School Committee: January 7, 2025

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.

0:01 [Music] [Music] need a pie

0:13 of right saay by the Bell so we are just starting uploading the live stream all

0:22 right did everybody get the little blur saying that the live stream started uh meeting confer to third party YouTube on YouTube on YouTube all right so we have everyone here um we are going to um call us to order at 811 and um we will start off with public comment if anybody had public comment just please raise your hand and I can call on you I’ll all right I don’t see any public comment so we will move on um to the next item and I will take that off to Mike hi good morning I think the

1:08 first item on the agenda was in FY 25 budget update um I did prepare documents uh they are not they’re the they are the same exact documents that were prepared for the December 9th school committee meeting okay is that the right date December the first yeah well the only school committee me meeting in in uh December so there’s no new updates on those I mean it’s three weeks newer data but it really okay didn’t have an effect on anything so um the information is similar you know we had want to choose payroll since then or okay well we had some payrolls since then um those were encumbered payroll so um everything flushed out approximately where we expected it to um one of the things as I mentioned in the school committee meeting is we are manually encumbering payroll uh that’s a a process that we need to take because our current system

1:54 does not encumber payroll automatically for us and that will be a feature in munice or School Erp when we uh transition to that later this year where are we because I know Mary July is working with through that transition where are we if you at what point can we start effectively using munis or even parts of the modules of munice so uh effective July one of 2025 so a little less than six months we will be implemented Unis or fully implemented for uh general ledger accounting and whatnot um payroll pay no effective January 1 2026 so from right now we will Implement payroll and HR modules okay will that be a difficult transition mid fiscal

2:40 year um I’ve never seen a software transition that wasn’t difficult so C work through we’ll be running lots of tests uh as we go uh through the process right now we’re focusing on getting the AP and general ledger uh in implemented test and trained uh and then that’ll give us six months to train test Implement on un okay certainly make reporting a lot easier I know it’s very cumbersome to do any of these reports they all have to be done manually so I yeah it’s a it’s approximately two hours to run the reports every every time I run them so when you ask for new reports I’m like the old one’s only three weeks old why do you need new ones but we did it um so those are available I I sent them out last night to the committee to

3:27 the subcommittee sorry and um and I’ll make sure that those get up um with the meeting um items that I can get to L but we’re on target basically this is the Met message um yeah bottom line end of the line budget yes we are I feel like we are comfortable right now um we’re halfway through the year I think we really have a good idea on uh one of the things that can certainly blow up a budget is special education on a district and I think Lisa Marie and uh Victoria have done a phenomenal job identifying every child getting them on PO uh getting their transportation encumbered so I feel like at least we know where the kids are and what with with the expenses related to them it is over budget but I think we have some in other areas that is going to cover that so we’re I feel comfortable at this time so just for the benefit we have a few

4:12 fincom members either online or here um I’m not sure they were able to join our December meeting general meeting but um out of districts have come in higher than we had budgeted um because we did the prepayments we’re we’re in a good place with that um we’re keeping a tight eye in that but Mike roughly how far over are we on what was budgeted for the year if we hadn’t had the pre payments uh so special education tuitions in round numbers um approximately 1 million in tuitions over and approximately another 100,000 in transportation over was planned or budgeted uh as you said we prepaid 900,000 so we are Delta right now of 200,000 and um that’s why I said

4:57 feel very comfortable with and what was our overall budget for for that so I can think of it in a percentage twiice would be about 20% over uh special education is on the last page uh this is just for the outed districts um budgeted was 2.3 million oh so we’re um right now we% right now we’re about 2.4 million but it was 900,000 incumbered okay so that’s about million so yes 2.3 million budgeted uh we’re going to come in somewhere around 3.3 million okay but it won’t show that on any of the reports because we did prepay 900,000 so those that prepayment does not show but when we look at um projections for next year just to plan for the increases I’m

5:45 just so yeah it’s a 43% um increase so that’s something um Molly and Pat you should prepare yourselves to yeah and at some point we’ll have uh Lisa Marie present to the school Comm to just State of the student services department inclusive of those those numbers we usually do that in the spring just so we have a better idea of where we are this year and where we going next year um it’ll be pretty the numbers right now will be pretty much replicated but kids come back

6:27 inid it’s a it’s a um it’s a significant jump and some of it is um is it was bookkeeping stuff where kids that were placed out had been hadn’t been um identified and allocated in the previous budget going into this year so yeah it’s it’s some housekeeping clean up stuff that’s kind of elevated that number I think we had um in the spring throughout the spring we we did have um a higher increase in out of districts growth than we have typically your te we had more saying after the budget was set we had many more children go out after the budget so because that’s the the Crux were in we set the budget and we voted usually that first week of

7:15 April the next three months you know the schools keep running and things keep happening IEP needs keep happening and those anything that comes on to the books after that is not budgeted for yet you know we have to pay for so very large number um so that is the update on fy2 budget okay any other questions on the we are we officially we have a meeting right we yeah we’re offic we officially a meeting now okay um so I how are we uh are there any other areas that you are keeping a tight watch on I know some years um our substitute lines have been way under simply because we couldn’t find substitutes um are there other areas

