School Committee: February 6, 2023

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.

0:35 I apologize ahead of time if anybody hears we have one more meeting than a minute then I’ll call us to order I apologize if we all hear Elson on in the background but it’s how I’m getting through a day meeting um the child care needs you just gotta let it go

0:53 see what I did there I see what you did there Allison too I mean I’ll call that a mom joke

1:33 let’s try this one more time and see if we have that same feedback

1:55 oh oh no

2:19 what’s happening what’s happening okay

2:24 all right I think we’re ready to go um and hopefully our Tech issues are done now um so I will call the meeting to order at 101 p.m um I will open it to public comment if anybody has any public comment okay okay um that moves us along we had called this meeting um after last Monday as we all know we had our Workshop that kind of laid out what everyone’s requests what were I’m very appreciative of all the work I know that our administrators put a ton of work into to getting us those documents um following you know guidance that we had put out in um following the state of the town where we

3:11 heard the town can at present only afford a 1.3 percent increase we called several meetings I was going to say emergency meetings but just um several meetings to kind of go over what next steps are are according to our numbers I’m just grabbing my budget book right here to keep the lights on not add new initiatives not add new staff add nothing just meet our contractual obligations which are defined in three buckets um it’s our salary contractual obligations including steps and Lanes are out of District placements which are a contractual obligation of themselves as well as um utilities our utilities again I would

3:57 call these actual obligation we can’t call the life department and tell them we don’t actually feel we’re gonna we can pay that rate so we’re going to give you a little less um also a contractual obligation so just to keep the lights on we’re at a 5.43 increase so that’s a Delta of 4.1 percent that we need to find cuts for so um we called this meeting to talk about next steps I am going to give Dr Bucky and Michelle a chance to recapture anything I may have missed just there no sir I think you hit the nail on the head it represents about eight hundred thousand dollars of an increase over the fya 23 appropriation our contractual obligations are 1.9 million so right

4:44 there you have a Delta of 1.1 million without keeping the lights on and without the special education increase that is projected so there are some things that came forward in the budget Workshop that will have to be part of the fy24 budget which further increases that divide and so it looks like there are some fairly difficult decisions for the administrative team I’m hoping that the budget subcommittee provides some direction uh for us to take back when we have those difficult conversations and then that would go to the full committee for kind of marching orders for the leadership team okay now Michelle these are just my back

5:30 and action calculations so John you you said we they can contribute 800 for some reason I the number I thought I was working with was 890 but it’s 800 instead you said that was the conversation I had with that okay so 800 would leave us with all of our mandated through contracts that we have to come up with roughly 1.59 million correct in cuts correct okay um and as John pointed out some of the additional apps are are things like expenses you know Mary Maxwell pointed out really well arima paper at the beginning of the year was you know something like 28 dollars for a case of

6:17 paper and now it’s 47. we can’t we have to allow for inflation in some of these numbers so some of those numbers are going to have to happen so that further expands on the need to cut the 1.59 million so my directive and and again I need to hear from Allison what she thinks as well from our our subcommittee would be to find out what the things like the escalation costs of expenses what the items are that we absolutely even if we have to stick to no override we have to stick to this number what what are those realistic have to have you know obviously the expenses due to inflation are some of them

7:02 um there was some requests in there from Paula Donnelly I always look at Paula Donnelly stuff as non-negotiable because those are contracts as well IEPs are contracts as well so if she needs more staff to be able to deliver those service hours we we do not have any legal latitude to say we won’t add those because then we’ll be in non-compliance and it will be an even bigger problem so I would like a list of what are the things that you know override or no override we have to move because it is beyond this this 5.43 those numbers so once we have that we really can figure out the Delta of it’s really not 1.59 we have to cut it’s whatever that number is but it’s we know it’s

7:48 definitely more than 1.59 and then with that number we need to then have a list of what what are we cutting to get to that um because everyone keeps saying we should have a balanced budget we’re legally required we can’t budget more than the revenue stream we have legally required um so what does that look like for an education in Marblehead I that’s our starting point we need to know what that number is and I think that number is probably realized realistic to have for Thursday correct

