meeting. Why am I joining? We’re gonna, we’re not gonna. OK. Can y’all hear me? Yes? No? No Test 12. Good evening. Oh, there we are. OK. Um Good evening. Um, I called to order the meeting of the Hamilton Wam Regional School Committee on Thursday, November 21st, 2024 at 7:02 p.m. Um, and, uh, at this, uh, I’m gonna just let people know that, um, the first item in the on the agenda is that we are going to move into an executive session, um, while one can never make promises. My prediction is that this will be brief. We have allotted about 10 minutes for the executive session. Um, and then the committee will return, so. Um, I move, uh, to adjourn into executive session for. No, I’m gonna move it. Oh, Yeah, it’s a roll call. I moved to uhjourn into executive session for purpose number 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining, which with the HWREA where an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair so declares. To return afterwards to open session. Do I have a second? Second by David Frankel. This is a roll call vote. Jen, yes. David. David, Dana’s a yes, um, and we are adjourned into executive session, and we’ll see you all soon. Thank you alright and we are back in open session. Thank you all for your patience. Um, and now, uh, I will invite you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. America. Um, next up on the agenda, we have an opportunity for Citizen comments, um, this is, um, a chance, um, for you, the citizens to be heard and the chance for us on the committee, uh, to listen. Um Uh, if you, um, do you want to give a comment, I ask that you, um, state your name and please spell your last name so that we get it correct for the minutes. I am gonna ask someone to be a timer. Um, and we’ll, you’ll have 3 minutes, um, and I will stop you at the end of the 3 minutes, just so you know. Um. And I think I covered it. OK, um, if you are in the room and you’d like to present a public comment, please approach the podium. Welcome. just go like that. Uh, yeah, make sure. So can I ask permission to go 30 seconds over. I have something that’s written, I will not go beyond that. I can talk in 3 minutes, but you probably won’t understand me, so permission. To go 3 30 seconds over. I don’t think we have a ton of people giving comments if that’s OK. OK, but in general I know in general I know why I’m asking upfront if that’s OK. Uh, Deb Safford. Uh, S A F F O R D, Hamilton. You kindly say that you appreciate the public showing up at meetings and yet when we stand here and speak, it feels as though we’re just speaking into the airwaves. Since you all have volunteered to be the representatives of fellow Hamilton Wenham residents, it would seem appropriate to engage with comments as a society, we have grown increasingly divisive and unable to hear outside of our own echo chambers. When people show up and stand up for a different view, they’re entering your echo chamber. It would better represent the community if doing so was actually then incorporated into the discussion. Since we could only speak before the presentation yesterday and not during and after it, I come back with a few points. First equity. This key buzzword is pitched to voters’ emotions to approve the large consolidated school equities equal outcome, not equal opportunity, which is our Constitution’s goal. The only, only universal forms of human equity are birth and death. We are intended to be unique. We used to celebrate diversity, but that was only in culture and skin color, not diversity of opinion, skill, interest, capabilities, etc. Now the word is equity, but how can we be diverse and have equity? How does a new shiny school actually provide equity and education. Shouldn’t we be focused more on outcomes? Does a building provide equity just because everybody goes there. Well, some will have a male and some a female teacher. Some get the morning light, others the afternoon. Some will walk the hall length and others will have just the first room. It feels a bit shallow in surface considering we go to school to learn and grow. Shouldn’t our children and families be more resilient than worried about who gets a renovated or a new building. When kids grow up, they surely will remember a teacher who inspired them, not the space they learned in. Second, the disturbing rise in neuromental behavior issues. Has anyone investigated the impact of 5G Wi Fi wiring in the schools, the increasing use of technology in all of education. Has anyone looked into the COVID response. The curriculum of confusion about sexuality maybe the social emotional learning strategy versus traditional content is actually unsettling for children. I don’t know, but I ponder this rising issue talked about yesterday and wonder. how, being in a large school will help a child’s sense of security and well-being. The nod to calling the wings on the 3 floors, neighborhoods shows the value in the current school infrastructure. Third, why are the schools in such ill repair? Why were the current schools not better maintained, or was it always somehow envisioned that there would be a consolidation to give Winthrop back to Hamilton so it could be developed, a position that as a 30 year resident I never heard the public agree to but have come to understand is the prevailing view of the few in our local governance and was frequently encouraged by Mister Tracy at the select board meeting when the lease was not renewed at Winthrop but was for Cutler. It feels like this could be a situation of create a crisis and then provide the solution where residents are corralled into doing what you want them to do, similar perhaps to the fields. 4th and final, since I know yesterday’s meeting was at a high level and today’s is more detailed. I’m asking really begging for truth and accounting for what is to come. budget conservatively, which means for more than you think, so you don’t have big pops like we’re going to be having. show actual versus budget instead of budget to budget. Is there a list of projects approved at town meetings that were not executed, if that exists, and if so, why? Maintained facilities even if there’s a dream of change. So we actually will have a choice. We need fiscal accountability and we also need to know what grants come with 3 A strings attached. Well, I expect this will fall on deaf ears. I am hoping that someone here will understand that many residents are really concerned about the direction of the school district. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Jeff Austin, 50 Sharon Road. I’m here tonight as a concerned resident to address the school board’s inability or unwillingness to present a fiscally responsible plan to renovate and maintain our three small neighborhood schools. These schools are not just physical structures, they’re cornerstones of our community and provide the best environment for our youngest learners. Yet instead of committing to a solution that represents I’m sorry, that respects residents desires and fiscal responsibility represented by the school’s very own survey, the board has prioritized a costly consolidation plan to build one massive unnecessary unnecessarily large school on the color site. The school board has argued that the consolidation plan is necessary because we are outgrowing our current schools or the data indicates our school population is actually declining. This flawed reasoning undermines trust in the board’s decision making and further highlights the need for alternative solutions. Years of poor maintenance and management have contributed to the current challenges facing our schools, however, that does not justify the decision to abandon them altogether. Creating a thoughtful plan to renovate our existing schools may require significantly more effort, creative solutions and time, but it’s a necessary exercise. The proposed egg plan inflates renovation costs with excessive and unnecessary requirements, making responsible renovations seem unattainable. This leaves us with only one option, a large consolidated school that residents have clearly stated they do not want. Why is the board prior prioritizing maximizing state funding over developing, developing a solution that aligns with our town’s values and the proven benefits of a small school. I also want to ask the board what happens if the town votes this plan down. What is the contingency plan to ensure that we still have safe functional schools. This lack of preparation is deeply irresponsible and the town deserves better. It is worth noting that key project leaders advocating for this consolidated mega school are not residents of our town. It is easy to promote a massive costly project when you’re not the one to shoulder the financial responsibility. This dynamic, this dynamic makes it even more critical for the board to listen to those of us who live here, pay taxes here and want what’s best for our children and our community. Lastly, I must address the structure of these meetings. Unlike other town boards which allow for real-time community input during discussion, the school board restricts public comments to a. brief window at the start of the meeting before residents even know the full scope of the topics being discussed. This approach shuts out the very people who will be most affected by these decisions and undermines trust in the process. As residents, we deserve a leadership that reflects our priorities and values. It’s not enough to push for the easiest or most convenient path. We need a school board that’s willing to do the hard work, explore creative solutions and ensure that we have the option to maintain our neighborhood schools in a way that balances educational needs with fiscal responsibility. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Mr. Tracy, do we have anyone on Zoom? It doesn’t look like it. OK. Um, is there anyone else in the room that would like to offer public comment? Good evening Sandy Fischer F I S H E R. Um I don’t have prepared comments. I just listened. I’ve been to many meetings. I do want to echo. Um, what Deb Safford has said, what Mr. Austin has said. Those are, those views are shared by so many people that I have spoken with. Not everybody can come to a meeting like this. But I agree totally with what they’ve said. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I’m sorry, uh, Ms. Fisher. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, can, just for the minutes, can you, I don’t think you said your address or if you did, I didn’t hear it. 3, Brooke Greenberg. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that and sorry. Um, looks like we still have no one on Zoom. Is there anyone else in the room that wants to offer a public comment? OK. Um, at this point, we will close, um, public comment. Right? And next up we have a review of a portion of the school committee protocols, I think Trent, would you be willing to read a portion of that? As elected members of the Hamilton Wenham Regional School Committee, we, including the superintendent, except the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district received the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business. If an individual school committee member receives an email relevant to overall district policy or operations, they will forward it to the full school committee and the superintendent. Thank you. Um, and David, would you read a portion of the mission statement, please. Sure Pardon me The Hamilton Werham Regional School District school committee’s mission is to ensure our schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning. Together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. The Hamilton Wyndham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that attracts and retains high quality educators by acknowledging and respecting their expertise and professionalism. Thank you. Um, next up, we are fortunate enough to have our student, one of our student representatives here this evening, uh, Emmy Pitkin. Take it away, I mean, when you are ready. OK. Hi, I’m Emmy, um, and I’m just here to talk about what the schools have been up to. To start, um, with the high school we just entered our first day of Spirit Week, and it’s this Thursday through next Wednesday. It includes a lot of end of school activities, dress days, lunch activities, and we just finished our boarding room decorating. We also have our powder puff event and homecoming this Friday. We also just finished our blood drive. And our turkey drive, the sophomore class of Uh, 2027, also just had a cookie fundraiser where we raised over $12,000 for our class. Um, our boys and girls cross country team, both just one Cal and Division 3 champs, um, and our girls soccer, which I’m actually a part of, we’re the 2 seed, and we made it to the state finals, which is this Saturday at 4:30, um, at Curry College against Sutton, who’s the number one seed, and it’s really exciting because it’ll be our first time here since 2021, when we won. Um, our fields also have been having a lot of progress and the turf is laid down. For clubs, uh, we just had our DECA testing and districts is coming up soon. This, uh, I believe in December, and our theater just hosted the 25th annual Putnam County spelling bee on November 8th and 9th, which was super successful, and we had a lot of, um, participation and a lot of students who came to support. Over at the middle school, there’s been some wellness committee meetings, and their intramurals just started, which run from 2:30 to 3:30 after school. They also, um, have introduced a lot of new clubs, which is super exciting for all of the members and a great way to participate. Over to Winthrop, they just had a parent guardian conference or they’ve been having parent guardian conferences over the past two weeks. They also just are eliminated the MCAS requirement for all grades and our planning for the holiday boutique, which is coming up this December. Do you guys also been hosting some meetings. They have the bure Elementary School council meeting, Friends of Bucher meeting and the committee meetings and then thinks they’re preparing for a Thanksgiving break. Cutler is also hosting a kindergarten parent informational session on Tuesday, February 27th at 6:30 p.m. And they’re having their Cutler turkey trot on Thanksgiving. All Thank you. Anyone have any questions for Emmy? I have a question. What is? Um, a seed is basically we are in the 4th division and it is ranked based off um how the best. teams and you’re ranked off of your seed. So the first seed is the number one team in the division in the second seed is the 2nd team in the division and so on. Of course. And, and that the soccer is on Saturday, correct? All right, very exciting. All right. Very exciting. Thank you. Um, anybody else have any questions? So we are always, it’s so meaningful and we are so grateful to have you come. It’s so good to hear the news of the district from a students, and we thank you for coming. Um, you are absolutely welcome to stay. However, we also know you may have other things to do this evening. Um, so you’re also welcome to head out and do your homework or whatever you need to do. OK, thank you. I think I’ll head out. Thank you so much for having me. at me. Thank you. You too Stay safe out there. It’s nasty. Um, OK, um, next up is our consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they want to hold on the consent agenda. Gave it to you. Excuse me, uh, I moved at the Hamilton and Regional School. Committee, um, will vote to approve the consent agenda as written. Uh, tonight’s agenda. Do I have a second? Second by David Frankel. Um There’s no discussion of the consent agenda. