School Committee: September 15, 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.

0:06 oh you’re streaming this yeah we we try to make sure because it I do it more so that there’s an auto recording so wait I’m gonna call us to water at 101. um we are recording just so everybody knows I try to do it because that makes the auto recording go up because I quite honestly don’t know the track of recording it and then uploading it and so we try we try to make it available to everybody um okay so I am going to ask for a public comment there’s no public comments um and so I will kick it off for fy24 Budget update

0:46 yeah so right now we are really early into the FY 24 year um usually we we’re now doing quarterly reports so September 30th will be coming in a couple weeks and then you’ll get your first quarterly report but we did want to give you an update where we are at this point um certainly we don’t have a lot to report but we do watch our out of District tuitions closely so we’ll give you an update on that um right now we are are still in the hiring process um still onboarding teachers as we speak have a couple more starting this week um so we are filling that but we do have a little bit of a surplus in that area as well so Emma will speak to that um but that that’s it really where we’re good and then you’ll also when we do our quarterly report in a couple weeks you

1:33 will get your FY 23 closeout so our figures will be finalized um and we’ll give you those reports as well so lots of reports coming in the next few weeks so our next monthly report will have lots of reports to review but we did want to just bring you up to speed on where we are in terms of you know where we are with this budget and with the you know since we did have the field override we did end up cutting the 33 positions um most of them were not layoffs and which resulted in a little bit of a cushion with our unemployment line um being higher than we anticipated so you know we’ll we’ll touch on all those areas but I will turn it over to Emma I will actually share my screen um I can make Emma um that’s okay Emma I need you a co-host in

2:21 case you need to screen share thank you I can share the um out of District tuition document if that’s what you want me to share right now so that’s perfect you can start there okay

2:37 I think this is the right one remember that

2:48 yes yes okay so take it away Amber in terms of the other District all right yep so um right now we are in a pretty good place with our out of distribution

3:06 are you guys getting feedback right now because it’s replaying everything from the YouTube link right now for me no Michelle when this has happened in the past do I need to I’ve signed off and signed back in right I think so let me sign in from my phone too

3:47 okay what I did was I signed on to my phone for the audio exactly that will work let’s try it again all right is that better Sarah that’s perfect sorry about that no no worries I just want to make sure that you can hear um so out of District placement wise we are in pretty good shape um we didn’t fix placeholders in the budget and we do have um a good number um about seven or So currently unassigned placements two that weren’t originally intended as placeholders but we had students meet graduation requirements um after the budget was put together so

4:32 we have a little bit of savings there um but otherwise we are have currently with our currently enrolled students um a current Surplus against the budget of about 157 thousand dollars of total expense we were able last year to prepay um just shy of 540 000 in collaborative tuitions the intent is that we will be able to use the money that is saved from their prepayment um at the end of last year at the end of this year to prepay tuitions again going forward and basically have that Security net prepayment um in perpetuity um the other sort of notable change is

5:20 that we were able to maximize our circuit breaker um fund carry forward which means that and because we can only hold in the revolving fund one year’s worth of income we will have an additional about fifty thousand dollars just over um that we will have to pay through circuit breaker um as well um so there will be at least a little bit of savings against what was originally intended for the general fund budget okay so can I ask a quick question this is Jen Schaffner

5:58 um so if we’re using so we prepaid with our Surplus from fy23 we prepaid out of District placements and it sounds like what I just heard is the plan is to do the same thing to just carry forward that Surplus into prepayment

6:14 so were we so we have some other unforeseen um costs around the superintendent and so and maybe you’ll speak to this separately but do we have a line item for that or we have a you know a source for that additional cost this year Michelle what we’re doing right now is we’re anticipating obviously we have the superintendent’s salary line um that will not be fully expended unless we hire someone um that is paid higher than the previous superintendent so but we’re paying we’re paying the previous superintendent right now like yeah through December 31st um if we hire someone around the same time at a lesser salary than that won’t have any impact on that

6:59 line or equal or lesser um so the the lump sum payment to the superintendent is going to come out well we’re going to set up a separate line um and that will come or be called separation pay basically we do have a line called separation pay that we don’t typically fund um but we will put money into that from the unemployment account um right now we have a sizable budget in the unemployment line item which we intended to cover the layoffs of a lot of the positions that needed to be cut with the override and because most of those employees resigned on their own um because they knew their positions were you know in Jeopardy um we do not have to pay the unemployment costs okay so we have a

7:46 couple more than a couple hundred thousand Savings in that of which will take out 94 000 right correct so we’ll still have a surplus of over a hundred thousand in that line item correct Okay so so Michelle brings them wrong that this Surplus this year actually helped serve achieve the goal you were looking for which was to begin to have this you know this balance to have cover our other District costs every year in advance absolutely so we have two really good things going in our favor so we have finally built up our circuit breaker revolving fund to the maximum allowable amount that we can