8:00 that are running a larger varant um there are certainly lines at larg of variant um our legal line is exceeding expectations yeah uh that’s not to be uh unexpected that was certainly expected we had several arbitrations this year as well that are very very big money yes um yes sure call arbitrations um I think negotiations took a big negotiations did there was also you know I think we we’ve had a lot of scrutiny on the legal line for the budget but it wasn’t only negotiations that driving that number yeah I mean there’s within our budget I’m trying to align our budget more closely with desie this function codes and and I think that the previous administration did a really good job of that and I’m just trying to

8:46 fine-tune it now also to get it a little bit closer so you’ll see some lines that are way over and some that are way under and they will balance each other off just because of where things are coded and paid um may not be be we’re trying to code and pay them in the appropriate place but maybe they were bu bued wrong or in an area that was not ideal I’m saying wrong just not ideal you can say every business manager has their own thoughts on the on the chart of accounts um uh not a criticism to anybody just um I I prefer to have things in a certain way is every business manager has their own ways of doing things so I think the previous administration did a great Jobing bud just you know sometimes think that should be charges really there just so we can get to the end of the year what we’re not doing lot of crosswalks to make things work work out perfectly

9:32 um but yeah you’ll see certain things that are that are up and down in this report um utilities is one that we always keep an eye on and I think that’s going to be my next focus is just trying to get a GP right now we have every dollar encumbered for utilities but I don’t know how we’re tracking so one because we are no longer utilizing the reserve funds this year which is new um this year right um but you know everything else you know custodial maintenance has still got about 18% of their budget and Reserve uh technology say about 13 or 14% of their budget in reserve reserve um I was just going to ask about the legal one just to your point Sarah can we itemize out what was arbitration was

10:19 strike related well some of the strike related as it was explained to me some of the strike related funds too um typically you would give a when the strike is ended you would give a bill to the Union right for legal fees that were incurred for the court fees those are very significant we’re in court almost every day because of the action of the strike that during a typical negotiation wouldn’t occur right normally all those legal fees get charged back to the union and the union paid but because the union had run out of money on day two with the strike we were unable to charge them um and so part of the agreement was that we were going we we absolved we absorbed that unfortunately um so we never did

11:04 that breakout but um we could ask I think it would be valario to do that breakout I think that would be a smart break I think some probably asked it’s actually it’s in the process it’s been asked it’s in the process being done I think the original ask was what was the cost of unit a we provided that to the ask and then they came back recently and said what is the cost of all five units well so we’re going to have to recalculate everything and every time we do that the legal firm does it for us because they have we’re paying right yes so it is just like most of our for years go through the legal firm and that’s an an additional cost the the other thing I will say is um when I looked at the legal line earlier this year it was one legal line

11:50 for the district possibly two but special ed and um labor were in the same line which should never be the case so I actually broke them out um and I I reallocate a little bit of the budget to special ed so I think the legal line was originally $165,000 and I broke that out I said 115 to the school committee which is negotiations for the most part and 50,000 to special education so I broke those two lines up that’s on page 10 of the report they’ll find it in two different areas um on page 10 you will see uh halfway down is Central admin legal council with a budget of 115,000 and then near in the next grouping under the administration you will see a um you’ll

12:37 see a small one for 2400 that’s Central admin legal advice that’s for the you know the superintendent of the central office to you know ask a question about you know an employee relation or something um that’s not really a school Community related expense it’s more of a you know we have a question on how we’re going to handle FMLA or or something like that uh and then right below that you’ll see a $50,000 line for special ed legal advice and special ed year to dat has expended 2400 they do have 32,000 encumbered and I think that’s that’s known expenses I think we we encumber money thinking that we’re GNA you know on average we’re spending about x amount of dollars every month with our special ed attorney uh or firm and so those aren Fe those that we we know that are coming now did you base that on last year’s numbers because last year’s numbers our

13:23 special ed attorney I think was much much higher than it would typically be because of certain situations in various I just kind of I kind of took took kind of a I’ll call it a shortcut but I said okay you know leis how much you think you need we talked about I’d rather it that way because if you based it on last year last year was a huge outlier for our special education attorney fees with the situation with some situations I think also just what you said and explained Sarah because I think the general public probably isn’t aware of how that normally works with the costs being sent back to the union normally even just making sure that we we discuss that that’s mentioned I know this is public meeting but in a larger public

14:08 meeting few people attend these yeah it was expense as well because the town would have normally been able to get reimbursed for um the police overtime and things like that and they’re un yeah I think the way it was explaining to me strike related costs were things because they were on strike it doesn’t include negotiations we would have been a negoti feeding of the students it was the court fees the police details um compensatory Services the additional employees that came in and did work during that time that we paid that’s an additional expense yeah but that a lot of those expenses wouldn’t be under the Le so no no yes yes also money we didn’t get I

14:55 did in general not just legal yeah I did create a line in the budget for uh strike related costs and things that have come in we have put it in there um it is under the school committee also but you know right now I can attribute $111,000 to strike related cost that’s really mostly just police details at this time we’re still trying to get the rest of the invoices yeah that would we need the legal so you haven’t put the um the food services and all that under there yet uh no okay okay I just I’m waiting for the headline to be right that’s that’s not even cor that’s still the legal is still one the legal this is really just police details and I think my office had to work one weekend and I had to you know pay them for that

15:42 Services you know pay had to be shut off for everybody and then turned back on required over time so yeah um that really it’s police details and pay right now those are the only two things in that line okay so we have on communication I just want I know I just make on yeah okay sounds good um so I think we’re going on 25 um so FY 26 development and planning can we stay on 25 um we spent a lot of time the last two weeks Kristen and um working with upstairs the towns side uh there are Opera funds that we had to commit by the end of the fisal I’m sorry the end of the calendar year they need to be committed they need to be under contract so I will tell you that we have