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the 5 members present, and the motion passes. OK. Uh, first up on new business. Uh Is our um. Teacher contract, um, it is there as an exhibit. Why don’t we, um, You’re willing, David, can we start off with a motion? Excuse me, um. Yeah, we don’t have an official one written, do we? Um I moved to the Hamiltonham Regional School Committee. Vote to approve. The, um Hamilton one Teacher’s contract for 24 um que 2024 to 2027. As presented in tonight’s agenda. 2. Seconded by Jen Carr. Um Alright. Does anyone have any Questions or Any discussion? OK. Looks like we’re ready for a vote. All those in favor? is 5 in favor and that is unanimous and the motion passes. Um Do you want to say Do you want to say do you have anything to say? Uh, no, I’m still tired, but um, it’s really nice to. be on the other end of this, and I’m sure. Everybody in the district is very feeling really happy and proud. Right now, so Yeah, it was uh. was A lot of hard work and I think everyone is. Yeah No Yes, exactly. I think we’re all feeling good. Um Thank you. Um, next up, if the committee is willing. Um I don’t know Frank, I’m sorry if the committee is willing, um, I would like, I see that Frank from um Markham LLP is here. If the committee is willing to take things out of order, I’d like to, um, Ask Frank to come up and do the audit presentation with unless there’s an objection. you just Is it About 33 year contract. Right. Yeah, that HDMI cable plug into here. OK, thank you very much for having me here tonight. Appreciate the opportunity to present the results of the 2024 audit. Uh, Vinny had mentioned, uh, I think it might have been in the, uh, agenda that I’m from Markham. And uh it’s been an interesting year for us, uh, going through two mergers, uh, Markham was the first one and, uh, November 1st, we went through a second merger, and that’s why you’re seeing CIAs up here on the screen, so, uh, we’re, we went from Powers and Sullivan to Markham and now we’re C bills, uh, 7th largest uh CPA firm in the country, so we went from Powers and Sullivan, which was a small, like 30 person firm. To Markham, which was a big, like the 11th largest firm in the country, and now Markham is combined with Ciz, which is a publicly traded company, uh, to become the 7th largest CPA firm. Uh, in the country, so it’s been kind of an interesting road for us, uh, And um Going through a lot of integration and, uh, been a pretty exciting ride, but anyway, I’m here, uh, representing Cbiz tonight as your auditors. And um I thought I would run through the presentation, just like to start off. by thanking the team, uh, assistant director of finance and operations. Did I get that right, many assistant superintendent of finance and Administration? No? OK. And uh district accountant. Yes, yep, uh, more, you know, was really integral to Getting the information that we needed and um we had very good cooperation and assistance as we normally do. Uh We had a new portal and everybody adapted to the new portal, which, uh, I think was an improvement allows us to help manage like the information flow and um that we’re able to transfer files securely too, which is great. Um So they did a great job putting a package together for us. And, uh, no issues. Related to cooperation, getting answers to our questions or getting the information that we needed, so we really appreciate. All the cooperation and assistance that we, we received. Um, just like to start off by going over some, uh, required communications principal objectives of the audit are, uh, expressing an opinion on the financial statements. We performed the audit in accordance with, uh, auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America and also government auditing standards. Um We’re responsible for planning and performing the audit to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements are, uh, Materially, uh, stated. Free of material misstatement and fairly stated in all material respects in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, uh, management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements. Uh, significant accounting policies, management is responsible for the selection and the appropriateness of accounting policies. You can find the significant accounting policies, uh, that the district follows and note one of the financial statements, there were no new accounting policies that were adopted during the year and the application of existing policies was not changed. Counting estimates are an integral part. Uh, of the financial statements and they’re based on management’s knowledge and experience about past and current events. As well as assumptions about future events. Uh, certain estimates are, uh, particularly sensitive because of their significance to the financial statements, the most significant estimates of the net pension liability, the other post-employment benefits liability, compensated absences and depreciation, On fixed assets. We reviewed the, uh, underlying assumptions that are used to develop those estimates, and we found the assumptions to be reasonable in relation to the financial statements as a whole. Difficulties encountered in performing the audit, as I mentioned, uh, we had very good cooperation, so I’m happy to report we had no difficulties in dealing with management while performing the audit. Disagreements with management. Um The our standards define a disagreement with management as a matter of whether or not resolved to our satisfaction. Concerning an accounting, uh, reporting or auditing matter that could be significant to the financial statements. Or the auditor’s report, and again, I’m happy to report that there were no such disagreements with management that were noted during the audit. And that takes me to the audit results. So we’re able to issue an unmodified opinion on the financial statements, that’s the best you can get. It’s a clean opinion, means the financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Reporting deadlines were met The information that we received was accurate. Uh, we received timely responses to our inquiries, and there were no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses identified during the audit. Not gonna go through all of these, but, um, some of management’s responsibilities as part of the audit, um. Management is responsible for, uh, the fair presentation of the financial statements, which I already mentioned, and they, um, take, have to take ownership of the financial statements, review them, they provide the information that’s used to convert your ledgers to the gap financial statements and then, uh, essentially sign off on On the report And take ownership of it. Uh, they’re also responsible for establishing and maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting to ensure that, uh, financial transactions are properly recorded in the financial statements. Identifying and assuring. Uh, compliance with laws and regulations. Making financial records available to us as requested for the audit and performing procedures to ensure that, uh, assets and liabilities are appropriately valued. And adjusting the financial statements to correct any material misstatements. What are our responsibilities as the auditors? Well, mentioned it before, we’re responsible for expressing an opinion on the financial statements. Uh, the audit includes examining, uh, obtaining an understanding of internal control sufficient to plan the audit and, uh, the nature, timing and extent of our audit procedures. Uh, it’s not designed to provide assurance on internal control or to identify reportable conditions. We’re responsible for reporting to the school committee and a significant deficiencies or material weaknesses that we might encounter and if we had found some, we would have let you know about that a lot sooner than this meeting. responsible for communicating those matters. Uh, that come to our attention during the audit. Um, and there were no concerns or issues that we noted during the course of the audit. So those are the required communications. I’d like to just uh run through some financial highlights for you, get through that pretty quickly, um, general fund fund balance, total $10.8 million at the end of the year. Of that 1.4 million, uh, was non-spendable, and that relates to prepaid tuition. Another 962,000 was reserved for encumbrances, and then you had another 2.3 million of END that was voted to fund the 2025 budget that left you with $4.4 million of unassigned fund balance. And that’s, um, about $200,000 less than you had in the prior year. Uh General fund budgetary results, your uh operations resulted in a $546,000 decrease in fund balance. Uh, that was mainly due to the use of $3.2 million of END that was used to balance the budget. Of that 1.8 million was transferred to a capital stabilization fund. So you’re building up a balance and a capital stabilization fund, which, you know, as auditors, we like to see, you know, reserves when you can have them. Um It’s especially with some of the um The pandemic and everything else, there are unexpected things that can come up and having reserves available is an important thing, uh, to be able to weather, you know, these unexpected, uh, issues that might come up and um Different capital needs can arise with boilers and all kinds of different things, so we think it’s prudent to have some money set aside for that, um. So that was good to see. Uh, those, so the use of END was offset by a revenue surplus of $810,000. That was mainly due to investment income and they uh increase in rates that we’ve seen, um, Your expenditures came in under budget by about $1.3 million mainly related to Uh, instructional services, programs with other districts and other student services. Uh, EMD, uh, go through a certification process each year with the, uh, division of Local Services, that money can be appropriated for any valid school purpose. IND is estimated to be about $4.3 million this year, which is about um 100,000 less than last year, so it’s pretty much right in line. Uh, that’s about $2.1 million over the 5% limit. Your, uh, net OPEP liability. The Might wanna change my slides here, huh? Sorry about that. Net OPEP liability, total $33.8 million. Uh, that was a decrease of 5.3 million from the prior year, and that’s mainly due to the, the change in the discount rate. So the change in the discount rate can have a, a really significant impact on your liability and Um, you’re starting to fund it, your OPEB. Uh, trust fund, you know, you’ve got over $2 million in there now. And, um, that’s really helping with your, your discount rate, uh. And helps reduce your liability too, so that’s really great. Um The OPE trust fund, uh, was established in 2022, you put another $200,000 into it in 2024, balance at the end of the year, total $2.8 million. And uh you had about a 10% return on the investments this year, which was great. You earned about $235,000 and that really starts compounding as that balance builds up in that trust fund, um, It’s really gonna help you to get that liability under control. Um Your That pension liability, uh, for pension, uh, teachers and certain administrators can join the mass teachers retirement system, and their pensions are paid for by the Commonwealth. Commonwealth paid $5.2 million on behalf of, uh, those, uh, individuals. In the most current year in the liability associated with those individuals is about $54.5 million but that liability is assumed by the state, so you don’t have to worry about funding that. And then anyone else that qualifies for a pension that’s not eligible for maths teachers can join the Essex Regional retirement System. And the liability associated with the retirement system was $9.8 million. And um that was about $1.1 million decrease from the prior year. And, uh, The system had similar results with 11% return on investments. Which I believe is the main reason for that, uh, decrease in the liability. And the last slide relates to the uh single audit, and the single audit is um an audit of federal awards. So if you expend more than $750,000 in a year, uh, of federal funds, then you qualify, uh, for what they call