8:33 carry over so the state require or limits us to only be able to carry over one year of Revenue so last year we received I don’t have the exact figure but roughly 1.2 million in Revenue we were able to finally carry over that amount of money we had been working on this this is the fourth year now we’ve been working on this so we’re finally at that point where we can carry that over and that is actually a great financial practice which every school district hopes they can do so we’re finally at that point um so really it’s an insurance plan always want one year in the bank because really when we go to plan our budget for the next year we’re already planning on spending circuit breaker funds but in most cases we don’t have those funds in the bank already here we now have them in the bank so we can confidently allocate them and know we have them to spend

9:20 so we’ve reached that goal and then this and when you say one year yep oh sorry no when you say one year you’re not talking about when you’re at a district placement boss you’re talking one-year circuit breaker right because the just yeah the circuit breakers are greater than circuit breakers oh absolutely so the circuit breaker reimbursement it’s this funky formula where it has to be more than four times the average per pupil expenditure times 75 which is the reimbursement rate so it’s this little funky formula that basically gives us a lot less than it’s really costing us to send our students out of out of District um so roughly on a three million dollar three to you know 3.5 million dollar out of District budget we’re getting roughly a million 1.2 million dollars back in reimbursement when we get it the following year

10:05 following year following year and so what we’ve accomplished now is that that reimbursement goes we were paid right after the close of the year that’s going into like in other words we get paid in July of this year we’re using you’re saying we’re going to use the fy25 correct yes yep so um we actually don’t know our current reimbursement from the year that just closed yet um we submitted those figures and we should get those figures probably within the next month or so so we don’t know what the what the hopeful carry forward is next year just yet um but but this is a great thing that we were able to do finally and really it’s

10:52 it’s great financial practice it’s giving us this insurance policy that we at least have that money on hand and if something really went awry we could always borrow the not borrow but utilize the current Year’s funding as well so obviously that doesn’t put you in a good place for the following fiscal year but it would give us a little bit of time to plan for the following year if if some if some unforeseen significant costs came our way that are specifically in the area of special education because they have to be used on special education costs we’ve been able to do that the second thing we’ve been able to do um that is also the fourth year in the making is prepaid tuitions

11:37 um so some of our out of District tuitions we can prepay this year we’ve been able to do that to the tune of almost 540 000 which was amazing um really and this is not necessarily budgeted we never budget for a prepayment it’s just if we have extra money in June when we’re closing our books we try to prepay those tuitions to give us that extra insurance policy so when we’re looking at these tuitions right now um so if you look at the second page here we budgeted or planned for 3.7 million dollars in out of District tuitions um right now our actual costs knowing what students are placed where and best can change at any time um our total right now is 3.5 million so right now we have not a surplus but available

12:23 available available unspecified committed charges or funds of a hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars available to us for out of District tuitions um part of this will actually be used probably for the special education review that we’ve been talking about um but we do have that we also like I mentioned we do not budget for the prepayment so we have an additional 530 somewhat thousand in the bank prepaid for out of District tuitions that we haven’t used here so in terms of special education tuitions we are in very good shape we are in um a great place to be right now if some unexpected costs come our way so can you talk a little bit about the

13:10 associated Transportation costs because I know sometimes it costs us more to transport a student to actually educate them yes um if that is another area that has skyrocketed in recent years um we don’t have the specific cost yet literally we’re still placing some kids on the buses so we’re I think we have one just starting on Monday so we’re trying to identify what those true costs are versus our budget so we will have more information next month but that is another area that has historically cost us a lot more than we anticipated um we’re hoping we’re close to our budget this year but um there’s no guarantee at this point we’re really early on in the year we’re only in our second year of I mean a second week of school at this point yeah

13:56 that’s why I’m looking at some of this um Thief guard that you created by Best Practices could help stabilize some of the volatility in those Transportation lines as well absolutely and that’s something we have found um you know when I when I came on board about four years ago I think we were roughly budgeting three to four hundred thousand dollars in out of District tuition I mean transportation for these placements um last year it cost us over a million dollars um so that that number has just increased significantly um and I don’t think our transportation needs have necessarily increased it’s just the cost it’s the demand of the drivers the demand of the the contractors

14:42 um so it is it’s it’s a cost that’s really tough to nail down until we actually have contracted um rates in our hands and and even then kids move situations change some kids go off the bus so we’re no longer splitting the cost between two or three students we have to find another provider to transport another student so it’s a very volatile cost that is tough to nail down so this is it makes it that much easier that we have some safeguards in place for these costs that are truly unknown and truly they’re hard to manage I mean their costs that we need to pay the tuition we need to pay the transportation these are the needs for our kids but they’re very hard to predict