8:25 if we had to say with only contractual what would that be

8:33 I’m a little confused I’m sorry yeah I’m not following okay so I said we have our contractual obligations which are those three buckets but then there’s also certain expense lines that are non-negotiable we we’re not calling WB Mason so give me the non-negotiables okay and in the non-negotiable list the Delta between that and what the town can afford with this 800 000 that Delta is the the number we have to cut to so we can’t start cutting to a number until we know what what that Target is so what I’m asking for is can we get the target

9:19 we know it’s bigger than 1.59 and I correct right okay so once we have that number we then start talking about those areas so that’s one item simultaneously we need to start prioritizing if we if we are able to secure those additional funds via an override what are the prioritizations because it’s not 12.17 we just can’t and there’s it’s not achievable so then we need that prioritized list I would think perfect I I had a sense that you did and

10:05 so we’re really and again I understand we’re we’re asking you and all your administrators to to come up with essentially two more new budgets on top of what they just spent you know eight weeks coming up with um and and we don’t have eight weeks to do it so I I hope that you can relate to them how we understand how much work this is but it unfortunately and it’s painful gut-wrenching work obviously yeah sympathetic and empathetic to that but if we want to be able to do our jobs to the best of our ability that’s just information that we need um so that’s the first step and then through the prioritization list

10:50 for what we would like if we can secure an override then we have the list of what are non-negotiables that will bring us to our I our cut list essentially I I don’t know how to pretty that up it is what it is I mean services will be caught students is students will get less um there is no other way to put that

11:19 now how do we get to prioritize those cuts is that what you’re asking us John for some Direction with no I think that you’ve done exactly what I was hoping that we have a cabinet meeting this afternoon we’ve already done the initial rank order list from each of the budget Workshop presentations that principals and directors gave and then we’ll sit around the table and have additional conversations about in those priority lists which ones float to as you describe it non-negotiables they have to have and work uh backwards from there and I know you know Mary Mary said this the other day she said regarding one item this is the field I will die on and I really appreciated her giving that hierarchy right off the top

12:04 and I understand the importance of that position she did a really good job of explaining why that was so important but when I when I talk about what is a non-negotiable legally that one is still a negotiable so we have to get to our what is not a legal negotiable list and that’s the list I know it’s bigger than 1.59 because I gave the example of escalation costs or in in expenses but let’s get a tighter idea what that non-negotiable number is um and then you know there are there are things that we are required by law to do special education is one of them certain curriculum items are non-negotiables we have to do we have

12:52 non-negotiables in our contract which if we can come up with a bullet list to just refresh some school committee members mind I know for instance you know class size at different grade levels are are mandated through our contract all of these are non-negotiables if we can come up with just if we like a one-pager so that as we go through this process because Dr Bucky has said in the past it’s an iterative process we’re going to give a whole new level of iterative this year um I think it’s going to be really good on to understand in these discussions for school committee members what are the non-negotiables some of them are dollar things some of them are class size there are several nuts some of them are Jesse’s requirements what are the non-negotiables

13:39 I think that’s a great start but I think as we start getting into the cut process we’re going to realize that there are more things that are non-negotiable so I mean certainly we can start with a list but I do think people like oh I didn’t think about that that’s not a negotiable item so I expect this list to actually be you know our work in progress as well absolutely it’s an absolute it’s absolutely a living document because fortunately I don’t think any of us have been in a position where we’ve had to do these catastrophic of cots and and I want the public to understand that these numbers were talking about cutting are catastrophic they are catastrophic for our students and for our community for the way we view education in Marblehead

14:25 for our for even if you don’t have a student in Marblehead for your home values all of this this is really a big deal um that is this is a significant amount of money to cut from a district who has already been performing very very tight and a very very tight budget so um I just want there to be an awareness in the community for that

14:53 um Allison anything else no I mean I I think we need to drive that last point that you said home I think that needs to be part of the message uh the severity of this and that we as a group that the school committee as a group is aware of the severity of that um and how how devastating it will be to everybody that lives here not just people with young children or in the school system so one point I think sometimes that gets lost just I just want to reiterate I think sometimes that part gets lost in a community that has um that that diversity between people with students and people without so one point I want to make for this is

