School Committee: March 18, 2025

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0:16 coost Alison I just made you a co-host too okay I’ll let anybody an if I um I didn’t think you would screen needed to screen share today but I wanted to make sure if you wanted to you could um did everybody see the YouTube thing I just want to make sure it’s working

0:35 yeah it looks like it is okay so take it away Mike all right good morning good morning um so would you want to start with the ring accounts yeah unless anybody had any questions about the FY 24 close out beond the revolving okay pass that around will you also send this to us electronically after the meeting of course

1:01 you so this is a uh fy2 revolving account update as of yesterday at 5 o’clock what you’ll see on the spreadsheet is we have the FY 24 um revenues FY 24’s expenditures and FY 24 ending bound and then an FY 25 Revenue expenditure encumbered and uh current day bals just so we can kind of track some trending I gave you last year’s data year to date I’m sorry I give you last year’s data end of year not year to date so some of these things are going to look a little Punky but to start with school lunch uh as an example school lunch last year we brought in 961 th000 all year on revenues and this year we brought in 1.24 million already parti

1:48 through the year so um just showing that our our school lunch um revenues are up already this year and they they’ll be much higher by the end of the year um but on the expenditure side last year we spent 1.14 million 1.47 million in expenditures in the this year to dat we’re at 925,000 which still a good chunk of school year to go so uh the revenue should also exceed last year I’m say expenditure should also exceed last year’s expenditure so um being my first year in we’re just kind of monitoring not any Trend history um to see you know where we’re where we’re going to land or or get some projections plus this school year is going to go very late compared

2:35 to other school years um right you know making out that you know we have extra week in February we have an extra couple of days in April and then go right to the end of June so that’s going to extend our our revenues and expenditures for school yeah so I guess high level what’s SP what’s paid out of this for evolving obviously the food itself certain salaries and wages and all of our revolving accounts are um governed as to what can be spended on of them this one’s actually governed by the state where most of our other revolving accounts are governed locally um so this one um this is salaries yeah so what goes out is salaries uh for Food Service health insurance benefits for Food Service yeah which has not hit yet this year at Lea hit me last night at that

3:21 amount um so health insurance benefits Medicare uh cost for salaries comes out of this account um so that’s the employee side of 100% of the employees to the delivery ofice salary benefits which is I think we all know this but for others listening like that’s important because the benefit side the Medicare portion the all that that portion and all other employees is paid in the town side still currently we’re we’re there’s consistent talks to move that to us but this line item for all um of our food service for you know going back at least 10 years that I know of has always been 100% PE out of this R volum uh so that’s that’s the the human Human Resources

4:07 side of things um Personnel side of things I should say uh so then we also have um cost of goods our food product our paper products uh our maintenance costs uh you know we need to have our Anil systems inspected annually um you know anything to do with the the kitchen kitchen operations um any um grease trap cleaning anything that has to do with the kitchen or the cafeteria it comes out of this from an expense standpoint yeah I mean the biggest Focus we had when we brought up the interaction of revolving and uh general fund is are there costs in the general fund that are legally allowed to be paid out of revolving accounts that have significant balances it doesn’t sound like at this point that this fund it

4:52 sounds like you’re everything that you’re allowed to pay that’s in your budget is being paid out of this yeah I mean there’s there’s one little thing that the state allows us to take a percentage of something for operational cost but that’s like lights it’s a percentage you don’t break it up by electricity and custodial but there is a an overhead cost that you can take it’s a very a small minimal amount and something we’ll look at at the end of the year yeah like you said it’s your first year so we just don’t want to see like two million bucks in the school launch and we’re paying the director of school launch out of general fund no and we are right that that changed this year the director is now out of here last year he was not right so he is uh as well as the the two members of the office staff over there the halftime

5:38 Clerk and the and the nutrition specialist and we would use this fun for you know equipment things things anything that we need to kind of so it makes sense to have some sort of balance for upgrades to equipment in the lunchrooms and stuff that’s an authorized use of these funds then it would save you Capital needs and stuff all capital has to be approved by desie so John John Constantino does have two Project work but it’s something you can plan and say like we’re forecasting 800,000 in there and we have this you know we have to redo all the ovens or whatever expens they’re gon we do the lines of Village nice isn’t that yeah and there’s something also planned for veterans so um both both six figure well six figure $100,000 projects so 200,000 should be

6:25 going to Capital two 250 okay out of this account this coming summer it’s usually an issue it’s just a just a check we at the um budget Workshop we the school committee did ask the food service director since we do have a balance hearty balance in this account if we can start transitioning to um some more scratch cooked meals that provide a better product for our students a little bit healthier product because we have the the wiggle room financially and that was something he was and the increase in this has hasn’t the state significantly increased the amount it’s giv to Marblehead in the last few years it’s been Head in the last few years it’s been 100% parents don’t pay no I know that but I mean like the reason why the balance is going up it’s like some years

7:11 back you weren’t getting as much well well so some years back we were not getting free lunch for all students it was only free reduce lunch students who got some type of a discount or free lunch so now that all students eat free um obviously more parents are less parents are making their students lunches and having their students buy School kids all now buy lunch at school every day they before so in my own District uh so yes we have the volume is up yeah um substantially the other part of this is when you were charging for lunches it was always bad debt and the bad debt can not come out of the revolving account it has to be picked up by the local that’s gone yeah so we have no bad debt right as long as the program for as long as the program holds it so so you didn’t have an ending

7:57 balance in the past I actually was a negative balance in yeah anywhere any given year it was it wasn’t huge but um in any given year you used to have to do a transfer between like8 and $12,000 for okay because up until sixth grade kids can run into the negative on their account even if they don’t have money on their account this is prior to free lunch yeah even if there wasn’t money on the account we we weren’t allowed to deny them a lunch and so what would happen was kids would hit six six I think it’s sixth grade and the parent could then be charged back seven years in a and all of a sudden that K never bought a lunch again and that money reject well no just and and so I mean this isn’t a huge based on fiscal 24 it’s not a huge ending balance

8:42 especially if and so if you have a similar ending balance at the end of 25 and you have plans for 200k of it there’s the bottom line is there’s not a whole lot because we’re looking at where can additional funding come out of involvment funds this one isn’t doesn’t sound sound today that there’s much more in your general fund budget that you could even use this for legally Legally there’s nothing yeah so it’s just monitoring and maximizing the use of those funds as best as you can legally this is very helpful I think previous years yeah I wish I could could have given you a year to date for you know maybe March no this is great I could

9:27 perfect we’re lucky we have this getting our sh they tied to this I mean materially tied to this exercise I did last year yeah so the far left column ties to where when we roll into this with Michelle oh okay so they’re all within 10 grand here there yeah it’s a

9:50 good really likes when things

9:56 the most things you look at I like it too I sign off on Mike one thing Mike I’d like to just ask we’re going through all these is sort of how you would what a Target ending balance would be you know not You’ always hit it but just from an operational standpoint what you think needs to stay in each of these funds so just think just as we’re going through each one so you know for school lunch just h a couple hundred, so school lunch is actually regulated also oh okay they’re not very strict on the regulation right now because they know that many districts are I’m going to say flush with cash in these accounts because of the free lunch because um students are eating you know you know