a single audit, and that means that we have to go in and uh perform a compliance audit on your federal awards and, uh, the expenditures, uh, you had 967,000 total expended in federal funds, so you’re over that limit, 2150. related to the school lunch program 487,000 to special education, and 265,000 related to other educational grants, the uh special education uh program was considered a major program, so that’s where our compliance testing was focused and uh happy to report. We had no findings, no questioning costs. We were able to issue an unmodified opinion on compliance, and that’s a clean clean opinion, best you can get. Um. In the next, ooh, I think. A year or two, the uh limit for the single audit is supposed to go up to a million dollars, so depending on what happens with your federal funds. I mean, right now, you’re right around 967,000. If those expenditures come down, when that threshold goes up, you may not need to have a single audit, so something to keep in mind, um, you’re like really close to that threshold, so we’ll see, you know, where things shake out in the future, but overall, we, uh, I said, had great cooperation and the audit, you know, went very very well from our standpoint, so, um, I think it was good results and uh. appreciate all the uh cooperation and assistance that we got. Thank you. You’re welcome. Anyone have any questions? When does the $1 million threshold for the single audit, I don’t remember the exact, it’s in the next year or two, I can get back to you on that, Vinny. I. Thank you very much. Oh Oh Oh, my pleasure, thank you for your work. I appreciate it. Thank you for the work of you and your team. Appreciate it. Thank you, Vinny. I appreciate that. Thank you and drive safe out there in the OK well in the rain. Good night. Thank you. OK. Oh Uh Thank you. So back on here. OK. Uh, so we’re gonna go back up. Yeah. Um, OK, so just so everyone, as you’re following along on your agenda, we are out, we went a little bit out of order. So now we are up under new business item B, class size report, um. And to you, Mr. Tracy. OK, thank you. I just wanted to, um, be sure that we had our class size reporting available as we move into the budget process. Um, this is the Usually right around the same time each year, we, uh, Release a report based on our October 1 submissions to the Department of Education. Um, that’s one of 4 times annually that we submit data to the state and it’s the basis for any of the calculations that the state does, uh, throughout the, the rest of the school year. So when they’re looking at, uh, numbers, they specifically target that one day as, um, the school district’s numbers because they, they consistently shift around with kids moving in and moving out. So we, we’re currently serving 1,669 students in district and that’s uh. A giant increase of 4 students from last year, um, as you know, we’ve been on a steady decline. It’s been, uh, um, a number of years where uh The Enrollment has uh gradually ticked down and accelerated during COVID and we’re seeing a little bit of bounce back at the secondary level, uh, this year. We’ve added 18 students to the secondary level, 13 of them at the, the middle school, and 6th at the high school. And then, um, really try to put out all of the You know with uh classroom size figures along with this report, so you can see uh how they compare across the district. So when you’re, when you’re looking at, uh, some of the shifts, uh, this also includes, uh, average sizes, uh, on this, on, on my memo, the average size is specific to 18 across the entire district. So when you’re averaging the entire district, the academic classes, uh, you’re looking at 18. Uh, students in a class and Um when you’re looking at the district enrollments overall, uh, this chart, I put it in there to So that everybody could see it. It goes from 2013 to current. These are all October 1 specific dates, um, so they, this is something we track year over year, uh, which allows us to keep an eye on where classes change, where classes shift, and, you know, one of the examples I gave in the memo is about, uh, the 2023, 24 7th grade class had 116 students this year or a year later they have now 120 students. So we track, um, year to year changes and uh changes overall, um, in the groups of P to 5 pre-K to 5, I mean, 6 to 8th grade and 9th through 12. Um, we don’t generally average in our Ls because they are such a small number. So when you average 1 and, you know,, 1618 and 20, it drags the average down, uh, dramatically and same with our special ed classes, they’re really small, so we generally don’t average them in, but They are included on the reports that are, uh, attached in here and each, each report is, uh, used this as an example of Bucher report. Teachers, the number of students they have the classes they have, and then on the side, the averages, including, uh, what’s different on the individual reports as we include art, music, PE, health, and library. Those are. Um, included, so the, the averages do change slightly with the addition of the specials, because they’re, they’re oftentimes more kids in specials. Uh, you see that at the high school as well when you see kids go to, uh, say concert band, they have, uh, they can have 30 to 35 and 40 kids in the class, it throws off the averages a little bit when you. When you’re starting to look at uh those specific special specialized classes. And that’s it in a nutshell. I just wanted people to have it so that as we look through the budget, um, developing the the budget development process over the next 3 months, uh, we have this to refer to, so I’ll take any questions if anybody has any. Um Um A one of your report. There are 2 sciences listed. I’m assuming one of those is social studies under Erica Atkins Aikins. Correct, it is social studies. Yeah Thank you. Anybody else? Thank you for that. beauty of the elementary school, they all teach the same 5. Um OK. Um Next up on the agenda is a new student activity fund account request. Is that you, Benny? OK The, the, um, Student activity accounts are managed at the, the school level and annually, we do a review, and he does a review, he goes through it, uh, at the end of the year, but, uh, throughout the year, we do have opportunities for kids to start new clubs. Um, this is a, a new club, The Future Health. Uh, professionals that the high school would like to start. This is uh unique and and very new for us, uh, but one of the things they’ll do is, um, they’ll need to raise some money to participate in, uh, some of the activities that the national Josa group does, uh, so they’ll do some, some fundraising just, just as any of the other groups, uh, so we’re just requesting permission from the uh school commun uh school committee to add this Josa, uh, future health professionals. love into the student activities accounts this year. OK. Um, so I just wanna make sure I’m fully understanding, so it’s just, you’re just opening an account, you’re not putting, we’re not, you’re not asking for funding. They’re going to graze their own funds. Just be an additional subsidiary. Make sure I understood. Um So can you explain it a bit more about what, what they meant? Did I hear correctly future health professionals. Yeah, Future health professionals, so kids that are looking forward, excuse me, to the field of health and medical. Uh, would, would get into this and they’d start to Be involved in activities. It’s, it’s kind of a national group, so, so they will have activities available for kids to learn more about some of the health and medical profession. Was like, is it a, it’s very unique for us. We haven’t had anything like that Anything like that that I don’t, I don’t know that off the top of my head. We, we, like I said, this is really brand new for us with, uh, a small group of kids that would like to start it. But it’s student. It, it’s bubbling up from the students they’re interested in exciting. OK Sounds good. Uh So is the name Josa or Josa H O S A. It’s actually OK. I move that the Hamilton Regional. School Approve The new student activity fund for a wholesale the future health professionals club at the high school. Um, as stated in tonight’s agenda. Second Seconded by Jen. Um is there, are there, is there any further discussion. No, the, the, when I talked to Brian, this is new. I thought there was something similar last year. The only reason I’m thinking that is cause I gave money to them last year. I don’t think don’t think something else. Maybe it’s a different, yeah, this is brand new for this year. Yeah, it was just something about health sciences and that type of thing. At least I thought so. I could be wrong. OK. Anything else? Like we’re ready to vote, um. All those in favor. That is 5 and is unanimous of the 5 members present, and the motion passes. Um I look, I hope that someday one of our student representatives will update us on. That new club. Sounds interesting. Yeah next up. Back to you, Eric, on ESP staffing request. Thank you. This is um A request for a new 1.0 FTE ESP educational support professionals for a 9th grade student at the high school that has moved into the district, uh, with an IEP that requires a 1 to 1 professional. We don’t have anybody available, but, um, as, as our policy outlines, we need to, um, bring this forward to the school committee to vote FTEs above the approved budget. So this is, this is a request, um, that’s coming for 10 FTE ESP the support a student at the high school and it’s for this year. Um, that’s what this vote is for, and then The student remains in school district it would just be. Um Brought into the FY 26 budget, so. Uh, right now we’re Able to pay this out of the, what they call the 240 grant, which is a special education grant that we get from the state. Um You wanna start us off with a motion, David? Um, I moved at the Hamilton Regional School. approved the Um Do, uh, 1.0 FTE. ESP staffing request as I Um, as Presented in tonight’s agenda. by Jen Car. Um Does anyone have any questions? I just have some questions in general about this. So it You would anticipate a protracted search. for this. It’ll, it’ll probably take some time. We still actually have two other positions that are still open in the district. One that I know we finally got some, some people to interview for, but one that has nothing, um. And that’s one of the reasons we make it 1.0. If you make it a partial position, you’ll never get anybody in the slot. So right now we’re, we’re literally juggling people around to try to meet the student’s IEP. And what are the qualifications? Or an ES So generally the ESPs are um Education sport professionals are people that don’t need a professional license, um. The majority of ours are, uh, degreed. And they, we, we always like them to have some background in education or in the classroom, uh, working with children as in their background, then we train them for specific tasks, so depending on the program they’re they’re in, they may be an intensive program, they may be just doing a 1 to 1 with a student like this is basically being, being with that student each day. So they’re, they’re just different types of activities that each of the ESPs do. Some of them are literacy tutors, and they specifically just do that, so. Kind of a wide range. We, we generally take people in with some academic experience, uh. People who like to work with kids, uh, former coaches, things like that, and then we train them to what we need them to do. And is this a salaried position? So it it falls under the ESP contract. It’s actually an hourly rate when you look at their contract, um. So it depends on it’s it’s a 32 and 32.5 hours. 32.5 hours a week, uh, is, is considered 1.0 for us in their contract. And then the, the rate is set by based upon the contract scales. And we have We have We have, we have current open positions and this would be a 3rd 1. Um, we just It, it, it’s sometimes easier to get um support ESPs at the, um, lower levels versus the upper levels. Um, we, we had, if you went back 5 weeks ago, we had 6 open positions, so we’ve, we’ve been kind of chipping away at slowly getting him in there, um, principals start calling around people they know and try to get people in or people that have done the work before, so it’s, it’s not gonna be easy. Um Is the reason, like, is there, is there just a dearth of people in this field, or are we? The the position We actually just negotiated a fairly substantial salary increase for this because of that, we, we felt across the board that we were, uh, underpaying comparatively if you looked around when we did, uh, this negotiation, they were, uh, drastically underpaid, so, uh, we made, we had, uh, Actually a new contract. It was brand new. They didn’t even have a contract before this. They were, they were known as TAs, teacher’s assistants. We moved them into the ESP roles, uh, with that negotiation, but they, they, they’re pretty comparative around these. the schools that are kind of contiguous to us. So I lied. I’m the last one. Yeah, yeah, no worries. If it takes a long period of time or a some period of time to hire these individuals. What supports does the district offer to make sure that the students that need them are successful in the interim. Great question. We, we start moving people around, we start taking people and shifting them around and, you know, you got somebody for an hour, somebody for 2 hours, which is not ideal, sometimes, um, we’ll, we’ll move that child in with a small what they call small group classrooms and be a little more flexibility to do that at the high school than at the lower levels, but it, it just becomes this kind of jigsaw puzzle of somebody making sure they’re supporting this child, every student at the high school, actually all levels, they all have a liaison, so a special ed teacher who responsible for connecting with the child, making sure things are happening. So there’s there’s