 Let's open the medium up at Roxbury Board of School Directors at 6.31, January 3rd, 24. For the meeting starts, I do want to say that Emma, unfortunately, is stepping down. We're going to miss her very much, and thank you for all your great work, and they're going to be with us through February 7th, but I do want to put word out that basically with the timing of the that will be up for election on Town Meeting Day. So if any member of the public is interested, please get in touch with Libby Mia or me and we can help guide you on that, but you will need to get on the ballot and that will require getting 30 signatures from your community members. I'm not quite sure of the deadline, but in the past it's been right around the end of January. So if you're interested, let us know. There's not a ton of signatures, but you will need to get on. And I think given the timing, we will probably not seek to point someone and just have the public take care of it because really is that our final meeting before Town Meeting Day? We have one more. Yeah, we have one more. Yeah, so that process is out there again. Get in touch with Libby Mia or me. All of our emails are on the website, and we look forward to having Emma for the next three meetings, right? And while we're on that subject, it looks like Mia you're up, Jake you're up, Scott is up, and Kristin is up for re-election. Those are making decisions, right? So anybody who would be interested in those needs to get that paperwork in by the end of January. Exactly. It's like the last Monday in January. Yeah, it's in some number of days before Town Meeting Day. I think it's like the five Mondays before Town Meeting Day or something like that. Yeah, so that's kind of soon. So kind of soon, yeah. And in my opinion, John Odom, the city clerk can help you out with all that. Yeah, and I think there's, I think there's a form on the website that you can print out. In fact, I know there is because I've used it. Yeah, no. And you can have friends, family members help you with signatures and people can sign multiple documents. Petitions. Yeah, just like on the end of ballot. I just want to put it out there too that I'm personally willing to help people if you're collecting signatures. I'm very good at collecting signatures. So if somebody's interested in running, email me and I will walk around my neighborhood. I think I got 30 in like an hour one time. Here, Emma. Which is what you need. I think it's 30. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is 30. And I also suggest getting maybe a few more than that, just in case, you know, someone signed it who's no longer on the voting roll. Yeah, you know, it doesn't count. So it has to be legible. Yeah. Yeah. So a few extra just to make sure is always get 40. Get 40. So the contact is Tammy, like I said, who's our tone click and we're hoping you're one of the interested person. She's just nodding. We like nods. So first call the order public comment. We're going to have two public comments again as part of the budget process, the initial one, and then we're going to have one after our third draft of fiscal year 2025 budget presentation. So you're welcome to speak at both. But just for people who want to speak, you will have two opportunities. And I just want to reiterate that public comment is a listening time for the board. We do not respond in real time. However, it's obviously a very important part of our decision making process. We do listen very carefully. We do take into account everything we hear. And I just want to acknowledge that, you know, it can oftentimes be somewhat difficult to speak in front of a board like this, both because it's public speaking, which not everyone is comfortable with and also some of some of the issues bring people bring to our attention can be difficult. So we really appreciate the feedback. You can also email the board at school board at MPVMPSVT.org. And that is another great way to send us your thoughts and also in a slightly less real time public manner. So do I have anyone who would like to speak public comment? Let's start in the room. Any hands? And let's go to the Zoom. If anyone would like to speak, there's a raise hand function. The reactions button, if you hover over it, a little raise hand comes up. Otherwise, if you don't know where that is, you can just go on camera and give us a wave. Looks like at this time, no. So again, we'll have public comment after the buzzer presentation. Next order of business is the consent agenda. The consent agenda are items that generally require no real board discussion or deep consideration, things like approval of the minutes, et cetera. And that helps us do business a little more efficiently. And if there is something that a board member wants to discuss in more depth, they can pull it off of the consent agenda item as part of a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Do I have a second? Any discussion or questions? All those in favor? Any opposed? Great. Christina and Libby, take it away. And again, before you start, I just want to thank you for all the fantastic work you've done over the past couple of months on these bunch of presentations. I know it's been a tough year and a lot of numbers to crunch. And we really appreciate the very hard work you've done explaining this to us all and getting us to a point where we can process it and make a decision in a couple of weeks. Sorry about the numbers. Is this the class for Raging Alcohol? That's what it was. Okay. So here's our third draft. We do have, let me check it up for the whole thing. We do have the lengthy budget presentation that was presented a few board meetings ago with our strategic plans and links to links to all their documents and websites and all that kind of stuff, which I think we'll just glaze through today. Yes, sound good. Because we've gone through that at length at a separate time and it hasn't changed at all. So we can get to the budget stuff. So here's just some district information in demographics. Our context still is that we want to support our theory of growth while being sensitive to the tax implications of our community. And the statewide factors, as we've been talking about, we have Act 127, which is a new pupil waiting and it has a variety of implications on our budget. The anticipated dollar yield is $9,452 and keeping in mind that that is voted on by the legislature in May. So that will remain anticipated for the entire budget season. The common level appraisal has come in because I think it's changed on there. So the common level appraisal has come in. So the board will see new numbers for the CLA in this budget. Our health rates have increased 16.4% across the state. That's not just an MRPS thing. That's a statewide factor. But for MRPS, that equates to almost $400,000 increase to our budget. And then local factors are we do have decreasing student enrollment. The district drivers, just the board focuses academic achievement for all students, safety, inclusion and belonging for every member of our community and a commitment to open communication with the community. This is where I'm going to kind of glaze through it because the board has seen this before there. They haven't changed from previous presentations that we've done. Here's all of the big pieces for staffing, professional development and leadership for each of our four tiers with links to work definitions, curriculum sites, assessment sites that are now public on our website after a whole lot of good work from our central office team and the budget. Here's our glossary of terms. So it's nearly impossible to talk about the budget without using some of these terms. And many of them are very confusing and hard to understand. Even for myself, my six-year as superintendent, it's still kind of hard for me to explain what the dollar yield actually is. So if you're caught up on terms, kind of pull this out of the packet or keep this bookmarked for yourself so that you have this lingo. The big ones that affect our budget are our general funder education spending. That's what we are in control of as a district is our education spending, most of it. The long-term weighted average daily membership is what used to be the equalized pupils. It's now in Act 127 that big long term that we will just refer to as LTW or we'll probably refer it back to weighted pupils. The dollar yield is trying to make everything equal a dollar and generate enough money for the ed fund. So the rule of thumb is that when the education fund is really flush and we're in a really good economy that's a higher yield, that means lower tax rates. And if the economy is not as good or the education fund is lower and not quite as flush, that means a lower yield and higher tax rates. And this is set by law. We do not have any control over this. And then, of course, the common level appraisal or CLA and it's your market value of your house compared to what the appraised value is for the property. We want it as close to 100% as possible or over. And once it starts dipping below that, then our taxes start to increase. I do okay on those terms, Christina. Budget unknowns at this point in time. We still don't have a final long term weighted ADM or equalized