00:00:41,530	Good evening. How are you? Hey, good evening. All right, can everybody hear me? Julia, can you hear me? Yep, OK, um. All right, I called to order the meeting of the Hamilwham Regional School Committee, um, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, December 19th, 2024.

00:01:05,370	And I invite you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah. To the one nation. justice. Right, um, before we get started, I just want to remind everyone that this meeting is, um, being recorded and live streamed um by HWAM, um, and you can watch it on YouTube. Um First up, we have uh an opportunity for citizens comments. Um, Mr.

00:01:53,270	Tracey, do we have anyone on Zoom who looks like they might want to offer a citizen’s comment. I am not sure. I’m guessing that we don’t have any citizen’s comments in the room. Please let me know if you do want to make a comment.

00:02:15,170	OK, um, seeing none, I will spare you all my spiel regarding citizens’ comments, um, and we will, uh, go ahead and close the opportunity on Zoom and Move forward, um, first up we’re gonna have a review, um, a read a portion of our school committee. Um, protocols, uh, I’m gonna take my turn to do that.

00:02:41,170	Um As elected members of the Hamilton Wenham Regional School Committee, we, including the superintendent, accept the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business. Number 7.

00:03:01,000	Administration will endeavor to make materials for school committee meetings available the Friday before the meeting. The school committee will recognize that some circumstances will not always make this possible. In any event, we recognize that having background materials available for school committee members is a best practice.

00:03:22,530	OK, um, next up we have a reading of a portion of the mission statement, Trent. The Hamilton Wenham 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.

00:03:47,530	The Hamilton-Wenham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that supports and guides the superintendent to execute and achieve the approved 2024 2025 district goals. Thank you. Um I realized from my opening, uh, Remarks.

00:04:10,100	I forgot to mention that we do have a member, um, Julie Campbell is on, uh, is here with us virtually this evening, um, so she is present, um, and just so the members know that will mean we’ll have roll call votes when we take a vote. Um, and Julia, you, how are you doing in terms of hearing us? Yeah, I can hear great and thank you and we can hear you very well, so that’s good, um. All right.

00:04:30,800	Next up, we are, uh, fortunate to have our student representative, Anderson Kraft is here this evening to give us a report about what’s happening in some of the schools in our district. Uh, thank you for having me. Um, I’ll start off at the high school.

00:04:46,600	So last Tuesday, the high school hosted its annual winter art show and concert, the students were able to show off their art through showcases that the visitors were able to see. Following that, the band, jazz band, choir and harmony performed for the guests. Uh, last Saturday, the stuffer cruiser event happened. This is an event where people can donate toys to the Hamilton police station for the Shane Hospital in Boston.

00:05:07,170	And then for sports and clubs recently winter sports have begun where tryouts in first practices started the Monday after Thanksgiving. Many sports such as girls and boys hockey and wrestling will be combining with Marblehead for Aquaport and Salem. Our school is proud to have many clubs, but to highlight a few, we have Decca, student government, Science Club, Spanish Culture Club, robotics club and ping pong club.

00:05:27,270	Last week, Deer competed in the District 3 qualifiers, where I’m proud to announce that 108 students have qualified for the state conference. For the middle school, a middle school has many different clubs and intrameals that fit everyone’s liking. Some of the many clubs are the art club, junior, Honor Society, and Student council.

00:05:43,800	Some of the music clubs are chorale and jazz band that performed at the winter concert. The intramurals that are offered are basketball, dodgeball, and indoor soccer. apparently the middle school students are participating in a spirit week. Last night, the Winthrop 5th graders, um, band performed in the annual concert.

00:06:06,630	Tonight, Cutlers students have their winter solstice read aloud. Tomorrow after Bucher afternoon, Bucher has their Chas concert to end the week before we start our winter break. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you.

00:06:30,270	Um Anybody have questions for Anderson? Um, I, I don’t really have a question, but I did just want to comment on, I think you said 108 students are going from DECA onto the state. Is that correct? Um, thank you for highlighting that. That’s such an exciting program and that’s a huge number from our school. Um, thank you. Um All right. Anybody else have anything for Anderson? No Thank you. Um It means a lot that you come and get this report.

00:06:51,630	It’s really important for us to get to hear it straight from the students and it’s nice for that that of you to come. You are absolutely welcome to stay and you also are not required to stay.

00:07:07,700	We know that you probably have other things to do this evening, um, so it’s up to you and if you want to go. That would be OK. Thank you for having me. Thank you much appreciated. Thank you. OK. Um, Next up is our consent agenda, um, does anyone have any items that they would like to have held from the consent agenda. Um, all right, say none. Uh, David.

00:07:34,430	Uh, I moved to the Hamilton and Regional School Committee, accept the consent to gender as written in tonight’s. Um, agenda Second, seconded by Jan. Uh, there is no discussion on the consent agenda. We will do a roll call vote, starting with David Frankel. Yes. Yes, David, yes. Yes, Amy. Uh, Dana Ziaz Trent, Julia. Yes.

00:08:03,270	And that is unanimous, uh, and the motion passes. Uh All right. Next up we have some fall, um, athletes to recognize and Mr. Genu Waldo, I think it’s to you. Thank you so much, uh, good evening and happy holidays to everybody.

00:08:30,100	Thank you for allowing us to highlight, um, some of our fall athletes here. Who are either on teams that did exceptional things with themselves that individually exceptional things, um, but all of them are part of wonderful groups and I think we had maybe 35 to 40% of the school participating in fall sports, so, uh, it’s a great way to kick off the year.

00:08:49,170	We had tons of good stuff to happen. We’re hoping to highlight that for you tonight. A lot of kids had practice or different things tonight, so they’re off doing their winter stuff, but, uh, we’re grateful for the ones that are here and we’re gonna highlight everyone whether they’re here or not, um, and some of the best stuff that

00:09:04,600	we’ve done over the last few months, um, the first team, uh, that we would like to, so I’m gonna go on a order just to kind of build suspense, um, but, uh, uh, the first team would like to highlight is the girls’ volleyball team, um. With captains Eva Day and Busy Island.

00:09:25,970	They made the Sweet 16, um, they took Ipswich to the brink. They, they lost the Ipswi who won their 4th consecutive state title, but, uh, if you look at the state tournament scores and all that stuff, they pushed them further than any other team they played.

00:09:40,800	So it was quite a year for them, um, so congratulations to all of them, uh, with highlights to Captain Ava Day and Busy Island. Um, the second team would like to acknowledge is the football team who won their 2nd Thanksgiving Day game in a row, um, captains were Martin Baum, excuse me, Jack Cook, Kayden McCollum and Caden Schrock with Caden Trock, uh,, 1000 yard

00:09:59,730	rusher being a first team All-Star. Uh, would like to next go to the field hockey team, uh, who had their 2nd best record in 15 years, um, they had a wonderful season, uh, with a brand new coach, um, who did a great job.

00:10:21,900	Uh, and their captains were Samantha Nevins, Skyler Murphy, Emma Ryan, and Rowan Sheckels. Um, they played a state tournament game down in New Bedford. They didn’t play New Bedford, but it was out in New Bedford and, um, they were a low seed against a much higher seat and they almost pulled it out. I think it was like 2 to 1 and they almost scored at the end.

00:10:35,800	It was really exciting. Um, the next team would like to honor is the boys soccer State tournament team who made the Sweet 16 for the 4th year in a row, uh, their captains were. Andre Greberio and Nick Stein.

00:10:53,900	Uh, excuse me, Andre Guberrio and Kayle Clark Goldfeld in their first team Cape Ann League All-Stars with Andre Guririo and Nick Stein, um, they two had a wonderful year, uh, moving on, the next team would like to highlight is golf, uh, golf was the Cape Ann League regular season champions for the 2nd year in a row, Senior Cooper Miller was the Cal player of the Year, and he was

00:11:10,600	a Kal All-Star, and he was a captain along with Kim McIntosh. Um, so now we’re, we’re on the first page here. Uh, the next thing we’d like to on out that’s getting really long, uh, because these teams that are really, really good job, um, the next thing we’d like to honor is girls soccer.

00:11:29,730	Who 4 years in a row you won the Cal 5, yeah, I knew it was a lot. Um, 5 years in a row, they won the Cape An League, pretty incredible. I don’t think they’ve lost a regular season game, um, in like 600 years or something.

00:11:43,170	I don’t know, it’s been forever, uh, especially in the league, um, they were the State Final Four and runner-up, um, and this senior class, all the seniors that played, if you look at their kind of 4 years, they had 2 final 8 appearances, a Final Four, state finals.

00:12:03,900	Um, in a state championship, and that’s pretty incredible run, uh, pretty dominant over those four years, um, Waddell was the Cape and League coach of the Year again, um, just off the presses found out about 20 minutes before walking in. She’s also the Boston Globe coach of the Year, not the first time that’s happened.

00:12:21,530	Um, so congratulations, coach, really grateful for you. um, thank you for being here. um, also some of the kids that did some great things this year, Georgia Wilson was the Cape An League Player of the Year, uh, had quite a season.

00:12:36,100	She’s a heck of a track athlete, so you’re gonna be hearing her name again in the coming seasons. Uh, first team Cape An League All-Stars, Georgia Wilson, Annie Moynihan, Savannah Goran. And and he’s an exceptional case, um.

00:12:54,070	She was an offensive player, mostly and sacrificed a lot of who she was as a player and and all kind of the glory that goes with scoring goals and all that stuff to move back to fill in for other players that were injured. She’s an incredible, incredible young lady, and, uh, you know, she’s one of the reasons why we were able to make it to the state finals despite losing some really talented kids to injury.

00:13:08,530	Um, the captains were Sadie Gamber, who’s at basketball practice, probably Tessa Hunt, Annie Moynihan, and Matty Wood, who’s going on to play in college as well, um, I think that’s them, um, the Boys Cross Country team, members of which are here, um, and we’re excited for you to be here. Thank you. um, I often see them.

00:13:26,500	I’ll be driving home and I’ll, you know, be tired from a long day, and I’ll be about 2 miles into my drive and I’ll just see them running along and I don’t know how, like if I had to drive as long as they run, I think I’d need a nap.

00:13:40,100	Um, they’re quite impressive young men, um, they won the Division, well, they won the Cape Ann League title. They also won the dual, uh, league as well as the open invitational at the end where the large and small participate, they were division 3 be champions.

00:14:01,000	Which is essentially like the old eastern mass stuff, um, and they were the division 3 state runner-up. Now the ironic thing about that. Is the team that they competed against that actually won the state title for Division 3 was so dominant that, um, The top two scores, the team that won in our team.

00:14:20,800	The scores were relatively close and you looked at like the 3rd place team and they may as well have not even ran. It was so, I mean, they just blew them out of the water.

00:14:36,270	I think their score was so good, they would have won the Division 2 state title had they not competed against this one team, uh, with really kind of strange looking green Mohawks, but we’ll give them credit because they won and they’re really good. Um, but on our team, uh, Ben Rich was, uh, the Cape in League Runner of the Year, as well as the individual division 3B champion.