10:42 whatever the reason is um so in Food Service it’s three months of operation cost okay uh is statutory um unfortunately we have more than that as does 90% of districts in Massachusetts right now you know it just it’s one of those things that we’ve always been so Frugal with these accounts because we were to the end of the year and be NE you know be negative and have to bail out Bail it out budget the town would have to bail it out the school department bail it out um that I think we’ve gotten ingrained in you know making sure that we’re we’re very frugal uh we’re we’re you know maybe not I I can’t speak to marrow because I wasn’t here when when were buying food before but you know were we buying the best available product for our students I think that’s one of the things that we need to move to is can we can we serve a better

11:30 product you know my goal for this and I tell you that I’m on a call with mbow tomorrow I offered my my I volunteered my not volunteer but I’m working with masbo to create something that we are going to start sharing menus around the state of the top items in every school district that are healthiest um I I can tell you I went to a meeting last year with desie and one of my co one of my colleagues I think he was at Newton Newton public newtonic uh he showed me one of his lunches and it was like they were whole shrimp in it there was it was a stir fry that was super healthy and um whole shrimp in it I’m like I’ve never seen shrimp in in the school lunch before so we’re going to start sharing some of these menus now that you know districts can actually currently yeah afford to serve a better product we’re start we’re going to try to start so I’m

12:17 I’m working with de to I think it’s also we have to keep in mind like right now we’re in a good place because of the way the reimbursables work through the state but I I’m cynical and I don’t know that how long this is sustainable for the state so we want to make sure we do that Balan mean being Frugal um providing the best product but not getting to a point where we’re serving shrimp and shatow it goes the other way we can’t do it so we have to kind of balance that out but I love the idea and the thought process around the state because you know when you can do it why not do it we have to make sure that we’re thinking future wise too what’s reasonable when when the bottom falls on this I’m not sure how many kindergartens shrimp but I’m going to tell you right now you’re going to very unlikely have shrimp because it’s one of the top eight allergens was

13:02 was was like do I

13:11 was we buy a few pens out of this question I have is due to the shutdown in November we inre acred a lot of cough because we continued feeding kids during that that my understanding is that didn’t come out of the revolving because it did we could come okay all right I just wanted to make sure are we only able to draw on that when the kids are in session no we were we didn’t get reimbursed for them from the state okay that’s fine I just wanted to know where it came from if that reflected this or not okay it did those costs came out of this okay no problem we itemized itemized them most we knew what the cost okay we related to the strike yeah I KN I seen the itemized cost I just didn’t see the sourcing all right perfect so yes as we get through all these Molly we’ll kind of give you

13:56 an idea where we think we should fall for an ending balance each year or what we should carrying um so it brings us to user fees user fees I’d like to I need to figure this out for next year um and I have to talk to Alicia we have one account for user fees and that is athletic user fees that is all the high school middle school elementary school clubs or U whatnot um to me that’s a recipe for that’s my money that belongs to this club this belongs to this not this club but this program um I’m used to having an letics user fees and then everything else or or multiple everything else user fees and right now we’re lumped into one thing I’d like to break that out for so when I

14:41 see this balance one question I have because this is something that will come before the committee in you know the next month or so is your recommendation for user last year we went to 100% on the families and we significantly increase the family cap um in order to to help the budget um which is fine my question is if we have a balance and we can and we’re already charging everything we possibly can to this account there’s it’s not like we can charge something new to it and we remove that from the general fund my question is when we look at that can we provide some economy to our students and families yeah I understand what you’re saying so first off the practice has been and I don’t say I disagree with the practice from a from a administrator

15:28 standpoint who’s overseeing these programs that we have some money in the local budget and we have some money in revolving accounts accounts um they always spend the local budget before they touch the revolving accounts so we are coming into the spring season and there is no money left in the local budget so small expenses for the spring season will be coming out of this revolving account so so while it shows all was supposed to come when we voted the budget last year moved all salaries to the salaries yes there are some other things that are still in the local budget for out so like what are the elements that are coming out of the local budget CU understanding that everything was coming out of the revolving for

16:12 this um so we have 6,000 for police salaries 56,000 for officials salaries 49,4 for medical salaries that’s our trainer uh 20 thou 21,000 for custodial salaries uh 71,000 for drivers that’s our employees to drive for um emplo events uh 55,000 for contracted services 26,500 for um oh no that’s a different one all right so that’s that’s just a um um rental facility 71,1 100 so all total I mean it’s it’s about $590,000 in the local budget that includes Kent and um Mark salaries so I take Kent Mark salaries out it is

17:04 um with athletic Insurance also um $426,000 still in local budget okay so are there any restrictions that would prevent you from taking any of these out of the local budget and putting and having the revolving fund covered I guess before we get there like what I just heard is most of those costs for this year are gone so it looks like we have 362 left where do you think that’s going to land at the end of CU because entering if you look at the far left it was at 58 which is you knowbly let’s let’s also say that this includes all the revenues come in for the for the spring Sports now so all thees are in so there’s no more Revenue coming into this account no I get it I’m just wondering what next I I would anticipate that that

17:50 we’re probably end at about the 215,000 mark so higher than it’s where it was last year at this last year ending balance was 214,000 oh 214 how so I’m assuming we’re gonna try and and stay at that which gives us about one season’s worth of buffer so do you want a buffer in here from your perspective of course yeah I mean when Kent comes to me and says oh my God we need um something it could be balls it could be Nets it could be anything I can say well that’s great because we have some money in the in the atic user piece if if we get really tight and I’ve got nothing in the local and nothing in user fees and nothing anywhere else sorry Kent you’re going to have to go without n yeah yeah as long as long as you feel

18:35 like the balance is um reasonable for purposes of using it for things like that then I I’d say you wouldn’t need to potentially be moving things from general fund into here and unless this was growing to like 800 TR right and I think if this conversation we could have next year when we’re building the FY 27 budget we will then have a better history right now we have no history because all the fees went up last year yeah right the idea would be like if you somehow create a windfall in one of these accounts and you need something on the general fund then use that account to kind of get what you need on the general fund right rather than being like we need an over whatever no that’s generally what you that’s generally how these anyway so you guys know what you’re doing yeah but it’s good and I we hadn’t looked at this

19:21 until last year in any department townwide so it’s just helpful for us to understand with Athletics is always you know it’s tough because we also have a new ad too so like we need to get a whole se you know whole years’s worth of seasons in to make sure that he’s also being mindful of hey do I need to refresh the helmets and you know football all those things cost a lot of money and you know I I think he’s got a pretty good hand on those are conversations that like iue have so I also you know want to I feel strongly we shouldn’t be raising our un user fees again this year I it was a massive increase we took the family Max from like 800 to 2400 so on this week’s school committee meeting um I’m currently drafting a memo wa to get to John that will that will level fund all