15:39 basically for the public and anybody watching this later on is um there’s been chatter over the years in the community about lack of transparency or looking for numbers that people might not have been able to get to easily um it doesn’t mean they didn’t exist it just wasn’t as easily found for whatever reason um I I want everyone to understand if you go to our website it is a quick link um it says budget documents you go there it’s the FY budget it’s a 300 plus page document um for instance there’s been a lot of questions about our grant funding if you go to page 285 in in that document there’s pages and pages and pages about not only what our grant funding is the

16:26 source the title the grant but Michelle I think this is you that did this if not I think whoever did do this there’s a blurb underneath every every Grant or outside funding that says in layman’s terms what are we doing with this like it will say Title One Grant blah but what does that mean who is who is seeing this money and it will say a Village School XYZ so there’s been a really concerted effort to get easily digestible very data driven documents out there to the public and if anybody has questions Michelle’s and John have been Fielding extra questions getting information out to the public everything is out there

17:12 um in in really easy to get to I even put it on social media the other night for myself for everybody um so John and Michelle is there anything else that you need from us to kind of work with the leadership team to have us better positioned to go into our meeting on Thursday no I I think I have what I need we’re meeting this afternoon so this will be helpful to take uh today’s meeting and share with them an update for furthering the work that they started last week and then Michelle can you

17:47 can you as we go through this year um looking at what tab in this book the budget tracking can you just continue to produce new you know two pages so that we can track the different iterations and try to get us the whole school committee whatever I know you won’t have all the data but whatever data you have prior to Thursday and also to the fincom so that we can follow and track that in our book do we have budget books for the fincom I know there’s an electronic version online some people like me prefer paper we did not do any any hard copy books for anyone besides school committee okay so I will there is one copy at wizard Road an office copy okay I

18:33 just because I see Pat’s name on here um Pat can I ask you to to find out if any any of your team needs a hard copy or the entire PDF is online every single bit of it if that’s good enough

18:50 apparently I put Pat in the spot uh oh there he is you’re muted oh okay um yeah so I I don’t I don’t technically think we need paper copies but electronic copy is is probably fine um Quick Lane yeah that would be great thanks okay I’ll make sure you I’ll have that um okay so Michelle if you’ll you make sure we have those cracking sheets so we can just keep updating our own binders here we should be good to go um I did post Thursday as both uh school committee Finance subcommittee with the financial Liaisons as well as a full school committee meeting I wanted to make sure if any members of the

19:36 school committee came they had a right to talk I’ve been in that position where I couldn’t talk and I don’t want to do that to any anybody on the committee if they have something they want to say and are at the meeting I want to make sure that they are capable of doing that and covered by any open meeting laws so we’re posted with a multitude multitude of postings for that meeting um all right if there is I’ll give one more chance for a public comment um some new names came on since we did it at the beginning No Hands um okay so John you can speak at any time uh we did finally get Friday afternoon late the capital request enrolling stock forms from town I might suggest we have

20:22 a facilities subcommittee sometime this week in order to get that information back uh to them we have a rough outline normally facility subcommittee weighs in on that yes yes that was perfect I may just because we have added a few things this week um I may have we may have to add that for the beginning of next week but I’ll talk to you offline and then send some dates out yeah and we also have the meeting next Monday as a school committee meeting at 9 00 a.m yes and with the sole topic of our budget budget yes um can you tell us what the the goal Target number they gave us for the capital request was I can’t there there isn’t a gold number so what guidance did they give

21:10 they give they give them just asked us to submit our requests so I’m not really sure what the number would be which is unusual because we usually get some type of information um so I would I would say just from a budget perspective we have that Master Plan um I would just start itemizing that I mean we have the numbers it’s just we were trying to be a little more collaborative and work with information they gave us but in the absence of any information that’s all we can do all right um if there’s no is there anything else before I adjourn us I feel like we were really short today no I just I just wanted to clarify so for Thursday for Thursday