always somebody kind of keeping an eye on the ball, if you will. Excellent. Thank you. Um, I actually have a question too. Um, I just want to ask about the um You said this in FY this 25. OK, that. I guess I’m just not understanding the lessons cause it says there’s a balance in the FY 24. Yeah It can But it would be, but then subsequent that would get us through this year, but then subsequently this would just be if this position becomes part of the budget, it’s just part of the budget. then we’d have to build it into the budget. So that’s not a grant that keeps. The 2400 is actually one that we can consistently rely on We also have the ability to roll some of it from year to year, that’s the part about, OK, got it. OK. is in the budget. Great. Thank you Alright. Anybody else have questions? Alright, um, It’s like we’re ready to vote. Everybody’s clear on what the motion is. Yep. All those in favor? And that is unanimous of the 5 members present in the motion passes. Thank you. Yeah. Um All right, we did the audit already and so next up is, uh, the, uh, initial budget budget. Recommendation. Going to plug in here. Do you mind if I shut. Please, go ahead. Breezy over here. I’m freezing. Hope It’s Thank you Ah is. It It’s the best part of the presentation. Yeah, we just focus on that. on not sorry Hm Can see around corners. OK, so thank you guys for letting me present to you tonight. This is our the first look. At the superintendent’s preliminary FY 26, uh, budget recommendation for those of you who are here. Last night for the quintuple board meeting, there will be, uh, some repetitive stuff, but tonight we’re going to dive a little bit deeper into the numbers. Uh, the first two slides I did go over last night, but I will go over again for some members who were not here, uh, last night. So when building the school district’s budget, uh, there are many things we look at, the most important ones are listed here. Uh, obviously, our collective bargaining agreements is really the bulk of where the information and the numbers come from. Uh, here is where we find our cola adjustments for the year, any of our step increases or our column and lane changes, uh, our retirements and our staff turnover is where we look for salary savings through the budget process. Historically, uh, when an individual either retires or their staff turnover. Uh, there’s a tendency that that individual is a more seasoned, deeper in the salary schedule employee. Uh, when they retire or there’s turnover, uh historically we have a tendency to hire somebody who’s less seasoned, uh, and kind of higher or in the salary schedule, uh, receiving less of a salary, uh, so we realize salary savings through our retirements and our staff turnover. Historically in the budget process, health insurance has always played a major role, uh, recently there have been drastic hikes, hikes in our premiums, which are driving up our costs. However, for the FY 25 budget, uh, we were able to negotiate a rate that was half of what we budgeted, uh, because of those savings, they roll over into FY 26, and for FY 26, there really isn’t much in terms of a health insurance increase, uh, so that is good news, but it is definitely Uh, an item that drives the budget up, uh, most of the time, year to year. Uh, next would be our transportation costs for FY 26, we do not have a valid transportation contract that ends this fiscal year in about the February or March time frame, uh, we will issue an invitation for bid for a new 3-year contract. Uh, historically, the first year of the contract is a little bit bigger of an increase than the prior two years, so I have put in an estimate on what I think that should be, and that is incorporated into the budget. Uh, the next item is our out of district tuitions, uh, Historically, we usually try to place either 1 or 2 additional outplacements a year, uh, so we have enough funding from year to year to meet any new needs that a student may have. Uh, next we meet with all of our building principles and department heads and go through line by line through their budget and discuss any new requests that they might have, uh, that we would incorporate into the budget. Last we look at the conditions of our buildings and grounds. Does anything need to be replaced? Do we have any um equipment or mechanical uh pieces in the buildings that really need our attention or need to be replaced. Uh, so if there are any items, we try to build those into the budget as well. Uh, right now I’m going to briefly walk through kind of the The higher view of how we build the budget and kind of what goes into it. Uh, the very first thing we look at is our enrollment shift, our regional agreement. Uh, states that we split the expenses between the town of Hamilton and the town of Wenham based on a three-year rolling average, uh, on a snapshot of the student population on October 1st of the, uh, prior 3 years. So in front of you, I have a breakdown of Hamilton. It’s broken down by school and by grade, uh, for the town of Hamilton in FY 23, they had a student population of 1,068. In October 1st of 2024, they had the exact same amount, so there was no increase or decrease for him. However, when you look at Wenham, they had an increase of 3 students over the prior year, um. In total, that obviously means from our student population, we have a growth of 13, 3, I misspoke and meant 13. Thank you. 13 for Hamilton, sorry. And combined, obviously, I’m sorry, one of them combined, it’s just 13 Hamilton’s 01 I’m 13. That is not our entire student population, so I’ve also included this slide. We also have tuition in students and school choice students, uh, overall, the net result we are seeing a decrease in both of those items. So overall through district-wide. Through all categories, we have a growth of 2 students from one year to the next. So what does this mean for the school district’s budget, uh, well, when you take those new student population numbers and add those into the prior 2 years, uh, we have a change of 0.037%, uh, so we have a new 3-year rolling average of 65.92% for Hamilton and 34.08% for Wenham. So what does that mean? Uh, well, if we were going to have a completely level funded budget, meaning we don’t raise our expenses from one year to the next. Our budget stays exactly the same. It would still result in a decrease. To Hamilton of $130,000 and an increase to one of the exact same amount. Uh, this would represent about 0.5% decrease for Hamilton and a 1.1% increase for Wenham. Uh, so when we go through the budget process and you see what the percent increase for each community is, uh, you can attribute, you know, 1.1% of that increase of Wenham directly to the enrollment shift that we really don’t have any control over. It’s simply just who Uh, who resides in which community for comparative reasons, uh, to see if that number is a big number in last year’s budget, we had an enrollment shift of 24,000, so this is about 5 times what we saw last year, uh, which is still a substantial number when it comes to our enrollment shift, it, it, it is one of the bigger numbers in the past budget cycles. So the slide I just showed you was the shift for just the operating portion, uh, for here, I’ve combined both the operating and debt, uh, when you include both those numbers, the total shift is 137,000. Uh, that’s really the first step in the process, uh, what has the shift done to both communities’ budgets. The next step we look at is all of our offsets in revenues, uh, for FY 26, our preliminary budget, uh, we have a growth of $24,000 or just over a quarter of a%. Uh, I’m gonna walk through some of these changes for you. Uh, if you have any questions at any point about something I don’t go over, obviously just let me know, but. Uh, for school choice, I have incorporated. A reduction of 6 students coming in, uh, historically what has happened in the past few years is we have uh dwindling school choice numbers, so as you go down in the grades, uh, 6th, 7th, and 8th. It’s a, it’s a smaller class of school choice students. When you look up at the high school and you go to the junior and senior class, it’s a bigger group, so we’re graduating bigger groups and taking in smaller groups, uh, so I’ve incorporated a reduction of 6 students. student, so I am estimating a reduction of $30,000 for our school choice in. For our special education tuition in, uh, we really have not had this in the past, but in FY 24, we did take in a student into our special education program from I believe the town of Peabody, um. For that student, we charge tuition, uh, that was not incorporated into our FY 24 budget, but we did receive the funds in FY 24. So those funds were built into our FY 25 budget, however, for FY 26, we do not currently have a signed contract with any community. So at this time, we have dropped that down to 0. That might change before the final budget, uh, but at this time, we do not have an agreement with any other. community Our Title I has dropped significantly in our entitlement, and we have also rearranged, uh, the grant to cover different types of expenses. So we are unfortunately recording a reduction in our Title I grant by approximately $30,000. Our circuit breaker offset for those of you who might not be familiar with what circuit breaker is, the state of Massachusetts does reimburse districts for a portion of their special ed expenditures. Uh, there’s a formula on how they come up with The amount with increasing uh special ed expenditures were obviously going to see an increase in reimbursements, uh, in addition to our increase in expenditures, the state is actually kicking in a bigger percentage. They don’t give you the whole thing. They obviously just give you a percent of it, that percent has increased, uh, so for us, we are seeing a pretty substantial increase of 225,000 that will come directly off the town assessments. Next is our chapter 70 base aid, um, historically, our budgeting practices is for chapter 70 to next year’s budget amount equal to the amount we received this year. Uh, the state does have a hold harmless. Uh, claws, so they historically don’t reduce your chapter 78, so us setting it equal to what we received this year, uh. It’s kind of a conservative approach to make sure that we don’t have a revenue shortfall next year. Uh, this year we did receive an uh an additional $170,000 that we are carrying into FY 26. Medicaid reimbursements have really been, uh, volatile over the past few years uh, a student has to be both uh special ed and low income to be eligible for Medicaid reimbursements, uh, in addition, we have to have staff that have certified to be uh Medicaid reimbursable. Uh, that has gone up and down in the past 5 years. Uh, I have set our amount for FY 26 equal to the amount we received in 24. Uh, similar to what we do with chapter 70. Unfortunately, that represents a drop of approximately $40,000. Next up is our interest income, as you heard, um, Frank mentioned during the audit presentation, we received, uh, uh, an additional amount of interest income this year because of rising interest rates. I am carrying that forward a little bit for FY 26, where we’re seeing a growth of about 17,000. The next two items are around our excess and deficiency that I will talk a little bit about, uh, later on in the presentation, but from FY 25 to FY 26, we are seeing a drop in our excess and deficiency by about 215,000. Uh, that is set directly off our END that is offset by expenses. We have not done anything with the E&D uh return to the communities, if you all remember that 700. $73,000 number was the number left over from COVID in 2020, uh, where we were informed that the state was going to reduce our chapter 70 funding, uh, so we went through this whole process. Uh, of reducing our budget and our town meeting, uh, we promised that if we did in fact receive that funding, we would return it to the towns and we’ve done that every year since, I believe, 2021. Uh, and then last we have our premiums on debt. And this one is funny to me, uh, when we go out and borrow money, they actually pay us to borrow the money, and then we pay them interest, I. Really Doesn’t make sense to me, but because we went and borrowed money from a bank, they cut us a check. Uh, next year we will be borrowing less money. Uh, this is directly related to the turf field project, uh, every year we pay down roughly $1 million as you reduce the amount that you borrow, they’re gonna reduce the amount that they pay us. So for FY 26, we have dropped that amount by approximately 34,000. Uh, so in total, again, that means only growth of roughly 24,000, but when I look at this, to me, it doesn’t really paint a picture of what’s going on with our revenues, and that’s because of the END. The END is one time money, uh, so what I’ve done here in the next slide. I just remove our END and that drop in END to help kind of display what is really happening with our revenues. We are seeing growth of more like 3.5% or roughly 240,000. So again, this is just the same chart, but removing uh the END off of it. So going back to how we build it, I’ve now layered in all of our changes and offsets and revenues. So if we were to stop here and again roll all expenses forward, it would still translate into what you see here a reduction to Hamilton’s budget of, uh, 62 and an increase to 1 of 1.03. So kind of the next, you know, biggest but last step is incorporating all of our expenses. Uh, so at this moment for our preliminary budget, we are seeing in a substantial increase in our FY 26 budget. Uh, this is all in meaning incorporates both our operating and our debt service budget, uh, we’re at this time we’re requesting a $3.3 million increase, or roughly 7.12%. Uh, so layering that in under step 3, you can see the end result would be an increase to Hamilton of just over $2 million or just under 2 and I’m sorry, 8.25% increase. And an increase to one of 1.2 