16:28 we have scheduled not scheduled we have encumbered a lot of projects that I still need to work with the town to make sure we have arpa funds available to cover and I’ve spoken with Alicia um she’s been super helpful um couple things we we cost it out and went under contract for playground resurfacing of both lover and Village uh with the agreement with the vendor that that this these contracts would be void uh if the arpa funding was not available because because I I committed funding that I would not sure it was available we do have a written agreement with the vendor that contracts would be M and void if the funding was unavailable um but they need to be on the contract by December 30th to do that new clock system at the high school it’s really just clocks it’s not bells and and um anything else it’s

17:13 just a clock clock systems in every classroom um one of the things uh we we we’ve committed or we we’re we’re ready to commit money for some technology minor stuff but you know a couple thousand dollars here and there for smartboards or cards that inside of smartboards that allow not my a of expertise but there there are some cards that would would enhance our Smartboard abilities and Stephen’s done some work around that so we committed some not committed pre-committed some funds to those things and and that’s great I was really when you explained how you did that in order so that the town would not be handing any arpa money back to anyone and this can capture any unexpended funds that was I thought really good um

17:58 planning excited that we’re getting more I’m just for the village playground resurfacing is it just the basketball no it’s on a rubber surface under the uh swings there’s a over there it doesn’t have a rubber surface it doesn’t it doesn’t make it um Ada comp um so

18:20 that’s is Glover is our first priority that has been a it was identified as an issue early on um The Village would be hopefully we’ll be able to do the village but a secondary if the funds are available uh Alicia does have money set aside for us in town reserves also or town um Capital uh or like they had allocated some money for playgrounds but not enough to cover everything and they had allocated some money for bells or I’m sorry not bells for clocks and they they had allocated money but I’m not sure that it will cover everything that we need to do so okay so we have both if it doesn’t fall on Opa they say hey you don’t have ARA money you know we fully expended it it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to get to playgrounds there is money set aside for playgrounds that’s bu okay

19:08 perfect sorry just serous trying to think what surface well everywhere there’s wood shifts yeah yeah sense that’s good okay and there is a question about how close we have swings we’ll work around it it’s very close to the wood area we may need to trim back some and I don’t know who wants the so the wooded are I can put you in touch um there’s been several emails back and forth over the years it’s Marblehead head Conservancy it’s Don it’s Marblehead Conservancy it’s Don Morgan he is excellent to work with and in fact two years ago he had reached out to me and asked me to connect him with Michelle because the Conservancy wanted to come in and do a big clear out at the back area behind the fields and kind of get back some in cut back some invas invas yeah species there’s some words I

19:53 just can’t say and it’s been a really great collaboration I can make that introduction I think we need to talk to the business owner that’s actually close there there’ss right on the other side of that that um it’s not bushes it’s overow it’s yeah and and this group is great about coming in helping remove if it’s an evasive did it evasive spe you Wen thinking so that’s uh that’s kind of a 25 update I mean we got a lot going on I think the biggest thing is the encumbering payroll and we’re just GNA have to watch that and track that as we go through every month because there’s there’s no exact science to it soft right it’s just not it’s not an ideal system for yeah we’ve been battling that for

20:36 years great for it was probably a great night to meet I’m just so excited that munus is here I we’ve I think everybody townwide has been wanting munus to come in for many years now so um okay so FY 26 development and planning as we know our calendar got kicked back a little bit um but um Mike has prepared oh you did do it on the graphic form it’s still to be completed I said I was like it’s easier just do it a bulleted list it doesn’t need we have an extra copy for to there there’s not there’s a lot of blanks in here that need to be filled in um okay no that’s right I just didn’t for anybody at home this is just a a very blank month-by-month calendar

21:23 for uh the 10 months that I consider budget season for and that starts in September and goes through June no talk a lot about budget formation in September but it doesn’t mean that we’re not working on in off so I think we can skip over September and October those those days are gone uh November was pretty much spent in a locked room at the high school um so we can you know into December um so the first first for for December I spent working on a a draft budget um for the for the three weeks in December once we had settlements in and signed M moas and we knew all the salaries we GNA land um I have completed some portion of a draft budget um and I will be work with the superintendent and

22:10 the other leadership members to fine-tune that draft budget U find know things that um there’s always we call them Easter eggs John um he said we didn’t know about that you know maybe Wen in the budget at some point or things that are in a budget we didn’t know what they were there for so two of those Julia has been phenomenal in May understand a lot of this P history as well as school committee um so uh soon we get into January um now we’re we’re kind of live and moving forward not living in the past anymore um you’ll see September January 7th we have a finance subcommittee meeting uh that’s happening right now excuse me and then um little later today we have a meeting with the

22:56 principles and we’ll be talking uh about the budget with them also um you know we’ll be meeting with principles over the next week and so week or so just to get their their feedback uh that’s not public that’s you know one-on-one meetings with me and John and um our admin meetings are not public meetings they you guys do the work you do uh we I’ve been having meetings with Alicia um I’ve had conversations oneon-one with certain Town Town folks um but I think we’ll be having more depth conversations with Town Administration um um we do need to get some additional meetings on the books with our friends from finance committee um so those are things that we fil need to work on but I do believe that I’ll be meeting Alicia and some members of the Town