15:29 but we do you have budgeted for it correct absolutely yeah absolutely we’ll dive into that a little bit next month when we do the auto District tuitions we’ll also include the transportation we’re just literally still placing kids on buses right now okay yeah and we did this early meeting because we want to you know be really proactive last year we had a really good experience um with the approach we took to the budgeting you know process how we were out of the gate um and so we kind of wanted to to get together to even improve upon those practices again so is there more questions on the outer District or is there more um or do we move on to the next step of the fy24 update

16:39 you want to move on to the fy24 yeah it looks like she’s pulling like I have that look in the screen as someone who’s trying to pull up the the document they need to screen share oh we’re trying to pull up something maybe no okay all right then yeah let’s move on to the FY 24 update okay sounds great um really fy24 we’re just starting to um talk about our process our kickoff we have a meeting next week um a few of us meeting with the town and trying to get our plan in place um at all of FY 24 update oh yeah I’m sorry fy24 yes nope that’s all we have for fy24 at this point

17:24 um sorry I’m I’m in three different fiscal years is typically what happens at this time of year um yes so at fy24 we don’t have any other areas we’re watching closely just yet but you know in the next couple weeks we will we will start giving you updates and start watching other areas very closely okay so then we’ll move on to FY budget uh 25 budget planning um next week every year at this time of year um the chair with the superintendent usually meets with the chair of the select board and um their their Town Administrator as well as their Finance director so we’ll be having that meeting next Friday um I wanted to get us together to make sure that if there’s any specific questions or concerns this committee wants addressed that we’re making sure we address those so

18:11 um we last year the budget planning process um I think everybody here is aware of what it was and how it worked um I what I would like to do is even you know if we can stick to the same timeline but include some more um Community feedback earlier on in the process but um I want to hear from Michelle and then you know if Emma and Jen have questions or concerns yeah absolutely thank you Sarah sorry for that mix up yes we’re on 25 now um so yes we will be kicking off our budget process usually we kick it off in the October time frame um we send out our budget packets with any directive to principals and directors

18:58 um in that time frame and then last year I believe we aimed to have them back in late November ended up going into December a little bit but really once the principals and their sacs and all that um get their requests together it takes us a little bit of time to try to put all those pieces together and then actually create the budget book so it takes us a few weeks to do that um last year we had the budget books release I want to say mid to late January for mid-January this year unless our timeline has moved up significantly um but we do need to talk about the elephant in the room also and see if we’re we’re going forward definitely for an override and how we’re going to do that

19:44 um certainly our costs just keep increasing we did cut positions this past year um so to say that we are able to well looks like Jen just entered the waiting room again I don’t know just may be signing in on a computer now okay sorry um so we do need to figure out how we’re going about it because we did have to cut our positions this year so it’s it’s a likely scenario if we’re not going to talk about an override again that we will continue cutting positions um our our operating costs keep increasing so we need to um have a plan and figure out how we’re going to handle that for fy25

20:30 yeah so I think um I my understanding is as the town goes through the process of coming in to closer to actual spending on their insurance lines and comes in tighter to actual revenues and their revenue lines we’re going to see a period of the shrinking of free cash which is going to bring us to this clip that we saw last year each year quicker and quicker so I I you know a lot of this is assumptions because we haven’t had that meeting with the town yet but I think anybody who understands finance and understands how free cash is revenue or pre-cashes

21:18 generated and the way it’s particular the areas it’s come from in Marblehead it’s reasonable to think we are going to have a bigger Cliff this year than we had last year so I want us to be prepared with that I want the public to be prepared for that um and really there to be no surprises um I do think we need to do what we’ve heard and I’ll let Jen speak to this but what we’ve heard is people need to have a better understanding of what these ratios they see represent because you look up on Jesse and it says we have a 12-1 a 14-1 whatever the number ten to one is a Tessie and then you walk into a classroom and that’s not what you see what what are all the what are is every

22:03 one of our employees doing because they’re all working and working very hard and working doing you know something with our students I think it’s really a what we need to really explain and lay out is what is every employee doing what is driving these numbers are we driving class size numbers to fit our numbers or are we saying we have this many employees so you know we may have 22 in this class and 14 in this one so I think we really need our principals to understand um

22:43 that they we need to see as a school committee as a subcommittee and as a town what what everyone is doing um and Jen I’ll I’ll kick it to you because I don’t know if I described you know some of the concerns you voiced in our meetings before well but um yeah yeah um and Michelle I’ve had we’ve had this conversation so um from my perspective and this is only my perspective I have absolutely no idea honestly what our budget for fy25 will need to be whether we need an override is absolutely way down the road there’s there’s we are not in a position I I am not in a position today to understand