million or just over 10%. Uh, so here I’ve tried to break out uh what that means both inside and outside the levy limit based on the town of Hamilton and Wenham, they’re operating in debt. It really is the same chart before, uh, just in a different format. So next I’m really gonna dive into the numbers and what’s changed, but I’ll just stop and let you ask a question if you had it, or I can just start going into what’s changed, uh, from year to year. On page 9 the facility I know it’s not going want to feel We anticipate that it might go higher. Um, we anticipate that we’re going to receive more revenue in rentals from the field, uh, we really don’t know how much that’s why we’ve left it flat. Uh, we really need at least one year of data before we adjust that number. We really, as you can see, don’t make that much money off renting our facilities. If it’s um. Kind of an in town club. We, we don’t charge them, uh, we only charge them if we have to have a custodian on duty. There is no like additional rental fee, so we don’t really make a ton of money, but when the turf field comes, uh, it might be a different story. Yep Good. All right. OK, so right here is just our operating budget. That’s why you see a little bit different of a number for our debt service, we did have a reduction of about 65,000, uh, but again, this is just our Operating budget. This is presented to you in DEI format, uh, that, that is what the state of Massachusetts says a regional school district has to uh present and approve their budget in this format, um, but that’s really not how we Uh, review and kind of oversee our budget, we more oversee it by a location or department, so I’ve broken out in both areas. Uh, it’s the same numbers, uh, again, just in Desi. In DEI category or by location. So one thing I want to get out of the way before I dive into these numbers, because I don’t want to keep repeating it is the cola and the step increases. So you’ll see on every one of these slides in every category, you’re going to see either an additional FY 25 cola, which if you look, it’s the 2nd item down on your left, or you’re gonna see an FY 26 cola. So the additional FY 25 cooler is where I’m gonna start at the moment. So for FY 25 when we built our budget, uh, we only had one of 5 of our union contracts settled. So when building the FY 25 budget, we really had to uh anticipate what our cola was going to be at the time we built in a 3% increase, but if you rewind back to this time last year, um, you were hearing things about Newton and Wooburn. Now you’re hearing it about Gloucester, Beverly, and Marblehead. Uh, so as we built in the 3%. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t feel too comfortable about that. So I tried to be conservative in other areas of the budget to help make up for any loss, uh, any. Uh, reduction in cola that might occur. Uh, so I probably have, we probably built in about an additional 1% cola throughout the budget. So we had about anywhere between 3 and 4% cola built into our budget. But what ended up happening is we had colas anywhere between 3 and 19%, with an average of about 8%, depending on what category you were in, what position you were in, what your degree was, or how many years of experience you are. So it varies widely, uh, depending on those factors. Uh, so because of that, we are in a $1.1 million dollar salary deficit for FY 25. Now, we are, I’m not concerned about that deficit for FY 25, because if you remember at the end of FY 24, you authorize us to prepay out of district tuitions, we are gonna call upon you for a budget transfer later in the year, uh, to move money from our outer district tuitions to our salary lines to cover that additional cola. for FY 25. But Those prepaid tuitions is kind of a one time thing, so that’s not gonna be here in FY 26, so that $1.1 million is being added in to our 25, uh, I’m sorry. Into our 26 budget. That’s the additional FY 25 cola. But then on top of that, you have your FY 26 cola. That is obviously listed here as your FY 26 cola. When you add in your FY 26 cola to all of our FY 26 steps and column changes. It’s about another 1.3 million, I believe. So combined between the additional FY 25 cola and the new FY 26 cola. It is about 2.4 million in salaries that is being added to this budget at the moment. Uh, if you recall the previous two slide, uh, previous slide are increased year over year is 3.3 million, 70% of that is directly attributed to the two items I just mentioned, uh, if I add in one more item, which is our out of district tuition and transportation. Uh, we’ve accounted for about 3 million of our 3.3 million, which represents about 90% in only 2 items. So I realized that this is a huge Uh, change year over year, but when you think about it, Not a lot, we really are just trying to roll the year over and cover our um New contracts that we settled with. So I don’t want to keep repeating what the cola amount is on every slide. I’m really just gonna try to highlight the big um the big pluses and the big minuses and not review each. Ah, cola, but of course if there is a question about any of it, uh, please don’t hesitate to ask. I tried to break out the cost between cola and uh steps and stipends. So if there’s any questions about those, please, please don’t hesitate to ask. OK, so for the Bucher Elementary school, we are seeing an increase of 376,000 or just over 12%. Uh, here, the biggest item you have is under the teacher’s uh DESI category, uh, we are requesting a new investment for a 0.7 STEM teacher at the Bucher Elementary School, you will see this at all 3 elementary schools. Uh, so the idea is to split two teachers across the three buildings just like we do with our new library, um, specialists from last year. I believe, um. So you’ll see this repeated at all 3 elementary schools, that is, at this time we’re estimating to cost roughly $70,000 and that is a 0.7 at each school. So, under the Bucher Elementary School for our other teaching services, we are reducing our part-time literacy ESP, uh, they currently are a.06 129 FTE or roughly $16,000. Again, this item you will see at all three elementary schools. I think about 3 years ago, we added the two full-time. It had to have been 3 years ago now, sorry, either way, um, we added two full-time literacy ESPs in one part time to each of the 3 elementary schools. Now that that program has had a few years to develop, we feel strong that we can eliminate the part-time position, uh, and still accomplish and meet the needs of the students. Uh, so again, at each of the three elementary schools, you will see a reduction for the literacy ESP. Uh, in terms of our instructional materials, there has been a request from the elementary school level for additional math supports, so we would uh be purchasing about $5000 in math workbooks and another $3000 in uh supplemental digital materials, uh, to help implement some of our math programs. Uh, for pupil services, uh, they are, they did request additional bus services for our kindergarten orientation and our 5th grade up day. Um, again, I’m just trying to hit on the big ticket items, uh, and in terms of operations and maintenance, uh, we have an agreement with National Grid and uh direct energy and constellation to provide us gas and electric. We have a 3-year contract that is expiring, I believe, next month, the new contract we received has a 40% increase on the consumption of our electricity and our gas. Uh, so you are going to see big numbers on our utilities, uh, spread across this. 6 locations. Uh, for Bucher, that does translate into about a $24,000 increase. I did try to do a 3 year average consumption. Obviously, if we have a colder winter, it might be worse if we have a warmer winter, uh, we, we might see a balance left over, uh, but we did spend a lot of time trying to figure out uh how many, uh how much we consume during the year and then project that out with a 40%. Uh, on the new contract. Moving on to the Cutler Elementary school, we are anticipating an increase of 467,000, or roughly 14.9%, um, the big ticket item here is a transfer from Winthrop to Cutler. This is a budget neutral transfer. However, if you look at the schools in a silo, uh, it is an increase to Cutler. Uh, we transferred the TLC program from Winthrop to Cutler that came with a 1.0 teacher and a 1.0. ESP, uh, in front of you here, you are just seeing the teacher, the ESP will show up on the next slide, uh, but that transfer does, uh, give an increase to Cutler of about 99,000 or that 1.0 FTE. Again, you’re seeing here the increase on the new investment for the STEM teacher of approximately 70,000. Um, and then in addition, there was also another transfer from Uh, Winthrop to Cutler for their elementary specialists. I believe this was the music program. Uh, we transferred, I think, a point uh Must have been a 0.1 FTE from Winthrop to Cutler, um, I’m sorry, the other way around. Cutler to went through. Uh, but that is again a budget neutral transfer, yep. I think I switched it. Yeah salary. Uh, it is, it’s a It’s 2 people divided by 3. Yeah, so It should be 6666 I. The 7. It’s 2. Yeah. That’s the, they all have 2 that we use for the 3 schools. Uh, one question, um, did you, you mentioned a 40% increase across the board of the utilities. Is that The same for gas as gas was, I believe, 42% electrical, I think was 39. I can get you the exact numbers, but I believe that’s what, that’s what it was. Thank you. Mm Uh, so, continuing on with Cutler, other in our other teaching services. This is that other 1.0 TLC transfer, um, That’s an ESP so it comes in and in a different DEI category. Again, that is Again, that is to the other. Uh, again, you are seeing the reduction of the part-time literacy ESP for roughly 16,000. Uh, the same thing with Bukker, and you’ll see it again at Winthrop is that additional funding for maths math workbooks and supplemental digital resources. Uh, again, we have increased costs for our buses, for our kindergarten orientation, and our 5th grade move up, and again an increase on our utilities at around 25,000. Uh, moving on to Winthrop, again, it’s really a lot of the same that we just saw at the two schools. We have our new investment of the 0.7 STEM teacher, uh, that is causing an increase of approximately $70,000. Uh, the next big item is the FY 25 pre-K teacher reduction. Uh, so just to give a brief explanation of what happens here. When we build our budget and we realized that we might have a reduction next year. Uh, we don’t know exactly who that teacher might be. Uh, so when that happens, I just set it to usually a master’s 5. Uh, that’s what we put in as the reduction. So let’s just say a master’s 5 is 60,000. I would list a $60,000 reduction, but then when FY 25 actually comes and we find out who that actual teacher is, they could be deeper on the salary schedule and we realize additional savings, uh, so that happened, the pre-K teacher, um, That was reduced $17,000 had a $17,000 higher salary than what we put in, so that reduction, uh, we realized this year, so we’ll have a residual balance this year, and then that reduction gets carried into 26. Um, again, this is the transfer of that TLC program, leaving Cutler, uh, leaving Winthrop and going to Cutler. They jump in on that. I just want to clarify that that’s an FY 25 shift. We did that this year. Just so people know, it’s not like we’re moving the program. It’s, it, it already happened, so it just, it just because we did the budget earlier last year, it wouldn’t show in last year’s budget. So that’s a I think on the next slide it shows as FY 25. Um I do this one? I’m not sure, but continuing on with the Winthrop there again is our reduction in our literacy ESP and the transfer of that other 1.0 TLC ESP. Again, we have an increase for our math workbooks and the digital resources, uh, we also have an increase of about $10,000 and I’m completely honest when I make a mistake when I built the 25 budget, we had an individual who was a bachelor’s 9. If you look at our salary schedule, it goes up to step 12, but in the bachelor’s column, it only goes to step 9. That individual put in for a salary scale advancement, which means they move over to the master’s column. God bless you. The master’s column goes all the way down to step 11. I budgeted them at a master’s, I believe either step 9 or step 10 when they were eligible to jump down 2 more steps cause they’ve been here for 20 years. Uh, so we, we were shy this year, approximately $10,000 which gets carried forward into 20. 6. Does that make sense? OK. Uh, moving on again, we have the utilities increase of approximately $20,000. For the Ma River Middle School, we are requesting an increase of 465,000 or roughly 8.3%. Uh, here again, we have transfers from the high school to the middle school. Uh, we transferred a 0.3 FTE reading specialist that was that was split 50/50 high school, middle school, however, their schedule is more towards the middle school now, so they are 0.7 at the middle school, uh, I’m sorry, 0.8 at the school and 0.2 at the high school, that’s transferring 3 FTEs, or roughly 33,000 from the high school to the middle school. Uh again, that’s budget neutral, same with the, uh, one under it, we transferred 0.2 FTEs of the fine arts from the high school to the middle school. Uh, in addition, we had some FY 25, uh, planned reductions, so at the middle school, again, we planned to reduce a 1.0 FTE teacher. Again, we did not know exactly who that individual was gonna be. So again, I put in a reduction of a master’s 5, the individual that was ultimately reduced, uh, made a lot more, uh, was more in the master’s 60 scale, uh making an additional 42,000, so we will realize those. in FY 26. But in addition to that, we also had an unplanned reduction. Uh, so there was a reduction at the high school, uh, for our world language program, that position was split between the high school, middle school, uh, eliminating it at the high school, also eliminated a 0.4 at the middle school, uh, so I’m calling that an unplanned FY 25 reduction, and that’s the same situation we will have a $25,000 balance left over at the end of this year because of it, that will also get carried into 26. Also at the middle school, uh, there was a, there was a request this year to convert our 0.5 FTE library ESP to a 0.5 FTE library teacher. Um, this cost, uh, the middle school approximately 10,000. This costs an increase of $10,000 to the middle school that will get carried into the 20. Uh, 6 budget In addition, this position is split. 