23:42 Town Town Bachelor John to talk about you know budget planning and expectations for FY this leadership budget meeting is you guys in house it is not our budget Workshop correct okay I was like wow you’re two weeks ahead from where we to placeholder that’s for me John Julia Lisa Marie to kind of sit down and go budget um talk about what the principles need and want want you know it’s great for principles to have desires and and ideas but I think they also need to roll up to the district plan so that you know one elementary school isn’t doing something drastically different from the other Elementary School where there’s uh there’s there’s a there’s not Equity between the two schools on on a certain track me certainly there’s some reasons

24:28 why things would have to be inequitable you know special education or certain things like that but you give an example in a former District I had four elementary schools one Elementary principal wanted to open for English program uh exclusively in her school and it just provided no equity across the district so so that’s why it’s great for them to tell us what they’d like but it’s also great for us to digest that and figure out what’s feasible number one and what’s two so that’ll be kind of the you know this is what the principles would like to see happen in this year’s budget and yeah and I think I think you know typically know you say here’s Glover School here’s what here’s the money that you have tell us what you need how you’re going to spend it on what supplies and things like that and then are the wish list items that you’re looking for and then can we or can we

25:14 not address those throughout the the here and I think you know that could be up into including staff and if there a staffing conversation then we have to have a different level conversation around how we’re offsetting um and looking at Staffing differently um but generally so right now it’s just kind of the planning getting their feedback getting their input so that we continue to have the conversations we can be mindful of all pieces and I know in years past they had developed like a worksheet if you will for each principal to fill out and I’m sure it’s somewhere around here if not I’m sure not yeah so I think that was thing I was going to say is you know obviously we’re all new so we’ve all done it differently in our in our previous districts and I one part part of the conversation this morning with principles is tell us what

26:01 work well for you in the past and what what should we replicate what we might need to look at differently um because obviously we’re not looking to change the whole budget process but at some point you know we need to make sure there’s efficiencies and make sure Mike’s especially Mike is um able to do the budget the way he needs to do it um to be comfortable to manage the budget and I want to give him that autonomy but you know with from folks so I think that’s that’s an important fact I think it would be great to hear any efficiencies that like specific obviously admin as well but six hour subcommittee meetings will not be on the uh on the favorable list don’t disappoint Sarah that way no but the budget the budget Workshop has been incredibly incredibly helpful for us it’s been really helpful for the public

26:48 to address concerns it’s it’s where you know it’s it is a longer meeting I’m thinking maybe five five hours we never go five hours in morning um I shouldn’t say never because what was that it was a

27:04 long but for the budget and and I for the and they know what to expect um the ones who have been here and the newer ones I’m sure have a p m or whatever and the fellow principal that can kind of walk them through it but Molly I’m sure you’ve watched I don’t know if you’ve attended it where the the principles kind of present their reasoning and rationale behind it and what that’s able to do is kind of fast track those other meetings that we have later on because everybody’s heard it we’ve heard it fincom has heard it the town’s heard it like everybody’s heard why are we asking for additions or reductions in these areas and we don’t have to relive it 400 times we’re proactive and putting the information out there instead of reactive so if we don’t have drastic increases or decreases in you know ads

27:51 ads or deductions then we can cut that meaning down to maybe two hours or something it’s not that long it really is okay so any really is it was I think it was like one night was principles the other night was directors it’s very long but it’s just there’s a lot of information probably presents for about no I know that I me being having so much

28:22 information so I I don’t have anything on the calendar for February and that’s intentional um you know because I wanted I want pcom to come to me and us work together to put a date together to say you know what works for us to kind of get together maybe two days three days I’m not sure um I need our typical budget Workshop we always earmark and we tried to push it into January and every time we’ve tried to push it into January we wind up pushing it back into February because it’s just too soon um is that first to second week of February on we usually you want to do and if if I’d rather what I’ve said the last two years we have had to P it is if a week out you feel it’s too much of a crunch I’d rather push it out and have the final product fully baked than for you guys to

29:09 feel rushed but I think ideally February 3rd if we can do that budget Workshop we usually start earlier around five o’clock um that’s true um possible Workshop so anytime that leek you’re saying yeah if we can do it Monday um we don’t do it on the normal school committee night if we could do it Monday the 3 um ear and then um I I will be in touch I’ll follow up with Alec about um and deeds and also each year I think we finally got the perfect formula don’t last year I didn’t hear like any of next year we want this but last year the addition you guys were looking for was the information on the grants and

29:54 revolving funds beyond that there’s nothing there’s we’ we’ve covered everything I think we don’t have any new holes that we’re still trying to patch right I think so I think that we still need you know a presentation on like the full 24 like looking at 24 to 25 expected to and then whatever the 26 budget I don’t know if it’s worth having a meeting for before focus on 26 just to review those pieces okay all right so we’ll Mike we don’t want to

30:34 thank you yeah and I think um me you and Al had conversations you whatever you guys ask for I’m happy to provide any should perform I’m not familiar with 24 to 25 to 26 but we can certainly have a conversation look like understand better what you guys like to see in form at yeah that could be an internal so we’ll do tentatively the third and then my I just want to throw for consideration if if there’s not a whole ton of stuff that we have scheduled for February 6 maybe we we keep that as a placeholder if the third’s not gonna work out I I know yeah we try not to have it it is a complete night it’s a complete night they can’t be is this school committee night yeah

