shortfall so that even complicates things a little more to actually look at the FY 19 and FY 18 years so when I came on in fy20 I had a good grasp on where we were at that time I’m confident in those numbers looking back beyond that it’s a little funky so um we’re gonna do the best we can and give you all the information but um

28:24 we’re trying to be as open as transparent and we don’t want any surprises but we certainly want everyone to understand what we’re up against right now

28:36 we elaborate on that I know that the salaries were that number’s really big I understand people see a giant number we will make it available to everyone the breakdown the line items of that um so people know what goes into that that giant number um and then if I don’t I don’t know if this is the appropriate place for this plug but I every chance I get can we please move on from soft right can we invest in a different um program Michelle has been phenomenal phenomenal about bringing transparency to our books the problem is it is not it’s not easy to give reports a lot of these reports and other programs you

29:23 would just be able to you know essentially click on and move forward and we can’t do that um so it makes these look backs and therefore projections really really hard so I mean it makes everything really really hard I know I’m really hoping that we move away from this is the year that we move away from soft right because it’s really important to bring Clarity to our budget planning and budget look blacks foreign

29:56 concerns thoughts from anybody I would just say so thank you for noting um that was one thing that I wanted to be clear I’m I’m not going to share my screen because I don’t even think I can right now but I’m looking at kind of the documents Michelle that um was the budget request summary as of whatever date that was shared throughout and the first line was base salaries wages from fiscal year 22 appropriation um you know the budgeted and the request and then it was bridged from there um it sounds like Sarah there’s plans to you know in this document that we’re reviewing fincom and school department and then ultimately the documents that’s getting posted on your site or whatever will have pages and pages of data that

30:41 build up into those numbers um both for and this is a request would be could we have fiscal year 22 budget or actual actually um fiscal year 23 budget and then fiscal year 24 request that’s generally the at least for this exercise is the three years is what we do with every other department um and I really you know just want to make sure you know as part of our process I know we got that detail in a binder at the beginning of the year last year so we had it but let’s just make it digital so that we don’t have to deal with folks standing up and saying it’s it’s not like I’ll stand up and say yes it has it’s right here you will absolutely have that this year okay and then

31:27 and then and then as part of that Breakout because again I’m looking at the the second page where it’s showing the um you know the non-salary expenses or the expense line items that’s nice and sorted brown professional development Brown in-state travel so to the extents you can sort those salaries kind of two ways one by school and two by what’s a teacher position whether that’s a teacher or a supporting whatever it may be you guys know the department and then what’s a non-teacher position I think that would be helpful for us to see too I don’t know if that’s easy to do um yeah if if we follow our um breakout of account line items it will be it’s it’s actually

32:12 it’s much more broken down than just teacher non-teacher it would be teacher special education teacher um Paris tutors custodians it breaks it down into every single category by school so that that was how I was planning on moving forward and if they’re a full year employee I know that what we got last year breaks it down if it’s a full year employee a partial year employee how many pay Cycles and that that’s also really helpful for I think really helpful information so we all got that last year and I think anything the school committee got the ideas you know it’s it’s going to be out there everyone’s gonna happen yeah I think that would be great starting point and you know this meeting is great because I think our liaison meeting window is kind of pushed back to

32:58 like the two years ago and earlier kind of from January through March um I think we have four budget hearing nights scheduled February 13th 27th March 13th March 27th as of now we will plan on schools being March 13th noting that that fourth night is the catch-all should we need more time for any department so I would not be surprised if we go there so you know this is kind of what I view from our perspective of this meeting as a planning meeting for a number of liaison meetings we’re going to have over the next you know between January and the end of March so we have time um and presumably there will be numbers moving throughout that you know fiscal year 24 budget development process

33:44 um I’ll let cam kind of speak in a minute here but another item we were hoping for was the overall budget the process to which it was presented to us last year before we determined you know how much the town could support versus what was went for in that you know end article in last year is warrant um was presenting you know your all-inclusive needs based budget as you defined it and not bifurcating at all until we got to that point I think it would be helpful if we could have a budget which would be level Services which should include contractual obligation adjustments of course um but also those items that you guys let off the call tonight with right like

34:31 contractual obligations are not just you know based on labor negotiations and Union contracts they’re also based on changes in special education so a budget that captures a level Services a true level Services budget adjusted adjusting all line items for that um and then a second budget that maybe has some of the other things that I don’t know what you plan on including this year but just to be very clear what we’re looking at as we approach a very challenging year for the entire town um and you know free cash issues and web apps oh Cam if you have anything to add