23:29 that and and if that is necessary or not and I’ve talked about this and to Sarah’s point you know a couple things I think what we need to see is uh literally what I call a cost accountability budget which is we are going to account for every single expense now you know to try to you know go through and dig down and count every paper clip and piece of copy paper you know obviously that’s that’s a very small part of our budget and is not necessary but on the uh Personnel side I think it is and I think what we are going to need to see what I’m going to want to see per building is who are the students that are in the building today what do they need and who are they who’s the Personnel in

24:15 the building and how is that matched up and I think that will then you know tell us you know you know have we allocated the Personnel we have properly to the students in the buildings that need them because I just I feel like every year we just we increase based on what we have is so-called contractual obligations to Personnel that were here this year and and maybe this goes on but I’ve never seen it that each building digs down and looks at the Personnel needs for the students in the building this year now you know we’re already you know three months into the into the fiscal year but it’s probably you know if we can do that this year it’s a good exercise because once we sort of build

25:02 we we build the model for it then every year it should be a practice that takes place over the summer with I would think with the administrators or or in the spring so that’s what I’m looking for for before we would have any idea really what our Personnel side of the budget is and that is what is the major driver of our overall budget I do know there’s been discussion in Michelle you and I also have talked about this um to have um the school committee budget reflective of all of the costs particularly the indirect costs for personnel um and presumably the indirect Revenue to cover those costs which include um and I may miss some things but primarily you know retire repayments

25:49 retiree benefits and um insurance medical insurance benefits I don’t know if there’s other indirect costs um that I’m unaware of I don’t know I don’t think we do life insurance or group I don’t know if we do anything like that

26:06 um so if that’s the case then it really is kind of a game changer in terms of managing Personnel right because we’re going to have this whole new chunk of Revenue but also this new chunk of cost if that is in fact what’s going to happen for fy25 or is it going to be an exercise that takes us a year to implement for FY 26. I I don’t know um because we’re going to have to re-look at everything basically and rebuild and restructure our budget to include these pretty you know significant indirect costs because one thing I I you know what had I

26:49 need for a trend to see what is going on you know what has been budgeted for health insurance town wide what has been expended what is and and then the next level that data is what is the breakdown of what has been budgeted and expended on the town side and what has been budgeted and expended on the school side because as we know the biggest driver to free cash in the biggest overage in our budget is the health insurance so I don’t know that Sarah I don’t know that I don’t know anything I really don’t I mean I don’t know anything about these indirect costs I mean we hear this I mean it’s anecdotal but we we’ve seen no modeling I don’t I mean Michelle have you seen any Financial mom you know Financial models

27:36 in terms of what they’re paying no I mean we certainly spoke about this at length with fincom last year through the budget process they were pretty adamant about giving a full cost of what it cost to run the school department so we did some reporting in terms of that um but really we we have not had the opportunity to dive into the actual figures and accounts and all that so that I think that means that we’re going to be able to do it for fy25 I could be wrong but it feels like we’re trying to change the tire while we’re driving um we’re going to try to mod you know like we’re going to try to do you know historical reflection projections for the next two three fiscal years and then try to build a budget for that while we’re building a budget like I don’t know know

28:21 know I don’t know I mean I don’t know if you think you can do that I mean it’s

28:28 it’s almost like you’re running I don’t know running two different budget well not I guess it’s sort of a pair down budget and then a full one with all the additional costs absolutely definitely it’s gonna it’s gonna require a lot of discussion and a lot of thought about how we move forward absolutely and those discussions will hopefully begin to get into the Nitty Gritty next week well and it’s also a management issue or for lack of better administrative issue going forward because when we hire someone right Sarah wait what whatever whether it’s a new bus driver or a new teacher we have traditionally looked at the current cost of that salary right but we’ve never looked at the long-term

29:13 cost of what that’s going to do to our budget for the next 30 Years or 20 years or whatever it is and that’s going to be a whole new way of budgeting I think when we’re looking at personnel which is our single greatest cost right yeah and to me what I can’t quite wrap my head around is this idea our budget has been under such scrutiny for the last several years that the idea I mean this this really should be a quite an easy quick report to produce three to like three years of budgeted and expended I I don’t know why this is a mystery I have no comprehension why anybody in town can go to our budget and look at what’s budgeted look at what’s been

30:00 actually expended and that line item looking three years back I mean I can get there in three seconds I don’t understand why it’s such a mystery in the town side that we can’t actually get this information I should be able to go to online or down to Abbot Hall and have them just be able to hand me the report the way we can so I guess it’s going to be something you’re going to when you meet when are you meeting next week next Friday we’re gonna have it exists the information exists somewhere they reconcile their books at the end of the year we that line item has to oh who has said that we don’t have it I mean have we asked for it I don’t know anybody that’s been able to tell me the information but have we asked for it specifically like Michelle if we said like yeah so I think that no