20:07 level level set all of them okay using these tuitions that big hit there must have been um there must have been more costs that this account is paying for um in the general fund until it was removed until they were removed last year or else you wouldn’t have increased piece right that was the whole point well we used to pay half of the S coach stiens yeah out of the general fund and we took all the coach siens out of the general fund and moved them to the it was the coach s that was the reason for the increase and now now it feels like the account is in good shape with some sort of just as part of that conversation I’m sorry um is we haven’t seen a even with the increase of the fees we haven’t seen substantial decrease

20:52 substantial decrease substantial decrease inti on that point though like so you’re saying that the cost per family went from 800 to 2400 it looks like revenue and you’re saying all the revenue is in it looks like Revenue didn’t even double so I’m surpr I’m I’m so yeah you know what I you know I and I I’m just who is monitoring the this account in terms of you know in are you paying to can people are actually like because like I would have and that’s one thing my question I’m surprised that the revenue in this is not higher yeah also there’s also some family cap yeah there’s family cap one and there I there’s waivers for um Financial

21:39 financial assistance Rivers so but to what Molly saying as like and I try not to speak as an end user but I’m going to as an end user for the clubs particularly I don’t know if there’s a check like spring season hasn’t start the honor System I I pay my user fee at the beginning of the year for the kids cuz I know they’re going to go to but they’ never I’ve asked them they’ve never been no one’s ever checked to see if someone paying so all the all the Rees may not be in yet because we do it at the end of the month spring season started yesterday so anybody who paid before March 1 is in anybody who paid after March 1 will be in at the end of actually that’s not true we got it February’s not finished yet because we hadn’t closed everything so all right so

22:24 so we still well I would say that most of the spring the spring user fees are not in yet because right now we’re at the we don’t do that because there’s a lot of refunds when stilling on teams and stuff I’ve been spending a lot of time doing refunds right now so before the season starts which it just started um so the reason I said this I ran this last week and the revenue went up substantially from last week to this week so some money did hit last week yeah I did I did December and January my job but our biggest revenue is the fall because we structured it your first four is this much your second sport is this much and your third sport is a lot less so there’s less money coming potentially it’s something to

23:09 revisit as we move forward to 27 and move some of those the ones you listed for Sarah 10 minutes ago I mean one heretic supplies 55,000 that that’d be a good one to move over yeah um R facili we’ll right siiz that I think you know not now we have a better idea yeah you’ve had a year of actually collecting the Fe you didn’t know what you were going to get you didn’t know what you’re going to spend out so yeah and if you look at just say like you know police we if we look back and say like every year it’s between 6 and 8,000 we know it’s fairly so we can the way I again the way I think about it is anything you can pull out of there the general fund and move into here because you have room then that frees up more fun oh yeah general fund to do what you need to do Mike and I have a very similar

23:56 philosophy around this so I think you know once once we get to full and if we if we do wind up when we all are all in with a substantially higher balance and what we’ve put in it everyone feels is appropriate then I would like to look at a any potential savings because this this is public education and you know families between kindergarten tuition and sports are writing thousands and thousands of dollars of checks and so I wanted one of the Union request all the way through was that we continue to look at our user fees and although we didn’t make it part of the contract it’s not appropriate to be in a contract I did give my word that I will

24:41 continue to have it be a part of a con conversation as far as Equity goes if at some point we see that we’re have a high balance we’ve moved everything into that’s appropriate instead of carrying that high balance and I would like to talk about reducing the fees so that it it is so from an equity standpoint though there it sounds like there are programs in place for people who cannot afford it and it sounds like participation did not decline this year so the other what we’re hearing is families don’t want to come forward families don’t feel comfortable coming through forward and doing the application for the so so that’s what we’re here so we we could we could do we could probably do a little better um communication around you know how how do we get people to submit those

25:27 kind of things it’s it’s same thing like when you know going back to the lunch discussion like a lot of people won’t fill out the free when they had to fill out thee It’s tricky because the the decision there is like is will it be paid for by all the taxpayers of the Town who some of which also you know can’t afford and don’t have a choice do we instead is it the people who are actually using those Services who have the option to have you know to help as well so I mean it’s I it has to be and I don’t want to raise the budget to cover this I’m saying if we’ve moved if we moved what is appropriate in it and we’re in the balance is still growing then I want to have the there’s no reason to increase you could even revisit and make yes I just what that after put what’s appropriate in there

26:13 yeah normally normally on a user fee world every year I would I would out advocate for raising the user fees by the cost of inflation y so two to 3% but because we don’t have the history there’s no recommendation for that this year we we do have a healthy balance in there so we’re not overly concerned about running out of cash in this account um but once we have this right size and we know where we are normally we would say you need a two to three I mean salaries going to go up three and a half% FY 28 on Tor of salaries right because it’s following the it’s going follow the contract so that’s something we need to take in consideration that we’re 28 two years two years down the road from now yeah yeah that I mean if that’s true it’s probably good to have a little bit of balance there I think you know clearly no one did anything with

26:59 the user fees and that in that as they I mean for for a giant increase like that it just seems like well they took everything out of local there was a lot yeah we were we were raising um lunch kindergarten and user fees by whatever our increases were like 3% whatever um we started that about six seven years ago because we had had a big adjustment at that point we hadn’t been doing it but you know it last year um fincom had asked us to look at our revolving funds I was hesitant I’m going to be honest um we looked at them and we were able to dig deeper into them to balance budget which was the right thing to do and um we adjusted our user fees quite sign we more than double them yeah

27:44 I just want to make sure for for the people that are on the listening in too that we’re not recommending going up on the user fees we’re not recommending changing user fees until unless we get to a point where we feel comfortable having that yeah I don’t want that to be it’s just we’re just so could I ask then so it looks like we started the year the ending balance in fiscal 23 or beginning balance of 24 was about $60,000 we ended fiscal 24 with 215,000 in the balance so what how would you like to what is that buffer that you need to hold your so I would say between 2 and 250 annually at the end of the year year

28:30 it would be my recommendation again it’s just a recommendation I don’t have a vote publicly what I will say and I wasn’t here but I’ve done this myself in the past sometimes you get to the end of the year and you have had a surplus in the local budget you will spend out of the local budget and save your money in the revolving accounts because it’s could be going into something that’s you know Capital Improvement not Capital but an improvement in the program so to say that we ended last year at $214,000 in this account maybe it’s because we took something out of the local budget that could have hit the that could hit the revolving account just because we had money left over the end of the year I wasn’t here for it I can’t speak to that but that is a practice it’s it’s a it’s not it’s not an illegal practice it’s not anything unethical it’s just one of those things if you end up with

29:16 money at the end of the year you say okay I’m going to keep an eye of revolving funds so that maybe we don’t have to go by Fe and so if I’m thinking about like a projected total annual revenue for this like you know year to dat it’s for 70 maybe there’s another another 100 potentially okay so it could be 600 sort of so then you would say like you know 30% I mean to me that seems reasonable an ending balance right of 200,000 like maybe 30% of your annual revenue and assuming expenses are generally going to match it so that’s kind that give us one season that’s what I look at I try that seems very reasonable then my last question on this are there like over 20 year period are