00:14:53,270	meaning he came in first in Division 3B, uh, out of, I don’t know how many schools that is, but it’s a whole lot Um, so Ben, congratulations, man. Um, some of the other, uh, Coach Sawyer won Coach of the Year, if you ask him how many times he’s one coach there. He also won Globe coach of the Year, which for any coach would be a once in a lifetime accomplishment.

00:15:09,000	I asked him the other day, he goes, I don’t know, it’s, I, I said, is it over 20? He said, yeah, probably. So to him, it’s no big deal to anyone else it’d be like an achievement of a lifetime to do it once. Um, Thank you, coach.

00:15:22,100	I appreciate you you know that, um, it’s the best part of my day when he comes in at 2 o’clock and just sits down and we just start talking about who knows what, um, the Cape Ann League All-Stars for the Boys Cross Country team, Ben Rich, James Regan, Cole Regan, Seth Glidden, and Clark Glidden, um, some of you that are seniors that have

00:15:38,270	been around for a while we’re gonna miss you quite a bit, um. Quite a bit. It’s fun seeing you in school and it’s fun seeing you run around, so thank you for all that you’ve done. I really appreciate it. Um, and the captains were Ben Rich, James Regan, and Clark Lynn.

00:15:52,000	Now, one of the things, uh, if you could click on that note, who’s ever doing the screen here. Sometimes, um, we strive to win and we want and we honor our state champions and we honor the teams that do well.

00:16:10,600	What’s way more important to us is how we go about our business, um, whether we went a, whether you win or lose in high school is completely irrelevant in my opinion. I honestly, I, you’ll never hear me use the word win once if you look at our handbook, it says success. I don’t think the word wind should exist in high school sports.

00:16:26,070	Um, stuff like this, if you notice, so you get a picture of the scene, right? It’s a long day. These guys have been working for 4 years to achieve a goal that’s never happened in school history, right? And they just ran the race of a lifetime and lost to just a juggernaut of a team.

00:16:39,900	It’s late, it’s cold, uh, it’s emotional, um, for some of them, their careers are have finished for some of them, their older brothers are gonna be going on to college, and this is the first realization that their older brothers who they love and care about aren’t gonna be there.

00:16:56,000	It’s an emotional time when you could imagine people kind of thinking of themselves a little bit, right? And kind of having a moment for themselves. Well They do the podium stuff and all that, and they take the picture of the number one team up there and. All of our guys run over to the other team.

00:17:12,170	And just individually hug them and say congratulations and in that moment that selfless moment is everything that we strive for, uh, we probably don’t reach that kind of heights very often because that was special, but that’s what we look for.

00:17:29,730	And so their coach had their whole team signed this letter, uh, for those that are home that may not be able to see it, it says Coach Sawyer and Boys Cross Country wanted to reach out and congratulate you on an outstanding season. You guys in your elite team, an all-time team has demonstrated by your performances all season.

00:17:43,470	Thank you for setting the bar so incredibly high and pushing our team to places. We weren’t sure what possible after the race, you were full of class and high character, and we hope that you are extremely proud of your season. You’re the best team our team has ever faced. Um, This stuff means a lot.

00:18:03,800	Uh, and it’s special, and so I’m incredibly grateful for coach who certainly had a hand in that even though he’ll never say he did, uh, but for how you acted in that moment, that, that stuff is legendary. So thank you very much. All right, uh, yes.

00:18:26,330	Uh, and then we have members of the Girls Cross Country team who I think Girls Cross Country has won the league 19 out of 20 years, uh, which is mind boggling. They were also Division 3 B champions. They were regular season Dumi champions. They were end of the year, Cal Open champions. As La Belle, who’s here, um, was the Cape In League Runner of the year.

00:18:44,470	Like I said, Coach has his boxer plaques for coach of the year. He doesn’t even know where they are, but he was coach of the year again, ho-hum, um, rinse and repeat, uh, the Cape In League All-Stars for the girls team was Grace Rich, Ace La Belle, Charlotte Madden.

00:19:01,530	tell you Labell Annelise Abers, I hope I said all those names right, and the captains were Charlotte Madden, Sarah Elmedia, and Sophia Happel. They went to the, um, They went to the all-state championships the same day as the boys, and they won, and they didn’t just win, they absolutely left the other teams in the dust.

00:19:19,170	They were first by like 100 miles. They had a million runners cross early and finish and it was, it was over before the race was halfway through. Um, it was an incredible day to watch both of your teams, but that was something special and you guys, I know, you know, To just think, oh, what do you do after school?

00:19:37,500	Well, I go running and we all know that it’s not just that, right? You’re doing hills, you’re doing all kinds of silly’s hills or whatever they’re called and all kinds of stuff, uh, that I don’t even understand, but, um, you guys are special and so thank you for a wonderful, wonderful

00:19:52,900	season, um. And that’s it. And, uh, on behalf of all these kids and their captains and their coaches, thank you for allowing us the space to celebrate this with you, to celebrate wins, to celebrate leadership and to celebrate, uh, things that we strive for every day, so thank you.

00:20:17,730	Thank you and thank you for sharing all of that with us. It’s so meaningful to have to get to see in detail. The way that Hamilton Wenham is getting represented out there on our athletic fields, um. And that was really touching and um. Let anyone else, um. Mr.

00:20:43,330	Tracey, do you have anything to say? Mhm Sure, it’s always fun for me as each of these seasons begins and end that you see all the, the amazing things that occur along the way, the coaches who support our athletes, our student athletes, um, throughout the year, and it just keeps happening over and over and the commitment is

00:21:00,070	obvious, the hard work is obvious, and it’s great to uh see the power of Hamilton Wynham both inside and outside of school representing us all over, uh, basically all over the state now that the state has moved all these tournaments all over the place, but Thank you all.

00:21:15,530	Congratulations to each and every one of you and your teams and your families because it’s a great opportunities. So thank you. Thank you, um. I don’t know if the group is willing, it would be great if we could get a picture, um, if you guys are willing to all come up, what do you think right here? Yeah, we

00:21:32,470	can do wave your hands before these lights go off, and, uh, so if you’re willing, uh. Come on up. Take a picture. Any Uh Let’s get our get our coaches come out. Come Or or we’re getting out of the way I’m sure. I OK. Right No. Right the rest of the world.

00:22:57,800	OK But Thank Oh I see. I shake my head every day. Yeah. and me both. Well All right. Where are we? Compliance. All right. Well, that was A lot more fun maybe than the rest of the meeting, but, um. All right Um All right. Next up, Uh To you, Mr.

00:23:44,700	Tracy, for MSBA initial compliance certification. Thank you and as we announced in an earlier meeting, we have been invited once again by the state, uh, Massachusetts School Building Authority into their accelerated repair program for the high school roof, finally, after I think 7.

00:24:05,270	6 or 7 years of trying to get um the, the roof on the repair list. We have finally been invited in to the process. This letter, um, is very similar to the one we just did for the, the, uh, school building, uh, elementary school building, and just outlines that, um, We’ll follow the rules of the MSBA.

00:24:26,530	We’ll make sure we hit all of the deadlines, um, and then we will work with in collaboration with the MSBA through the entire process, um, And basically following their, their, they have a very prescribed process of, uh, that’s very similar to the elementary building process where you have, um, we start the process on January 2nd.

00:24:48,430	It’s the official kickoff date for this project and then it’s a number of months of, um, you, you bring on board a designer and an architect, excuse me, a project manager and an architect who’ll do the design work that.

00:25:09,870	Basically assigned by the state in this process because it’s a, it’s a a truncated process. It’s really much faster than the school building project, um, so. This basically outlines our commitment to them that we’ll follow the rules and we’ll do all the things, um, that are related to um the expectations of the MSBA and essentially uh Dane and I ended up signing it somewhere here on the bottom.

00:25:30,000	It’s quite a lengthy. For, um, down in the bottom. And there are 2 signatures that um I signed because I signed as a regional school district, they require the chief executive officer and the superintendent in a regional school district, so it happens to be the same person, um, and then Dana would

00:25:48,170	need approval to sign, uh, on behalf of the district. Uh, we don’t know the full length of the process yet because, uh, we will, uh, Curtis Whiteman is managing this process, our, our, uh, facilities director. He’ll be meeting with the contacts through the MSBA to start determining.

00:26:07,000	Um, some of the essential things like what’s a good number to put in for the estimate for just the design work. What’s a good number to put in for the estimate for what you pay the project manager, and then it’ll go from there.

00:26:23,000	So he’ll continue through that process and we’ll bring those numbers back to the committee as we get them. Right Um Uh Trying to think whether we want to start off with a motion for me. Um the motion would be authorized. That’s the word I was looking for, um. David, would you be willing to start us off with a motion Eric. and I.

00:26:55,530	Uh, I moved at the Hamilton and Regional School Commission, uh, school committee. Authorize, uh, Superintendent Tracy and Dana Lara to Um Apply for the MSBA initial compliance certification approval. Um, as presented in tonight’s meeting agenda. Do we have a second? 2. Seconded by Amy, um, all right, uh, do people have questions? Oh, Julia, no. No, I don’t have a question.

00:27:35,070	OK, David, do you have a question? Yeah, I’ve had some advice in the past that MSBA is not necessarily the most cost effective route. Um, it may be, I’m not saying it isn’t, but uh I wonder whether we shouldn’t get, um, A major roofing contractor to give us a comparative number that doesn’t come through the specification

00:27:55,530	restrictions and other Loadings that the MSBA tends to put on projects. Because I, as I understand it, it’s just a replacement for the roof, not a.

00:28:16,730	Not necessarily a newly designed roof or am I misunderstanding what the we would remove the current roofing materials and replace the the entire roof with up to-date materials, and there’s also now an option. Uh, to have your building solar ready, so if you want to put solar panels on the building, they, they are paying a fairly substantial cost of the of the solar readiness, if you will, um, and again, we don’t know what the reimbursement would be because

00:28:35,270	we don’t, we don’t have any numbers yet, but because they’re only inviting us in, they have not agreed to say, yeah, we’re gonna work with you, yeah, we still have to go through the first stage, which is about 4 months long, January, uh, 2nd till I think April 2nd.

00:28:50,270	And then we’ll go through the process of Vetting, uh, people to give us some, some idea of what these things will cost us. OK, yeah, OK. it. Just to follow up to that, um, At what point in, so the, the designer and the project manager, um, at what point in time? Do those individuals enter the process,

00:29:16,470	is that before the quote phase, or is that the phase and the project starts before because they’ll like the building project, they’ll do the design, they’ll they’ll actually design the, the roof with the material and And um Enhancements like solar readiness, then the then would see a cost.

00:29:38,370	So the designer would do. The actual Initial cost layout for us. Very similar to the school building projects like. Here’s an estimate, then they’ll do the kind of real, here’s the real number, and then they move forward from there. And then the project managers manages the project for us. They don’t.

00:29:55,900	So, so those are essentially sunk costs before we know what the cost of the project is. Correct, correct, just like the, the Elementary school project we had to have uh 1.2 million approved ahead of time for the 1st 4 phases. Of the process, well, 5 actually of the process.

00:30:15,100	So this is very similar. You’d have upfront costs for a designer and OPM. And then they would give you an estimate. And at that right around that same time, you get the um reimbursement rate from the state.