pupils. We've gotten three different versions in the last two, four different versions in the last two days. Two of them came yesterday an hour apart from each other. So we're, I think we think we have a final number, but we're not nobody sure because that's a number that the agency of education comes to us. We actually do know the CLA at this point that that should be taken out as the budget unknowns. Our transportation aid, we're still waiting on and we're in contract negotiations with one of our staffs me. All right, Christina, take it away. Okay. I've seen the budget at a glance. I'm going to go over this real quick. The first column is the FY24 final budget after the yield was set and CLA was adjusted for reappraisal. So that was what folks paid taxes on this current year. You can see the calculation of each line to the far left. You'll see that we're adding the general budget to the capital plan equals the total budget. So you can follow down throughout the column. The next green section is FY24 budget if Act 127 were in place. So this is what we're comparing to for the FY25 budget. And this is our third draft. The expense, the general budget has not changed at all. Neither has the capital plan from previous versions. So our total budget is 32 million and our net tax revenues. So these are other revenues like tuition and interest and grants and that sort of thing. So you can reduce your total budget by those revenues. So your ad spending is 26 million. And this is an updated pupil count. Okay. Raise your hand if you really give a shit about that. Thank you, Nana. All right. So our pupil count went up as of, I don't know, three o'clock yesterday, 1,835.93. So that's giving us our ad spending for a long-term weighted average daily membership of $14,549. And currently, the property dollar yield is set at 9,452. And because we're capped at 5%, the residential tax rate will be $1.33. These CLAs changed. Montpelier went- Oh, that sucks, doesn't it? So Montpelier's CLA, we were using 100% and went up 100.18%. And Roxbury is decreased to 94.51. I think you're up for the next few slides, Libby. Here are our enrollment projections for MHS, MSMS, and UES. Okay. It does show, if you look way down at the bottom, K through 12, that we are decreasing. We're modeled to continue to decrease, but it's a gradual decrease. It's not a precipitous decrease. Here's our class size estimates for the MHS, MSMS, and UES. So where we are right now is we have four, where we have five teachers at the grade four level, and we are suggesting a reduction in force in our grade four level for teachers. The numbers to the right for 24, 25, and 25, 26 are shaded in yellow simply because we're watching closely our class sizes at Union Elementary School as potential reductions later on. And then here are our enrollment projections for Roxbury. The difference between projections from the Montpelier Schools and Roxbury, particularly at the elementary school, Union School, is that there's a person who does modeling based on childbirth rates in Montpelier that doesn't, that type of modeling doesn't happen in Roxbury probably because of the population size. So there's no scientific rhyme or reason to where these numbers are going, except for the class goes down to the next level the next year. Here's just our graphs. The board sees this type of graph every year so you can see kind of historical trends from our population or our enrollment, sorry. So this is what the, this particular budget has as an overview. We've had to add in 2.55 interventionists that was primarily due to the loss of ESSER funding, which was federal grant funding over the last few years from COVID. We are adding in Roxbury After School Program 1.5 FTE. This is an add to our budget, but we're hoping to offset it with revenue. Currently these positions are funded by a grant that will not be available to us next year. Social worker has been being, has been being paid for through Medicaid fund balance, but because we've done a good job of paying down that fund balance through this work, through this, the paying the social worker, we need to move this now into our local budget. And there's a new payroll tax for the child care tax that's 0.44%. That's going to be added, the district will be paying that that's added on to every employee's paycheck and the district is paying that. In terms of reduction of course, we're suggesting an AFSCME support staff position of 1.0 FTE, a K6 licensure 1.0 FTE for low enrollment, RBS pre-K 0.5 FTE for low enrollment, the RBS library media, the technology piece of that job, which is 0.2 FTE and an MHS science district wide sustainability, which is 0.2 FTE. As far as the expenses by school, I mentioned this before in the first time that we went through this longer budget presentation, but I think it's important to say again, as far as the union costs increasing, there's, we believe that in the future years, there's room to come more in line with our class size policy. At union, we have very low class sizes right now or will have low class size in the next few years at union. So there's room to bring that cost down because of our class sizes, which we'll be getting to around 12 and 13 in the class, and it's way below our class size policy. There is not as much wiggle room at Roxbury. So that number won't be doing anything but going up in the future because we just, we can't, we can't reduce any force in Roxbury after the, really after the 0.2 technology position. Every other person is needed. And then we want to, you want to do the highlights for the expenses and the revenues, Christina. And this is by program. So looking at general education, special education, things like library, school board. So there's a common theme on the increases here, which is health insurance and where we landed with negotiations. So they're in the added positions that Libby mentioned earlier. Nothing has changed since the last two board meetings. So we're looking at an 11.9% increase in our expenses. The next two slides are just looking at it a little differently. So you can see the percentages of your total budget and where they end up. And the next slide is a year to year comparison. You can see a big jump in special education. We were expecting that. So we plan for that. Expenses by category. This is where you can see the breakout on salaries and benefits, professional services and contracted services. There hasn't been any, this again will show the 11.9% increase in our overall expenses. And on the pie chart, yep, you'll see how it's broken out there with salaries and benefits. And the next slide, you'll be able to see where the benefits really kind of spike up from this current year. Revenues. Again, nothing's changed on the revenue side since I've met with you last. We did compare our special education expenses to the revenues, the offsetting revenues that we'll be receiving. And most of these at the bottom, those are all matching the grant expenses. So those are all reimbursable grants. So whatever we spend, we get dollar for dollar back. So that's like IDEA title one, title two. It just demonstrates your revenues. The capital plan, I met with Andrew and he put together what we should be focusing on for the capital plan and FY25. So he'd like to look at the US window replacements and the main street window replacements and also some roof repairs district wide. Mainly here at the high school. I'm sorry. Mainly here at the high school. Yeah, over the cafeteria. And what everybody wants to know is the tax rates. This was an earlier slide, but I'll go back through it. So this draft, I'm going to focus on the gray area, the gray column. So this draft of the budget is an increase of 11.9%. The long term weighted average daily membership is calculated at 1,835.93. So that did increase from the last time I met with you. They're still working out ELL students. They found us some students in our data that we had submitted quite a while ago. So that was good. That decreases our ad spending per pupil. I'm going to keep that short. And again, you'll see the cap rate is $1.33. And the updated CLAs get Montpelier tax rate to $1.33 and Roxbury $1.41. The next slide will demonstrate if you own a $200,000 house in Montpelier what you can anticipate your tax bill to be. It's going to be an increase from this current year of $430. For a $300,000 house, it's going to be an increase of $645. And for a $400,000 house, it'll be an increase of $860. In Roxbury, same house values will be $221, $331, and $441. The next slide demonstrates the tax rate history from FY21. So you can see it with the CLA and before the CLA. The next slide is the non-residential tax rate calculation. So our budget does not affect this tax rate. Just the CLA does. And this is on properties like second homes, rental properties, commercial properties, and that. So we have been playing around with five year with assumptions. This was something the board asked to try to play with a little bit more. So we did three different assumptions. And I just want to really reiterate the word assumption. None of this is true. So we need to just keep that in mind. Some of it are good guesses and others are just, let's see what would happen if this