50/50 at the high school and middle schools, so you’re gonna see the same exact number, uh, up at that, at the high school when Review that part. Uh, also at the middle school, there was a request for $16,000 in uh new ELA curriculum materials, uh, and also you’re seeing here again an increase in our utilities for approximately 52,000. Uh, moving on to the high school, at the moment we are requesting an increase of 630,000, or roughly 9. 2% Uh, here. It’s the same situation we had in FY 25 plan reduction of 1.6, uh, I again put in a master’s step 5, but the individual made approximately $13,000 more. Uh, you have that opposite transfer of the fine arts and the opposite transfer of the reading specialist. Again, both items are budget neutral. Uh, continuing on at the high school as we just approved tonight, we are requesting to permanently fund that 1.0 FTE ESP that this year will be funded through the IDEA grant, we are carrying, carrying it forward to FY 26, uh, as they will not be as we anticipate there will not be a residual balance in our IDEA grant for next year. Uh, here again, as I explained at the middle school, uh, that library position is split fifty-fifty, so the high school is also seeing an increase of just under $10,000 for that, uh, conversion of an ESP to a teacher. We also have a request from the high school for to replace some aging furniture, approximately 11,000 and to replace some of their PE equipment. Uh, for approximately 5000. Uh, because of the um project going on out in the turf field right now, uh, the graduation expenses for next year are anticipated to drop, uh, to, that is about $16,000 we are anticipating, uh, not needing for graduation expenses in FY 26. Uh, again, just like you saw at the middle school, we are seeing an increase to our utilities at the moment of approximately 52,000. Uh, moving on to athletics, we are seeing an increase of about 112,000, or roughly 17%. Uh, the, the big item you here is our user fee match, uh, because of the teacher’s contract and because of additional expenditures related to the uh sports team. Uh, we are, we have been requested to fund additional $57,000 to match the user fee and reduce the amount that uh families have to pay to participate in our sports. There also has been a a request uh to put more effort into maintaining the backfield now that we have redone the entire. Um Area back there. There’s been a request to add $30,000 to continue mowing and seeding the backfield. Uh, because of the new turf field, uh, it has been recommended that we add additional trainers. Uh, now there is going to be multiple games going on at once in one trainer can’t cover uh multiple games. So there’s been a request to add $8000 so they can get additional trainers uh to cover. The additional games that we will be holding. Nobody had a question on that one, OK. Great Moving on to central office, uh, we are anticipating an increase of 208,000 or roughly 5%. Uh, here we have a realignment of our treasurer and our assistant treasurer, uh, historically those have been stipend payments. We are moving them into more permanent positions. They should be counted as an FTE. They really should never have been issued as a stipend or categorized as a stipend, I should say. Uh, in addition, we are requesting, I believe, 3 new additional teacher mentors, uh, that will add approximately 4800. Um, here is where you see that additional anticipated general transportation contract increase, uh, I set an amount, I believe around 8% increase for our transportation, uh, that accumulates up to an $85,000 increase for FY 26. Our SRO expenses have increased over the past two years. We are billed by the town of Hamilton, uh, for our SRO, those those are anticipated that expense is anticipated to increase by approximately 12,000 for FY 26. Moving on to our maintenance department, uh, just point out maintenance is spread out amongst all of the 5 schools and in addition, they have their own uh kind of department where they have their own kind of district-wide funding. Uh, so, the biggest item here is our END offset, as I mentioned in our revenue section, uh, this budget does incorporate $1.3 million in direct offsets to our END, uh, one of those items is under our extraordinary maintenance. These are for more smaller projects around the district. Uh, we have some issues with our boiler up at the high school, middle school, uh, we have a failing AC unit at the high school library, all items that really need to be addressed, uh, to be honest, we don’t know if we can even make it through this year, not, not, um. Focusing on those two items, but nonetheless, we are trying to get through this year and hopefully, um, Set aside some funds for FY 26 to fix those. Uh, we also have an increase on our utilities of $11,000 and this is directly related to the central office building where the utility costs uh sit in the maintenance departments. Uh, Dack. Moving on to benefits and fixed charges. We are seeing a reduction of 242,000 just to jump down to that reason for the reduction in FY 25, we incorporated a one-time E&D offset for this fiscal year and we transferred. $495,000 into our OPEB trust fund, we are not requesting to do that for FY 26, so, so that shows up as a reduction in our benefits and fixed charges, which is what is really driving the reduction in this department. Uh, in addition to that reduction, we are seeing some substantial increases in Essex retirement contribution, uh, historically, that goes up anywhere between 8 and 12% a year. I believe I’ve incorporated a 10% increase for FY 26, uh, currently our payment is over a million dollars, so it’s estimated to increase by about 111,000. We annually increase our OPEB trust fund contribution by $50,000 every year. I believe we started that in Maybe 23 or 22, uh, this will make our OPEP contribution in FY 26 300,000. Uh, I met with Maya, our workers’ comp property and casualty insurance carrier, they have informed me to anticipate an increase of 15% in our premiums for FY 26, uh, so that. And that means an increase of $35,000 for those three items. Uh, the district does have an agreement for anyone on our HMO plan that the district will cover the first half of their deductible. Uh, we have seen an increase in the usage of the deductible over the past 2 years, uh, this year we believe we will end in a deficit, so we are requesting an additional $21,000 to cover the health insurance deductibles for FY 26. Uh, this next line item, as I mentioned before, was the real shocker for me. We are only requesting an increase of $13,000 as it as it relates to our health insurance, uh, and as everyone Hopefully remembers, uh, we increased our health insurance contribution rate this year. Uh, so for fiscal 25, we are contributing the district is contributing 62% for FY 23, that moves to 63%. So, we were able to cover that additional percentage. an increase to the premium rates without raising health insurance more than 14,000. The next time I give you a Uh Forecast update for this year, I believe, probably in the next school committee meeting, uh, you’re going to see that we have a pretty substantial balance left in our health insurance accounts. That is the exact reason that we are carrying that forward into FY 26 because of the savings that we saw this year. I believe I anticipated a 10% increase in our premiums for FY 25, I was able to negotiate that down to a 4.9%, uh, premium rate increase that saved us about $200,000 in addition in FY 25, um, we always, I, as I always mentioned, this is where we try to be conservative with health insurance whenever we have a vacant position in the budget, we always incorporate full benefits for the individual, a historically not everyone usually takes our health insurance. This is really where we see a lot of our savings at the end of the year. Uh, so in FY 25, we had a number of when not so much the case anymore. Everyone has been hired, uh, and a lot of them did not take health insurance, so the combination of uh a low enrollment rate and a reduction in the premium is what has caused the ability to pretty much completely cover a premium rate increase for FY 26. OK. Um Moving on to our capital acquisitions and improvement department. Uh, so for FY 25, this is where the majority of our END offsets. Are housed as you recall a minute ago, we did have about $494,000 in our OPEP trust fund, which does fall under a different category. Uh, the rest of our END offsets sit here for FY 25, we did ask to transfer 494,000 to our capital stabilization. Uh, we asked for 315,000 to Um, close up the res the replacement of all smart boards across the district and another $225,000 to replace equipment across the district. Those all are removed from the 26 budget and we add in. New items Or a little bit of the same as you can see at the moment we are requesting to transfer $500,000 into our capital stabilization for FY 26 along with increasing uh the replacement of building equipment across the district. We are mainly going to focus on the high school, middle school, and at Bucher. In anticipation of what might happen at. Um Cutler in my throat. So overall, that does mean a reduction in this category of approximately 85,000. Moving on to our special education department. Uh, we are seeing an increase of 628,000, or roughly 9%. Uh, our big categories here is around summer school, our summer school program, and this, uh, I’m sorry, this summer, uh, we really grew as a program and as a result, uh, we were over budget. We spent about $25,000 more in teacher’s salaries for summer schools, so we have increased that a little bit as it’ll be a year from now. Uh, so we are requesting an additional 27,000, and that is also the case with the ESPs and our other teaching services category, uh, where we’re asking for an additional $6000 for our summer school program. Uh, moving on to our pupil services within our special education department for FY 25. It is, we are currently running an estimate of a deficit of around $200,000 as it relates to our outer district transportation. Uh, we have been given numbers here for 26, uh, and it is anticipated that we will need an additional $256,000 to transport the students, um, who attend out of district placements. In addition to that, we are anticipating a growth of $260,000 for their tuitions that incorporates a 3.67%, uh, automatic OSD. Uh, last but not least is our technology department where we are seeing an increase of approximately 10,033,000. Uh, there has been an uptick in um cyber issues. Uh, we are getting numerous emails from both the accounting department and the finance department, um. For kind of Fraudulent changes, I’ll, I’ll leave it at that. Uh, so there has been a request from our technology department to amplify our security features, uh, and to and to. Um, invest some money in tighter uh cybersecurity upgrades. Uh there’s an estimate that it will cost approximately $50,000. This incorporates, um, new software and a consultant to come in and assess the state of our technology security system. Uh, in addition in FY 25, uh, we planned a reorganization of the technology department, uh, that did come to fruition and we ultimately saved an additional $26,000 that happened in FY 25 that will be carried into FY 26. Uh, the next item was a correction that I received from the state, uh, so the finance department issues an end of year report every year to the state. It’s a You know, a big report that basically explains where we spent all our money, we have to categorize it all. We were historically categorizing our IT department and our instructional leadership DESE category. The um technology department then issues an EPIM’s report, those two talk to each other at the state. Uh, our EPI’s report was categorizing the IT department in a different DEI category, while I was reporting salaries in another area, uh, so we received an email to reconcile the two, so you can see here, it’s a correction, uh, we are transferring their salaries from the instructional leadership department into the operations and maintenance, uh, the same exact amount, so it is budget neutral. It’s just transferring from one deci category. Um, just because I skipped over instruction materials, uh, as I mentioned, we did pretty much finish up the smartboard replacement project this year. However, there we are shy about 5 smart boards, so it’s just a request, uh, to complete that and replace, I believe, 5 more. Yeah, for 200 and I’m sorry. 