30:45 I haven’t yeah so maybe next week at the meeting there and maybe we can do that now or Michelle you can do this offline then we probably need to go in or you need to go in with a laundry list of what we need you know what what we need um in terms of reporting I don’t know exactly what that is or how you want that material I don’t know how that guy I don’t know if it comes out of ShopRite I don’t know the logistics I mean the thing is they they give us an allocation or an extended amount every year we have to we have what we call an end of year report that we have to submit to the Department of Education the town reports to us a bunch of figures that they spend on our behalf part of it I mean the majority of it is health insurance and retirement there are other pieces that um you know Encompass snow plowing field Mowing and

31:31 whatnot so we have to report all of those costs we don’t necessarily get into the nitty-gritty of what those costs represent so I have caught I have numbers I don’t have backup really saying what those numbers are so I need to get we need to get into that nitty-gritty level and I would think yeah that doesn’t give you that’s just a roll up right but right I would think we would need also down to the granular level because you’re I mean I don’t do like do you normally since this is new to us we normally be doing projections like you’ve got retirees that you’re gonna have to project like based on Actuarial tables right you know how long we’re going to be budgeting for those um for those retirement costs actually

32:16 absolutely our retirement costs are actually quite minimal to be honest I mean not minimal but minimal in comparison with the town um the only retirement cost we pay are for our members who are members of the Marblehead contributory or your retirement system um all of our teachers we do not pay a retirement assessment for the teachers the state actually pays for that for Mass teachers retirement so we do have a small one we don’t have any match for that or anything no we do not all right so that would be the the mass Municipal would be I mean Marblehead would be I don’t know maybe a custodians yep it’s our custodians are clerical um our powers our tutors if they’re full-time yeah um and and that’s pretty much it

33:01 um the administrators are part of TRS because as long as you hold a license with the Department of Education you are in mtrs retirement so it should be the whole admin staff you like you for example Central admin all that okay all right yes so then the other um uh sort of cost pressure must be the um medical yes so the medical is going to be the significant piece absolutely um I mean my previous District we were in a regional district so I had my own pool of health insurance and and plans that I had to manage and basically you do you need to look at historically what you’ve been paying you know what percentage of your employees are taking advantage of the plans um then you need to look at how many how many members joined during the open

33:48 enrollments um you know if you’re seeing the trends for more people picking up plans or dropping off plans and then you also need to look at anticipating um additional positions if you’re adding a new position you also need to make sure your budget for you know for that cost assuming that they want to pick up on health insurance so it is it it’s it’s another whole budgeting exercise and projection that we would need to take on um but certainly we need the historical data in terms of how many individual plans how many family plans um and on what on What specific plans we offer a variety of plans through the GIC so we need to know those breakdowns so that would be something I think you’d

34:33 probably go into that meeting or ahead of time with you know in the format you want to receive it and you know what I get whatever I guess you’d work that through with the finance director absolutely okay so we’re gonna need that and we’re gonna I mean I’m asking for the breakdown I mean I’ve been shutting it from the rooftops that I’m asking for the breakdown of our Personnel um in each building um and that That’s the basis of what we are going to go to build a budget for fy25 yes and we can certainly put that together and I think you know I’m I know we’ve talked about this before but I’m having all kinds of ideas about how we can um reflect that so it’s very

35:18 very user friendly so I think that’s a great addition to our budget packet this year I mean do you Michelle in your like previous Library I mean is it common for public school districts to be budgeting on the building level for everything like in other words this building is going to get a budget this principal is going to get a budget and within that he or she needs to manage Personnel supplies utilities

35:53 yes and no um most places the principles definitely manage their supplies and their expenses utilities are usually I have found that they’re more Consolidated um just because when we do break it down by building we find that one building’s going over the budget one building’s going under budget and it’s just more of an administrative task to try to manage that so we usually consolidate that plus the department of Ed only requires us to report those expenditures by category and not by building there are certain groupings that have to be reported by building any educational cost has to be reported by building so utilities aren’t considered the educational costs

36:40 um in terms of personnel we do have to report those by building that’s something that Emma and I struggle with every year because we always have a certain number of district-wide people um and not considering Administration like myself I am just a district-wide person but when you have service providers if you have someone that’s servicing kids in more than one building we have to allocate them we can’t just call them a district-wide person they’re servicing kids they need to be reported in a school or allocation of their costumes reported in school so that’s something we we try to be really um precise on we can put management of the Personnel costs on the principles we really haven’t we have in terms of okay you have you know