00:30:33,330	Do we know what that reimbursement rate has looked like historically, like, do we have a ballpark? So 39 in previous projects I did not know that, yeah. Yeah, it, it eligible costs again. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not an exact split. Kind of what made me ask the question was I’d had some roofing expert.

00:31:00,800	Give me their ballpark at a couple million dollars to replace that roof, and I know that we, the formal estimate that you got previously was 5. And the difference was the choice of materials and the labor involved with the more expensive materials.

00:31:21,330	But the roofing expert claimed, and I’m not a roofing expert, that, that, uh, that was an unnecessary premium and those kind of roofs would normally be used on a pharmaceutical factory or or something that was different in purpose and not on the school. So I’m just throwing up that caution flag that we may be over may end up overengineering. Um, and, and Paying more than we would um With or without the subsidy.

00:31:41,100	And I think, I think it’s part of the process like learning about what the options are, you know, I think, I don’t know what it was done 28 years ago or something. It, it, they selected that a white material that is Uh, substantially more expensive than a regular roof.

00:31:58,170	I think they thought it would be long longer lasting. I’m not sure I wasn’t around when that decision was made, but yeah, I think we could definitely look at those options like same with the building, like, oh, what if we did this, what if we did that, so.

00:32:11,100	It’ll be the same similar process, just much more truncated. Fair enough. OK, other questions? Discussion I just, I just wanna just make sure everybody understands we’re, we’re not, we don’t have an agreement. This does not. Bind us to the MSBA just says, yeah, we’re willing to work with you.

00:32:36,170	So we’ll go through the first, um, kind of Check boxes from January 2nd to April 2nd. And through that timeline, if we meet the the the things that we need to do, then they would make a decision to say, OK, we’re gonna work, we want to work with you. So just, it’s not guaranteed yet.

00:32:52,600	It’s just, it’s just uh we’re just letting them know that we’re interested in pursuing the process project. My understanding is this is mostly, mostly committing. Us or you to jumping through a lot of hoops mostly that’s at this, at this point that’s what we’re committing to. Ready? That’s what we’ll be doing all next week and the week after. Boop jumping.

00:33:17,270	Right, um, anybody have anything else? On that one, no, it’d be just nice not to have a leaky roof. Say it again. It’d be nice not to have a leaky roof would be nice not to have a leaky roof, especially that one. OK, looks like we are ready to vote. Uh, I’m gonna start with you, Julia. Yes.

00:33:35,330	T Yes Dana’s, yes, Amy. David, David, and that is unanimous, um, of all members present and the motion passes. OK. Uh, next up, we have um 2 Calendars to look at. The first is a revision of this, the 25, 26 calendar, which Has been previously approved, um, and this I’m gonna let um Mr.

00:34:10,070	Tracy speak to the revision. Excuse me. Thank you. The, um, As you know, through negotiations, we had changed our Wednesday schedules and um had to readjust the, the school year accordingly, uh, as well as on the calendar.

00:34:31,600	It just gave us a good opportunity to look at the calendar itself through the negotiations, not only the Wednesdays became kind of a new thing for us, we’re moving 3 out of 4 off of the calendar, the um parent teacher conferences are uh now built in there, there are 2 during the day, 2 half days, um, October and November, I believe they are um Uh, also, there’s also a

00:34:51,700	night, uh, opportunity for parents who, uh, work during the day, so those were added in, they were not in here, uh, before this, and then, uh, we tweaked, um.

00:35:10,900	I think in the previous We actually did in the previous change, we moved graduation so that it was within the 12 days from the original last day of school. Um And then the final thing, the um Peace we’re still working on in the change of the Wednesdays we’re trying to Uh, figure out in working with the state, whether lunch will be served on that. Early release Wednesday because now the elementary kids would be getting out.

00:35:34,000	A full hour and a half early 90 minutes earlier than they would have, which uh makes serving lunch and doing classes difficult because it takes about, uh, about, about an hour and 40 minutes to, to get all the classes through lunches. Um, so we’re just waiting, uh, Alai Burns and I met.

00:35:52,100	We are looking at contract implications with our, uh, food service workers, but we’re also working with the state to try and figure out whether or not we have to, um, Offer lunch or not, uh, high school is easier, they’re getting out later, so there’s more time in the, in the day to do it.

00:36:08,330	um, so basically the opposite happens high school. Um would probably have the time for lunch, and if worst games comes to worst, we end up doing something like a bag lunch, but we just haven’t gotten confirmation from the state of what we need to do.

00:36:24,800	So once we do, I will, uh, let people know and just update that on the calendar. OK, um, you, uh, done. Well, the parent-teacher conferences just be for the grade schools. Still no conferences for middle or high school. Correct, yeah, correct.

00:36:46,170	Um, and those parent-teacher conferences, I, I just though there are a whole day, correct? OK, so. It’s early release. So I guess I just, this is really just I want to make sure for clarity of the document. Mm So, it, it, I don’t know that it is explicit on the document, like in the middle. I can’t highlight it cause it will highlight.

00:37:14,730	So it says early release schedule, no one’s sure, that’s the part where we’re still playing with uh. Everything under that isn’t considered early release. These are the What we worked out during negotiations. I, I think we’re fine. I think the, I just wanna say that I.

00:37:36,630	I’m a little, so like where it says, Uh Where you are, I think it says October 28th and November 4th parent-teacher conferences, elementary only. I think that’s clear that it’s early release. But I’ll tell you on first blush when I looked at it, I just looked at the, you know, PTC is in red, and so I went over to the Key PTC.

00:37:53,230	It just says parent-teacher conferences, elementary only. So you think of it sad, like elementary only early or or something. I, that’s just. I just want I’m just talking. I’m not actually talking about the actual schedule, just about the clarity down here at the bottom.

00:38:10,500	Yeah, well, I’m just like it makes it quite clear, I think the way it’s written right now, it’s quite clear if you had a high school student, you would be clear that they would be going to school that day.

00:38:22,000	But if you had an elementary school student, I’m not 100% sure that you’d know it was a half day unless you or early release day, excuse me. I don’t know, just a thought, even though it’s listed above it is listed, that’s just my thought. I don’t know, I understand what you mean because I think in the parentheses where where it says. Elementary only. Early release Down at the bottom section.

00:38:43,530	I’m not sure. Anybody else chime in with what they think makes it clear. I do what you do. I would have looked at the grid first and felt like PTC was just a day off.

00:38:58,900	So I know it’s, we can’t really fit PTC slash ER in the grid, but is there some way to And it could be try that, I don’t know. I guess we could there’s room at the last day of school, we do that like 180 slash LD so I wonder if we could do. PTC slash ER with an asterisk note that it’s only for elementary school was gonna fix it, I’d fix in the key.

00:39:19,230	Yeah the parent teacher conference early release elementary only. I think that works because the schools are really good about communicating, you know, what the day is gonna be like I wanna emphasize, I do think that Amy’s right that the schools are really good. I actually don’t really have.

00:39:36,270	Visions that, you know, on the day of that. Parents and guardians would be confused. I’m more thinking like when someone is planning out the year, so, you know, if they’re looking at it months in advance, they might think that is an entire day off from school, but

00:39:50,630	we can add that. Um We’ll add that in. Sorry. No, no, I’m sorry, we’ll do it on both because there’s actually a second calendar that’s set up the same I think especially where it’s new, like parents will need to get used to that, um. Um Did anyone else have questions? I don’t think so.

00:40:13,100	In the, I just want, I will. Um, once I figure out the lunch served, no lunch served, we’ll add that to the calendar.

00:40:29,100	We just need to, we need to verify what’s the state’s expecting, and I guess this is not really a calendar related but just I’m gonna throw in my View is I, I do have a concern. I’ve shared this already with, um, Eric. I do have a concern if we don’t have a legal obligation to serve lunch. I do have a concern at the high school level. Um, and maybe the bag lunch is the answer.

00:40:50,900	You’re gonna have certain, some students at the high school who are going to be staying. Because of sports and I don’t, I’m concerned like I’m not so concerned about elementary students leaving at 11:15.

00:41:09,330	Without eating because they’re gonna be leaving, but if you’re a high school student who’s needing to stay, I wouldn’t, I, I do have a concern about making sure they have something to eat my conversations with, it’s more than likely the high school kids would be served because they literally come in, get what they want and leave. So it’s much easier and that looks like that could look like a bag lunch. I’m comfortable with it looking different.

00:41:24,730	I’m just not comfortable with kids who’ve got to go to sports practice, maybe not having. And we, we still, we still have to, um, I think, I think it’ll end up that because the high school kids are here.

00:41:40,600	To noon time that we’ll have to serve something at the high school level, just our question is specific to the elementary swap in in time to follow up on that, um, If, uh, family’s food insecure, and that’s Their lunch, then not getting it even at the elementary level could be.

00:42:06,870	And that would probably be um Obviated by the bag launch solution, right? And we, we, we would, you know, similar to breakfast. Sign up, we’ll have it available. I think that will probably end up making sense for some families because we had that, we had that conversation with some of the people from Accord.

00:42:23,800	OK, how do we, how do we, there are a number of families that are food insecure and have that, um, consistent requests for, OK, I need my kid to have lunch, so we, we can, we can do it because it sounds like lunches will still remain free in, in the future, I hope, but. You know, we can, we can definitely put that together. Now that we’ve learned the routine with breakfast.

00:42:42,530	Um, Eric, is there any way to indicate either when final exams are occurring for the middle school and high school or when the semester is ending. Middle and high school? Um Yeah, we could have them set it. The exams for the high school are always a week of Martin Luther King.

00:43:01,800	We can, because that is the, usually the end of that week, which on this calendar is the 23rd is the final day of the first semester. That’s, that’s generally how It works. OK. I just know I always have to ask my daughter when they are.

00:43:20,100	Yeah, the dilemma you run into is the middle school is a trimester and the high school is a quarter, so they published their own. Actual dates. OK. We’re worried about how messy the calendar could get, like how much stuff the calendar could get, like how much stuff we the calendar could get, like how much stuff we could the calendar could get, like how much stuff we could um.

00:43:35,370	I I just have one more question. Is that, um, I know per I’m believe this has occurred, but I know for our um Our teacher contract that that Um, union has or looked at this calendars that you’ll see tonight have been presented to Nick. He has given us some feedback.

00:43:55,530	Our principals have given us feedback. Yep Um Right. Uh, I don’t think we have a motion on the table, do we? No, we don’t. Um Uh, I moved up the Hamilton Regional School District school committee, excuse me, a vote on the revised 2025, 2026 school year calendar as presented in tonight’s exhibit. Second.

00:44:24,630	Vote to approve, right? What did I say? 2 vote on I heard, I heard a friendly amendment there sorry about that. Um, all right, uh, do we have a second? Uh,, 22 by Amy. Um Or any further discussion? OK, uh, let’s, uh, start with you, Trent. Yes. And yes, Amy. Yes, David, David Julia. Yes.