30:02 there like significant like fees related to Athletics that come up like not like Capital but like what what is the biggest fee you guys have seen boosters takes care of the big ones I think that what you’re looking up and we’re so like we’re not talking about doing a field or anything just boost PE for everything so here’s a little bit different in a lot of typical districts yeah you look at that you say okay I need to redo the field you ever G to have to like oh no we have to kind of check out of this for 75 grand usually somewhere in like the 10 to 20 well no so ice rental is expensive yeah and the town doesn’t want to rent continue to um ice rental is expensive uh reconditioning of of football gear is expensive um that’s a you know a large expense um transportation has gone

30:47 through the roof so we’re very fortunate that we have our own buses and when we can utilize them we do yeah um we may pay our our drivers well that’s presumably something you could invest in as would be like some sort of bus or something right yeah uh like a multi usually um what I’ve seen is um we we’ll invest in what’s called a multi function m mfsab mfsab m multifunction Student Activity bus like 18 passenger no it’s it’s um it’s almost like I consider it like what you see for at an airport the airport shuttles yeah so they don’t require a special license the coach can drive it so it’s your golf team it’s your um yeah so things like that smaller teams that you know you’ve got eight eight golfers in all their gear it’ll

31:33 fit in one van but not a minivan wouldn’t fit even a Ford for so if you had something like that and the coaches were willing and everything was legal then you could potentially save money in transportation costs if you had weight field yep so that’s where I’m thinking like you know if you’re carrying kind of multiple hundreds of thousands and then you have a year just consider like something like that to save money on the the backand over the next five years of Transportation like that would be a great expense and about 80 well they were about 80,000 I’m sure they’re one thing I would like to and we can talk more offline about this um I put a plug in since we have this healthier balance and what we have had is this there’s been a lot of talk for about a year or two now at the Village

32:19 School that field there the scoreboard I think it’s like it’s a dominous amount the last presentation we had was um like $112,000 they were trying to write raise some private funding for it there were some hiccups if we have this Hardy of a balance we have track over there we we have things it’s also a great Community Field that the communities use can we please look at that by the like end of the year so first off I want to say we do not have a healthy balance as of right now I do not feel comfortable saying that we have a healthy balance because not through the end of the year okay if we get closer to the end of the year and it’s still looking like this can we please look at replacing the headline right now the athletic department has balance I’m just $12,000 scoreboard and half the town uses it like can we make

33:06 it work if we have so this much Mone I think part of the conversation is our our athletic programs from the high school using those fields and those scoreboards we have we have kids that go over there and use it they do track over there they do then then absolutely then that’s an acceptable expense if this was for for town wck for the for the use soer I would say no it’s not an acceptable use of funds but if if the high school kids are over there and they’re having events where require a scoreboard absolutely it’s unacceptable use talk to Ken he’ll be able to answer that question I just know I see high schoolers dodging in front of my car whenever I’m picking up over there after with older sports gear talk to Kent but it’s a de Minimus amount and it’s been a two-year discussion so I’d like to just get it done if we can great the the

33:54 boosters um funding is specifically for athletics is that correct yes yeah they’ve done no there’s a moing band boosters group oh yeah there’s sub groups but the boosters we often talk about they did the lights they just in the last year they did the lights the tur I’m very aware of the of the um athletic side of the boosters but that’s what I was getting at is other non athletic specifics usually there’s a marching band um sometimes you’ll see a drama but I’m in Marblehead something called the friends of the marble head performing arts and they do they often do fundraisers it’s not anywhere near as well funded but they’re still they’re very generous they help offset field

34:42 trips for kids they it absolutely exists yeah I know it exists I’m just saying is it is it helping how close are is the support that they might give to compared to what’s in in expenditure budget so my experience with booster organizations is they usually fund at the local budget or not warm up warm warm up outfits for the basketball team um something for the football team an extra piece of non-required equipment it might be a tackling dummy or something ask for the Arts how is it working out for the kids in the Arts I don’t know I honestly I haven’t been here long enough to know what the Arts grw is doing and I don’t even know what the boosters for athletics is doing but typically Kent mentioned to me yesterday the banners in the high school need to be redone and I said that’s typically a booster thing we

35:28 do not buy banners we appreciate that the kids won a state state championship and was it hockey this year no last year that’s not a school department expense that’s usually the boosters come out and they buy the banner they have it stitched and sewn I think there’s some vinyl ones that have gone up recently he’d like to uniform get them all uniform over there I think it’s a great idea um but it’s not a local budget expense that is that is a nonrequired educational thing we want to celebrate the victories absolutely but that should be on uh fundra raing if you want a fund raise for it that’s fine if you want to ask the boosters a fund raise for you that’s fine but I don’t think that’s a yeah my information is 20 years old performing art St but they I I know they they did provide

36:17 um uh the course gos so I they they um I have a little some experience of of this um probably from the same perspective that you did then um they are generous with the funds that come in to to put them back out um for the big concerns they buy the flowers that decorate the stage they’ll do a little recession for the kids after there’s not a lot coming in in the revenue side yeah um so they don’t have it was usually a you you rais the funds because you are looking to spend the funds yeah they my experience was always like when we did maim competitions when I was in high school we would have food available to us throughout the day so they the Boost of money that they raise would go to you know a Saturday or Sunday competition we would have go back to the buses it was

37:03 always an ample spread of food for us you know yeah maybe help us some for instance um in April the orchestra chorus and band are taking a trip to Ireland to perform there and if you signed up for it um if a student signed up and might not have all the funds I believe the boosters is is being generous with that okay but they exist and they’re as generous as they can be yeah okay great all right so we done with the it is not a healthy balance yes go ahead sorry it’s Alison I just had my hand up for a while um I I do just want to make sure because and I I think I don’t know if it youal that mentioned it someone mentioned making sure that if the funds don’t match at the end that

37:48 we’ve gotten for us user fees I’d just like to be sure that we haven’t lost a lot of athletes as a result of it um athletes drama Band Whatever it might be um I know you said that there isn’t really any Che that yeah I mean I think um usually my experience is I don’t know about yours John but um superintendent um usually there’s an Athletics update the end of the year for school committee with participation and awards and what was my initial conversation with Kent is that we’re participation is pretty much on track with what it has been drama I’m not sure um I met with Andrew three weeks ago um you know there some programs are healthier than others so that’s that’s

38:34 typical to um course is really high but other things are low and um know things like that so yeah we we’ll continue to have conversations with the leaders of those programs too and just make sure we have a good idea of where where they stand when they’re moving towards anecdotally I’m not seeing a lot less kids at

38:53 things that is not but I I just I think that will be an important thing the community will want to know as well given the the very large increase that we had there’s a lot of Marblehead Head that we had there’s a lot of Marblehead you football that happens at that Village football field yeah so um all right so then the next one is educa educa yeah um so I need to dig into this one a little bit deeper we haven’t received any payment from educa this year so I need to dig into this usually I don’t know when it usually comes in so I need to talk to Michelle Michelle’s got foreign tuition this is not tuition this is yeah it’s it’s foreign exchange students coming to Marblehead right but this is I think like the thank you for accepting our students here as a gift to