31:22 yeah um we take it to another night just to say if the six is a school committee night I’m assuming the 20th will not be a school committee night that’s so right now it’s the 6 the so right now it’s the 6 and the 27th we talk about potentially switching it to the 20th but I don’t think the committee we originally were going to do the sixth and skip the 20th one because we skipped school vacation weeks but it’s no longer a school vacation week so but the school commit didn’t for okay so right now we’re voted meetings before we before we

31:54 vot to keep the 27th and hold the 20th oh okay okay all right so right now the school community meeting is at the 6th and the 27th okay so we could use the 20th potentially I’m just yeah my concern is the 20th may be too late then we have to from there from the budget hearing there’s more tweaking that happen or from the budget Workshop there’s more tweaking that occurs based on that feedback and then we have to have still after that we go through couple more iterations typically and then um and then the budget hearing when do we normally sit from a inom well we they always ask us to come in March and we always bag and wind up as their absolute last meeting in April which is usually like

32:41 April that first week in April so one year I was able to push till leap 11 it was really really late but we weren’t we really needed it yeah no that’s fine I just think I think having these conversations is good and I think you know going upon what we’ve had in place in the past for time frames and stuff is great and I just want to make sure that I want to make sure that we can be fluid if we need to so I add add meetings we need to but not necessar have meetings have meetings if we don’t I think once we do the first like sit down go to the budget with the principles and we have that first like there our preliminary budget that’s gonna kind of help drive the rest of the discussion how many me we have the income it’ll matter like if you say

33:26 you know it’s the second week of March or whatever you it’s the 31 of March is the budget hearing that we have we all presenting at which is our last one we typically try to leave an extra day or you know before the warrant hearing as well but so when is the warrant have the warrant hearing set for April 7 so it’s still you know pretty tight yeah so so right now you plan to meet with the school department on March 31st Monday March 31st I think that’s is that reasonable okay put it’s like put in here definitely strong the reason why one of the reasons why we we first of all we want to make sure it’s fully cooked and with the outer districts we want to make sure

34:12 that every if you know that everything’s encumber or Encompass that we need to because we can’t have another year like this where there’s a million um so if we’re thinking because all these states we putting in here right now we tenative um CU I don’t have my count none of us are pulling our calendars out right um so if we’re tentatively thinking February 3rd for the budget presentation that’s when the budget books would be ready um February 3rd for the budget Workshop is that enough so I thought this was I thought the budget Workshop the principles came in and and presented to us okay if that’s too soon tell me no I just I would rather I don’t know how you put a budget together until we’ve just heard from the principles as as to

34:58 I thought you hearing we are but do you want to kick it out another week no I don’t to out all the 10 I don’t want to kick it out at all all I want to do is are we present my past experiences I love reading have been that we have conversations we discuss desires and usually the superintendent needs a bless those before the school committee would even see them you know yeah right okay yeah all right so what I’m thinking is you guys meet internally the week of the 13th okay you spend the week of the 20th and 27th teasing out if those are going to be included or not in having those internal conversations you and then you put together the budget books based on

35:43 the result of those internal conversations and what you and or what John has recommended and you have you and Krist have outlined and then you come to us with the budget books we like to have the budget books two days in advance because they’re pretty big books and that’s why when you said the third I was like wow like that’s ambitious but we’ll go with it I don’t think you know I I didn’t yeah I did not anticipate having full on Blown budget books ready T yeah typically the budget books are done when we present the full budget and my pass so the budget workshop with the principles is when you present the fully cooked budget to us with the budget book okay so so okay so that’s that’s where I was confused because I was thinking that you guys were saying that the principals have to come and present

36:29 them to the public and then we take that information after that really bizarre no you guys meet this week or what you guys meet you tease that out whatever horse trading or whatever goes on behind the scenes with you guys okay is is fine what happens Bas they present to us and we have question me and Mike yes and then we have questions always I I’m sure you figure out and then um and then we asked and it’s really helpful is you’re in your La towards the camera I’m trying to figure out if the camera’s on no but the camera my questions so you have to like go on the table your camera

37:15 okay I wait P though you guys aren’t posted as a subcommittee and Molly has spoken oh so if you talk too you guys are subcommittee you’re a porum so I’m not actually going to P in oh CU you okay yeah fre to out

37:38 after your board not mine go for it well okay the the 31st of March is the full thcom review this is a clarification to the the Mali statement but there’s clearly going to be liaison subcommittee meetings in the mean in the metime so have to that separately it’s just a clarification of the than yeah I had that down as the full hearing the both inome hearing so can I ask what happens between February 3rd and March 31st because that seems like it’s we presented the budget and we have seven so in the past like what has happened is they pres it’s the requested budget which in my time here has never matched the what we have in the

38:26 allocation this is what we need or want this is what we have there’s always been a Delta and at that point you present what it would be if we work within the conference of what we have and they present what they want and we talk about the Delta and it’s really for us as a committee to say okay we hear we hear because the the fiscal reality is there is a fixed pot of money maybe this year is the first year ever that what we want f within that fixed so so when you’re saying when they want you’re talking about the principles yes well through your management yeah so so through your management the way I see this kind of unfolding is those conversations going to be had and they’re going to say these are all the