happened. So just keeping this in mind that these are assumptions for the five year trajectory of 127 with the 5% cap in place in the law. So just to remind people that 127 starts this year is effective this year and there's a 5% cap on equalized tax rates. That's your tax rate prior to CLA being calculated in. And so that's a given number. We know what that's going to be for the next five years. We don't know what it will be with the CLA because the CLA changes. But we know what the equalized tax rate will be for the next five years because it's capped as long as we reach that 5% threshold. What we don't know is what will happen in FY 30. So we were asked to make some assumptions to take a guess as to what would happen to tax rates in FY 30 with certain trajectories. So assumption one, we made the assumption that our general budget would increase or education spending would increase by 2 million a year. We made the assumption that we would lose 15 long-term weighted ADM per year, which is a product that's actually probably a pretty good guess. But who really knows? But that's why that one is kind of solid for each of these assumptions because it's a reasonable guess. We're assuming that the dollar yield will fall $500 per year. So that puts our potential with those assumptions in place. It puts our potential equalized tax rate increase before the CLA is calculated from year FY 29 to FY 30 at $3.01, which would be a 47% increase in one year with these assumptions. If we were to put that in with the CLA and we can assume based on past averages that the CLA could drop approximately 3% per year because we're not up for reappraisal, so it will continue to either stay the same or drop most likely, then that has the tax rate when we're going from FY 29 to FY 30 at $3.54, which is a 55% increase with these assumptions in place. What? In five years, yeah. Well, from 29 to 30, that's one year. So, oh, God, Jake. Is this starting from $1.33? Yeah. So, you'd see on the next slide the projections how it's going to increase. So, the green is the cap rate. Okay. So, the percent increase is just in that final year? Yeah, the $1.70. It looked like it was $1.70. And FY 29 you had on there? Yeah, to $4.70 on assumption, nope, sorry, assumption to $3.01 on assumption one. So, that's where the percentage difference comes in. Assumption two, still going with a $2 million increase in our general budget, still losing 15 long-term weighted average daily membership per year, which is per pupil, but then we played with the dollar yield a little bit. And this is significant because you can see how much the dollar yield could impact things. And this is a number we do not have control over. So, if over the next course, five years, the dollar yield decreases by 1,000 each year, which is a lot. That's a lot. That would not be good if that happened for anybody in the state. Then the potential equalized tax rate increase pre-CLA from year fiscal year 29 to fiscal year 30 would be $4.70, or we'd go up to $4.70, which would be a 56% increase. And the potential tax rate after the CLA would be $5.53, which would be a 70% increase. With assumption three, that's just showing you how much the dollar yield in and of itself influences tax rates, which of course is set by the legislature just based on the economy and the money in the education fund. Assumption three, we made the assumption of getting right to the 10%, under the 10% for long-term weighted average daily membership, which is where we need to be, so we don't have a tax review from the Magical Tax Review Committee at the Agency of Education, assuming a $500,000 increase per year, losing 15 long-term weighted ADMs, the dollar yield falling $500 a year, then the potential equalized tax rate increase pre-CLA from FY29 to FY30 would be 32%. So our tax rate would go up to 2.40. And after CLA, it would be $2.82, which is a 43% increase. So these assumptions you can see on a line graph, starting from FY24, FY25, the green line again is our capped amount. So this is the equalized tax rates. It's not before CLA. It's the equalized tax rates, or I'm sorry, it is before CLA. Sorry. That is our capped amount. So the capped amount in FY29 will be $1.70. That's what it will be if we can stay capped. And so you can see that the assumption one is a $3.01 goes up to $3.01 in FY30 with assumption two. It goes, and that's the one where the dollar yields so low. It goes up to a $4.70 equalized tax rate. And with assumption three, which is a less increase, less decrease of the dollar yield and less increase to our budget, it's a $2.40 tax rate. And just keeping in mind that these are assumptions. This is not reality. Nobody can paint what this is. Actually, these are just assumptions or to show a potential five-year impact and why the administration has been talking about the necessity of bringing down our general budget because that is what we have control over. We don't want to have to do that in one year. So we're up for a discussion. And just a reminder, the upcoming meetings, the next board meeting will need to be an approval of a budget from the board. And March 5th is the budget informational meeting on Tom Meeting Day. Great question. Is the presentation you just gave, is it in the materials on the website? I'm sure it will be, as soon as Anna puts it on there. I think it would be helpful because we have so many folks watching from home, if they could have the chance to basically thumb through it, like the folks in the room can. Yeah, no, definitely. Thank you, Anna. If she hasn't already, she may have done it this afternoon. Yeah, and we have a whole section on the website with budget information. Questions, discussion, comments? Jake? I think that this is really not involved. Putting it at the line graph right now. The colorful line graph. It's hard to do. It's hard to know what's going to happen, but I think this is a really dying and best guess. They are guesses. That's the important thing to say. They are guesses. But yeah, I think it's great work. So thank you. Yeah, I know just trying to reiterate that they are guesses and I think they also show the predicament we're in that being cautious is prudent. Rhett and then Kristen? Yeah. I want to confirm whether my understanding is correct. When we talk about the cost per pupil at each school on page 20 of the presentation, and then we look at the budget at a glance. The difference is this number is based on our actual number of kids and the budget at a glance is based on the long-term weighted average daily membership or in the past. You are correct. Yes. Actual kids and seats. In terms of the potential residential tax rate, that's calculated for Montpelier based on a 3% CLA drop. Do we calculate those for Roxbury and what that would look like? I didn't do that with Roxbury. I just did it with Montpeliers. Why assume a CLA drop of 3% is that just again a guess or is that an average? Looking back at what has happened over the last few years. So it's a guess, but I went back into budgets and looked. And that's one of the reasons why I didn't do Roxbury's because Roxbury's isn't as typical. Sometimes the Roxbury's CLA stays the same. Sometimes it drops. Sometimes it's a surprise. It's not as typical as the Montpelier CLA. And I'm not sure why, but- Because CLA is basically done via an appraisal that happens every 10 years, correct? So Jake's shaking his head. No, six years. The CLA changes every year. And it's like how the fair market value of property in the town has changed since your last reappraisal. So every year it's moving a little bit different. But the reappraisal process from the 10- And that gets us maybe 12,000 per percent, right? Hopefully, yeah, yeah. So the CLA, there's a lot kind of variation throughout the years at Roxbury. So there's lots of inclination to look at that. Okay. Other questions or comments? Jill has a question. Oh, Jill. Oh, sorry. Oh, there. I can unmute. No, I was just going to articulate the CLA for towns that have so much fewer parcels that change hands every year. Like Roxbury is much more volatile. It's literally just a numbers. This is sorry. This is my day job. So when you have a really small town, you might have 100 property sales per year. That means that the change year over year is pretty big or can be pretty volatile. Whereas I think I don't know exactly how many parcels there are in Montpelier, but it's a larger pool of sales to choose from. So it can be pretty consistent that the CLA changes year over year. That's all. Thank you, Jill. I want to reiterate the thanks that Jake gave to Libby and also to Mia that they spent quite a bit of time over their winter vacation crunching these numbers. And I do think it's really valuable and it's helpful for me to understand what's likely sort of the cliff that we keep referring to, what's likely to happen. And so these numbers have really helped me understand that. It doesn't make me feel any better about what it just makes me feel like our community has a lot of work to do to lobby our legislators to change what this cliff looks like because it feels not plausible that people can afford these types of increases in the year 2030. It's enough to know that we're facing 5% increases