37:26 three teacher openings we only budgeted for an M4 an M5 try to make sure you live within those means and we always have a little bit of a surplus every year we typically budget about a 50 50 000 Surplus to account for you know a little bit of variation in terms of hiring um but we haven’t really put the management of of those specific costs onto the principles which is something we certainly could um but they work extremely closely with with my office and if you know if it’s a question if tutors can put an extra you know couple hours in for some student need they always come to me for permission so I’m kind of managing that at a higher level um but it’s something we could talk

38:11 about putting it on I mean the reason why because I just think when we if we go to this new when we go to this new methodology where we’re all you know all costs direct and indirect are coming into our budget we want our administrators to be thinking about that right so when you’re when you’re looking to build your building of um resources you need in terms of personnel that there are long-term cause there are indirect costs associated with you know hiring whoever you’re hiring and that is you know because I could I am not an accountant but I can just Envision like this escalating you know set of costs on the indirect side that you can easily get out of control if we’re not on on top of

38:59 it on the flip side it can also be uh um there can be surpluses and it can actually be a benefit yeah it can be a benefit it it is um it’s a management issue absolutely um and that’s what it really comes down to yeah that’s what it comes down to and separately I mean we would be managing it just like we manage any other portion of our budget it’s just something that we haven’t done in the past in Marblehead anyways and I also if we wind up taking this on this year I want us to also look at um some type of buyout program because I think that that can be very advantageous to both our staff as well as our our fiscal planning

39:46 um you know I I know it’s it works in the corporate world it works really well in other private and our public entities that utilize it and I think we need to um consider that I think that would have to be probably a contract issue but we’re also looking at a contract year so it’s to be part of all of it because so that means that being said I know we I don’t know what our Personnel the members of the Marblehead Municipal Employees Union but if we’re going to be taking on those indirect costs I would think we would have a seat at the table for those negotiations as well

40:28 in terms of the the healthy well the teachers contract yes but the PEC um School administration does not have a seat at that table but we’re going to be taking on the costs associated with an updated a new contract so my argument is we might want to say we need to have I mean we’re going to be taking on the cost of what’s associated with I guess what will be a new contract is there a contract up this year too yes yeah they’re they’re going to go negotiations right now so I guess we don’t have a seat at the table currently no but it’s something we certainly could discuss next week I mean am I am I off wait I don’t like no if we’re going to be paying for it um

41:14 you know that’s a good point we should have a say in the outcome because you can’t just we’ve gone through a period of just being given bills that we didn’t necessarily have no but they also in you know in defense of the town so I mean for the way this has worked is that they took on the costs associated with this are the downside we were blissfully aware of of and encumbered by the indirect costs for the members of the mmeu so it is mmu um and now we are not now we’re going to be taking those on so that’s that’s all I mean you know the town took on the responsibility on the town side as well as the risk um so yeah absolutely

42:01 um all right so oh wait and one last thing I was going to ask Sarah about the meeting so this is all you know the town appropriated costs and expenses that we are talking about changing how we account for it um the other question would be um the Chapter 70 money

42:23 so that has traditionally also been I think goes directly to the town and we are appropriated at town meeting irrespective of what that Chapter 70 money is so again the town took the risk and and the reward like whatever we want a word I want to use um for the Chapter 70 money but is that something that we want to look at where by the Chapter 70 money would be um you know I don’t know how I know what the semantics are but how other districts do it where the Chapter 70 money is appropriated to the school district and then the remaining budget would be appropriated at Town meetings you know through that appropriation process

43:13 to correct me if I’m wrong um chat the chat well the volatility has been absorbed by the town for the Chapter 70 money it is never actually come in less than what was budgeted I think it did I thought it did like an 0708 it was one year okay during that recession yeah I believe it was fiscal 09 when yeah when that happened yes and it was small but it was there that was moving the very significant recession

43:49 um yeah no I mean I think if we’re looking to really establish clearly what are the revenues what are the costs what does it cost to educate our students then it makes sense to open up all the discussions and I don’t know where they’ll go but they at least need to be discussed right I mean Chapter 70 is not it’s easy as it sounds to just have it appropriated to us when we go into town meeting the town has an estimate of what they think we’re going to receive in chapter in terms of chapter 70. this particular year it wasn’t even set until I believe July at this point um so the actual number wasn’t known until July and that’s what I I had people coming to me and be like oh so what are you doing with the extra

44:36 Chapter 70 month I’m like well our we need an allocation was determined back in May so not receiving anything any part of that well what do other districts do they pretty much do the same thing unless they have a fall town meeting where they have an agreement with the town and any additional funds are then appropriated to them at a fall time meeting um but we don’t usually have that mechanism so it’s something it’s a city they don’t have a town beach they could just allocate it yeah exactly so it does get a little tricky because it is technically a general fund Revenue it’s not a school Revenue but um or not a direct School Revenue but it’s something we we probably want to chat about okay well I don’t know how much it I