00:44:59,900	And that is unanimous of the 7 members present, and the motion passes. And now on to 2020. 627. That seems like a really long time for me. Yeah, it, it’s actually, it’s actually a requirement of the teacher contract to have two schedules out there and I think Nick and I both understand that that this one

00:45:23,370	will probably change along the way as we move forward, but, um, we wanted to have it drafted and ready to go. It represents the same. Um Adjustments that we made on the previous calendar, um, we, we, we feel like we got everything, uh, similarly, and again, the, the lunch piece will, will change

00:45:41,630	as soon as we get some information back from the state. This is why I messed up that last one, because I was actually entering Dante’s day of graduation into my calendar. And this graduation day actually moved back to June because it would have fallen in the the holiday weekend.

00:46:05,470	Oh, on Labor Day we can, um, Memorial Day. Um Alright, so is there any, do you have people have questions, comments about this calendar? No. Um, I assume the. similar comment about the making clear about the parent-teacher conferences would be, yeah.

00:46:37,470	Um All right, David, do you wanna have a motion? Sure, I moved at the Hamiltonum Regional School Committee vote to approve the 2026, 2027 calendar as presented in tonight’s. Uh, exhibit Second, seconded by Jen. Uh, are there any questions or discussion? No. Alright, seeing none, uh, I’m just mixing it up. Uh, let’s start with you, Jen. Yes, David. Uh, yes. Maybe yes, Trent. Yes. Julia.

00:47:14,370	Yes, David Franco. All right, and that is unanimous in the motion passes. Thank you for that work, uh, Eric and to the leadership team to figure all that out. All right. So for the next 10, I’m sorry, yes, next is the um NEC annual report.

00:47:41,530	As everyone probably remembers, I am one of 20 members of the board for the North Shore uh Education Consortium. They are the group that um Works with schools, districts, both members and non-member districts to, um, help to manage some of the more difficult cases that we run into with our students with disabilities.

00:48:05,600	This is their annual report, their required to publish it out to the districts and they just asked that we, uh, give it to our school committee members, so this is their annual report from last year. I just wanted to make sure it was on the agenda. Um, lots of good information, there are currently, I think 500 kids, approximately 50.

00:48:19,470	front of kids in that program, of which we are, we are members and we have, um, right now I think we have 12 kids in that program. Um, it fluctuates through the air. It could, it’s based on, uh, need, specific type of program, and, uh, seat availability. So just a little interesting reading. It’s a, it’s a great program for us.

00:48:39,800	It gives us a break on out of district costs. As a member, you get about approximately 20%. Uh, reduction in the cost of these, uh, specialized programs. And um For us, it, it’s, it’s been been helpful in some Difficult cases. OK. Anybody have questions? No, this is a really nice piece. Yeah a lot of info.

00:49:05,370	Thank you. Right? Um, right, uh, moving right along. Uh, next up, as we discussed at our last meeting there, we had an opening on the um policy subcommittee. Um, and I, uh. Only heard from uh one person who said they were interested in that position and that was David Polito.

00:49:35,900	Um What I would be looking for, um, is any other, any nominations. Or anyone who would be I guess we would need a nomination for David or for anyone else. would be interested in filling the position on the policy, what led to the opening somebody. One member who was on the policy subcommittee stepped back from the policy committee.

00:49:58,170	Julia. OK, thank you. I move that David Palio take the 3rd seat on the policy subcommittee. 2nd. All right. As a technically need to nominate him. I nominate David Palio for the 3rd position on the policy subcommittee. Second, um, David, would you accept the nomination? Sure, I’ll accept it. All right.

00:50:20,870	Do we have any other nominations for anyone else or anyone who would like to throw their own hat into the ring. Can I have a ques uh just ask a question, David, how many? Subcommittees are you on at this point? Um, I’m.

00:50:39,800	I agreed to do this because negotiations is basically over at this point, but and you’re, you’re feeling, you’re feeling good about that decision? OK. Yeah, no, that’s, I asked before I get it myself. Yeah, yeah, so David is currently still on the negotiations subcommittee. But barring unforeseen circumstances, that work is largely over. Um. For a little while. For the for the moment.

00:51:04,370	Um, well, that, that, that does imply that the only thing that, that, uh, the negotiating subcommittee negotiates his union contracts. No, other things could occur. No, that could happen. Yeah, well, outside of Labor shouldn’t it also be involved in, in substantial transaction negotiations as well.

00:51:33,700	No, typically the negotiation subcommittee does all the collective bargaining agreements and any grievances that would occur related to any of those. Grievances, any of those contracts, any of those agreements. So it’s really more accurately a labor relations. Uh, negotiating subcommittee. Yeah, those are the things that, yeah. I didn’t understand that, yeah. enough. Um OK, so we had one nomination.

00:51:59,270	I didn’t see any others, sorry. All right, any discussion? Oh, I guess, yeah, OK. Um, and you already accepted, correct, that that you didn’t OK, um, so it looks like we’re ready to vote, um, Julia. Yes. Trent. Yes. yes, Amy. Yes, David, yeah, yes, David. All right.

00:52:28,730	um, and, uh, that is uh unanimous and the motion passes. Congratulations, David. um, and thank you for that. Um, Uh Amy, do you, does policy have a, I know that we’re just taking it out of order, but I just wanna, while we’re on it, policy you have a date on the calendar? No, we don’t. That’s my, that’s my responsibility.

00:52:49,330	I need to email everybody. Stay, yeah, so at our, our last meeting we we didn’t have a chair, but so Amy agreed just to take on the role of Scheduling the meeting, um, so to get the meeting going and then you can all make decisions about. That. OK.

00:53:12,000	Um All right, uh, moving on, uh, next on the agenda is, um, a topic that David Frankel asked to have added to this evening’s agenda. Um, it’s an energy assessment and I’m gonna Turn it to you, David. Thank you.

00:53:34,630	Um, yeah, what, what prompted this, what prompted me to start to look at um our energy consumption and and what we could do to I’m sorry, can you talk right in so that I can hear. me to to look at this was um Vinny last meeting pointed out that there was a 40% rise in our electricity rates, and I thought, well, that’s, that’s a worthy place to, to look to see is there something, anything we

00:53:52,530	could do to mitigate that. And uh so I tried to look at what we, what analysis we’ve had in the past, um, and. What I did find that I hadn’t been able to farm before with our previous facilities manager that was uh and I think it predated him.

00:54:12,330	Back in 2016, National Grid funded a study for for the high school and the middle school. Which is Substantial in size and there’s a very detailed, very technically, uh, complete kind of study to show where Improvements could be made and in fact a half a million dollars worth of investment improvements actually did take

00:54:33,870	place. And that explains how the high school, uh, has, has, uh, some Very good heating. And, uh, air conditioning and ventilation and uh CO2 controls and all kinds of Of capabilities. I wasn’t fully aware of. Um, it didn’t do that for the classrooms.

00:54:59,370	And of course, all of the other classrooms and buildings have not had this work done. What I then found out was a couple of things one. Is that the National Grid will actually fund a study, and they call this a comprehensive building assessment. Where they will um, Basically provided the funding for a an architectural engineering company.

00:55:24,470	Or an expert company in this field to come in and study each of the schools and produce this kind of report and the report will identify where there’s investments that make sense from an energy payback point of view.

00:55:45,730	Um It may also be the vehicle to end up with the kind of heat pump technologies or um energy recovery ventilators and the heat pumps could end up actually providing air conditioning. In effect, uh, in the summit. in the the edge of summer and that we, that we have difficulty with. Um And What else can I tell you about it? The, it’s a process that takes about 3 months.

00:56:08,100	I had a bit of a sense of urgency about it was that if we started it in uh engaged these people in January before the April votes of the towns we could have identified a capital projects.

00:56:29,630	That would uh would improve the environment of all of the students in all of the schools, uh, and that would leave open whether you did it in the existing elementary schools or whether that gets supplanted by the the new schools, although that still leaves a 4-year gap. Of not air conditioned and. And uh not improving the um, The energy efficiency. So I did have a motion.

00:56:48,800	Uh, to that effect and it and it reads this and I can provide David Polio uh with this digitally so you don’t have to try and type it. It’s, it’s a little longer than normal. Um, that the superintendent be tasked, With initiating an early January 2025 with National Grid funding.

00:57:09,630	Conducting comprehensive building assessments of all 5 schools with a view to creating capital projects in time for consideration in April 2025. It’s understood that these assessments are all fully funded by National Grid mass savings funds.

00:57:30,330	What I didn’t mention is that turns out that the other thing that Nat National Grid mass save provides us really significant um rebates. And uh and uh other forms of funding that that make the installation of these new technologies, uh, way, way cheaper than it would otherwise be there.

00:57:54,630	I only found that originally myself just installed a new heat pump at my home office and, and, uh, that heat pump was was $11,000 fully installed, 5000 of that came from Massa. So it’s not an insignificant subsidy, but there’s other tax breaks and so forth, and I originally, um, Eric knows this, uh, I wanted to put in a capital.

00:58:16,800	Um, capital request for doing some of this work, and I, as I dug in, I realized I didn’t know enough about what, what uh subsidies and and rebates and so forth were there in order to put a proper business analysis together. This would provide that. It doesn’t compel us to do anything. But it would give us a tremendous amount of valuable information.

00:58:34,270	To finish off what the the motion would be. Um These studies should provide the school committee and the superintendent with an evidence-based roadmap on ways to improve our utility costs, which have been given urgency by the 40% rise in electricity rates that Vinny raised at the previous meeting. That rate raise. I locked in for the next 3 years.

00:58:56,900	No replacement or update decisions on HVAC equipment should be made without these reports and their recommendations. All such update and replacement decisions should require a vote by the full school committee.

00:59:16,700	These are very significant investments, and I do understand there’s a fair urgency with one of the Um, the air conditioning units, I think, is it, Eric at the high school, something that’s on, on the verge of the one in the, um, library. And that would be an opportunity to swap in heat pump. The for context to both of the towns are putting in about $1.

00:59:39,530	6 million each into completely redoing their their HVAC systems, uh, which are going to be, I think in their case, geothermal pumps, which is the most expensive possible. Way to go. And, and they are getting the benefits of of um of some of this new technology and some of the, the, the rebates and, and other forms of, of uh economic assistance.

01:00:01,900	So that’s, uh, I mean, I have quite a bit of material that that um, The, the relevant national grid manager sent to me. Along the way, and basically I just read you a little bit of the studies typically take 3 months minimum to turn around. Hopefully they’ll be complete in time for the April town meetings.

01:00:24,370	The CBA study, CBA being um The comprehensive building assessments are fairly new and they are still being fine tuned. That being said, I was just advised by National Grid, you should be able to cover the costs of the studies without any contribution from the schools. So and we can include in that study the 3 elementary schools. So enough said um.

01:00:43,070	Any, any, any questions, or is it seconder for that motion, I guess is the. So, I’m not. I don’t Well, go ahead, you have a question. I don’t know what the motion is, but long and Well, I don’t, um, OK. So my first question is what exactly you’re looking to get done by April.

01:01:09,900	That the studies done and that we, we have an idea of uh that we could from that if it shows promise. Um, that we could put together a capital plan. Um, with the idea of putting it into Town meeting it could require a warrant. It might, might, it might be inexpensive enough, not even to require a warrant.