every year, but then to look at the numbers in 2030. And then I started thinking about 2031 and 2032 and getting a way for myself. So I did have a point of clarification. It was about the percent increase in the assumptions so listed on this slide. I don't have page numbers on this. Oh, 35, I think. So for example, the assumption to the potential residential tax rate for Montpelier increase is $5.53. That's listed as a 70% increase from what number? From $1.70. And so $5.53 is a 70% increase to $1.70? Well, but it was forced. Is the $1.70, but the $1.70 is free CLA and this is after CLA. Is it that matter? There's something funny there. It's $1.70 the year before. Free CLA. Right. And then it goes to $4.70 free CLA. So that would be a massive percent increase, not 40. It seems like more like a 300% percent. My math could be off on those percentages. Christina didn't check me. She's like, I know. You should have let me check. Sorry about that. The reason why I stood out is because Nia had helped me sort of with some looking at more of the raw data. And in that raw data, that number, the tax rate impact in 2030, can potentially be like a 300% increase to the actual tax money that I pay out as a taxpayer homeowner in Montpelier. And that's a really shocking number. Yeah. Like, I mean, 70% is stocking enough, but 100% is... I think putting the percentages aside, and I apologize if I made the math to say, but it's totally mine and I didn't have my business managers check it, is that regardless, any of those assumptions, the tax impact in FY 30 is large, right? Even if we're very conservative over the next five years, the tax impact is going to be large if nothing else happens. And so that's what we all need to work on for the next five years. That's what we're trying to get across by saying this isn't a one-year dilemma or challenge to the school board in the district. It's a five-year challenge to the school board in the district. And I think it's worth pointing out that it's probably going to be sizable, even if the legislature does do something, because I think a fixed likely to come from the legislature is probably one that's going to push that trajectory downward. It's not probably going to put us on where we can. We will not be returning to historical tax rates. It's my hunch, right? But just that was a very sobering moment to look at those numbers and see I've been feeling like, okay, well, we can all sort of band together and do our best, but a 300% increase feels insurmountable for this board over the next five years to sort of whittle away hundreds of thousands at a time to a 300% increase. Yeah. And keeping in mind, that's what the dollar yield dropping a thousand a year, right? Like that's considered, that's bonkers to put a professional word to it. Like I don't know if that would actually happen, but it's an exercise in showing how much the dollar yield impacts the tax rate with that. And we don't have any influence on the dollar yield. I think that's more showing that than anything else. Jake would probably be able to say or Jill better than I, but I think a thousand dollar decrease per year for the next five years in the dollar yield would be a very sorry state for the state of Vermont in education. I mean, we know we have some time, some years ahead of us to sort of plan and be ready for this, but I think that it feels like something that actually needs to, like it doesn't seem realistic for the taxpayers to shoulder that burden. And so it does feel like something needs to change. And I just think, you know, I don't want to be alarmist, but I do think the community needs to start paying attention to the legislature and what's happening around these changes. And that was sort of my takeaway from these assumptions. I did have another question. Can I keep going? So I kind of, I just want to return to a sentiment that Scott brought up at the last meeting, which I keep coming back to and agree with, is just like getting a little bit closer to that 10% in this first year while we're still wrapping our brains around what's going to look like. Is there any chance of sort of, you know, I mean, the biggest thing that keeps coming up as a question is that point two position, but is there any way to sort of level out the cuts a little bit differently and not be at an eight point? I think we're at 8.48 and maybe get closer to like 9.4. Is there anything I would respond with is the more you add this year, the more you'll have to take it out eventually. You're going to have to find places to take it out eventually. Yeah. If the law doesn't change and if things don't change dramatically, which I think they need to. No, and I completely agree with that, but I mean, even if the legislature's upset and says, stabilizes the yield so it stays relatively constant and doesn't drop, we're still like kind of on a path of cutting. We're still probably in a place where we're not to have a major spike in taxes at 29.30, we're going to have to be we're going to have to be restrictive in what we spend on. I mean, I think the legislature could make a lot of changes and it would take some of these draconian things off the table, but it would still, it wouldn't put us in, we can go up to 10 because it's year one. I mean, I think, you know, as was saying that we're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to make these choices in year one or in year three or in year four or year five. Another possibility at the state level is that the legislature takes another look at the 5% cap and might actually increase it, which is not a good thing. So like instead of five, five, five, five, five for the next five years, you know, it could be five, seven and a half, 10, 12 and a half, something like that, which would be punitive to us. It would be that. I think that's a possibility. As far as budget development, I think Mia's idea from a couple weeks ago makes a lot of sense, if I understood it correctly, is you of our reserve amount or surplus or whatever it's called, I can't remember. Fun balance. You would want to, we might potentially want to use as little of that as possible to get up near the 10% and so that we have it later on. To use it later. Because right now we're planning on taking to 165, 165 more than we had originally budgeted for, is that right? Five, 65. Right. That would most definitely be one strategy that we should probably consider over the next five years so that we can have that FY 30 and beyond, you know, thinking about how we can continue to have taxpayers using that fund. That would be smart to that. Yeah, I would need to and any other places that we can look to sort of ease the burden on people, especially community resources. I would like us to talk about the point to RAF from sustainability. I obviously am not comfortable with any of these cuts and be concerned of any of us where it's not like fun, but I just don't see how that specific about makes sense. I understand that cuts and letting go of employees in any way is going to be painful, but it doesn't feel like a logical or strategic cut to cut point to when we know that we're going to lose the employee. I want to ask that we look for other sources for RAFs if we need to or cuts or at least that we discuss it. I'm always skeptical when I hear this is just how it has to be. I know it's going to be painful either way, but I just feel like it would be. Scott? Yeah, I appreciate that sentiment and I agree. You say that you're going to have to make those cuts eventually, but that is in itself an assumption you are making. I just want to be careful. We have the most information about this budget that we're building and we have less and less information about going further out. The confidence level in projections out into the future is lower. I have to agree with what was just articulated. I really like what Jake brought back up and I think Mia, you were originally the person to say it. I wish I had said this at the time, but if I remember correctly, changing what we would draw from the fund balance is really just a trick of accounting because if we don't spend it, it just goes back into the fund balance. There's no downside to saying that we're going to increase what we're withdrawing to get up to that 10%, but if we don't ever use it, then it all goes back into the fund and we have it for future years. I just don't see any reason not to use that mechanism to get the increase year over year closer to nine and a half or so. I think again, I think we're leaving money on the table by only going to what I don't have it in front of me right now, but would you say it was 8.46 or 8.64? 8.48. 