35:09 no thanks Alec I think that’s great to have that tied up a breakout so it’s really clear what that would be for current Services as you define them um one other one other question I have or I guess request question is um enrollment projections and enrollment history I think would be a really interesting uh thing for us to see because um it’s obviously a topic of conversation and obviously at some point it does become relevant to your financial planning your budget planning you know and I understand a one or two percent drop doesn’t change the number of teachers uh you have it depends how the kids are distributed but when you get to a certain percentage and depending on how it’s you know where it is there are there are impacts on your budget so and I know yet an uptick uh this year I don’t know if that’s related

35:55 to returning students from uh Independent Schools who left to go to a in-person instructions I know that’s happening in other towns but so looking back and looking forward and how that impacts your your financial planning I think would be really helpful good for us to know what you’re thinking about as you see the future and and you know how much in the future you’re comfortable um projecting obviously you’ve got kindergarten counts you can project ahead to high school but what you’re seeing how you how you project even uh kindergarten enrollments in five years what do you look at what you know birth rates move-in rates whatever your way of assessing that I think that would be a very healthy uh healthy topic for us to get a little deeper into um and I say this a little a little bit tongue-in-cheek I I where they said that

36:41 the enrollments have been coming down I’m the one anomaly in time town that you can’t Bank on for that um yeah I have six kids and definitely not factoring into the enrollment it’s going down one interesting thing we did have our enrollment go go up this year but we opened the brown school with um right it was built for 450 students yeah and we currently our first full year in the school have 453 as of last week I think so some of that and those were those projections were pre-covered projections so I just want to as it pertains to outplacements coming back or not out placements opting out um because of covet to the private school which we did see some of um coming back in this is an access to that um and I think

37:28 you know just anecdotally what I’m seeing is before you used to see a lot of movement within Marblehead of the home value um home home purchases we’re seeing you know just me talking to the peers of my my children um a lot of those kindergarten kids are coming from Charlestown the south end things like that through moving into town which is something we haven’t seen a lot of it in previous years the last two years I think we’d see a lot more in about three weeks before we started the school year this year we had to add an extra kindergarten class level because we were we had such an influx of kids coming into District in the kindergarten level we didn’t have enough um room in our our current classes Pat

38:16 oh oh hi um so I just wanted to ask a clarifying question and it might might involve Thatcher uh giving a response but um we did um we we have the town has moved forward with looking into using and this gets back to the um soft right uh software where I’ll put you on the spot Thatcher where are we with being able to implement the um the upgraded software system clear government and clear the clear yes the cleargov.com uh implementation in terms of the budget in general across the town and then of

39:02 course specifically as a to as a better tool for Michelle to use thanks sure um so we we um the the clear graph is turned on um I’ve set up just a few of us as users in the kind of this point because um well the um our accountant has sent uh five years of history of budget data that’s being uploaded and based on the email traffic back and forth um because anytime you’re transferring data there’s always anomalies that you know pop-up um there weren’t a lot and they seemed to have been clarified so I haven’t checked in um today but basically soft the the clear

39:51 gut folks are uploading the data they they have to um you know receive the files from us and they have to normalize it for their system so I think it’s a couple week process so it’s coming um I hope to add more uh department heads as users once I have the department set up I’ve sent Michelle I think I don’t know if you if you’ve had a chance yet uh her user account so there’s a few of us with it it also comes with with training modules and I uh not this week last week and sat down and went through all the training modules the software is very user friendly it is it you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to use it which is really really good news um

40:36 and on the town side so so we are in a foot race a time between having the clear golf you know all the data fully uploaded and department heads and and this staff um comfortable with it and starting to re uh rely on that as the source for the budgeting so in the meantime we’re doing the good old-fashioned Excel spreadsheet and despite the the time frame that we had discussed I don’t know how many weeks ago um I think I put in I I’ve at least put in somewhere between 20 and 30 hours in the last couple weeks of trying to extract four years of data out of the

41:22 soft right and clean it up in order to provide our department heads with the reports you know the historical reports to start using the spreadsheets to load their budget request um it it is excruciating um I literally I’ve been working nights in the entire weekends doing spreadsheets I one of my eyes started bleeding I swear I was my eyes are so dry looking at the screen I think I rubbed it blew a little blood vessel in my eye that that was last week um but we’re gonna you know move forward in the race is uh the department has getting the stuff on spreadsheet and then sending that in and then it depends on the clear Gob timing as to when

42:08 everybody’s ready to switch over over to that so it’ll be I’m gonna guess sitting here right now and it’s a guess sometime in mid-January um I hope to be just using the click of for managing the data um that’s just my best guess right now but it will provide a better advantage to uh for all of us trying to trying to manage this process yeah and we recognized when we approved the funding to to go forward with this that it was um clearly going to be a transition year um yeah I know how much Michelle’s been struggling with this software and is if we can prioritize