39:41 the school oh okay it’s not did we take kids this year we did we have a couple yeah at least a couple maybe okay I just it I there was a lot more chatter about it in years past there was a lot of I would say a push for people to be sponsor families so I didn’t know because maybe sponsorship is down we don’t have as many kids which is why we’re not getting kids Michelle mentioned there were a few kids I’m not sure how many okay so so you you guys were not here last year when we went through this revolving account you know I was a little disappointed to see the balance stay so high since this was sort of discussed at length on using it to fund some capital and other onetime needs at the end of last year so Sarah that that I guess didn’t happen so I

40:28 think from from our perspective that’s something to consider when you think about some of your um Capital requests at the town this balance like I mean we discussed this last year this does not need to have a balance basically there’s no cost Associated it with it that are recurring right this is for onetime expenses we planned to take more out of this this year yeah so I mean that’s that it is um I mean you could still use some of it what Molly’s saying yeah is that we don’t see recurring costs that you need to carry a balance for in this so if you’re talking about a capital project this year it’s an option y instead of asking the town for a capital request that was our understanding what

41:14 was going to happen not not that you need to drain it you might want to save a little bit of it for next year the same idea but um it also doesn’t look like we’re increasing the revenues related to the C right yeah I I don’t think we’re bringing in addition I don’t think we’re exponentially increasing the number of students who are attending from foreign countries yeah I don’t really see the um I see $5,000 coming in you know this year year to date I show negative oh that’s Revenue I was like my expenses I I’m still not sure how we have negative Revenue should we offer no it’s probably something got reclassified or something inexpense last zero

42:01 just to make sure everything Bal but it’s many kids we

42:08 have um maybe what you know we should probably also know what our Target is for next year as education reach out to us and said hey we’re looking toids next year guess not a hot Comm Place kids from other countries right now okay um just going down on that one um so the next one is the guid account so yes I hear you we’ll look at some Capital things this year the year or as we get to the end of the year uh guidance um that’s just kind of a small nothing nothing substantial this is when transcripts transcripts and uh for um I don’t yeah not sure exactly but it’s

42:53 four we’ve used it I believe in the past sometimes um we have a special request um of a need for a child yeah I don’t know where the rabbit comes from yeah I think it’s from it’s from trans transcrip yeah they charge him a fee when they were make your request yeah I think it’s like right in the school store yeah yeah College admission Stu yeah I think it’s a lot of that that whole ball game Christine over at the guidance office um manages that actually she manages it very tightly because I made a mistake when I first started and she caught it because and I was like oh I can see your watch in your accounts so special ed that’s tuition in yeah so for next year um I did putting the

43:39 budget on offset for that so that we can start spending that town yeah I was going to say I think my perspective on this and the overall challenging special ed and outof District tuition situation is that you’ve moved to a healthy situation where you’re carrying 100% of the circuit breaker which we agree with and we think most towns want to do that and it’s good financial planning but do you really need more than that in reserves like what are we holding this for well you know what I mean we’re seeing a million dollar increase on the general fund um now this isn’t recurring necessarily what is the I guess it’s it it $100,000 a year maybe if you

44:26 annualize that 75 grand shouldn’t we just be spending that to reduce the um the general fund request annually do we really need a reserve in a in a second revolving account called special education so we have 100% of this is this is tuition in kids right so this is this is Select so we may have a kid it we’re getting a legally allowed to use it on your own yeah yeah no for sure but this this number could I mean four kids can leave five kids can leave that that number you pretty much disappears so like it’s yeah we can I’m taking 100,000 that next year out of the budget 25,000 of four people salaries um OT and PT so um that is in next year’s budget $100,000 which which I don’t have a good enough Gras on how many kids are kind of the education

45:12 conversation not sure kids are bringing in to no yeah I know it’s all confusing it’s just people locking up our door to bring their if we’re gonna carry a revolving account called circuit breaker at 100% Y which is like the a a grade A planning right most towns try to do that but not all towns do do that based on my research and I don’t think we also need to be like like we’ve talked about with these other ones here like having some sort of buffer on this line I think you you try to plan to spend most of it I’m happy to see you’re embedding um salary some salary money in our for our special education providers in this you said 100,000 for next year that’s that’s what’s in the budget it’s an offset for next year yeah no I’m happy to see that

45:58 you’re starting to to do that and it’s good to do with like the service providers that because they flow a little bit and sometimes they’re like but I agree with you Al yeah that’s

46:14 aition I love what he’s doing with full cost and offet general fund to be able to say here’s the full cost and hey we we got 100 Grand from special had carry whatever setting we need to spend gr money before we SP we’ll get to when we get to the grant accounts quick um it’s not going to solve we have some money structural challenges but every you do three of these might add up to a million bus and I and L is really trying to you know she’s done a great job get what [Music]

47:14 this okay so I’m just looking as a percentage so 300 versus

47:22 1.5 kind of yeah um that’s in your ending balance at the end of last year so to hot now assuming that it’ll be similar this year right you don’t know what your expenses are yeah no no I agree that that balance is going to be higher than 369 because we have no planed expenses out of that for this year next year next budget year we’re going to start for the 100,000 right in the that maybe goes to 150 or 200 depending on the TR I didn’t want to take too big of a bite out of that year I want to take a bite out of it because you’re right it’s got It’s got a healthy balance but it’s it’s one of those things has to be sustainable you know if I take 300,000 out of it and we don’t get any kids tuition in in a year that money would be gone and I’ll be coming to the

48:09 town saying now I need $300,000 to continue to do it keep the level service so if I take a $100,000 bite out of that Apple this year I justew it gives me three years but I kind of view the whole situation as one thing like this the the special education Challenge and then you have all these different revenues coming in and your reserve for the whole situation is your circuit breaker at 100% so I look at circuit breaker as that’s for when I have a kid who was out of District wasn’t planned for this is for I have an IND District problem because these kids are this is tuition in these are kids who live in another community and we offer a program that will benefit them and their home District doesn’t so they come here so this is tuition and this is money I want to spend in District yeah where the circuit break I want I typically want to

48:55 spend that on kids who are going out of district and I will say like I think we talked about this a little bit last year too the financial CR crisis that we hit in 2018 that led to the 2019 spending issue was 100% based in circuit breaker coming in hundreds of thousands all of a sudden under what the state had projected and on like a month’s notice and so that that is why I know I am so sensitive about making sure our special education reserves are stable because where that is a mandate if all of a sudden we were in that situation again which to be perfectly honest given the the fiscal

49:41 climate we’re in right now with grants it is not unheard of that all of a sudden like idea which is you know roughly 900,000 at that time though what circuit breaker balance was being held because I feel like now we’re in a position where that’s why did that right so so and that’s and I’m not trying to argue but it’s I don’t care what services are coming in and out you have money coming in and money going out and you’re allowed to spend certain monies coming in on special education to me this is money coming in to deliver special education or pay for special education services and we have a Reserve at 100% of circle fer do we also need a reserve on this