4.8. Thank you. I definitely understand what you're saying, Miriam, and I understand what Scott is saying. I disagree about the idea of leaving money on the table, and I think that one of the values of having the new line chart where they go up every year for us tonight is to see that at any amount that we bump up FY25, if we didn't change anything else about the assumptions that we've put in place, all those lines increase except for the green one because it's capped. And I think the real challenge for us as board members is that we have to make system-wide decisions when there are real human beings involved in the system, but we still have to make system-wide decisions. I took the opportunity to have coffee with a former board member who, to just see like, what would you do if you were still sitting in the seat? And she shared with me that when she joined the board, an iteration of the board before her had avoided making cuts to personnel because they cared so much about the people who were filling those roles, which I completely and totally understand. But because they had avoided making those cuts, there was nearly no money for facilities. There was nearly no money for supplies, and the board that she was on had to build back up a budget that invested in the buildings that our children were going to school in, and our teachers were teaching in. And so I don't think it is right of us to avoid the very difficult decisions that have, yes, human beings behind them without considering that there are human beings in our facilities and there are human beings in transportation and there are human beings in the tax rate. And so I feel comfortable with this budget where it is given as difficult as it is. Yeah, I want to second that too. I definitely respect the desire to protect people and I think that's something we need to do and need to give a lot of thought to. But we're going to have to make tough choices and this year might be the easiest of the tough choices the next two or three that we have. And not making tough choices now, we're going to make the choices tougher next year and tougher the year beyond that. And I also really feel confident that Libby and Christina and the leadership team have thought hard about both this year and the outlook years. And the questions I've asked about impacts to our goals, to the education of students have all been asked, answered at least for me, satisfactory that these are strategic cuts that make sense now that don't interfere with longer-term goals even if they do unfortunately have impacts on people. And I think Mia was very right that all her choices are going to have impacts on people, whether it's going to be unfortunately people's jobs, it's going to be people's ability to afford staying in their house with tax rates, it's going to be decisions about how our kids get to school. So we have a lot of tough choices and I actually feel this current budget is a very well balanced first start. And no, we don't know what the, we don't have, we have lower confidence as it goes out, but we do know that without I think pretty unrealistic changes, we are going to have to continue to be strategic about our cuts and delaying choices is not going to make it easier for future boards who are going to be in this position next year. Yeah, I mean, one of the depressing things about considering the next five years is like, so this, the reduction in force represents about three FTEs. And I just don't see that's how that's sustainable over the next five years, like I can't picture cutting three FTEs every year for the next five years, I just can't picture how that will work in maintaining high quality education for the students. And yeah, I'm just going to reiterate my my stance is I feel like a point to FTE represents about 25 maybe to $35,000 and that just feels like such a small drop in the bucket when it would allow this one person a whole nother year, we can consider cutting it next year, but a whole nother year to do like life planning around a career change. And I think that that would be in line with the values of, you know, how we value staff and the student experience. And I haven't heard a great, for all of these other positions, it's sort of like resonates and makes sense about like, you know, there's low enrollment and even the library media specialist, the principal spoke to that that it's not really functioning that way. And for this particular position, there hasn't been a clear explanation to me anyway, maybe in your meetings around like why it's going to be valuable to cut that like how that you know why that's a good choice that particular position. It just seems like if you have a person in the building for point two FTEs more that can only support students. And I'm not saying that it doesn't, you know, that shouldn't be done. But I just think postponing it another year would be would give that person more time to plan that life change. So that's the last I'll talk about it. So there is a person behind the K six licensure cut. As of right now is the last person hired. Right. There is a person behind the library media person cut as well, who was hired quite a while ago. If you're looking at the board's focus of academic achievement for all, then you should be looking at the RBS pre K because pre K education is possibly the most important education years in the child's life, as research shows. So I think that the board if if the board wants to as a vote wants to put some of these riffs back into place, I think you need to be honest with yourselves about why you're doing it. And it needs to connect to your values and the focus of the board. And so there is a person behind three of those riffs that is currently in in a staffing position at Montpelier Roxbury. Yeah. So to say just one is more important than others doesn't feel right to me. But and then the Roxbury pre K position while we have low enrollment and it's hard to hire for, which were the reasons why it's on this list. It's what hurts that it's on this list is because pre K is is so unbelievably important in a child's life. Right. So that would have to be considered as well, right, when you're getting there. So then you're down to one FTE riff that doesn't have a person in it and probably isn't connected a whole lot to student achievement or student experience. So now we're above the 10%. Without doing other things, if we had, if we put all the one right, all the positions back in that had people of right attached to them, or that were attached to the board's focus and values, right, and academic achievement. So then you're back up over the 10%. And so then we'd, we'd, in the matter of the next two weeks, we'd be looking at what else we do. Or what else should we do? Should we add more of the fund balance in? Should we cut more facilities? Should, you know, that's a lot of thinking in the next two weeks before we have to warn this meeting. So I would just ask the board to really think about what you say your values are, what you say your focus is, and be thinking about that there are three positions in there that have people behind them, not one, but three. I really appreciate you being bringing out the RVS pre K position. I know that we have a small number of families that think you said it was four. But when I do think, and I think maybe it was three of those families that actually said that the part-time day program wouldn't work. So are we talking about one? Possibly. But I certainly think about what, you know, if those family circumstances change and the half day program does become a value, I think what Roxbury families are facing is the plight of getting on a waiting list at a neighboring community preschool that is, you know, one to two to three plus miles long. And, you know, and I think I brought this up at two meetings ago, too, that, you know, being an education zero to five equates to success as an adult. It is not to be underestimated. So I really appreciate you bringing up, you know, the potential value of plugging that position back in for, you know, Roxbury in particular. I, you know, last year, I think families were starting to get into scramble of where they might go and cause were being made to Northfield. Yep, you're 20th on the list and you're way down the list because you're coming from another town. So, you know, when we get on when a Roxbury family gets on a list in another town, you're behind everybody else who's already in that town because we're not taxpayers in that community. So it's a significant impact when, you know, we don't have a pre K program. Again, I understand demand is essential, but I just want to echo absolutely what would be said that the pre K piece is it's just essential for the trajectory of kids over the long term. Joe. Thanks, I just had two quick questions. One, Libby, were you just saying that the, the riff positions, if they were included in the budget, it would push us over the 10%. Yeah, you would be right at 10%. And I don't see the presentation anymore. Is the pre K position in Roxbury that you guys are talking about currently a riff or currently in the budget? I'm sorry. I just, I don't know where it goes. Currently, well, it's, it will, we're suggesting it's a riff for next year's budget. I see. Okay. Thank you. But it's not filled right now. It's in our budget for FY 24. It's just not filled. We couldn't find a teacher for it. Thank you. I just want to ask Jill's question again, make sure I'm hearing it right. So if we are to reintroduce one riff, then we exceed the 10% or all. Add it up. If you add them all up together, it brings us to, it just sees the 10%. Okay. Thank you. This would be a good time to go to the public. Yeah, I just wanted to. I just want to make one more question. Just in terms of the projections chart, if we could add Roxbury in, if that