42:56 getting it to Michelle and and Michelle I’m sorry if you have to do a lot of tutorial studies but you know I’m just thinking if you know if I’m hopefully it will help you when this gets back to um Sarah’s question about when are we ever going to get rid of soft rights that we’ve so we’ve made some some um inroads into that and it’ll only get better from here so I just that was just a comment I wanted to include in the discussion now my understanding is this helps the gfoa but this is not a substitute in a way for soft right no so so let me fill in so this is um this software sits on top of our general

43:42 ledger software it and it talks to it so um as I understand it and we’ll the proof will be in the pudding when we’ve got our data loaded we start actually using it but um it will update with our general ledger and we will be able to use Clear gov to extract information better than soft right can um so uh I think we will be in a better place so it’s not just you know the gfoa output it’ll actually be on everything I’ve seen a tool that department heads and others can use on an ongoing basis even after you know we build build the budget um and I I’ve been saying this for months as far as the order so budgeting software first that’s an implementation

44:30 uh payroll software uh um as soon as we can get over the hump of of getting this data ready uh I want to sit down with some folks and look at payroll software you know we’re we’re wrestling with another glitch because we’re using in-house processes uh uh you know everybody got paid this past week but anybody with an external email which as I understand it is everybody on the school side didn’t get their pay stops something happened on the email exchange so uh I I I’d rather that they not get pay stubs and get paid than the other way around but still we we want to fix this um so payroll uh a payroll software and then general ledger software as soon as we have the bandwidth to jump on that next

45:18 thing and so my guess is fiscal year 24 sometime in fiscal 24 will probably be using two general ledger applications as a transition from thought right to whatever else we’re going to migrate to that’s my sense um one thing I I want to bring up that’s become a priority if you will um in the past it seems like one of those uniquely Marblehead things the fincom has voted our budget before we have voted our budget and the spirit of making the community really see the transparency of this and seeing that we own our budget requests it is not being

46:04 dictated to us it’s something we own we are our sincere hope is that we will have voted our budget and had our budget hearing prior to fincon voting our budget it just seems backwards when you guys approve a budget that we even had a hearing on yet and haven’t voted so how flexible are the dates you gave to us because that might be really tight for us to have had our budget hearing and voted our budget on by then yeah one second I’m just I somehow lost the schedule okay I just I think it’s really really we own our part from the community we’ve had our hearing and that’s what you’re approving yeah so they’re not all that flexible

46:51 um my because I I understand how difficult of a process this is going through it for a number of years now um that March 27th which is really our fourth catch-all night for you and any other departments that need we go until then is the Monday before the generally when we do the town warrants meeting when I get up there and talk for four hours straight so generally we need all Department budgets done by that next Monday so I think you know the 27th is probably where we’re at um as as probably the latest time with that we would need to have that hearing for us again we hopefully it’ll be the 13th but wouldn’t be surprised if we use that night for you guys or somebody else as well

47:37 um um and then one other thing I just wanted to throw out there in an idea of planning um and this is a little bit off of kind of the process last year but um I’m interested in better understanding kind of how the school department and school committee kind of views Marblehead and are there peer communities that you guys kind of compare yourself with um and I’d really like to get as many metrics as we can I I know I’m not a I’m an accountant and I look at financial data all day but I’m not necessarily an expert on government accounting and the best metrics to look at for a school department but to the extent we can kind of do our peer Community comparisons

48:23 whether it be um you know enrollment data like Cam said or I don’t know if it’s teacher to student ratios or average teacher salaries or per pupil spend I know that there’s probably data out there but you know just putting some numbers around that again for your story as to you know how we compare to the towns that you know for me as a taxpayer putting the finance committee aside you know how I want my kids to go through this school system and and what type of school system does Marblehead want to be in relation to other towns and how does the budget kind of talk to that um so I guess I’ll just throw that out there for you know future meetings if if maybe we could kind of look at some of that data this year I don’t know how easy it is

49:08 to pull that data on peer communities it’s probably outdated by a few years I would imagine but it’s it’s I mean it is but it’s not too bad where we honestly the hardest struggle is there’s what Jesse says we’ve compared ourselves to there’s what realtors in town tell you that we’re compared to there’s what parents want to be compared to and the bottom line is our home values would compare us to you know uh Concord or a Wellesley or Newton or a Westin and we are absolutely nowhere near them in our student spending so it’s like what people think we compare to is the W towns and education in Massachusetts you often hear the reference of the W towns and and that’s what people seem to think we’re compared to we are not anywhere on

49:55 the playing field with the the quote W towns um and so it’s not it’s not a fair comparison but that is what the general Community thinks we’re on par with um in reality Desi sees us more like John correct me if I’m wrong like already um which you know yeah so I don’t raise Ranch for over a million dollars you know it it that’s not what people want to hear um I imagine that you guys talk about the stuff at your school committee meeting so um you know to the extent we can get involved at least at a you know micro level in some of those conversations on finance committee and budget and comparing that so we can better understand and better communicate