50:27 line um Reserve I you know our general fund by a million do not the reserve that’s in there right I agree it’s heavy now it’s got a heavy Bal what the number is I would say in my opinion would be at least $100,000 to keep that that’s fine to keep that but we need to get it down to that point doesn’t look like as much is coming in anymore yeah no I think that is very reasonable to reduce it to that level over a so I think yeah okay yeah because you know the thing is if we had five kids coming in we have two kids coming in that that number is naturally going to be reduced it’s just G to be reduced so um to Mike’s point I make sure that we’re not you know I want to cut things close to the more as possible without like ourselves like the circuit breaker yes there’s you know 100% balance in there

51:12 but you know two kids come in that need residential or two kids go out they need residential that wipes that out and a heartbeat so then we’re down to nothing right those out plac are like three different yeah yeah like so you’re work with 8-year-old D but I’m okay so it’s how much they a top out of $600,000 so the circuit breaker one year is probably like 1.5 million no 600,000 for one kid no we had if we had the scenario two kids mov into a residential Reserve which could happen or so then the other way to play it is you can we’re talking about kind of expend that money and know that if kid

51:57 Moves In $600,000 we’re back in front of us you guys in the town saying we need $600,000 to pay for this because we don’t have a choice we have to pay for so I’m just say with a town environment is I can’t wait till May to get the money yeah yeah I I only get one B at the Apple on that too right town meeting is only once a year structure we would have to dig into our general fund and cut other services which is the conversation we’ve had to have in the past what is not legally mandated the art aren’t legally mandated Sports aren’t legally mandated that’s the stuff that goes to people so um we have 12 12 exchange students

52:43 not we’ll do that they’re watching the news as so that’s literally yeah a 12 so yeah I’m assuming that revenue is coming I think our TG will be to get that 200,000 but if I do it all in one year that means I’m going to coming back to the town for more money to get to stay at that 100,000 yeah right yeah your first year here which just I’m happy you’re going in for 100,000 the way we are so if I if I resign on June 30th and be higher on July 1 do I get me a new year this is your first year it gets you something it’s your first year um building rental um I will say that we we are waiting on a payment from YMCA and not their not not their fault our fault came in this morning my list okay so there’s Revenue missing from the building rental if you say like last year we brought in 107 and this year

53:30 we’ve only brought in 26 we have not got we now have the YMCA payment that’s 21 Grand is going on to that what do you use that one for it’s not so so really it’s custodial Services um because um anytime somebody rents the building there usually custodian that’s required to be there so cast um the other thing when we have a surplus in there uh sometimes it might go to refinishing the gym floors uh replacing a scoreboard uh in the gymnasium because the youth basketball rents the facilities and you know they should have a scoreboard that works things like that do they just ask for a scoreboard at the village field I just asked but here’s the thing the village field park and wreck wreck and parket

54:15 that money we don’t get the rental money from Park and wreck so we can’t use it legally there for us Sports Park Rec is bringing the revenue they should be replacing the warboard right just move on we rent our gymnasiums of what we’re charging custodians were part of the new contract as well are they also future yeah um yes two healthy Reserve there to worry about those increased cost well that would be well just just the overtime for when they’re working in event so because their rates are going up our building rental r go there time will go question

55:01 correct the pack because we get a fair amount of rental revenue from the pack is I know at one we were talking about doing this it’s a mess pack is a mess Capital but can that come out of capital and go in here could this funds be used instead of the capital requ it’s not I don’t know if it’s 162,000 is not going to get us too far but yeah I mean we can offset some of it by I I think what we’ve asked for from the pack is that for the capital is the painting and the seating there are probably going to be other upgrades needed like lighting might need to be done so so when we refresh the pack we can do use some of this yeah to do the two big projects we have for the town the painting of the

55:47 ceiling what’s the town realizing that and and the re upolstery of the seats yeah right if we need to polish the floors while we have the seats out maybe I’ll use this money to polish the floors or whatever else from visibility standpoint it might be a good idea for you to say we are using you know we’re contributing the $50,000 whatever from the yeah I think that’s it’s a when you go for override campaign for a new library but hey we we raised x amount of money independently there also helps the the ask of town citizens that we’re doing what we can to cover this with what we great idea and that that space definitely needs yeah but like when we get up there do the ceiling like there

56:35 some of other stuff might fall get there say that’s all run out so those are things we can supp you increase your cost by the end of it that’s happen well yeah any building have you renovated a kitchen recently you open the walls and it’s all over um like what would be sort of again an operating sort of Target for that balance that you feel like you would like to have as cushion I think I think at a minimum 100,000 on that one that because because something comes up and we need to do something ref finish the gym floors or um paint paint a specific area that’s been used um one of one of the things right now I think we’re looking at uh some audio some AV Equipment at the high school in one of our rent areas that gets rented frequently uh some speak some new

57:21 speakers and a equipment so that was going to come out of here um I’m so waiting for to commit on that so maintain 100K in building rental Reserve that would that would be my Flor revolving rather excuse me gotta be specific sounds good um so that brings us to kindergarten I will say before anybody jumps jumps on this one in next year’s budget half of every kindergarten teacher and half of every kindergarten instructional assistant forly known as tutor is coming out of this revolving so half of all salaries for kindergarten programming in what is that projected to be I’m glad you

58:07 asked and I’m sure anybody who’s not new this year is ready for my Kart speech so I ready to give it so Brown is

58:24 331,000 and lover is is that half of the full that’s that the half amount right that is the revolving account amount uh and Glover is 270,000 so we’re going to wipe this out all right no it’s right 900,000 so because my thing is I continue to feel incredibly strongly we’re one of I think five in the entire State out of 351 districts were one of five that still charge for public education kindergarten and I I think we have to start talking towards the future how we are going to

59:09 stop this like how because it’s we keep hearing from the state they’re they’re already talking about having Universal pre in places you know Watertown just had the first fully free Universal pre in the state and we’re like 15 to 20 years behind yeah so I want start talking about how we could possibly use this balance to start reducing our Reliance on on charging for kindergart because I don’t think that is reasonable to say all of a sudden one year we’re just not going to charge anymore but I think we can start reducing our so I projected for future budgeting purposes what it would cost to run a free full day kindergarten program and I’m projecting it would be between six and $700,000

1:00:00 annually so would you recommend a step down program so so that instead of would swall the whole app but but how do we work this I can’t say we have 600,000 or 700,000 in this revolving account so next year’s free hoping that the town’s going to give us 700,000 to fund a theat I know that’s why I’m saying like let’s start small by Red instead of increasing our fees reducing our fees and asking the town for 100 one year 200 the next because I think we need to it’s public education and this is no longer playtime in kindergarten these kids are leaving kindergarten reading you can’t a kid that doesn’t go full day to kindergarten cannot successfully go into first grade