26,000. Um, again, uh, you see their reclassification of the $280,000 and then last, there is a a request for $22,000 to uh upgrade our IT infrastructure, uh, additional Wi Fi and additional Um, outside wiring to the um athletic field. So that is kind of the bulk of the changes. I’m just bringing it back to kind of roll it all together here that does uh incorporate a $3.3 million dollar increase in our operating budget. This is that same chart. In DEI category again, um, here I have a summary of our staffing changes from FY 25 to FY 26, there are some movements, as we discussed, uh, a lot of it is just transfers from one school to another, uh, the net result from one year to the next will be an increase of 0.88 FTEs. Uh, last, I know this is small. I did include it as an exhibit, so hopefully everyone got a chance to look at it, but I do have a a summary of all kind of major budget changes that are plus and minus $10,000. So what I tried to do is go through every one of those slides and just categorize everything. So every single time you saw additional FY 25 cola listed, I added them all together. Uh, that was roughly 1.07 million and obviously our FY 26 colas, that really is. where the bulk of all the uh increases year over year exist. I, I’m not going to go through this entire list, but if anyone has any questions on it. Feel free to ask. Thank you. That was 52 minutes, sorry. Thank you. We, we asked for detail and Thank you. Um, people have questions? Um had the utilities increasing at the central office. Um Will the new windows actually decrease our utility bill in the central office. I wasn’t that part of the Other than preventing them from falling out and hitting students, which I would hope it does lower it, yes. Yeah, so maybe I am a little. Hi there, um, we’ll definitely review it before the final. I am also meeting with National Grid in about 2 weeks to make sure my consumption numbers are accurate to what they have. So there could be adjustments on our utilities um before the tentative budget in January, uh, right now I was trying to. You know, cover our bases in that 40% increase. Yeah. Um Mm. Does anybody else have any questions, but go ahead. Um, this is just on slide 33. It should be fee reduction, not free reduction. I, I, uh, I think I corrected that on mine, right? Oh, right. Where, sorry. I think I corrected it on mine. I caught that today. The one I think we linked to the exhibit. Yep, thank you. Then what, what was the total of all utilities across the board on that summary sheet. Give me 1 2nd. Do you Do you have information about what what’s driving that level of change. Uh, that’s 3 years’ worth of increases because our contract was originally signed 3 years ago, so the increases that we’ve all seen. You know, at our households is really Now hitting us. With our new contract. Uh, other than that, what’s driving it? I, I Not sure. The, uh, I know at home we, we switched from national grid to constellation on the. On the side and got it locked in for 3 years. That’s what we did as well. That’s what you did. Yeah, we have we’re using constellation, um. energy for our gas, national grid supply, we use National Grid’s pipelines and Power lines, so they charge us for the service and delivery. Uh, constellation Direct Energy charge us for the consumption, the consumption. is what went up 40%, not the delivery. Oh, OK. Oh, that’s important to know. Thank you. I just, I’m just following up on that same question. So and it’s a 3-year. Prior, it was a 3-year fixed contract, so you and so. You were locked in for 3 years and now we’re locked in for the next 3 years. So how that will probably work is we’re a little high in year one, but as you know, they all increase will be saving in year 3, you know, when you average it out. Um, utilities It’s about 184 if I’m lining that up correctly. Do you know what the average cost per kilowatt hour is? one is The 12 cents, I believe, and our old one was like. 7. I can get you the exact numbers, though. on both gas and electric. I can, I can email it to everyone, the old rate and the new rate. Great, thank you. Thank Yep. Did you have another question? Did you have another one? Um No, other than the, uh, with the transportation. The, um, if, if indeed we the EPA Um, grant, which I, I heard on the grapevine that we did. Did you? I’ve only heard that we we were tentatively tentatively set. We, we haven’t received the final confirmation. So I’m just wondering, do, do we, do we have a pro forma plan? To and a financial model of how that might work and might help save some. Transportation We don’t anticipate that that’ll affect the 26 budget, that would be more 27 items, so. Yeah, we will have to think of that if we are accepted when we go out to bid for the next contract. So if we are officially accepted, uh, we might consider only doing a one year. 3, so we don’t lock ourselves in for the 3 years and you also have to consider the outer district transportation costs. Those are not buses. Those are the small bands you see going on, and those are all private companies every, every single one of them, and it is uh quite the business right now. Uh, that’s booming around the state of Massachusetts. So we are working with um The Northeast Collaborative, uh. To try to figure out if we can take advantage of the, some of the vehicles they have during the day that are sitting. Um, and they’ll, you know, charge a fee, which is much less than the $300 or $350 a day fee we pay to drive kids to various, um, private schools around the, you know, specialized private schools around, around the state, so. It’s um it’s something we’re all looking at at the, the superintendent level. I was at a meeting today with, uh, the North Shore Superintendent’s Roundtable group, and we’re trying to figure out how to Uh, both share programs across schools to see who has openings and specialized programs, so instead of spending $100,000 to send a child to a placement somewhere we could shift them, uh, to a local school district who might have an opening, and that would drastically reduce transportation costs as well. So we’re looking at different options along with MASS, um, the Northeast Consortium and the Superintendent’s Roundtable group try to figure this out because it’s in some of the bigger districts, it’s millions of dollars that they’re the impact. for, for, uh, out of district transportation. Thank you. Yeah, the, and the other area that is interesting is um the way we The way we heat Um Buildings is uh like that’s baseboard heatings. is quite inefficient compared to what we can now do with heat pumps. And heat pumps, I’ve just been investigating the The subsidies like massa actually will give you back a substantial percentage of that. So that’s another thing I think we should hopefully look in our capital planning to see where that would make the switch would make sense. Because uh it would also give you air conditioning. which we don’t have now. Um, I have a, I just have a question. I I think I just missed it on the, um, I think it’s on page 40, it’s special education. The I know that Erica’s reviewed it yesterday, I believe too, but I just want to make sure that it’s the, that comes down from the state, the 3.67, that that’s how much. Uh institution is allowed to increase their tuition to increase their tuition to increase their tuition thing where it was gonna be 14% and then it wasn’t so is that number come down. Like, is, is that number an estimate that you’re making, or is that number what’s the. 2 weeks ago, right? It was 14% last year, which is, which kind of rolls into this year’s budget and then you add this 3.67 on top of that rolls, you know, so it compounds really dramatically. I know that you did speak about it last night, but for whatever reason, it just. Yeah, we and, and not everybody does increase. I mean, NEC uh our consortium that we work with. generally does not follow that model. They try to work with us, we pay, uh, as you know, a membership fee for reduced rates. So it’s, it’s, uh, has been very helpful in some of the instances that we have kids going out of district. Um So last night both towns we’re talking about how They were anticipating. A deficit, but they wanted to work with the school. To avoid a operational override in the same year as a large debt exclusion. Um When you were done asking questions, that was the question I have for you guys, OK, so my, my, my question is, Is, is the way that this gap is being funded. Um Do you see it as likely going to an operational override at the we were to push this forward right now, yes. Um There is I do have 2 questions. I’ll ask the first one, since you’re on this topic, I’ll ask this one first. In front of you is our Capitol acquisition improvement slide. Uh, we are using On this slide, it’s 9945 when you add in the additional extraordinary maintenance were up around 1.3 million. Uh, let me pull up a different slide, maybe that’ll be. Easier to see. all the way at the beginning. Yeah, so numbers So the first, that is reducing the town assessments by that exact amount. The other one, however, in this budget as presented. We are using our excess money. To purchase capital to transfer to a capital stabilization, uh. We can, which I’m in the middle on I, I kind of haven’t decided either way. We could reduce some of those items and add it to that 773 to lower the town assessment this year and potentially Uh, avoid the operational override this year, however, We are using one time money to lower the assessment. That only means that come FY 27, we will have to make up that money. So, I don’t recommend using E&D that way, uh, the only time I would recommend it is to. we don’t ask for a debt exclusion. Does that make sense? Could I just ask you to translate for people that don’t speak school committee. What it, what it means to like avoid an operational override because of a debt exclusion. this year. So, in this coming April town meeting, we’re asking for a debt exclusion for the. Uh, new elementary school. If we push this forward, we would be asking for a second override for our operations, a historically in communities when you ask for two overrides at the same town meeting, statistically speaking, both of them fail. Uh, you’re better not to say you’re better off, I’m only talking with historically. You’re better off asking for 11 year and the other the next year. Um. The question I would still have, which I can’t answer the towns would have to answer is even if we were to put all of that 1.3 million into it. Does that avoid an override for them, cause I still think that doesn’t avoid an overriding one. So at that point, to me, the question is, why would we do it if it still doesn’t avoid an override. So we really need to work with the town to get that number, we do. Then we’re avoiding an override. This year Yeah, next year. We would see A larger override because of the cola and step increases that will occur, most, most likely I. I don’t, can’t fully predict what will happen in the next budget cycle. I mean, you’d be the state could come out and say we’re giving you a ton more money or, you know, I doubt it, but. Would we see larger cola increases because this year we’re getting. The 2025 Cola increases. And the 2026 cola increases. Next year it’ll just be the 2027 I of course I Vinny to be able to try to Not only understand it, but to try to explain, like, so I’m gonna take my stab at it and we can see if I get it right because it’s, it’s. In my opinion This is really hard. The At least for me, it’s been hard to really hold in your head. But I wanna make sure I understand. Cause The, in other words, In So that, you know, and when we set the budget, if you’re here and this is like this is the year you’re in, and every year the budget goes up. If your budget goes up, This year But you use one time money that we only have once. To make it look like the budget is down here, so that year, the budget that that would be in The upcoming of 26 if we did that, the town wouldn’t have to, wouldn’t be above what it’s paying, right, you know, wouldn’t have that limit. But It goes up this year and then it goes up again in 207, and then you have to go, it looks like from the town’s point of view, it looks like you’re going from here to way up here when in reality, Would have gone up like this. Right, so it’s not more. I guess that’s my point that Jen is saying is it’s not more, it’s just that it’s a huge jump for the people of the town. Because you artificially Kept it low for one year, so it’s painful for the. For the vote, it looks, it’s a huge increase. Well, but what’s actually more money if you did it. Without, you know, so is that, am I telling it right? I, I just wanna, yeah, and if you remember a few months ago, I probably gave a presentation about that 773 and trying to use prepaid tuitions to slowly stagger it down over a couple of years. This will be the exact opposite. I’m saying is next year’s budget, so for fiscal year 2027. Will not have the additional $1.07 million. Which is in this year’s budget for the fiscal year 2025 will be lower, the base is higher. Right, so that one point, that 9% cola this year will be reduced to a 3% colon next year, but then 9% is is now incorporated into the base of which that. Yeah, OK. Got it clear in my head now. Thank you Um, so we obviously don’t need that decision tonight, but. It is something Yeah, you know. question about when the towns are saying. We want to work with the school. I mean, it does sound like there’s some work to do to talk to the test. I guess. To the towns about What it looks like if we do that, like, does it get them out of? Having, I mean, that’s really gonna be a really important conversation to have with both towns. Like that we don’t wanna do something that isn’t what the town doesn’t support. Doesn’t help at the end because it’ll only make it worse for us and for the communities to do that, so. Right, I think it’s important to note last night’s presentation. In tonight’s um Really kind of all in. Here’s everything on the table. So, you know, if we go back to last year, I think we’re 5.6% at this time and we ended up in operating budget of 1.12 and operating increase, so we’ll do that work between now, we’ll meet with the uh finance subcommittee. Capital finance subcommittee. Work through some of those numbers, we’ll meet, we, we are, we have a meeting, I think next week with the town administrator, town manager, and their budget people to be able to see where they’re at, um. You know, where their ebbs and flows are and where ours will be, uh, we’re still looking at actual numbers trying to get closer on some of the estimates that we make early on, and, you know, as you see in the budget presentation, even the