formula is, I imagine pretty straightforward. I just think if community members, this is sort of like our standing record and if community members go looking, it's there for mob failure, but it's not for rock. Here and I would love to be able to point to folks, you know, if they have questions about how that will impact, you know, and again, their gases, their hypotheticals. But so that Roxbury folks could see that for themselves. I guess you could just say that's the way it does the 3% for every year. I don't know. I think it would be similar. You're talking about this one? No, I'm talking about the one with the green, yes, what Mia has. So at the bottom shows kind of what the PLA changes. Yeah, kind of the post-residential tax rate with the CLA introduced for mob failure, but it doesn't show up for Roxbury. And I just think it would be, it would be good for folks to be able to see that in Roxbury too. It should be very similar. What's up? It would be very similar. It would be very similar. Yeah. I mean, Roxbury, CLA, probably similarly, but a little bit more bouncy. It should be basically the same story overall. Okay. I mean, could we just write them same for Roxbury or whatever it needs to be. But just, I think it would be helpful in our community just to point people, this is, this is what's out there in the public budget forum. And how does it, how does it look for Roxbury? Scott has his hand up, but I don't know if you guys can see it. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Jill. Just thank you, Jill. Lily, I just have a quick question about, about retirements. I feel like a couple of meetings ago, you had mentioned, yeah, there were some discussions going on about potential retirement buyouts or whatnot. And I'm curious if there's, if you have any information about potential retirements. And I can't remember, but I thought there was like a conversation with the teachers union, but nothing had been agreed upon yet. And so I'm curious if there's any, any information about those. The retirement buyout offer has gone out to two of our unions, to the MREA, which are, is our teachers union, our professional staff, and AFSCME, which is support staff, custodians, technologists, technological people, and administrative assistants. And we have one AFSCME member who has taken advantage of the retirement offer. And we have had no MREA members as of yet, but I think the deadline is still, I'm looking at Joe, the deadlines like January 15th or something like that. Yeah. So if people are still considering it, they have time to consider it. Awesome. Thank you. So let's open it up to the public. Start with the room first. I know there's someone from Roxbury who's going to have their hand up for a while. So I'm going to start with the room and then go online if anyone wants to, and that's the room. Joe? Joe Carroll, MREA President, what is the process question? I'm hoping for clarity on the January 17th meeting. Is there going to be another presentation like this and then you all take the vote and then it heads to town meeting or is tonight sort of that night and the last opportunity for advocacy and discussion and things of that sort. And I know I'm asking a question as a statement, but I hope you don't grant me. It's a good question, Joe. I think we'll probably do just a quick overview of the budget and especially if there's any changes, either changes in numbers, seems like what used to be realized, pupil rate keeps changing a little. It's typically just the graph of the budget. And we'll have public comment. So before I take a vote, if there's the last opportunity to weigh in before we do pass it then and then it will end with the town hall. So yeah, so that won't be the process. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else in the room, Nathan? Nathan Souter, Montpelier resident and parent of two kids. Thank you all very much. I'm fascinated by the this page, which is the assumption assumptions page. And it sounds I'm trying to understand the Dolly yield even further. Maybe Jake and I can have like a two day tutorial. So I was trying to find a historic trend for what has happened with the dollar yield over the last, say, six years in Vermont. And I'm finding that a little inscrutable. I grew, well, I agree that going down $1,000 a year is unlikely for five years. So it'd be down to like $4,000 or something like that. So maybe if we were to moderate that row of your assumptions, this would look a little less scary because I think that statewide there would be riots. But the other thing I found that was interesting and we get to it is one of the effects of Act 127 according to the joint fiscal office 2023 report on Vermont's education financing is that Act 127 also required the JFO to examine the inclusion of a constitutionally adequate education spending amount for school districts at a level that is determined by education funding experts to be sufficient to meet student needs. The JFO goes on to say things like that's above our pay grade and stuff like that. But it strikes me that these assumptions and the tax impact that Emma articulated is quite scary five years from now bends a lot on a political decision in the legislature and in perhaps the executive branch in terms of what they're willing to say the dollar yield is to support adequate education spending for school districts at a level that is determined by education funding experts to be sufficient to meet student needs. So I think that the problem or the challenge is not in this room, right? The challenge is a statewide political challenge. And as a parent of two kids who I wish to be educated and younger kids who are neighbors, I wish to be educated. It makes me really angry that this district, the school board and our staff are being squeezed by probably a lack of political courage to sort of make a stronger commitment to education in Vermont. So that's my desire. I don't expect you to be able to change it, but I stand with you and I'm happy to write legislators and organize and activate around that. So good luck for you. Yes. I would like to just say something about Libby had brought up the importance of preschool programs for young children in that area of development. And Kristen had also mentioned how local schools are over. I have long waiting lists for preschools. Is there any way that the preschool in Roxbury could become a tuition-supported preschool from anybody in any town? It already is. Is it? Is that something you could spread that word around so people might fill it up and increase income? So under Act 166, which is the pre-K legislation, school districts are required for residents' children of pre-K age to pay tuition for, I think it's up to 10 hours of pre-K services and they can take that money wherever they want. Okay. But do you think that residents who are in other towns who are on long waiting lists know that? Yeah. Because it just seems like that's a group that's getting pushed out of the openings that exist. And it would be a full preschool classroom would do a lot more than four or five kids. And as you know, I was the preschool teacher there in Roxbury and it's very dear to my heart to see kids have that opportunity. Thank you. And also the room. On-line, this is the raise hand function or you can go off camera and just wave physically. Obviously, I have John from Roxbury. He's been patiently with Stand Up. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Jim. This is John Guifrey from Roxbury. Used to be the school board chair there as well as now the select board chair here in our town. I just, I raised my hand when you guys were having the CLA discussion just as a point of clarification. So while towns and cities do their assessments six to 10 years apart, the CLA is based on fails to assess home values. And when those are out of whack, particularly I think that the level is 82%, but someone might know that number better. When it drops below that, that triggers an automatic reassessment of the properties. So the 3% that's proposed in the budget is probably a likely scenario in rising property values over that period of time in a large property base. So anyways, but that's not really why I wanted to talk. I'll try to keep this brief. My hope is that I can provide a perspective to this discussion that is out of the weeds. And I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on any of the weeds of the budget, but rather now removed from your situation in your position to urge you guys to take a look at this from a perspective that I do know that you have been, but much to the same sentiments as Mr. Souter I think who just spoke that this is not really a discussion that is fair to you as board members. Nobody, I don't think I've ever come across a select board or a school board who's spending money willy-nilly nor do we have lots of extra cash flowing around through our coffers to do this. And you guys as a board are being put in a untenable situation. You're being asked to evaluate two untenable scenarios, one cutting money that cannot be cut out of a budget and still function. And two, spending tax rate dollars that are insane and also are untenable for the residents whether they have children or not in the