45:21 mean I don’t know how much you know I mean our Chapter 70 is but 10 represent or less of our overall budget so if there’s if there’s an unforeseen Surplus or unless the right word you know additional Chapter 70 allocation not that I don’t want another you know 100 or 200 000 but I don’t think it’s gonna you know I don’t think it’s gonna be that significant right

45:47 um still might be worth having a fall down meaning for it but anyway

45:55 so I so I I think that we’re I would like for us to meet with with the finance Liaisons from fincom um shortly after we meet with the town side my understanding is um all interested parties are hoping that by mid-october we really have a clear idea of where everyone stands financially that the books should be closed by then on the town side we should have reasonable projections on where we are with free cash and we should have a reasonable idea there of where how much we’re gonna have to cut from where we are now in our operating budget to there but Sarah when you say cut what

46:42 I don’t know what you mean by that like like cut to me means we’ll have we’re projecting less Revenue next year than this year which I don’t think that’s the case it was this year well the town did not take in less Revenue this year than they did last year no but when you factor in our contractual obligations one that’s my whole point which I think this whole exercise so we just understand like again these are all just like like we just every year we just paint this brush of you know we had last year and we just assume every nothing changes that the same people are in the same seats with the same contract and same increase and I just I understand what you’re saying but to my point

47:29 if we know coming out of those projections we can’t even cover our contractual obligations I know what you’re saying is we might not need to carry over all these employees no that’s not what I’m saying is we don’t know like if like we don’t I don’t unless I’m wrong we shall do I mean we’re footing this to every actual person or is this just a general you know percentage increase over what we had last year no we we actually do an allocation per person yes okay okay the salary with the contractual obligation and brings it down to one number and we know per person what everyone’s

48:14 contractual obligation is okay so if we know that contractual obligation for everybody that is under contract is I’m raking up really round numbers here folks 46 million and we know that the town in mid-october is looking at their projections and knowing with the free cash that they’re able to most likely certify the only without a note because at that point we should know without an override this is what we can with our prop with the confines of prop two and a half with the free cash this is what we can allocate and we should know what that Delta is whether it’s a positive or negative variance I I think anybody would be foolish to think it’s

48:59 not going to be a negative variance considering where we are with the deficit of free cash but we’ll know right away our budget cannot exceed this number without an override now whether we decide to do an override or not that is a different question we will know the maximum number Allowed by proposition two and a half and if that number is less than our contractual obligations we know we are cutting that amount

49:31 there’s no other way you cannot budget for more than you correct yep um so we should know by mid-october what that Delta is now we still have a lot of work to do to justify every person in our buildings but those are two different things will that be well what is what builds our budget that’s what builds our budget but we know our we’ll know the number we cannot exceed the bar some type of override of town meaning I’m not for anybody listening I’m not saying we need an override I’m not saying we don’t need an override we will have the mathematical equation to know our Max allowable by law without a prop two and a half okay and and so inside of a month we

50:16 should know what the Delta is between contractual obligations and maximum allocation right Michelle well the difficult thing is we’re actually up for negotiations so we don’t know exactly what the contractual obligations are we could certainly estimate but we don’t have cooler amounts for next year for teachers or any of our other unions well that’ll also Drive contract negotiations correct well you know we’re going to have to estimate how much you know how much we can how what we can allocate towards a new contract and then that I would assume drives you know drives the negotiation but right allocation okay are we sure that they’re on track to have those the

51:03 finance directors on track to have those projections I’m not sure okay so that’s maybe something you can find out when you so so far we’re looking for um to to describe the kind of reporting we would like to see for the new indirect costs and revenue associated with the change in our budget and that um maybe a timeline from the finance director of the Town Administrator on on these projections mm-hmm I don’t know where you got the October was that from Alec or is yeah that that came via I think I’m trying to remember now because I don’t want to miss misquote myself I think Alec had shared he he

51:50 felt that they were on track for getting that information okay because I know that’s I had a conversation with him that’s what he his goal was I just wasn’t sure if that was been agreed upon I will put it this way I have not heard anybody speak up and say we will not be able to make that requested time because it’s a lot earlier than in the past

52:14 I think a lot earlier than last year going back a few years back I mean we were certifying free cash by the first week of November yeah but that didn’t mean that we had you know agreed upon contractions increased numbers and all that you that was always bumping up against I recall December January but that’d be great it’s great just gives us you know more data to work with yeah um so as far as timelines go if we I would like to um well we’re meeting next week I would like to try to get together a joint meeting between us and fincom in October um so that we can really iron out