50:40 that type of data and compare it to what the town can support and whatnot I just think I don’t know I don’t want to speak for Kim and Pat but I think that would be helpful for me as I continue to grow with this liaison group definitely and um Dr Bucky and Michelle when we present that data can you also have the comparisons of how what the percentage of their students on IEPs are and what percentage of their students are outplaced because really where special education is such a driving force um I remember when bill mccauldiff came one of the things that’s jumped out of him was many more of our students percentile wise are on an IEP than is the average Town um and there’s a myriad of factors that might factor into that but um it simply costs more to educate a child than an IEP than it does in general education

51:26 students so I just want to make sure that we’re keeping that in line with what are our peer communities and how many what’s the percentage of their students on these IEPs um does anybody have anything else to add I just wanted to um quickly round back to cleargov for the schools did I hear 2024 as the date for that what is we’re currently using it or Michelle has been given access she’ll start in if I know Michelle she’s already started but I no I don’t do that but I mean to have full I mean those that’s not a quick process I know she’s amazing and so it’ll be far quicker with

52:13 her at the helm no doubt but what is but the expectation is that eventually we will be fully on or using clear gov which will hopefully help Michelle be able to produce more reports in a faster amount of time and and not have to laboriously slave over finding numbers so that we will be using the same system as the town still correct yes yeah I think I think clear gov I would say we’re in a 30 to 45 day window for that and what what was referred to in the 2024 time frame was the general ledger software okay getting off a soft writing going to some other and having to have both for a while because you need to transition absolutely yeah I do think I I call it in my

53:00 professional life kind of the parallel run whenever a client of mine is adopting a new Erp system so yeah I think Michelle your plan is that we appreciate kind of trying to Navigate Clear gov but like Thatcher said those Excel docs at least for this year as the backup to that in case something goes awry in implementing a brand new software and we’re like oh we don’t have anything now you know right so that parallel run is always from my perspective helpful the first year that’s what I do for work so I yeah I totally agree um and so then it would be the 2024 2020 end of 2023 24 school year that we would get to use it fully hopefully for that stuff and not have to okay

53:45 that’s the hope if we find funding for it because those programs aren’t cheap no um so that brings I don’t think anybody has any new business I I did have one question you started it um when you were originally talking about the fiscal 24 budget planning um I I listened in the school committee meeting um last week and is that is the is the priority uh creation and planning document is that what the what was called thought exchange was about what because that scene yes and no we have our own documents but but then thought exchange is a program Dr Bucky invested

54:32 in this year that will yield data from the community um that instead of them answering the questions we put out to them they can really speak in their own terms and we’re hopefully not missing um some thoughts that they have so we put one out asking what are your priorities um and that data has just come in I think that closed last Thursday so we’re gonna see a little friend here joining me sorry um so um we’ll be seeing that data more thoroughly and what what community are you talking about are you you’re talking about the school in internal spoken we put um the thought exchange I’m sorry she’s held on for two meetings today

55:18 this is the best she can do um we put it out to anybody anybody yeah the whole town we um staff student students could have access parents had access General community members we gave it um we put it out on our social media we put it on our website we some media sources picked it up and pushed it out so pretty much anybody that wants to give that feedback of what do you want funded what are your budget priorities could have answered it um and there’s when you check in to do that there’s a way to check that you’re a parent a teacher a Community member so as we aggregate that data we’ll be able to say the general Community this is their priority versus parents this is

56:04 their priority so we’ll have that data okay that I that’s a great it’s a great plan um I wasn’t aware of it first I’d heard of it was at your school committee meeting last Thursday so um I was I was interested in that and we got a tremendous amount of feedback too which was really nice to see um yeah that’s what it sounded like but um it it might in in the future you might want to do something like the access the code red type communication sound wide system because that would reach more of the outside of the school community community population probably like me and so um it’s just a suggestion in in um whatever data you have will be great

56:52 let’s see what it says um but um you know again I’m it would unless you unless there’s a reasonably substantial uh cons non non-school related constituent input from that I we that’s something to think about as you review the data

57:16 we designed our priorities really based on the data we’re seeing as a as a district you know for instance our out-of-district placements our MCAS scores we’ve been reviewing those in great depth and we show areas that we may have grown or there were some significant areas of concern so we’ll want to make investments in say fifth grade math because we saw we had like a it was a substantial Delta um so we try to make sure everything’s data driven we absolutely want to hear from the community what their priorities are too but the majority of our decisions will just be data driven from our our test scores from our outplacements from new curriculum new standards that are coming out from Desi things like that

58:10 great Fair that’s fair thanks um so if there’s no other new business I will adjourn us at 1 58. thank you all and have a great holiday thanks everyone thank you Derek can you stay on for a minute