01:01:31,630	I don’t know until we do the study. Because we couldn’t put it in, I think we have to get our warrants in by January, right? If, if it, if it requires.

01:01:48,900	In other words, right, in other words, right, it has to be right if we’re done by April 3rd, that would be too close to town meeting to any event I’d love to be in the position, sorry, I’d love to be in the position where, um, Where there will be criticism that we’re not looking after the current students, any of them with the new building, you know, not till, there’s no benefit to any student till

01:02:11,170	2028 at best, and, um, and that may be a fair criticism that was, you know, yes, we, hopefully we’ll get a new roof. But there’s a lot of other things that could improve the state of Bucher could improve the state of the high school and the middle school.

01:02:30,730	Um, particularly their classrooms, so, um, I think that being so, I think we would be all um benefit from. From getting this study done. And then it gives you a foundation for capital planning, otherwise, I don’t even know how we would come up with a capital plan to improve the schools over the next few years.

01:02:53,970	Is there a cost to this study? No, it’s, it’s national grid funds the whole lot massive. What is, what is the, and I’m sorry, I know Jen has you go first. Jen has a question first the arm’s length cost is typically about 13,000 per school. I’m sorry, what’s $130,000 per school for for the study.

01:03:14,730	That, that’s what The National Grid would pay. The architectural firm or the, the consulting the study itself doesn’t cost money. And it doesn’t cost you money, but it does cost national grid money. OK and what was your question? Shouldn’t this go through the Capitol Projects Committee first.

01:03:41,970	That was like for these I was actually thinking that I, I remember a few years ago we got um presented a List of uh projects. Um You know, to go through our Um facilities that I could see this being a good fit for their sort of prioritizing where we’re going there I’m sorry, David, I can’t hear you. I’m, I’m sorry. um.

01:04:04,900	But, uh, a few years ago we were presented with a list of facilities, projects and sort of a, um, possible timeline on that, that, um, You know, hasn’t been updated in a few years and I’m sure, yeah, I can probably guarantee it’s on, um, the list of other things that he’s looking to be doing in

01:04:28,370	January, um, that I could see this being a really good, uh, fit for there, um, if it’s not already in the works, I because I would imagine that. You know, everybody is reacting the same way with that. Um, increase in Um Your cost on our on our electric bills on this new.

01:04:50,800	Updated contract, um. So I mean I like the idea, um, and. You know, but I, I, I think that’s the place where it actually goes. Excuse me, to fit into the larger timeline. Um Of facilities based. Um Capital projects mind is just shutting off as I’m speaking.

01:05:17,530	Yeah, that’s I think that’s what I was wondering about whether there first. Yes, so we, we’ll have the um Updated state of the facilities report, which is what you were talking about, that’ll be coming, I believe it’s in the 2nd meeting in January. That, uh, Curtis Whiteman is.

01:05:39,430	been working on, trying to put together, while also balancing, holding all the other things together like boilers. Um, point of order, um. We’re discussing, but I, is there a motion on the table? No, there isn’t a motion on the table, and I, and I guess I mean I tabled the motion.

01:05:59,900	I don’t think I, I think there wasn’t, I think you did read it, but I don’t think there was a second because I think you were kind of in the middle of everything. So I, if, if. Yeah. Someone is ready to second it, that’s great. I personally would need to hear it again and David Frankel can certainly read it. It’s his motion. There’s no.

01:06:18,900	Or you can whatever it doesn’t matter, um, that we can fully understand what the actual motion is. I, I, I can read it. I don’t mind. Want me to reread it? um. I moved to the Hamilton Regal School Committee.

01:06:45,070	Move that the superintendent be tasked with initiating in early January 2025, the National Grid funding conducting comprehensive building assessment of all 5 schools with a view to creating capital projects in time for consideration of April 2025. It is understood that these assessments are all fully funded by National Grid Massa funds.

01:07:09,100	The studies should provide the school committee and superintendent was an evidence-based roadmap on ways to improve our fertility costs, which have been um which have been given urgency by the 40% rise in electricity rates that, uh, Vinilone raised at the previous school committee meeting. That rate rise is locked in for the next 3 years. No replacement or update decisions on HVAC equipment should be made without these reports and their recommendations.

01:07:31,070	All such update and replacement decisions should require a vote, uh, by the full school committee, excuse me, these are significant investments. Yeah, we have a second? I have a question because I don’t know Robert’s rules.

01:07:54,500	If I’m going to make a friendly amendment, do a 2nd 1st, or do I make the friendly amendment first? You could go ahead and make a friendly amendment and it’s, it’s really David Frankel’s motion, so it’s up to him whether he accepts your amendment. So given the discussion around um the time frames required to make April. My friendly amendment would be to um give a outside date as opposed to an inside. So by June of 2025 or as an example.

01:08:19,100	I know that’s not technically a friendly amendment cause I didn’t give actual verbiage, but No, I think that counts. For the for the. Not, not for the initiation. Yeah, for the deliverables. Yeah. OK. Yeah. So yeah, I don’t wanna get too.

01:08:43,270	I mean, we want to have a real discussion, so I don’t want to get too bogged down in the Robert’s rules of it all that. motion. The that sort of deliverable date in the motion, I believe it’s. There was a friendly amendment saying. Would you be amenable to making. Yep. You’re saying the circumstances. OK, is there a second to the motion.

01:09:15,730	So now we have a motion on the table and now we’re discussing. So I’d like to Start if, if we can start with anyone who has just clarifying questions about the actual motion like, does anyone have clarifying questions before we get into an actual discussion. I clarifying questions. Um. I know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating.

01:09:40,170	There is no cost to the school district to undertake this study’s absolutely correct. And having the having had these studies done on residences, um, they run the gamut of making Suggestions around capital improvements to making suggestions around how to better insulate against heat loss and Heat entering buildings, right this is assuming the schools are being evaluated for air to water heat pumps, chiller, chillers, and

01:10:06,470	air to air heat pumps, mini squirts, RTUs. Uh, for these, uh, David, I’m David, I’m even geothermal ground source heat pumps, but that’s, that’s what the town halls are doing. They’re going the most expensive. pathway Which may not be what we want to do.

01:10:29,470	But there are, there are a bunch of alternative ways to, To deliver better heat and some air conditioning that we don’t have at all with, with a couple of rare to be within the four corners of the motion, that the idea is we would, it would be an assessment would provide.

01:10:53,000	Potential alternatives, potential suggestions and and the impact on electrical infrastructure internally and assess you know, something that Eric’s raised before, is there sufficient capacity, and if there isn’t, what, what can you do about that capacity and, and so forth. So it, it would just give us a factual. Uh, foundation from which to make capital suggestions, you know, money.

01:11:12,630	Concerned about putting it into the capital subcommittee, there is no capital. This is not a capital project. It’s something that would enable us to make capital subcommittee submissions, but we don’t know enough to do it.

01:11:33,900	And the facilities manager, I don’t think is necessarily an expert in this area himself the facilities, new facilities managed not necessarily an expert in this area either, probably could do with this kind of very detailed. And technical assessment, technical economic assessment because it, they, they go through all the economic trade-offs and, and, um, Uh, because it’s a complex multivari variable kind of problem. To solve. It’s not a static thing, you just sit and forget. Um Other questions, Julia.

01:12:07,530	Was the time commitment addressed based on each staff member that would be required to participate, you know, the principals, how many teachers, um, and the administrators and is this while school’s in session or is this something that happens, um, after school or on the weekends. questions. So I’m not sure.

01:12:29,370	I don’t think I understood her question Julia, let me try to paraphrase and you let me know if I’m missing the question. I think her question was, um, what sorts of um, Uh, timed. Does the staff need to spend in getting this assessment done.

01:12:52,430	So in other words, how many hours does is principles need to be doing? Is it during school? Do they have to, um, and you may not know the answers to all those questions I don’t know what my understanding would be, I doubt that it involves any of the teaching staff, uh, or, or, um, Uh, maintenance staff either.

01:13:13,730	You know, the, at a bare minimum there has to be some staff involvement who to help guide the assessor give them access to the building, you know, they, they know the equipment better than we do. Um, but it, I would imagine it would be the new facilities manager that would be the lynch point.

01:13:30,730	With, with the people doing the study and, and they, he would be providing them with access as they need it. Julia, could you hear that answer? Yeah, can you repeat that? Sorry, I was just a little garbled.

01:13:51,170	I think, and again, I think David is saying he does not know for sure, um, but that his feeling is that it’s likely some time commitment on the part primarily of the facilities manager, um, but it sounds like we don’t actually know. the facilities director, we don’t actually know. Um, the details about that, um, nor do we know, I would imagine, whether it would take place during the school day.

01:14:08,900	Yeah, yeah, some of them would I imagine because they’re looking at, at the room loads, peak loads, the, the, they’re looking at the At the schedule to see whether the, the current system, for example, don’t over ventilate when the rooms are not occupied. There’s, there’s a whole bunch of dynamics.

01:14:27,100	That go on and, and they’ll be looking at, well, how automated is that in the current system and, and what would be the benefit of automating further. We’ve got, we’ve got uh air ventilators, but they’re not energy recovery ventilators or how much. Would you save in energy by making them energy recovery ventilor.

01:14:45,630	So it’s That that’s a lot of that is looking, looking at what’s there, looking at the specs, maybe making a measurement, then coming back and, and calculating what the difference would be if they changed that equipment. And it’s just, it’s detailed work.

01:15:08,100	It’s, it’s kind of predictable engineering energy engineering work, so at this point I was still trying to make sure that we’re just asking questions to make sure people understand and there’s certainly room for discussion. I know both of you have Go ahead, Jen. So won’t this entire team have to be quarried and fingerprinted to come into our schools.

01:15:27,730	And who I mean I love the idea of the, the assessment by itself, assuming we don’t have to pay for it, but it seems like there might be a large number of extraneous charges getting added on pretty quickly Grid has teams set up specifically for this scenario. I don’t know. That, that would be my question is if they do.

01:15:48,000	Yeah, I mean other contractors we work with pay for their own. We do, we, we do the Cory checks. It’s, it doesn’t, there’s no cost to that to anyone. The fingerprinting the fingerprinting is The fingerprinting the fingerprinting is The fingerprinting the fingerprinting is what we had the the vendors that we use for

01:16:04,600	any of our utilities, plumbing, things like that are all, they pay for their own, um. And if it’s like a one time thing, you know, something blows out and they need to repair and then a maintenance man or a woman stays with them, the entire time. They don’t. can’t leave them.

01:16:20,170	Because of the way our policies read. By the way, I’m happy to make it a digital copy available to everybody of, of that past report of the high school and the middle school just to see. See what the um, What the detail is they go into. Um, try.

01:16:46,800	Um, I was just gonna ask, they look at all um electrical efficiency, right? So like, Are the lights sufficient, right? And, you know, whether the, whether there should be a swap out of if there’s still some incandescent or neon tubes versus versus um. LED arrays and so forth, yeah.

01:17:06,470	And when we had it done in our house, they gave us, like, here’s 50% off on the purchase of these. So I this is the same, this is that that same thing, right? Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s a really great service that they provide and and we, we, we help to fund that service actually because we, you know, we pay a percentage of our electricity bill to mass save.