39:12 things this is how I’m going to spend the money you’ve allocated for our building my building our building this is how we’re going to spend the this is how I’m planning to spend the money and if there’s any like say at the end the end of next year this is some extra money because utilities were really low or something I would really love to be able to get this playground equipment or this service in place or whatever so we leave that as kind of a wish list because I think when when I have the principles come before the school committee when they’re presenting the budget Workshop that’s the money they they have it’s not it’s not negotiable other than a possible at at the very end of the we they’ve never because we’ve been in the fiscal reality that we’ve been in for several years what is allocated via the number that we hear after state of the town in a few

40:00 weeks has never matched even level services in the last several years we’ve had three years of not having enough money for level services so what gets presented is the level Services budget would cost this this is level this is what we have our funding this is what education would look like for the funding we have so and then this is what education would look like if we were able to get what we wanted so if what we come up with for a level service number matches is what the town can afford that February 3rd meeting could be an hour long yeah challenge that happen no but that means true level Services that’s no staff reductions every single line item that we own now every single person we own now every single contract every

40:48 single everything right that’s that’s where this meeting comes if that if it’s not a simple rollover of everything then the explanation start we’re reducing this because we found with class size reductions and enrollment reports this is less and we can we can adequately like I’m I’m pulling past conversations there was a few years back we were able to drop um a class size uh in one of the grades of Village I’m just pulling number say it’s ofth I don’t know what it really is so that means two teachers and what at the time Mandy presented to us was how does that affect education so class sizes would go from this to this but we’re dropping this size and we feel that this still benefit students because of XYZ and that’s what happens at the

41:33 meeting I’ll keep sending you a link I’ll send you someday I might have a time to watch it but but this is where it’s super super helpful for us to know if I mean we’ve all done the ma what we own now with the contractual increases isn’t what we have so where’s the Delta and what’s the Delta explanation and at the end of it if it’s a positive variance or a negative variance why and what is the benefit or cost of that to our students that’s what that meeting really is because I think you know there’s everyone in not everyone a large number of people in town keeps talking about an override and what we keep saying is we haven’t seen a budget we know what we own now we know what the cost increases

42:20 are but what we haven’t heard from our subject matter experts our superintendent our assistant superintendents our directors our principles is what we need and that’s the conversation we have on that night is what do we need how does this affect education in Marblehead because we may need more we may need less we don’t know until you go through the exercise um so the only other thing I have on here so I’ve now added the warrant hearing on April 7th and I’m not sure what input I have or John has on that getting language on the Warr right okay Warr here is that something yeah last year I I think just as a courtesy we showed like I always show up J Alison a lot of times comes to these things too

43:07 like but you you guys don’t necessarily to be there that town meeting on May 5th I do have that on here that’s still website oh all and forever y all right um and that’s that’s kind of for one um I I was just gonna I was just going to break that to is it every other night is it every I was just going to break that in a row so I would put it out as a placeholder for two but possibly three in last year so you have you know the lady in the not is Lisa because she knows what they booked that’s okay I’m did you guys book it sorry did you have btown meeting it it says it was at veterans i s online says it was at veterans it’s always at

43:52 veterans but we had a saffu one year where they need want needed to reserve three nights but we had rented it out to someone else CU they didn’t run it in time for Wednesday night so meeting was going to be Tuesday Wednesday thday do you want me just block night this meeting so you have to worry about it okay yes yeah May 5th 6 7th you

44:21 know all right so and then is there an election if that’s until June June do we have a date on that or I don’t know okay good um we know we for if there is a ballot initiative it will be it’ll be the 17th I would assume yeah June June

44:43 yeah yeah um so and and so what I’ve been explaining to people as people keep asking they want to get going with an override is until we we know what the state of the town is and what the revenue streams are that will be allocated to us and then what our budget is and how those compare we have it is very premature to say anything about in override because we don’t know what the state of the town is going to present and we don’t know what our revenue or what our what our budget is going to be till we see so um so that February 3rd date we’re gonna let’s just erase that why February why don’t we do February 10 give you this is your first year try yeah

45:28 try yeah try yeah we can leave it on the third and then if you need to we yeah i’ I’d rather set a Target that’s and then move it give me extra week um if you give me an extra week now I’m just gonna push

45:47 off um so then tentatively if we’re looking at the third we typically have a subcommittee joint meeting the week before so that we have a preview we don’t get the whole budget b but if there’s any aha moments that’s where we hear so you look at the 28th somewhere in that week three weeks from today yeah I I like Tuesday and Wednesday mornings my Sidekicks not with me

46:14 so I prol that’s us yeah so as a placeholder um with they come oh okay great all right yeah they come anyway so but we actually posted as a joint meeting so the P we have right yeah Mak sense um so either those deeds and if you got if everybody can email me you know by Thursday about their availability on if the morning the 28th or the 29th is

46:53 better all right so our budget planning is in good shape

47:00 um do you want to discuss with repu as well Forum oh

47:11 so so our budget forum is the budget hearing the year that we knew we were going for an override that’s one thing we can discuss the years we knew we were going for an override we did a budget Forum where we heard from people what do you want an education to look like Marblehead I think that we need to do that regardless of the override I just think we need to do that this year maybe the week of the 10th okay so after they’ve heard from the principles if there is that Delta getting some response even if there isn’t that Delta I think that we should open up that opportunity well we also have to have we have to have a public hearing yeah we do this is different from the public hearing this this present the budget to the school committee for theary bu so the way we have a public hearing