school. So this isn't being done by our school board. This isn't being done by our community. This is being done by the constants multi-decade tinkering of the state trying to figure out their perpetual problem which is lack of tax revenue. So that is not a problem you guys can solve without destroying the school system. You know the assumptions of saying that Jim you were talking about you know in year five if we if we try to get there slowly it's going to be better when we get to FY 30 that's the assumption that this is going to stay the same and I find it entirely impossible that the people of our state will put up with what is going on right now with regards to how this is going to affect school systems and we're just seeing the first round of it this year and people are going to go ballistic. And that is what forces them to go back to the drawing board and do something yet again and it will likely be bad just like this was and all the other previous attempts at trying to fix this. But I urge you not to start cutting things out of a system that can't be cut out of it. Because take a think about what would happen if 15 or 20 people and families left the district. We don't have large numbers it will make things worse and what do people do when they're committed to having good educations for their children and the school system is underfunded underperforming doesn't have money for facilities teachers are being rift three a year. It's an untenable situation so I would urge you to keep moving forward with you know consistent and prudent budgetary decisions with regards to your staff and maintaining the programs because we don't have any slop sloshing around in there and we need to keep our schools functioning the way they are because without that it is the first way to sewer your community and have people start moving out of your community to go elsewhere either to a different town or city in our state where the schools aren't impacted as much or to move completely out of the state entirely which hurts us doubly. So in standing up to the position that you guys are being put in it sends a message to the legislature that this is not okay and it needs to change and everyone who's listening here and can talk to their friends they have to be the ones that go talk to the legislators as well and say you guys goofed you need to fix this and you need to change it fast because we're being put in a position to hurt our school system because you guys wanted us to mess around with proportions and percentages and it's not okay so I'm sorry you guys are really having to deal with this it's not fair to you and I thank you for all your efforts and what you're trying to do but I do urge you to try to maintain what we have right now until the citizenry of our cities our towns and our state can tell them back to the drawing board guys this isn't going to work thanks. Hey John anyone else online going once? Carol thank you everyone I just want to kind of return it to further more discussion on this I do want to echo some of the comments that came I think from you know Emma John and Nathan certainly about the need for a state fix and I know it might be slightly appropriate for a board chair to call for it but I think it's really time for our legislators to re-examine this act and I think even if they do it will mean some yeah it will mean that you know just given I think what's a needed change in how we account for our peoples well I think will mean a higher tax burden for this community but I think the way the law is currently structured is is not manageable but I think the administration the board have done a really good job this far and putting together a responsible first-year budget that shows we are willing to I think play a part in a redistribution of state funds to ensure that students meet their needs but the wacky impacts of this law are not sustainable and I think for this board the course is to at least in my opinion to deal with the situation we have tried to to make the cuts as unharmful as they can be to our education mission which I think this budget at least achieves in year one whether we'd be able to achieve that in year four five or 20 30 without a change I think is a very different question but yeah I absolutely agree that you know this community is is willing to I think bear a little more to ensure that that districts that have historically probably been underfunded are better funded by the state but I plead to the legislature to do a lot of work this session to find a better way to to achieve that goal so I'll open it I'll stop there and and reopen it up to folks Rick I think that you know certainly our stuff this year but I'm proud that that we are willing to not maximize short term at the expense of long term a lot of elected officials I think you know are just keep on maximizing short term at the expense of long term and it's irresponsible it's harder to do it this way but you know I think it's the right thing to do so I'm glad that we're doing it typically we have an invitation out to our legislators to come to us while they're in session do we have that on the agenda planning document or do we have a date for that we have not set a date for that Libby Mia and I have met with I think pretty much all of the almost almost all of the cake yeah there was a couple who at least one who couldn't make it I think we delivered a powerful message I think it was well received you know that said I think you know hearing from as many people as possible is important I think yeah I think words is starting to get out there I think it was a little slower first but we will we will invite the legislators to come we haven't gotten to it yet we've just been trying to get through this process but hopefully for you know sometime in February we can reach out and get them on the agenda and obviously the legislature association was fast so I'll try to get that out this week yeah could you just touch on the it's come up in a couple of meetings the the effect that a depleted ed fund has on something how does that sort of say something to it just so that I can help it stick to my brain maybe better so and Nathan was curious about this too the yield is kind of a magical number that makes ed fund work um you and it's it came out of act 46 but really it it comes out of act 60 it's like you have all these districts with tax rates based on per pupil spending and you also know they're grand less and you sometimes you somehow magically have to plug in a number that's the denominator to make the ed fund fill up appropriately that's the yield um so when when times are tough in the ed fund it puts pressure on tax rates and so the yield goes down and since it's the dominant denominator if that denominator is going down that drives tax rates um when times are good the yield goes up and times going up times being good includes property appreciating um so in the past couple years you may have noticed the yield go up by a thousand or even two thousand yeah it's gone up for the last for as long as I've been super infinite right and that's because of of real estate appreciating pretty rapidly so I think those things are going to kind of counteract each other there's going to be a lot of pressure in the ed fund but real estate is probably going to continue to appreciate so the yield who knows it might go down a little bit like we were looking at here it might be level but that that's the yield did that help yeah I mean it's I've heard it it's just you know sort of things about the ed fund being depleted over the next five years as the state covers this above everything above that five percent cap and that's not a usual pressure I would imagine on the ed fund so what changes the dynamics of the whole equation that is why I'm so cognizant of saying the assumption slides are guesses because we're in a different world and I wrote an email and said well what's the average thing the yield does and like it's not there and you know I can tell you that it on average it goes up a few hundred dollars to meet on a really good year a thousand dollars I think that happened like two years ago or something and we were like throwing parties the day we got that yield better but that that historical average of what the yield has done is not is not something we can look at right now because we're in such new territory by just what you just said Brett that that the ed fund has a pressure on it that it previously hasn't had yeah and I kind of want to go to I think something John was touching on I mean just there's there's a real cyclical relationship between how good our schools are and our property values I mean you know if this is not a town that families want to move to because they don't believe in our schools you know we're not going to get those buyers coming in and we're not going to get their their dollars and also you know the the more people who come into our community it increases our student yield it's also you know most families who have kids or the families that are that do not benefit from things like uh income adjusted property taxes and income adjusted property taxes is is great and that it helps a lot of people you know stay in their homes past retirement but it also means