21:55 for Thursday um because I’m just not anticipating necessarily having any Official Cuts before Thursday oh no I know I I don’t think we’re gonna have the cuts what I am hoping and again I understand this may be a time crunch is that we have this list it’s a 5.43 which we already have but that we have worked out the some of the non-negotiables absolute dollar value carries fully knowing as we work through the process we will find out there are other non-negotiables but if we can start to build that because like I said that number of what we need to cut is only going in One Direction it’s not going down right um so I just want I want to be

22:41 transparent I don’t want anybody to be shocked later on um okay I also think you should suggest to the general committee um the need for another Forum at some point because this now is an entirely different discussion that we’re having um Pat I see your hand yeah and just one quick item and that is um the uh sheets that Michelle put forth last year the tracking sheets um were extremely helpful and useful um and I know we’re going to have probably multiple um liaison subcommittee meetings this year

23:27 many more than we had last year and so if you have anything like that Michelle that after after you’ve cleared it with Administration and whatever whoever else you need to clear it with um anything that you could get to us in advance of liaison meetings would be very useful as well so okay thank you and then Pat was there anything else on top of that that in in the past you felt you needed and didn’t have because we want to make sure that we are being super transparent in giving all the data everybody needs um yeah I think um you you referenced a couple of items here um one of the things that we’ve um

24:13 been interested in the past is more of a flow from pot a of money to pot B of expense kind of thing and it sounds like um that there’s a some new information that might be available in terms of um the grant funding and and where how it specifically linked out um to the individual expenses I think that would be very useful and so I you said that you have a link somewhere in there yep I’ll send it right after this I’ll send you the link and just remember there’s there’s a table contents in the front that tells you what page to go to but um it’s it’s emblazoned on my head

24:58 that the grants are on page 285. I wrote it down okay and that’s that’s the bottom of the page numbers not digital page I learned that one too well we have Paula on here and this is kind of like phone a friend this Michelle may know this answer but Paul may know as well we talk about or I hear in the community these concerned about a lot of these Grant funds and moving from pod a to pump B it is my understanding that like the Ida grants and the title grants that come in we don’t have the legal authority to move that we don’t move those around they don’t come into our operating fund or go somewhere else there’s extremely extremely regulated that they can only pay for the purpose for which they’re distributed and

25:44 there’s a ton of filings that we do with whether it’s state agency or the federal agency that that gives us money so I know there’s this theoretical idea a little bit uploaded in the community that we could take this grant money and move it and use it for something else absolutely there’s so many levels of bureaucracy and checks and balances that keep that that preclude that from happening these are almost entirely and I see Paula’s head shaking but I want her to in a second verbally confirm all this that these are all so heavily regulated in in there for special education funding so we we don’t take those and then you know hire another administrator or take those and and do something so Paula if you could just give us a really quick synopsis of

26:31 the regulation over those yeah so just very quickly the 240 Grant the 262 Grand are federal entitlement grants and there is guidance on how the only ways those funds can be spent so no we can’t shift things to different lines like they come out of those specific grants in those specific places only um I can share with you I can email it to you through John just the you know the resource guide that they put out there that spells out very clearly what you can and cannot spend this money on the but no we don’t move it between line items and I appreciate that that’s something I’ve always known but I think unless you’re like deeply entrenched in the school side of things that it just seems

27:17 like it’s money that’s flowing to the schools so if you could share that document I think it’d be really helpful for us to put out the more information we put out to Common uh concerns in the community I think is just it’s better and we’re being proactive so I really appreciate that Paula thank you sure

27:39 yes Pat yeah I just wanted to say I wasn’t my comment wasn’t indicated oh no I didn’t think anything we are also just Fielding you know concerns from the community at large so I’m I’m answering a multitude of questions both asked in on the ass at the same time right okay thanks I mean we’re all in this together so yeah no Pat you have been a wonderful partner throughout the years with the schools and and have been very respectful to work with the other thing is there’s only so much we can do and we’ll have to just do the best we can that’s that’s exactly it um all right so with any lack of anything else um we will see everybody again on

28:27 Thursday and I will join us at 1 27th thanks sir thank you