53:01 what type of data they want if it’s different than last year my takeaway from last year was they were very happy with the process and the amount of data we gave them so I don’t anticipate too many changes there but I also want to make sure that we’re kind of plugging Along on that same vein of being really prepared um so I would like to meet with them by that second week of October and set up that meeting if that works for everyone here yep and then Mattel I’m assuming Emma will continue to be joining us I hope so as you can that’s great all that data that we’re looking for I think it’s great um do we want to do sort of a timeline or

53:47 is it premature we want to wait till maybe that meeting with the finance committee in October there’s no um you know as with last year really what is going to be holding us up is getting the data from the town because there’s only so far we can go without knowing what that number is but also Michelle like if we’re going to go through this exercise with our building administrators I mean that’s going to be some work right you’re going to have to create you know I don’t think they’ve done this before yeah no we’ll we’ll start that sooner than later absolutely okay so that will also be the other piece to that to that puzzle um so maybe we’ll be thinking we should be thinking about timeline for that Raquel do they know this is coming their

54:34 way that we’re going to be expecting okay so you’re going to want to listen later that we’re going to need more detail and um is this something that we have resources to support them if they need it whether it’s Emma or our resources are a little thin these days well that’s what I mean I mean that’s why I’m wondering is is there a way to create sort of a like a tutorial like you know this is the information we need this is how you do you know I don’t know you know that we yeah we’ll work I would like to actually I’d like to work with you and determine the best way to present this okay and then we’ll work back from there but yes I’m gonna start talking to the principals next week about this so we can okay we can get a game plan together and Sarah we should probably

55:21 um brief no probably we should break the um full school committee at our next meeting just to let them know because this will be you know we have one new member but um you know this may be a little bit of a different way of looking at numbers as we get into budget season and they should know what’s coming down the pike yeah and I think to speak to to that we’ve been hearing from the public that this piece of information has been what’s held some people back um I think once and we we have made some huge huge gains on giving people lots of information in a very easily accessible way this to me is the final piece of things that we’ve been asked for and after this I I can’t imagine anyone saying I don’t have this piece of

56:08 information because this really to me is the final piece of changing the way we’ve been presenting our budget well I’m I’m hopeful and optimistic that what this will allow us to do to go back to what you said sort of the beginning Sarah was to present the true cost of educating a student in Marblehead and then you know the existential question is you know do we want to pay for that or how do we want to pay for that like that that’s that’s what that’s going to come down to but it is it is you know it is going to be what it will be which is that this is how much it costs for us to educate all of our students all of them um and all of the needs that they have

56:57 and you know that’s it so um whatever that number turns out to be we either have it or we don’t and then we just need to decide and then then the school committee with the administration makes decisions if we need to at that point

57:14 on how we can deliver the education all right um and then at some point Michelle you can let us know if it’s you know if it’s more effective I know we we always have our budget workshop with our principals where we throw a lot of questions at them after they presented it I’ve often thought it might be helpful to have that our questions concerns and things like that presented to them before they come to us to present because it seems very backwards otherwise that they’re then you know okay well I didn’t know this was your let’s I’m wondering if we almost have a kick off to budget season workshop with all of us so they know the types of data we’re looking for how it needs to be

58:01 presented so on and so forth so when they’re doing their presentation to us it’s really essentially answering the questions we’ve already asked yes we can certainly do that and I’d love to work with you guys and try to make sure that our budget packets that we’re sending out will also meet you know any questions requests or um questions that you have as well but I do think a meeting early on in the process with them would be super helpful okay timelines if you’re thinking you’ll give them packets in October we should probably be looking to have this meeting either right when they get the packets or you know a little before or after what do you think would be more effective for everyone getting what they need as long as the packet contains form so that they can provide the information I

58:47 think it can be after the packets go out because really I want to give them as much time as possible the past couple of years we really haven’t given them an adequate time to turn them around and meet with their peop their um what are they called um the school advisory councils the sacs um so really I’d love to give them like three or four weeks so ideally if we can get the packets out to them and then we can meet with them maybe in October um I think that’d be ideal so I think we should meet again not not next week um but the following week and really start to flesh out a little more because I mean we’re knocking on the door of October at that point we want the what types of information and in that time period if I can ask people you know Jen in particular

59:33 because you’re you’re looking for this you know in a specific way yep a model of a district that is presenting it if we can you know share that with everybody and work from there does that make sense yep all right perfect all right so I’ll work with you guys offline to find a date that works um it doesn’t make sense to have Finn come at that meeting yet let’s figure out what we need for our data and then very shortly after include fincom and that so that we make sure they also are getting what they need before we produce the methodology for doing this and and find out it wasn’t meeting everyone’s needs so of any other questions on FY 25 budget planning

1:00:24 all right um any new business subcommittee announcements and requests