1:00:49 with a few rare ex sub exceptions so if if it’s required which it is essentially to be successful public education is free I you are preaching to the choir sister I have got like I said I’ve got projections on how do we get to free full day this this should you’re right this should not be happening in Marblehead absolutely agree I where do you guys sit with this I mean I think whatever the decision is it needs to be very transparent right so I think that if the decision is to wean off like what you’re saying then that needs to be very clear in every budget that we are taking you know x amount from this place and putting it toward not having the not having fames paper right in the past it was offered separately as part of an

1:01:35 override request right so I just think this is something that needs to be very clearly articulated and you know I don’t know if you guys have the view but and as Johns on his next strategic plan this would I would assume if it’s something we want to look because the Strategic plan will be about three three to five years if it’s something that we know in the next three to five years that you guys would support this would be a good time for John to know that so he can come up with a wellth thought out plan on how we do this communicate to the public continually over a period of time so it’s not just you know in two months we’re going to ask you a town meeting for this we know it’s coming we know what the plan is and what would like I just think that to your point we need to be transparent and strategic thinking to

1:02:22 the Future not let’s just fix it this year and I think the other thing we have to be mindful of is if our there families out there that are not sending their kids because they don’t want to pay right so um because it’s not mandated mandated is six years old um and then we say it’s free we’re not charging anything is that going to increase our kindergarten numbers to the point where now instead of just the 6 700,000 that we plan we need two more teachers we should have a pretty good idea we should but I’m just saying on like first graders currently who did not go to kindergarten how many are those we only jump 10 to 12 12 each year and it’s not that they’re not going to kindergarten we have a few places in town that do a private kindergarten as an extension to from their preschool it’s the Children’s Center in the Deo so every year we’ve been we’ve been

1:03:10 tracking this going back six seven years that that enrollment number from kindergarten to first grade usually jumps anywhere from 10 to 12 we look at census so we look at census three four year old so if you were going to do this what are we talking about to fund this just finding room within your own budget to do it or are we talking about going for an individual warrant article like we’re not do I just want to be clear we’re not looking for this for next year understood yeah but for the following year or or and or whenever we decide to make the move either we do it incrementally or one full bite of the Apple it would be I think unless I’m I’m wrong like it just be you know our a local discussion and budget you know we’d have to increase the funding by x

1:03:57 amount dollar um I don’t think going under a separate warrant article makes sense for for something that’s um public education like that um so I would do it that way I mean and we can have further conversations more sense to get us there similar to like when Mike was talking about you know how we do like the technology piece we add this amount yeah this amount this amount so now we have it going on so we we don’t have to go back and say oh my gosh now we need $300,000 to repl on the computers or P $300,000 to repl on the computers or P,000 to replace all the curriculum if we,000 to replace all the curriculum if we build it in I think that’s kind Step Up program like yeah so potentially that’s the way to do it but um but Sarah’s not wrong in saying that you know and that’s my my thought is universal prease coming probably sooner rather or later too so we want to be mindful of like kindergarten and preschool all at the

1:04:43 same time as so when you gave that number I think you just said 6700 did you say you would need additional 6 700 annually in your budget to offer it for free that’s the incremental that’s if enrollment do not required an additional teacher or instructional system okay because half of their costs half of these teachers are already in the general fund budget so if you did the math in the two numbers I just gave you yeah 600 okay I was just making sure I was following so just to take the money out of the Revol right yeah so you ask about like our position on this yeah of course we support it if you’re able to find a funding mechanism to do it it’s you know certainly with if you’re able to find within your own budget however you do do that with strategy over the next few

1:05:29 years then it’s not something we would say no we disagree with that you should be charging people for for kindergarten and know that that’s our place to you know I have my personal opinion I would for this to be you know right but but from a funding standpoint like if it’s I don’t think there’s any realm of reality where any of us are saying we can find $700,000 in our own budget we would be looking to increase our drop in the re general fund whatever that mechanism is whether that’s through you know you know the money exists whether it’s through budg question you know and increase through other mechanisms but but there’s no realm of reality where we find six to 700,000 so it actually is your purview to say you would you would

1:06:15 support an increase in our request for this purpose knowing that previously it was funded by the taxpayers there um funded by the parents of this and and one other question too in terms of covering for the cost of this when my kids were in kindergarten there was one child in their class that did not stay for the full day but so what are the number of kids now that don’t utilize the full from what I understand somebody got a number I was say okay right so there I think it’s fair to assume there wouldn’t be significant incremental cost

1:06:54 with private kindergarten to public I don’t I that’s not they’re not gonna come here just because it’s free now that’s a well yeah they’re already PID but there could be I made that mention just because there could be people out there that I mean again they’re like well if I cannot send my kid or you know pay I think they’re probably looking at our car saying 4,000 a year I’m G to spend 10,000 a year for private but that private gets me till 5 o’ at night where know I I think you would see if it was free verse 10 then then you’ll see some from move it over for free they’re saying we’re paying money anyways let’s just stick with where we’re at those people that need it before and after school program care yeah um they might stay in the private that was

1:07:40 my not even the private school kids just the kids they don’t pay and all of a sudden it’s free you’re gonna get a bom I it’s probably not too classro I was exaggerating a little bit but might one but yeah one is $100,000 it may if we’re really thinking to be strategic like truly strategic it may beho us to have communication with the preschool programs because there’s an e and flow Big Year small years and ask them what they’re seeing so that maybe we make this transition on a smaller year for instance this the kids we have right now our eighth grade class current eighth grade going straight through has been a huge class we’ve had to add sections at whatever grade they’re in that would not be the year I would do the transition so

1:08:27 just to reach out and say are you seeing you know a balloon class coming through are you seeing I think the to could probably also give us demographic information on I mean realistically you know we did projections for the town going out three years right and with the you know increased cost that we’re seeing you know we wouldn’t be in a position where we can support something like this because there isn’t funding com right we don’t have funding without finding whether it’s an override or another issue so like I mean as much again as I personally love the idea of offering you know free full day Twi to all of our I mean at the end of the day there’s there’s just not the funding for it right so I mean I think the question is if you as a school committee if this

1:09:13 is a priority and for the administration then you know as we move down the road I think it has to be it has to act taxpayers directly personally I mean I that was that’s I was asking around like I think I think we’re ask over time to say we need to override salaries and we would like to offer pre yeah and it was part of the the last one that did not pass so it it wouldn’t be like that would be a New Concept presented at a time yes and it gets back to the concept that we as a finance committee are not the people to put together what the educational plan should be for the school system we’re

1:09:58 looking for you know to review items to try to minim minimize the impact on on the town tax levy basically but you have to view the school department school committee make the case for what you need with the citizens for what you need so so yeah so I mean right now this is the plan for going into the school year and then we’ll continue to have a conversation for and a three to five year strategic plan so

1:10:31 from been begging for one for years your year to date um money in there is 400 do we expect another two or 300 I would say we probably expect at least two to three okay um and then next year we’re putting half of the brown and half of the Glover so that will like kind of wipe out annually what comes in will go out if you put half of the right so what’s being spent out of that right now so right now there are some salaries not half not half of everybody so there are some salaries um I I believe that the other part of this not that it’s a great deal of money but these kids are coming for half a day uh the second half of the day so I told my two principles our two principles if you need supplies for