01:17:26,370	And so this is a way to get some of it back and do something useful with it. I really like the idea, um. I just, I’m not comfortable with. bringing Um, I know we kind of discussed this already with the friendly amendment.

01:17:48,370	I just don’t want to bring extra, something extra to vote on it, town meeting when we’re not sure about the status of existing building projects anyway. So I agree with if we do something like this to kind of push the timeline a little bit so we once we know what’s going on. Uh, with our facilities. Yeah, no, I don’t want to. Force it, try to force it to a town meeting.

01:18:06,470	I was hoping that we could get something sufficient so that when the inevitable criticism comes that there’s not not enough being done for current students that we that we had done some diligence, due diligence, and are prepared for that discussion. In a constructive kind of way. Um, so, I want to give her, I do have a couple questions.

01:18:29,870	I’m actually gonna ask Eric a question. So, um, In January when our new facilities director comes and gives An update. Ah Like, what is this is the idea of an of an assessment, something that’s already on his radar, or is this the first time it would be something that Like, is that something that you’ve all.

01:19:01,730	Right. It’s literally been bombed, no, I guess that’s what I’m, I. That’s kind of part of my question is. I mean, I just offer a comment to help with this, uh, Vickyone, the, the town energy manager, um, is a resource that would, as from my understanding, we will come in and help him.

01:19:26,430	Uh, in this, that’s, that’s what her job is, you know, she’s helped put together the town hall things. And so I think there is, There’s legitimate concern that being new and there being a backlog of things in the facilities.

01:19:51,430	With the, you don’t want to drown the new manager, but I think there’s willing and, and very competent and qualified help that that could be brought to bear on this again without any charge to us.

01:20:04,000	Well, I mean, at the same time, I, I think I’m kind of, um, along the lines of where Dane is going here is, um, I would love to say to Curtis, this is something that we’re actually interested in and see where it fits in to his You know, projects, um, lists that he’s putting together right now, um, to have him presenting this um. You know, comprehensive list to us and then, um, sort of.

01:20:25,630	Even just saying, well, we’ll have someone else come in and do this for you, sort of superseding everything that he’s doing, I don’t think would be fair, um, in order to be fair just to throw it onto his agenda, um, with the timeline without knowing. Where he has anything else stacked up, um.

01:20:45,870	You know, but I, I do, I do agree that it’s a great resource that we should be, uh, making sure we’re taking advantage of, um, You know, and I have no problem sort of, um, saying that, you know, I’d like to have him add this to his list where he sees, um, where he thinks it makes the most sense, um, you know, understanding that, of course. You know, cost savings and efficiency is.

01:21:05,600	You know, of the utmost priority. In his position, so. But at the same time respecting that he is the expert that we’ve hired to do this. Go ahead. Are we still in question mode? No, I think we’re sounds like we’re moving to discussion. Go ahead. Yeah, discussion. I like the idea of doing the assessment, assuming it costs the school nothing.

01:21:33,370	But there’s a lot more in that motion than just saying let’s do an assessment. I think that motion, if what we’re going to vote on is whether we’re want to put it to Curtis to look at the possibility of doing this assessment.

01:21:59,000	That’s one thing, but there’s a whole list in that motion that Cause like above and beyond just sending out an assessment and some of it worries me because I do believe that it is meant to bypass how we normally handle capital projects. OK.

01:22:28,970	Um So I’m just going to jump in because I, I actually have a Similar concern about the specifically about the motion, um, that I do think that there was a lot more in the motion, uh, beyond just. Uh, the initial part of the motion, which I The initial part, which I sort of jotted down was to test the superintendent with. Um Initiating a a an energy assessment beginning in January 25.

01:22:52,430	Um There was a lot more after that in the motion, um, I’m certainly willing to um we’re having a discussion, but we do have a motion from a Robert’s rules point of view like that specific motion is on the table, so we need to discuss that specific motion. It does not mean that someone couldn’t afterwards.

01:23:11,070	Make a separate motion, another motion like that could happen after we discuss or a or a friendly amendment I all those things. I, I just wanted to echo just that like I shared concerns about the wording. Some of the Details in the motion. Um I don’t want other people have discussion.

01:23:39,370	Just um I think I think what I’m hearing is that people are comfortable with the idea of tasking the superintendent to direct the facilities manager to explore the feasibility of an energy assessment. Um, and to present a Uh, determination of, of the feasibility at a certain date in January or February or something like that.

01:24:08,270	That’s, that’s what I’m, I’m, I think I’m hearing, I don’t know if that’s accurate. No, I, I think that’s good because I think a good time to hear from Curtis about that would be at the state of the facilities report because, you know, he, he would have a chance to look at it.

01:24:25,870	And like figure it out, but you’d also have a chance to put it in order in terms of that and other facilities projects that we will find out need to be done because I’m sure they’re there. And like kind of where this falls.

01:24:48,700	In the process in his priorities yeah, his priorities and bandwidth because Again, I, I don’t want to take our facilities manager or anybody else who’s on the school, uh, On the school staff and say, OK, you have to do this if it’s not something that we’re going to act on.

01:25:10,870	And while I agree that it would be wonderful to have new ventilation systems in the schools. Last year, when we looked at capital projects, we were looking at capital projects that had to do with safety. Of the schools. And so, like, I think Colin, Colin. Curtis, Curtis. Sorry, I’m awful with names.

01:25:34,530	It’s probably the best person to like take this information and take the other information he’s collecting on the facilities and like put it in a more global perspective. Cause I, I just hate to do a project, an assessment that sits on a shelf. For another, you know, 2 or 3 years to the point that we have to have it redone in 2 or 3 years. I’m just laughing all the all these. I saved them all.

01:25:58,530	Um So other Is there other discussion about the motion that’s on the table. Yeah, the other thing is, uh, I think if it’s, if it’s uh referring it or tasking Eric, he would naturally choose how he wants to task his own team to do it and how he would interact with these.

01:26:24,970	With these um The consults at National Grid Fund. Um, so that would be obviously at his discretion. So I don’t know that the new facilities manager is an expert in this area anyhow. I hadn’t seen any. Any, uh Evidence of that one way or the other, actually. Is, is, is he expert in energy management and HVAC systems.

01:26:51,070	I wouldn’t, wouldn’t know that he is an expert. does have knowledge. He’s kind of a jack of all trades because of the, the issues that he has to deal with in our district. Let a plumbing, roofing. Concrete dirt. He’s into it all right now. Boilers right now.

01:27:11,500	Yeah, well, that’s You know, that’s why I think, you know, having some concentrated expert help would probably. doing him a service. Yeah, but he would still have to manage the project. Um. So I, I just wanted for my own discussion, I just wanted to say that. For me, my own personal discussion is that Trent articulated well.

01:27:32,170	But I where I am right now and I sort of wish that I had recorded that, so that, but I have but I have trying to express accurately, I believe. Where I Sort of see, and I think David sort of to get a little bit. I, I, the concept.

01:27:55,100	Of an energy assessment is something I am very open to. I am uncomfortable. Having, I think this, this conversation is really good to have in this meeting, I think, um. This is a good conversation. I’m glad we’re having it. I’m uncomfortable having a vote in this very first conversation. Saying for me.

01:28:24,870	You know, tasking Specific what specific dates and tasking. So I’m uncomfortable with that, um. You know, that’s just the technical term, by the way, is a comprehensive building assessment. Oh, it’s not energy assessment. It’s, it’s called a comprehensive building assessments. Um, all right, is there any further discussion and um.

01:28:48,100	And then we’ll, we can get moving to vote, because I know we still have a lot of other things. OK. Um, it looks like we’re ready to vote in our virtual member has actually um departed, so we are, um, 6 members and we are all in person now. Um, that’s correct, right, right, OK, um, so. All those in favor.

01:29:13,700	Reporting on the original motion I’m sorry, on the original motion that was moved and seconded. All those in favor? Those opposed. 23 That is uh 5 opposed, uh, those abstaining. All right, so that is, uh, Uh, 0 in favor, 5 opposed, 1 abstain. On the original motion and the motion fails.

01:29:44,630	Anyone have anything else to add? I’d like to make a motion. OK, Trent. I move that the school committee direct the superintendent. To task the facilities manager to assess the feasibility of undertaking a national assessment for the district and to report on the logistic and financial considerations of completing the assessment to the school committee. So OK, um, second by Jen, we’ll say, OK, um.

01:30:15,530	Does anyone need that motion repeated or did you feel like you got it? It’s, it’s a good motion, good motion. Um, clear, all right, um, did anyone have any questions about the motion? The discussion No, it was well stated.

01:30:38,700	Um, I just wanna make sure I understand what the expectation is that the idea is that um. That We would get back sort of a statement from the facilities director saying, yes, this is a good idea and here’s why da da da da da or these are the concerns, these are costs that are unanticipated, something like that, is that? Yes, that would be my, my goal with it.

01:30:59,800	The logistics being around the questions Julia asked, and then the financial considerations being around other unanticipated costs. Um Alright Um, anybody else have any questions? Eric, do you have any questions about that? No, not at this time. Um Alright. Anybody else have anything? You look pensive, Jen? Not sure that open this can of worms, but I’m gonna anyways.

01:31:38,270	Is this something. Eric or Vinny that you think. Calling No, I cut on my head. Curtis. Can handle with his current load that He already has on top of him because he’s starting a brand new job and we kind of threw him in the deep end.

01:32:03,900	At the current moment, I think it would probably overwhelm him, uh, maybe later on in the year. I’m sorry, are you talking about doing the assessment or making the determination about the I’m not really sure what would go involved in determining you could reach out probably figure that part out. OK and get that info to bring back. I think that’s, that’s.

01:32:23,170	I think that’s doable, the second motion. OK, that was my question. The actual assessment is pretty extensive. Yeah, no, I had it done at the house. Which is a from my point of view, it’s a good thing that’s extensive. Yeah, you’ve had it done before, so 2016 apparently yeah that’s where some of the like even these lights here.

01:32:50,870	Came as a result of that through the. Energy savings program, we got retrofitted, I think half of this building with LED. Right OK. I, I think the motion.

01:33:20,800	Reworded is, is gives us an opportunity to say, OK, Trent, as you’re putting together this facilities report, I mean, I just did it, Curtis let’s call him Curtis, you know, to, uh, at least reach out to the National Grid and maybe, David, if you can send that information to either me or Vinnie, we can share it with him so that. That would, I think that makes sense. I mean, pair it with that report that’s coming in January.

01:33:41,070	As part, as part of that same presentation. OK. Right. Anybody else? Alright, everybody’s clear on what the motion is. Yep. Alright, all those in favor. Uh, and that is unanimous of the 6 members present present and the motion passes. Thank you. OK. Next up. budget. With Vinny. It’s like a Saturday morning special budget. Exactly, it is.

01:34:26,470	could learn math. You guys all missed out. Um, both Vinny’s kids were join the meeting. I try to get Bubba I was wondering why we had 2 extra votes was that Ah, that’s cute. You know what that noise was. But Oh yeah Go have your water. Hm Thank you guys for joining us tonight.