estimates we made last year in November, some of them were off by, you know, 5 or 6% points, which in the end. There’s no way you can tell because you set the budget and then some, you know, you actually get the numbers later on. So there’s there’s a lot of work to do. It’s just really Determining the direction of how this budget represents not only FY 26, but all the way through FY 27 FY 28 because the deflection of costs is probably not a wise move in the, in the long Hall of the relationship with the towns and the, and the school department. So I think it’s, it’s incumbent on us to look at. this budget. You know, kind of line by line and really figure out what makes absolute sense, where we can make some adjustments like Vinny said, he’s still. Talking to utility people, trying to figure out what what’s realistic and then um try to figure out ways to to reduce costs within what we’re doing, uh, reorganizations and things like that, so, uh, there’s still a lot of work to do is what I’m trying to say. There’s, there’s a ton of work. The next 3 months is, is not a boring time for Vinny or I in the budget world I guess maybe it’s out of it’s out of my purview. I. So maybe I won’t ask it, but I I was just sort of wondering about, obviously the in My opinion, the town of the towns might have similar conversations about How they might choose to use. Yeah that’s I think they should or not. I just, I’m just sort of thinking about that from a, from a just a a a. of principle, I think that um Mm If we’re going to use one time funds to avoid a an override in the same year, because we’re going to be asking for a large Um, debt exclusion. I think that we have to be transparent about that and we have to make sure that everybody knows that that’s planned, and that it’s coming, because my understanding is that if the override doesn’t pass, it’s catastrophic in terms of operations. Would you agree with that, Eric? come back to the drawing board and even if you have to cut them, if you have to cut a million, a million dollars out, it’s probably 20 staff members. And that’s the teachers you’re saying. Yeah, teaching, that’s where the money is. So that’s just that would be my, my just, you know, request. For this group, um, is that, you know, if we’re, if we’re going to be staging these things, uh, that we are very proactive about messaging that it’s being staged. So that we don’t put ourselves in a situation where we precipitate a catastrophe. I agree. Can I ask you one more question? So my budget presentation going forward when when I change a number, um, do you want me to present? It all in like this or just literally the chain. So Bucher. Teacher’s deci category changed by 350 for whatever reason, not this. Either way, it’s the same to me. I’m just wondering how you want it presented to you. I. Say again, sorry. Like I think you could edit your presentation I just tell you Absolutely on the presentation. And that doesn’t mean that it’s not all still here in the. Documents so that if somebody wants to, of course, yeah. No, I, yeah. OK. other questions? Finny, do you have more questions for us? No, I’m on an on an on an on an It’s good? Thank you. Thank you very much. OK Um, all right, we are. Uh. Next up, committee reports. I suspect we don’t have a lot, um. F Um, we didn’t have enough people to meet. So I don’t have anything new to report. That was my fault. I’m sorry. We meet again on the 18th. That’s about it. December December, December 18 that I was Um, policy. Jen, did you have a question? Hm It looked like Gemma’s gonna ask something. I’ll ask him later. OK, um. policy. Who are you, your policy, right, Jen? Um, yes, we also had to move our last meeting. Um, and Yeah, OK. Um, negotiations. Yeah. so Yeah Other than that, I think we get the uh holiday season off before we start the next round. 16 months I think something like that. Meetings scheduled. Because We did it. Thank you. Um, David, do you have a secretary report for us? I actually, I forgot that you asked me for one. I’m sorry. I’ll, I’ll send Janelle an email right now. Um I do, um, I think we’re doing pretty well. Um, but I’m wondering, I’m curious about our executive session. Um Minutes. Um Superintendent’s report. Um, I’m actually just gonna add one thing on to Emmy’s reports and covered all the bases, um, really well, but uh one thing that’s happening next week and it’s a fun little event um called Harvest. We do it every year and uh the kids in the a cappella groups saying a little auction. It’s, it’s really a cute event. It’s quick, if you have an hour, an hour and 20 minutes or so. Uh, stop by and hear what our kids can do. They’re super talented and lots of fun, especially right around that Thanksgiving time. Because some of our um former grads come back, and they come to visit and it’s always fun to see those old faces return, so other than that, go generals on Saturday. Harvest is Tuesday at 6:30 at the high school and uh they do it in the cafeteria. And go generals. Generals. Curry College this Saturday if you’re, if you’re interested, I do have a question. The um We haven’t met, and maybe I missed the meeting because I was away for a couple of meetings. The new facilities director. And I’m just wondering whether He Because previously we would have kind of a regular meeting maybe every other meeting that the facilities director tell us what he’s doing. It is a he, I think. Um, Oh, so I was reading out loud. Sorry, um. And I’m just curious to see what his initially been tasked with what’s what, what his goals are and so forth. You want a presentation here at school committee? Yeah, I’d, I’d say every other school committee meeting because we’re spending a planning to spend a huge amount on facilities. And that presumably falls on him and I thought you’d previously said, if we do get the bus, Electric buses that you’re gonna be tasking the the facilities director with managing that too. That’s, that is, that’s not true. The, the, the grant for the electric buses is a pass-through grant that would not, we would not own these buses. I don’t intend to run a bus company. I don’t intend to hire drivers and it’s too expensive to, to manage the insurance. Um, it’s a pass-through grant, uh, Ipswich, uh, is a good example. They got it last year. I think they got 5 buses and they passed those buses through to Salter as part of the contract, they require those buses to be used, um, uh, Uh, uh, by the, the contracting company the other way is, uh, if you can subcontract out, um, the. The bus, uh I can’t remember the builder now, the The group that builds the bos, the local group that does the uh Highland, thank you, Highland boss, uh, also subcontracts out, they would take the buses, uh, through the grant, and they would basically manage everything else. So there, there are a couple of options. We wouldn’t, we wouldn’t run our own buses. We, we would run into a lot of trouble just in storage. I wouldn’t know where to put them. Um, there is some conversations going on with Wenham to use iron. Iron rail to set up some charging stations, but that again, wouldn’t be us, it would pass through to somebody else, but I, I don’t know where that conversation stands and It’s uh, it’s difficult to get charging stations right now. We’re still waiting. I’m on my 2nd year for the one that’s supposed to be mounted here. A little over 2 years, so, um. That, that’s uh separate, but our facilities director does manage transportation in general, like where kids are, where they’re being picked up along with Jen, of course, who does all the behind the scenes work, um, but yeah, that’s, that’s really um. Work through the contract, the details that occur through transportation occur through the contract, which many will be putting out the bid, I think in March. Yeah, in March. Got it. So can we, I’m curious cause I I, I, I don’t have the same recollection of a time when we had in every other meeting with with the we had we had on occasions. present his, his, uh current plan and what would you be, what specific topics would you be looking for a report on from him? What he’s doing. I mean Yeah, what, what’s He’s just come on board. There was a big absence for many months of having someone in that role. I’m curious. You know, what, what priorities is he addressing? And what issues is he running to, what, what help we could be possibly, we could, we can have them put together a report. We usually do in January, I usually do the state of the schools in January. Um, but it’s because, because of the budget process, that’s when we start to finalize the budget so we get a good idea of what types of things he’s looking for even in this budget, but also, you know, today alone we spent, uh, what,, $11,000 to repair the boiler at the high school because we, we lost it over the weekend. So those are uh Things that he’s dealing with right now, he is is an issue all the time at the beginning of the school year, so. Um, but we can have them do that, yeah, and, and that way the committee can meet him. That’d be for the first time. Sure. Thank you in January sounds like a Logical time. Yeah, December will go quickly with our budget meetings. Anybody have anything else for Eric? You know, as part of that would be his assessment of the state of the facilities, I guess. Because that’s This thing Yeah, he, he’ll update the, the state of schools report we have, we’ll just have him update that as part of that process. So basically, he would come in January. present the kind of updated state of the schools and then also. You know, be available to answer questions. OK, thank you. Um Given the time, I don’t have a lot to say. The only thing I wanted to just report out to you is that, um, you know, Amy had set up that um. Sign up sheet um for different opportunities to meet, um, be at various places to, um, provide some public education and information and opportunity for the public to ask questions about the school building project, um, The a new um It’s not on that sheet, a new sort of space or opportunity is the Christmas tree sales at the Ed fund. Does, um, they’re in Patton Park, um, I spoke with or I emailed with um the president of the Ed fund who said as long as we were self-sufficient, they’d be thrilled to have us there. Um, and, uh. I was, I used to be a member of the ED fund. I’ve worked those Christmas tree sales many times. It’s a great event, um, and it brings a wide variety of people from the town, um, so I. I would really like to do it. I, um. I know that this first weekend, which is the Friday, Saturday, Sunday after. Thanksgiving is very busy. I personally can’t buy my Christmas tree that early. It seems too early, but a lot of people do. It’s really busy, um, so I’d love to staff a table there. Um, I’m happy to stand there, but I would love it if any of you are willing to do any time. Um Standing at a table, um, at Friday, Saturday, Sunday, that’s coming up. then just let me know when you need me. Excellent. I’ll send you an email, um, cause it’s like I said, it’s not on that chart that Amy. Um, gave and, you know, we’ll have all the materials, but it’s really just an opportunity to stand at the table and provide another opportunity for the public to ask questions and provide information. I’ll send out an email and you can let me know if you’re available. And I have nothing else. Oh You need a motion. Well Well Well Well, no, we. Yeah. Oh yes. Yes, I have that on our, yes. And a sale of a van? The debt Oh That’ll be sex. OK, that makes more sense. OK. We’re selling the band. It’s a fundraiser. It’s a fundraiser. Um, did you Um, did you Um, did you have a topic for, um, I, I can just continue to not completely understand the um the kind of longitudinal, um, gap in MCAS performance at Cutler. Um, it sounds to me as if There are. Known explanations for that, but I think having some kind of um Uh, root cause analysis, because the a lot of the, the, um, I don’t understand the um The problems, so I don’t know if I agree that the solutions that are proposed. for a report or a data analysis. Or Uh, dealer’s choice. Yeah, something that, that like um you know, it was just at the meeting we were able to identify lots of things that people didn’t think were the underlying cause, and I just, I think that It would be really beneficial and probably, you know, folks that have kids that go there would also be interested in understanding. What, what we think that gap is, or if we don’t have an explanation for it, because it, it was over the last 3 years, pretty consistently across metrics. Um Alright, uh. I’m wondering if, I mean, Eric and I can certainly talk about that. I’m wondering whether maybe you and me. Trent Eric can talk about. Well, we can do it one way, either way. I mean, the root cause analysis or data analysis, it’s. Is that all I can do it either way is that specific to, it’s just ELA and math and in MTS. For that school and we had a, we the scores and the were presented to us and and. And is asking for more detail on the data analysis about the causes and we have actually it’s Tuesday mornings, uh, leadership team meeting we’re talking about those gap closing. Um, structures that each principal will be putting in place for various. targeted Uh, gaps that they have identified, whether it be in the MCAT scores or whether it be in their, their, uh, other, any of the other intervention models that they’re using, so we’ll, um, discussion about that Tuesday on that, on that agenda, and then we can bring it. And so the next steps with the cutler piece so that. We can put together some type of either a root cause analysis or Data analysis across the across the building itself, but. Um Yeah, we can do that. might reach back to you to get a little more detail, but sounds good. Yeah. Um right? Does anybody have anything else? I think I could find one of those I move that we adjourn. 2 929 by Trent. Uh, all those in favor unanimous and we are adjourned