1:11:17 those classrooms for the other half of the day theoretically that should you should let me know when we can take some of that money out of here too so if you need construction paper and you need $1,000 construction paper let’s take five out of your budget and five out of the revolving account okay so split splitting the cost from a half day to a full day also because if those kids were only here a half day they would only need half the construction paper or markers or whatever so I guess what I’m say construction paper a lot of constru how are we gonna like spend this balance down so where where look prob next year million right 700,000 comes in every year so it’s going to go up and down by 700 plus whatever you know what I mean it’s going to take like

1:12:02 10 years to spend the current balance down yeah again they went up on the fees last year I’m not sure that I’m prepared to recommend a reduction in fees for next year yet right but I think it’s something that we once we have a full year of trend history at the new rates see what’s going on we can possibly start stepping down or and when you say next year do you mean the budget that you’re we already presented yeah we’ve already presented that has the 330 and the 270 in correct okay just want to make sure the FY 26 budget has got the reduction for half of and that’s probably the right number annually when we talk about what comes in to go out it’s just you might have some buffer there and I think it’s pretty restrictive what you can use it on so yes kindergarten related expens yes only

1:12:48 for that so if there’s anything I’ll say it again if there’s anything I don’t know what significant Capital costs would go into the specific kindergarten classrooms but it would be an area that you might have a little bit chair white boards I’m just as you as you think about resurfacing at Glover are there ways to like get creative to help yourself out on other Capital requests is kind of course like play structures exactly there was a kind score boy for the kindergarteners how many kids I push down today one two how many kids did I bite I’m just Kidd camera like you say I funded that lost books Revenue all right so yeah I mean these last three do we really need to discuss any of them uh other than Transportation so transportation we did have a little snap

1:13:34 Fu this year user fees came in for bus fees went into the user fee account they should have gone into the transportation account we’re going to fix that we’ll do a jry but can you tell me why the Athletics line is separate from the user Fe um Athletics is gate receipt um it’s it’s gate receipt in vending and other things like that it’s not user fees it’s it’s adult user fees or you know attend attending user fees is that where we pay like some do we pay some officials uh not officials but uh supervision likee like for our administrators go to the hockey game and keep the might maybe maybe H police officer no we we do I’m sure they were there yeah so uh yeah so that that Athletics

1:14:21 is um strictly for um ticket sellers ticket takers I think it’s all now um game supervision game day

1:14:32 supervision all right sounds good this helpful so the other items that are on um our agenda I believe here has there been any change to this proposed budget that we two weeks ago no okay so I think we’re Alison did you have um so I think we’re good does anybody have any other questions for Mike that was that was very very informative no I think like we’ll put together our meeting PR done we can always follow up with any questions as get towards no circuit breaker is not on there but we kind of know um it was in the other that’s technically we we know the gist with that one is that what comes in you put

1:15:18 in the reserve and then you add a line I will add a line right now for the next update um all right sounds good so what other questions do you guys have for us that you need answered if any before we come before you at the end of March nothing right now that I have but as I was saying Molly Pat and I will finalize the liaison meeting notes we share with the thcom just to brief them on these meetings that we’ve had um we’ll certainly reach out if we have any questions as of right now we’re not booking another meeting before we come before you I don’t think we need but if something pops up you’ll let me know yep um and we’re meeting on March 31st it could be a long meeting um we had to move the health and waste to the conflict to that night so it’ll be you

1:16:04 guys select board in health and waste which in that order first yeah you can go first fine with that direct I don’t really care no I’ve met you I’ve met with you and I haven’t met with the other well I don’t met me with health and was other team does but I have we’re meeting with SEL yes I feel I just want to say I want to say out loud this has been really helpful in my my opinion especially all all of us um this has been helpful conversations I think we’re you know they hate to work transparency now but I think we’re being as transparent as we possibly can I think you guys are asking pertinent questions I think Mike’s done mik done a great job getting all getting you all answers um I feel really good about going through into this Bud of season and before you’re full I think

1:16:50 that good shape we both Budget on Thursday at school meeting yeah I was going to ask that so okay so that’ll be approved before we get to our yeah we wanted to

1:17:09 voted yeah so we’re good ask questions that you would you know you’ll be prepared when you get to in front of the full fincom so hopefully we’ve asked anything that will be covered there yeah so you’ll you’ll be ready Micha will have all the answers I’ll just smile Prett and and the two of you say your newbies you newbie to the district clearly not newbie to the process so it’s definitely a lot different here mohead but it’s good it’s been I think bu doll for every time I hear that about anything I guess I guess no no but it’s good it’s good experience before we get wrapped up I would just say that like the key things that we want to discuss on the 31st to let you know from your perspective because you guys are

1:17:55 the experts are the challenge with the out of district tuitions and special education I think providing your background in that and everything you’ve been doing internally and how great do you planning has do you foresee us possibly having wanting to have our special ed director there do you foresee us having questions that I think John can I’ll make sure and then Mike like making it very clear um because you know again we’re just three people and we were probably more dialed into the school negotiations and not than other members of the fincom but I’m guessing someone in our nine person committee is going to start asking about the contract right so just making it very clear what you articulated to us already that what’s in the salaries and wages line like you’re brand new here and this was a fresh look

1:18:41 and and this is what this budget for salaries and wages represents these are funded positions you know x% of them are are full right now explain again these narratives that go around about vacant positions like that doesn’t necessarily the positions vacant for 12 months it could be for three months on 17 different positions of a very large organization that could create savings that’s normal in the school department so just kind of being very clear the salaries and wages what’s in the budget request in front of us and then the challenge that you have ahead as we build next year’s budget and the year after with the escalating contract I think it’s worth at least talking about that we don’t have to go into a three to five year projection when we’re reviewing your current year budget but those are the two and then the

1:19:27 technology would be the other thing just kind of how everything’s played out since you’ve got here um and what’s going into the budget that’s put before us those are the three main items I would focus on I don’t think I didn’t build in the technology for next year we did the curriculum next year okay well technology would be in the f27 okay and so along those lines to highlight the fact that I think you’re at quote unquote full employment for the um positions within the the budget and that you’re you don’t have any just HR very but that’s fine yeah that’s the case if you have some open that’s totally normal every school district I mean the lawyer that was representing you all at the negotiation said when I was bringing that stuff up every school district you

1:20:15 never it’s it’s a 500 employee organization or foreign employee like you don’t see an organization of that size right so talking about it from your perspective and getting that out there so that I don’t think you know we don’t we don’t get that big of an audience at these more so at warrant hearings and town meeting and whatnot but like continually saying like this is what’s in this budget I built this this is what’s in here so it’s just like when people start asking like what about all the vacant position no we already said this over and over at three fincom budget here what time is do you guys start your

1:20:52 meeting 7.m meeting 7.m PM only all right so oh I’m sorry yeah no in the basement yeah it was like 90 degrees last night so you might want to wear a polo shirt I

1:21:12 will it’s not it’s not six it’s seven it’s on my calendar for six no seven right you put them first I’ll put them first you