01:35:36,370	We are here to update you on the superintendent’s FY 26, uh, preliminary budget recommendation. Uh, so what has changed tonight? There’s a, there’s a few items we need to go over, uh, specifically our Essex County retirement Appropriation was received by Purak last week, uh, so we have some updates, uh, to present there.

01:36:00,530	We do have a minor transfer of a 1.0 special education ESP from the Bucher to the middle school, uh, that I will go into it in a little bit more detail. That is not a major change, uh, in terms of the budget, uh, but nonetheless, it’s still a. from the prior presentation. Uh, we do have a 0.

01:36:21,730	5% uh cola reduction on the, uh, budgeted amount for teachers that I will also go over. Uh, as many of you know, our teacher’s contract really drives a lot of what we put into the budget, and in that contract, uh, there is a specific deadline.

01:36:40,530	Around December 1st, uh, that deadline really drives, uh, 3 major numbers in the budget, uh, that has changed tonight. The first one is the salary scale advancement and any corresponding step increases as a result of those anticipated advancements, uh, in addition, we have any, uh, retirement announcements in any salary savings we might, uh, realize there, and then last is the eligibility for those retirees,

01:37:04,800	uh, Purchase, uh, for the district to purchase a sick day buyback from them if they meet that December 1st deadline. After those recommendations, we do have a pretty substantial recommendation that came out of our capital planning, uh, and finance subcommittee around our expenses, uh, and offsets to

01:37:24,800	END. So kind of as a spoiler that I’ll go into a little bit more detail, uh, as it stands tonight, uh, for FY 26, uh, we are recommending a budget increase year over year of approximately 2.3 million, or roughly 5.1%.

01:37:48,730	Uh, this is that budget distributed out in DEI category, uh, like we normally do, and then that same chart, uh, distributed out. By location or department. Uh, so like I do with many of my presentations, I try to be as detailed as possible and show you exactly where all those increases and decreases are year over year.

01:38:08,170	Uh, I do this as you see in by location and within each of those locations, I break it out by DEI category. Uh, but looking at this, you can see it’s very repetitive and very boring. I mean, the same thing almost repeats itself on every single slide. You can see a 0.5% cola reduction.

01:38:23,630	It’s not that big of a value. Uh, so not to bore you completely, uh, in your presentation, in your packet, slides 5 through 15, is that detail between every single deci category, but like I do with all of my presentations, I try to just give you a summary at the end that you can look at in case you don’t want to get

01:38:43,370	bogged down in the detail. I’m just gonna advance through, uh, those 15 slides and go to the summary, but of course, if there’s a question about any of the detail in the middle, uh, please don’t hesitate to ask. One more.

01:39:11,800	OK, so tonight the the biggest change from the presentation, uh, presented on November 21st is our salary scale advancement, uh, for this is the December 1st deadline that we discussed, uh, the budget developed on November 21st, did not incorporate any salary scale advancements at that time, again, because the deadline had not hit, we don’t enter all of those until after December 1st. So the final outcome, we had 41 teachers apply for salaries.

01:39:36,630	Scale advancement for FY 26. This totaled 128,000 if you’re trying to compare this to prior years to get a sense of this is high or if this is low, uh, for FY 25, the year we’re in now, we had 32 teachers apply, uh, for a cost of approximately

01:39:55,000	79,000. So you can see this is up almost 50%. There’s really two reasons for this. Uh, the main one is, is because we had 9 additional teachers. apply for salary scale advancement this year. And in addition to that, we changed our teachers salary schedule, um, A lot this year.

01:40:15,730	So those values between columns have changed, therefore, the increase, uh, comparatively from a prior year has, has also changed. So that is uh relatively high, at least compared to last year. Um, the Essex County, where we have a lot of our uh employees who are not DESE certified, uh, their retirement is with Essex County.

01:40:37,470	They have, I believe, until either December 6th or December 15th. I forget the exact date to issue us our appropriation letter, which spells out how much we have to pay to be a member of the uh county retirement system for next year in the preliminary budget, I did incorporate an increase of 1100. or rough roughly 9.5%.

01:41:01,700	Unfortunately, because of the increase in our ESP contract, uh, this came in a lot higher than I anticipated. Uh, it came in at a total of $148,000 increase over FY 25, which is a pretty substantial increase. Uh, the net result from the preliminary budget is an increase of 35,000.

01:41:23,900	So the very first budget I presented to you, I incorporated about 110, again, it’s coming in at 147. So for tonight’s presentation, that means an increase of approximately 36,000. Uh, the next is again the December 1st deadline, uh, we have, I believe, uh, 9 teachers eligible for sick day buyback at the end of this school year.

01:41:49,800	Uh, it is based on the teacher’s contract and represents a percentage of your sick day buyback. I believe it’s a 5% cap, uh, if they give us their notification by December 1st, they become eligible for sick day buyback. Uh, those notifications we received before November. first, I did incorporate into the preliminary budget.

01:42:12,630	This does incorporate 3 additional, uh, sick day buybacks that happen between the preliminary budget and today, uh, so that is another increase of approximately 17,000.

01:42:31,700	Uh, due to those salary scale advancements, if anyone were to look at our old salary schedule, um, columns B and M, don’t have 12 steps. So if somebody is on the bottom step and they then ask for a salary scale advancement, they actually then get a step increment increase as well. So, because of those salary scale advancements, we have updates to our step increments for approximately $7000. There are a few minor updates uh from the preliminary.

01:42:51,800	budget to today, a few, um, $100 here and there, the net result is an increase of 1800. Uh, now, the last item is what I discussed a little bit earlier. We do have a transfer of one ESP from the Bucher to the middle school.

01:43:09,170	Uh, the reason for the increase here, you would think it would just be a straight transfer. Our elementary ESPs average work day is 6.2 hours, but then when they go up to the secondary level, it becomes 6.3. So it’s 0.1 hour more a day.

01:43:30,070	So because we transferred it from the elementary level to the secondary level, their salary goes up a A little bit. Uh, on the flip side, we do have a few decreases to work into the update today, um. There are 6 retirements that we received before December 1st, however, I have only incorporated, uh, salary reductions on 4 of them.

01:43:55,000	That total reduction accumulates to a drop in our budget of 91,000. The reason we don’t incorporate all 6 of them, uh, a good example I have. Is our psychologists. Let’s just say we have a psychologist who gave us their retirement. It is a very good possibility that the psychologists we replaced them with has a doctorate degree.

01:44:13,730	You really have to go through a lot of schooling to be a psychologist. Most of our psychologists are on the bottom end of the salary schedule. So for certain types of retirements, depending on what position it is, we don’t work in salary savings. So out of the 6 retirements, this covers 4 of them.

01:44:32,530	We left 2 of them flat at the moment at least. Uh, the last item, I will admit, was um, I don’t know if I call it a mistake or an oversight on my part, but I was absent for the last teacher’s negotiation, uh, unfortunately, my wife got in an accident.

01:44:49,600	I couldn’t make it, uh, but at that prior to the last negotiation, there was conversation around year 2 and 3 of the teacher’s contract. I thought we landed on a 3.5% cola in FY 26 and a 3% for FY 27.

01:45:13,100	Um, those were actually reversed in the final agreement FY 26 was 3, FY 27 is 3.5, so I reduced the cola for the teachers in FY 26 by 0.5% because that’s not equal to the cola in the agreement. The result of that was a decrease in the overall budget of approximately 92,000. OK, hold on.

01:45:42,870	So those are kind of the major, uh, the updates around kind of the regular, uh, daily business in the budget building. The last item I’m going to discuss briefly. Uh, it has a pretty big impact on our budget, um. At the last capital planning.

01:46:06,970	And finance subcommittee meeting on December 6th, uh, a recommendation was made, uh, from this, uh, uh, excuse me, from the school committee members of the subcommittee. Uh, and I’m kind of gonna just summarize it, uh, the preliminary budget that we presented on November 21st would have most likely resulted in an operational override in at least one of our communities, uh, if not both, at the April 2025. annual town meeting.

01:46:27,800	As you all know, at the April 2025 annual town meeting, we are already putting forth a debt exclusion for the construction of a new elementary school. Uh, if an override would be required, that would be an additional vote at town meeting that would cause a uh majority share to vote.

01:46:48,600	It would also be an additional vote at the ballot, uh, so the end result of our April 2025 town meeting would be 8 votes on either the combination. the debt exclusion at town meeting or at the ballot.

01:47:09,470	Uh, so historically speaking, when you have 8 chances for something to get voted down and to overrides in one town meeting, uh, the chances of all of them passing are slim. So the end result of the recommendation from Capital Finance is to reduce our FY 26 preliminary, uh, budget by our END offsets and the net result is a reduction of approximately 1.

01:47:35,530	1 million, uh, so we were we removed the major capital items that we were funding with END in the 2025 budget. What this ends up doing is reducing our annual, I’m sorry, reduces our overall operating budget by almost 3%. Uh, so as we presented it to you on November 21st. Our original preliminary budget request was an increase of of approximately 3.

01:48:01,170	3 million, or roughly 7.12%, uh, tonight’s update with the incorporation of the reduction of our END offsets. Our overall increase is now being reduced to 2.2 million. Or roughly a 4.75% increase. Again, that’s a reduction of 1.1 or a little less than 2.5, before you go on.

01:48:27,870	Of course, um, did I hear correctly that you’re removing number of capital items. That is correct. What are they? Uh, so off the top of my head, I believe it was a transfer to the capital stabilization of approximately 450.

01:48:49,230	Uh, it was, Uh, reserved for extraordinary maintenance, which is, uh, was most likely going to be tagged to boiler expenses, I believe, 350 in the last item 350,000 I think so. I can get you the, they’re in the prelim um. Actually I think they’re on one of the other exhibits in that’s definitely one that should be flagged anyhow for, for an energy conversion to electricity.

01:49:17,600	Yeah, so ultimately the town assessments, uh, the result from the prior meeting, we had Hamilton at an increase of roughly 8.25 after tonight’s presentation, if we move forward with it, would be an increase of approximately 5.

01:49:39,330	25%, again, a reduction of about 3%, uh, for Wenham, we originally came out with an increase of 10%, uh, now with these reductions that is being uh reduced. To 7%, again, a reduction of roughly 3% and again overall for the district, uh, we are moving to a town net assessment originally, uh, requested at 3.3 million, uh, down to 2.1 million, or roughly an increase year over year of 5.88%.

01:50:06,070	Um, so that’s kind of the updates tonight, uh, just in terms of timeline, uh, over the next Few weeks, uh, Eric and I will meet with all the budget holders again to go through the, um, budget, uh, one more time before the tentative vote on January 2nd, uh, between now and January 2nd.

01:50:26,870	I don’t really want to update or change too much, uh, before the vote, obviously. So get to know this budget that’s in front of you and that’s presented on the exhibit, uh, this will be, uh, the main one you vote on for the tentative budget, there will be at least one. update to the tentative budget at the January 2nd meeting.