47:57 not a public hearing Forum we’ve done it a couple times what we’ve done is when particularly when we’ve had multiple budgets that’s kind of got helped guide some some things I think what you’re talking about is how we made a goal one of our goals is to have three different forums in the year one on each topic yeah I mean yes because of the goal but I think also it’s just I think it was really well received last year and it can be difficult and contentious sometimes because people have different thought thoughts and ask difficult questions as they should um and so this was more less of the hearing of you defending align items and this is more of a conversation with the school committee so it’s not even something we obviously would love

48:43 for you to come but it’s not something you guys have to be at it’s more of a conversation with the school committee rather than us getting into specifics of numbers but sometimes that does happen so if you are available sure when would school I guess what we did put on here when would school committee I’m sorry when will we have the public hearing and when we school committee have the final vote a regular school committee meeting that separate as well um we can do the budget hearing at a school committee meeting yes we could do the public hearing on the 6th March March yeah with the vote on the 20th is that

49:28 SC that that’s that’s March scho committee votes yeah and let me just see two weeks before March 6 we have did the hearing we to post two weeks in advance is the 20 two y that will be we’re a weird cycle because

49:47 we that’s what we’ve always run into you have to do it so many days in advance we only have a weekly newspaper so if you you don’t get it to them by print by a certain date you miss that whole week um um right so so like if we don’t tell them by the 17th if we tell them on the 24th it comes out on the 26 if we tell them by the 17 it comes out 19th so we just are going to want enough time to know ahead of time if you’re we’re going to be ready for a budet hearing on the six we may have to kick that to the 13th we could PO with the public hearing at any time no because it just says at least s days doesn’t say between 21 7 and 21 days you’re poos today for the date of the six I know but we might not be

50:34 ready we and then we’ll have to kick it out two weeks when you ready on the

50:44 six we’re gonna have ready anyway because if we have a public hearing on the 6 we have the school vote on the 20th and then we go to we Ved

51:00 oh just thank you I love well I’m asking to plan ahead for these issues you’re right there’s been a lot of movement in our budgets like through February March not just ours townwide there’s a lot of movement that happens a lot of SE we don’t I mean we’re getting by in a wing in a prayer all right like we’re not yeah I just think it’s weird I think Mike and I have had like vastly different experience we don’t I think it’s because of our fiscal reality yeah yeah more likely but I mean normally it’s like going back several years this wasn’t happening when now that we are in we’ve been pushing up against the structural deficit for so many years we really are we try to make every single penny count we last year we spent a lot

51:46 of time trying to see how much we could draw from revolving funds to keep cuts from happening I got we we need do a lot yeah so we got a plan in b um I just read my princi all right so just quickly I just handed out the nzda report um this is something that District gets every year it’s an enrollment report projections um I certainly don’t believe this is Gospel um this is some one of many tools that we use to project our classroom en sizes so this so one piece that’s going to be we’re it’s we’re going to be up against so people in this town look at our enrollment trends

52:32 like nothing you’ve ever seen um and I our enrollment reports come out every mon we have lost 22 students in the stke people are pulling their kids out of our system and I looked at the same Trends previous years it’s like is this the time of year that people decide private schools are working for them or the charter isn’t working so I like trends when looking at anything with budgeting last year we we don’t lose anything near that and then in fact we gained students during that period so we’ve reversed the train trend of gaining students during this period and we’ve had a significant loss it’s now statistically significant because it’s 1% I think I think that’s the threshold for being statistically and

53:18 when you look at the NASDAQ enrollment it’s it’s trending the same way regardless of the it was trending the same way regardless of whether we had a strike or not yeah trending down and then yeah yeah but it’s been trending down so it’s not surprising to me that in addition to the strike we lost some but we were already trending even since I I started here like 2710 and now we’re so yeah um but that’s just something that also are we doing so our out of districts by the way are included in our enrollment reports because they’re still our students so that that wouldn’t account that this these are people that actually the nezda report does not account okay so this is

54:04 people that you know voted with their feet if you will um do we as we lose students midy year is there any type of exit interview do we ask why they’re leaving students yeah um especially when they’re of this magnitude yeah I’ll check the admins yeah anecdotally I’ve had some parents reach out to me to explain it um and it was all attributed to I had I received two I think it was two emails and it was directly attributed this right yeah that was just they just happen yeah it was it was embedded in something else but they mentioned so yeah I that’s the evidence how they address that okay all right I just you know when we look at because

54:51 one of the um I can also show you the slide deck from last year’s presentation um um it’s actually pretty pretty good um to give you an idea of what we’ll be expecting for the for that budget Workshop you know there’s present there’s there’s where we are they talk about the nzda projections and stuff like that because that does factor in um there was also that’s where I throughout the negotiations I kept pulling that great scattergram was from actually our budget our budget Workshop so post it on the website it was a really good I looked at it when I interviewed yeah with the yeah she she did a really good job um I think this leads into the staff accountability

55:37 thing yes which is something I know these guys are working on um been yeah there’s been a lot of requests for that over quite some time and I’m really grateful that you guys have taken the committed the time to getting it done yeah I think it’s just a matter of what in what form that we share that information because um I think some of um depends on how we craft it because I I’m not a prop proponent I’m not a proponent of putting people’s names out there with attach to numbers um um I’m not a proponent of that so I just I just make sure that when we figure that piece out that we’re doing it mindfully I

56:25 guess I mean and I I think understanding I think it it I think um this was my big ass my first year which was three years ago now and we still don’t have it so I think you and it was my it was it was the ask prior to that as just a Community member because it is hard to understand as just a Community member as a human or even from a business perspective how these numbers have gone down so much but from a student perspective but staff so I think no and that’s that’s a reasonable conversation and question I think that’s all reasonable I just want to make sure that as we’re finishing and tweaking it um when I’m sharing that

57:10 information out I prefer not to share it with names attached no I’m I’m happy to say you know Village has blah these classrooms and these are the numbers because numbers numbers alone aren’t kind of really speak to why those numbers are they are so when you at special ed you might have a teacher who has kids in their class people might say goodness that there’s eight kids in that class and this this class is 24 there a reason for but you know to do that for every single class and every single piece of information from the whole district is not reasonable but I think having that information as an overarching way to look at how how our students are spread out throughout the district and how they’re being serviced is definitely help and that what that

57:55 accountability report is going help me and assistant supers and the admins is to figure out where the staffing needs to look different because I I’ve heard that loudly and clearly that you know yeah the enrollments gone down but the Staffing hasn’t um a lot of the Staffing things are conversations I’m having through student services around you know efficiencies and special education um things like that so those are all conversations we’ll continue to have as we Dev the budget um and I just want to have that conversation about how I share that information out in a way that’s helpful but not

58:31 yeah understood I think even just the shift you know the way you just responded from the perspective of you understand that that’s a hard pill to swallow say your your enrollment is going like this but somehow your shpping is not in the same direction even just your acknowledgement of that I think is a big S so for me it’s twofold what we’re looking for we we have to I mean loud and clear it was shouted throughout our town for the last couple months or last several months um by our staff that they’re under staffed they’re not safely staffed now we’re hearing something different from our administrators the parent the problem is the community and the parents are

59:17 hearing this from the sack so we need to show the data that shows we are safely sa we are appropriately sacked so we’re going to have to combat we’re either going to have to verify that narrative that it is true and this is how we’re addressing it or we’re going to have to show why it’s not true but we can’t just ignore the narrative because it’s been too loud it has to be addressed and and I think the simple answer to that and I’ve said this at least one or two forms is in certain Pockets there’s probably some under Staffing in many other Pockets there’s Staffing that is over what it needs to be and so again it takes some time to kind of level level things off um uh Victoria and Lisa maray have done a phenomenal job in the special

1:00:04 education realm of looking at the program and looking at Staffing and and again I’ll say in this form and I’ll say it in other forms it’s going to take a good solid two years to get the programming where we need to in the special ed realm um for many reasons and this isn’t blameful it’s just it’s just how we are right now um so we need to have solid special end programs in place so we can start looking at B District kiddos to come back in some programs that make sense for them that support and have resources available right now I don’t feel comfortable with that in a global kind of way and nor does to leave Lisa Mar Victoria um by no fault of any we have phenomenal staff we have phenomenal administrator we have there’s all that stuff it’s just we need to kind of put it back together I think in a different way so that leads me to the

1:00:50 second fold of this when I think about you know what the public has been asking to wrap their heads around because education does not look now what it look 20 years ago or 15 years ago the state requirments the state RS they’re different it doesn’t look the same but that’s hard to understand if you’re not in it so for instance in the staff accountability report this wouldn’t involve names but something like you know I’ll use an example the brown school and looking out the window here so the brown school that you would say Brown School language based program a little you know couple sentence narrative what is a language based program what do we service in a language based program why why is important or something like that and then say in that program we have I’m making up numbers don’t anybody quote me on this we have one special education tutor or teacher

1:01:36 two special education tutors and instructional assistants and eight students like I’m literally pulling these numbers could be so far off I don’t know but just so people understand it is not we have this many kids because when you the PE folks look at the desie numbers which is hard because the state average is 11.9 and we’re 10.3 that’s a big Delta people want an explanation they’re Justified but this kind of starts to tell the story not every classroom is a teacher and you know 10.1 students yeah there’s a different makeup and I’m not to inter but like when Lisa Marie does her presentation around our plan for special programming you’re going to see a graphic that’s going to really illustrate that in a way that’s G

1:02:23 to be very clear okay very clear accountability report that’s developed thus far to inform those numbers looks more like you CH you but I think what people will see that will open their eyes is when you look at things like high school maybe some high school teachers teaching General like classrooms that have I’m making up numbers again 14 kids in a class and other that have 19 kids in the class and you might say my elementary students in a class of 24 why is that how you know so we look at those things as well because I think some some things that drive things at the high school are different where Maybe El class maybe an AP class a higher level class that would have the numbers in a lower um so that those are things have to look at and how do we read that narrative forol understand but also then when you look

1:03:09 at our M scores not where they should be but I think all all of this feeds into the all this information feeds into justifying the budget and getting support from the town budget the to town citizens not just the entity of the town for the budget and then it also helps us when we vote a program of studies to understand why we’re seeing ads and dedu well that tracks back to we might have had a class that only had three kids in it and that’s why we’re taking it away not because we don’t value that class kids aren’t interested and they’re not signing up for right so all of this streamlines into all the work we do but I do want to be cognizant um of your guys next meeting are there any other questions no one’s that people haven’t had

1:03:57 answered we good when do we think we see um whatever form Julia will be back tomorrow and I’ll have a conversation with her I make sure that we um it looks as it needs to okay time we hav sat down whole thing since he was working on and I’m happy to reach Circle back in that offline yeah yeah no that’s fine so we I’ll get that to you okay all right so um second we were just forgot we were called to order at 9:10 and I’m going to journ us at 10:14