01:50:44,630	Uh, that is a result of the debt that Kevin came in last meeting, uh, and sought your approval on the original uh interest rate I put in for that borrowing, I believe was 4%, but it came in at just below 2%, so we have a little bit of savings, uh, in our debt

01:50:59,370	service budget, which is the second half of our budget, um, that will, I will update you on the 2nd once those final numbers come in, uh, this week. Um, and that’ll be pretty much the only change for January 2nd.

01:51:20,730	However, between January 2nd and the final budget our conversations with the community, uh, we still need to drop this budget, uh, a pretty significant amount to avoid, uh, those. Additional votes at town meeting uh in April. So between your tentative vote on the 2nd and the final budget on, I believe, February 8th, I think. Um, you will see additional changes and reductions from what’s presented here tonight.

01:51:42,630	Um, I can take any questions or yes. Of course. Tell me when you’re ready. For those that don’t speak. Translate, reduce expenses, offset by END. Yep, so in the simplest of terms I can put is we have leftover money that has to be put towards your next year’s budget.

01:52:15,230	Um, The best financial practice is when that happens is to use that money for one time expenses, because usually it’s a one time revenue source.

01:52:41,900	So like we did in the 25 budget and like we did in the um 24, we built in, uh, capital items or additional uh contributions to OPEP, uh, to offset some of that one time revenue source. What we’re doing now is removing those additional expenditures that we put in and using that. Um One time revenue to supplement our operating budget for one year. We’re like paying the mortgage with savings instead of our paycheck. It’s correct, yeah. Um, second question related to that.

01:53:08,630	Is Trent, can you just talk just so that people are watching the recording, they can hear um second question related to that is, um, If that is one time money. Um What is the expected outcome in FY 27. If I had to take a prediction, the Close to the original preliminary budget we presented on November 21st.

01:53:32,230	So right now, if you, if I think back up one slot, uh. So to really fund the district from one year to the next, uh, it would require somewhere around a 7% uh increase year over year.

01:53:56,230	We are Deflating that amount for one year and pushing it off to another override at requirement at that future date. I can’t exactly answer that cause a lot of other things could happen between now and then if everything. State exactly the same, it would. Probably equate to that next year But I cannot say for certain, a lot of things that happen on the town side.

01:54:17,470	will affect us as well, so. Can’t quite say for certain what will happen. 7 Mm Um You answered my question already, so. Yeah, I I, I, I don’t, I, I, I.

01:54:53,370	I spend a lot of time saying trust the committee, and I, I I do, and I this is why we have a subcommittee and I’m Imagining that this was a, I mean, Trent was there for the conversation. I, it, this is a Challenging recommendation to make, I imagine it’s pretty, so I, I’m I was just saying thank you to the subcommittee for doing what I know is difficult and complicated work to make a recommendation around something that’s pretty complicated.

01:55:14,270	There’s no easy answer. There’s no. Uh, and the reason I asked the questions I do is to kind of walk everybody through the committee here through the thought process that we took. Um.

01:55:38,330	Because in the end, If we are able to Avoid the additional votes at in April, we in Barring winning the lottery, right? Something unforeseen, are likely pushing that off to the following year. Um, But we’re not putting them at April. Yeah Yeah, it’s, yeah, no, I. I appreciate, I mean, and like I said, it was, I imagine it was a.

01:56:03,330	Fairly robust conversation that it’s not an easy decision and I really appreciate you coming that the that the subcommittee’s feeling is this is the best option. Oh, yes, we, we talked about it ad nauseam and came up with this was the the best approach. I think that Um The, the budget presented here, though. Doesn’t get us to a likely Avoiding those additional votes.

01:56:30,470	And that’s what you’re saying that there’s a large be made to get there, and we should expect those being presented in later budgets. That is correct. But also the um the 300, I’m, I’m still curious about the 350,000 if, if that’s Something that It’s shaky as to whether you’re going to be forced to, to spend that or.

01:56:52,500	Maybe a reduced amount on an alternative technology. You know, the, um, just leaving it out of the budget may not fully reflect What the risk exposure is. If if I’m understanding what the 350 is. Meant to cover or was meant to cover.

01:57:13,170	Are you, so I, I think you’re asking like what happens if something happens to the thing we’re not fixing, yeah. Yeah, and, uh, the, the feedback I’d had it thirdhand, so I don’t know how reliable it is, is that it. The the the facilities manager new facilities manager himself is very concerned that it can fall over at any time. But that, like I said, that’s thirdhand, so I don’t know.

01:57:37,270	Can’t Speak authoritatively firsthand of of knowing that. But if it’s, you know, I assume there’s a reason why it was put in there in the first place. Um, and therefore The question is Again, what, what do you expose to the people who ultimately are going to have to approve this.

01:57:55,270	So I don’t know if it brings you comfort, uh, in terms of removing that money if something were to happen next year. Uh, there is still the capital stabilization funding. It’s an emergency did happen, um, so that, that would cover that bit. Depending what it is, um, and how large you are. Well, let’s say it’s 350. There is 350 there. Yeah, thank you.

01:58:23,630	OK Anything else? Yeah, it’s, I just want people to be clear that there’s still a lot of work to be done, as Trent said there’s, there’s, you know, the committee, we went back and forth and said, OK, here’s what we can get. We still need to dig into the budget.

01:58:41,470	There’s probably between another, depending on where the towns are, we’re still working with them to try to figure out where they are. Between 400 and maybe 850,000 that might have to come out of this, this budget, maybe more, but Um, we haven’t heard back from one of the towns on And even their own situation.

01:58:56,730	So once we, we figure out Where the two towns are at will come back around too with some, some of those adjustments as we’ve done in the past. We work with them all along the way.

01:59:11,900	Um, to try and present a budget that’s that that they can Actually afford as well, so. The next 3 weeks for the leadership team are. Chipping away. Going to be a little difficult. be uncomfortable. Everyone OK with Yeah. Thank you Thank you, Vinny. OK, um. All right, Committee reports, uh, capital finance. I feel like that kind of was your report.

01:59:45,100	I don’t know if you have anything else to add. Um, policy. I covered covered send her an email tonight to meet to plan a meeting in January. Great. Uh, negotiations. Nothing to report. Uh, do we have a secretary report? Sorry. All right, um.

02:00:15,800	And superintendent’s report, Eric, just a couple of quick items, um, just so people are aware during the next two weeks, central office building will be inaccessible, it’ll be closed to, we’re having asbestos abatement that was found during our rug replacement, we were doing the summer that uh tore up some tile that has tested positive for asbestos, so

02:00:34,370	they’re removing that next week so the building is inaccessible for the two weeks we are, uh, here and around will be various buildings, so we have some of our staff at the Buker, some of our staff at the high school, so if you need us, email is

02:00:47,730	going to be the best way to get anybody through central office, uh, some people may forward their phones, but they’re not necessarily in an office. Um, how, how extensive was was the find of asbestos? It was in Eris. The tile. Oh, that’s not good. Yeah, it was just, it was weird.

02:01:12,270	It was, it was just a too, right? It was just his and mine somebody targeted you. Um, it’s newest novel. Today, the, uh, our OPM PMA submitted our schematic design. Um, package, which is Almost 1000 pages of information related to the elementary school project, uh, good news on that front we have um Uh, better numbers right now.

02:01:46,370	It looks like we’re coming or down from the 151 million original price tag down to about 142 million slightly over, it’s like 142.2 million. And uh with a reimbursement uh from the state currently sitting at approximately 48 million, um, that number can still go up because there’s still incentive

02:02:08,270	points that we can get along the way, but that’s right now, uh, numbers that are on the table, um, for Submission with the schematic design, there’s a process that will occur in, I believe, February, where we meet with the MSBA after they review our submission, and we can negotiate for some of the

02:02:28,630	other areas that are not currently, uh, reimbursable, considered reimbursable by them to see if we can get them included and then as we get into early March, we’ll have And even more, uh, finalized number, but right now that’s where we’re at, by the way, I forgot to mention that MSBA are

02:02:45,730	now starting to subsidize heat pumps, so there may be a double whammy. From Massa and, and uh MSBA. Yeah, and that’s one of the, so the energy people that work with the architects, um, that, that’s what they’ve been doing all along the way trying to figure out where we can get rebates, even with our heat.

02:03:05,000	The, the HVAC system selection, um, there are certain rebates that you can get not only from Massa, but Like the town of Hamilton went with geothermal, which is hugely expensive upfront, but you can, you can qualify for some possible reimbursements.

02:03:25,100	The problem with the reimbursements from the Fed side is there’s no guarantee that you’ll get it, so you have to front the money and hope that you’ll get it, you know, so which is, which is a piece that reduced, honestly reduced the elementary school project by at least 4 I think $4.85 million right around there, that was the, the cost of just doing geothermal. Yeah, that’s, but yeah, maybe.

02:03:47,730	And then um Uh, so that’s all it’s on the building front, um, happy holidays to everyone. I’m looking forward to an exciting 2025. I hope our staff, students and families have uh great um couple weeks off. Well, those who, who get the time off, have some time off, so thank you. OK. Thank you.

02:04:13,500	Um, I, well, I wanted to, on the chair’s report, I know I’m gonna toss to Amy. She had a little bit of an update. Oh yeah, um, I’m meeting tomorrow morning with Chris Ford, the member of the community who has volunteered to help out with, uh, the visual communications project. Excellent. Thank you for keeping us updated.

02:04:33,100	Um, and I don’t have much else I do want to remind all committee members that our next meeting is a Zoom meeting on January 2nd. Um So Make sure that’s in your calendars. Can you, is it a 7 p.m. p.m. It is a Zoom meeting and that is um.

02:04:55,470	The primary topic of that meeting will be the presentation and vote on the tentative budget. So On the tentative budget. Um So what you see here tonight with maybe a few small tweaks, but it’ll be very close. Mm-hmm Um, and that, uh, just a reminder that we did make that date.

02:05:21,330	I know it’s not an ideal date, um, but it’s just when you back up from. You know, the town meeting, what dates we need to have the budget in that’s there’s. What was that? have to postpone our hangovers. Exactly. It’s a, it’s the evening of the 2nd, so you know, um.

02:05:44,270	And then I did wanna say, um, That we have on the calendar, which I will be attending the first meeting of the to discuss the regional agreement, Janelle deserves a medal. She’s, um, finally done it, found, um, so that is on January 8th, um, and Janelle finally found a time that everyone. All the different parties can come together and we’ll start having a discussion about the regional agreement.

02:06:11,870	Who is that discussion with? So this is why it’s complicated, right? So it’s the school representative from the school committee, both, um, towns need a representative, the legal counsels, um, need to come, um. And um And comm needs to come have representatives, so. It’s a big group.

02:06:38,630	Um, and, but it’s exciting and I think very timely to open up that conversation about a regional agreement which is Quite old. Um, so. It should be. Um Right. Anybody have any questions for me? That was gonna be my question.

02:07:03,100	I know, I think you were the magic charm we’ve got asked last time and Yeah wants to get exactly she Janelle has been working just tirelessly to get that done, so, um. All right, does anyone have topics for future meetings? Nope, if you think of something, email me. But do you have anything else? Would you like a motion? I would love one. I move that we return. Uh, 907.

02:07:25,700	Second, right, uh, second by Amy, uh, all those in favor? And that is