that there's a lot of revenue that's being lost when you're not when you have an aging population and you don't have you know younger families moving in who are are paying the full amount of the revenue which drives that those numbers you know further down so um you know I I just want to put a plug that you know investing in our schools it's not a drain it is the engine oftentimes of how our communities function not just in terms of educating our kids but economically as well and just keeping keeping towns vibrant keeping revenue coming in um you know keeping the type of things that we we know and love about both Montclair and Rotsberg. Mary? I've had a minute to think about this now and um I still feel that it's my responsibility to the students that I'm here to represent to point out that the cut that I was discussing earlier is not the most strategic way to get to our budget requirements however the more I think about this and the more we discuss it it's just such an impossible situation and the more I think about it the less I understand how we can make this work and I have so much appreciation for the people who are running those numbers and trying to figure out how we can make this work um and so I respect the decision that we're coming to on the topic and I yeah I really hope we can make this work. Maybe do you feel like you have enough guidance from what you've heard around using more or less fund balance and the reduction in board stuff? I think the um the fund balance is a question I still have. I heard I heard a couple different things. I'm for moving closer to four and eight and a half what what portion of the fund balance can we move back to get to nine and a half if that's a comfortable enough place given the unknowns if I if a half a percentage of point is that not enough even if it's you know what's a half a percentage of the fund balance going back? I think if we move that 165,000 we'd be around nine something nine five. If I may say um the training that's living I went to four weeks ago the super-inherent managers we talked about that everybody gets close to 10 percent but that might have a negative impact on the yield so it might be kicking in kicking in the can that road a little bit. There's a part of me that feels like in this scenario kicking the can down the road is not a bad plan because this seems like a really untenable can and that it probably will be a nuclear can. It feels like it's likely to change it just doesn't seem like people are going to be able to shoulder that burden in 2030 if it keeps going down this road so that's that's sort of where I stand. I think getting closer to nine point five by pulling back on the fund balance and by adding that point two back in that would be my hope. Which point two? The sustainability position or if you discuss with your team and decide that it's the Roxbury pre-k you know or any you know if you decide I mean point five is bigger than point two so that's like a bigger difference point one point zero is bigger than point two so that's a bigger difference but I would trust you and your team to like make the decision but I think um lessening the burden on rips as much as possible to get to nine point five. I mean I'm hearing mixed things about what you want to see. Can I just do a quick how many people are comfortable with the budget the way it is and want to see it presented as is next meeting. Wait can we vote for more things than one or just one thing? How are you holding the straw ball here? Well let's just talk a little like I guess we have we have kind of three options we have budget as is yep I actually made four options budget with some of the rifts put back in to get closer to nine point five budget with more reserve fund put back in to get closer to like you know low nine point five or budget with a combination of both of those things put in to get back to to get closer to nine point five or nine point two five so you could be comfortable with more than one you could be I'd be okay as is or with some reserve fund put back in. I'm just kidding. I think those are four choices for next time. Jill's got it. I'm really sorry I feel brain dead so if we put more fund balance it gets us closer to the 10 wouldn't it? No no no no the other way. Oh put fund balance back out for rainy days what I mean. Put it back in the savings account. Put it back in the savings account to use later to get closer to this year so that way we have more in future years. So adjusting the current plan that's currently on the table by reducing the fund balance that's put into that one this year so that we have that money in future years. Okay yeah thank you sorry I'm yeah and I think that would mean that's a good clarification Jill thank you. Yes and that means getting closer to the 20 percent. Yeah it means getting closer to the 10 percent but I think as Scott pointed out last time that's that's kind of like one time money do we want to use it with do we want to have like more money for a bigger bang one time make later or do we want to kind of like gradually do it to make the glide path a little smoother. Libby you had said at a previous meeting that you wanted to keep enough of a distance from 10 to make sure we didn't go over so and I think it was more than 0.5 so I'm just wondering what you're comfortable with around that. Good question Lynn. It is a good question and it's an unknown because what like what Christina just said is advice that we have been given that the more districts who are close to 10 percent more districts like us who are close to that 10 percent number will pull more from the Ed fund which sounded at that time to be unexpected that districts would be close to the 10 percent by government officials and so if that's the case there they told us there was a possibility that in May the dollar yield would be different than what we are now I don't remember that ever happening before other than in a positive direction. Well we haven't had like a year like before. Yeah but we're in new territory again so I don't know if that's accurate I don't know if that's a scare tactic I don't know what that was but Christina and I did hear that same advice. Yeah so we want to give ourselves room does the dollar yield impact that try to mind blank now? I know but will it impact our per pupil equalized amount I forget my my no it comes in after it comes in after it's locked yeah it comes in after it. Is the effect of fact 127 sort of balanced out overall as in like there's sort of an equal number of districts that are disadvantaged or sort of an equivalent amount of districts that are disadvantaged as opposed to those that are advantaged or is it skewed in in either direction. The idea that we're we're essentially this district is essentially disadvantaged by this new formula there are a handful of other districts at least that I've heard of in the state that are also disadvantaged is it relatively even the number of districts that are disadvantaged as we are as a pair compared to the the districts that they told us that right and I'm scratching my brain just feel like because they told us because if it's a small yeah it was so in the original modeling by the joint fiscal office it was 50-50 yes but this year at least so far it's kind of like leaning more towards more districts being disadvantaged and being capped at the 5% at least now that might change as time goes on but generally like what's going on statewide is like what I would call Vermont suburban and this is my own term for it but like Montpelier Champlain Valley, Essex, Norwich pretty severely disadvantaged by design and then the more urban districts that have a lot of English language, multilingual learners sorry multilingual learners and students of poverty are greatly advantaged and also rural districts they have a new weight for rural areas and small schools within rural areas so those are the more advantaged districts so like we're losing capacity but there are lots of districts which are gaining a lot of tax capacity right now around the state so you know it's all by design but you know I was making dinner last night and a soup was being one of the other disadvantaged districts and Jake's suburban Vermont and she was like this is whack I don't know how we're going to get through this budget see this wackiest thing I've ever like they're her board is feeling very similar to you to you all and I think this is super in a small rural no in a suburban district in the Champlain Valley and and she's like and and she's feeling very similar to how I'm feeling about it too so like you're not alone I know that doesn't make you feel any better but oh and the reason why I ask is because if there's a if there's a if there's a critical mass of people that are moving towards that 10% that are getting close to it then that's makes me less just less wanting to go towards it essentially if it's a smaller group if it's a smaller group that's sort of disadvantaged then I'm less concerned that we're close to the 10% in a sense which is all very theoretical but it is very theoretical however the the people who are going we are most likely to be near that 10% are also the districts that have a very large student population relative to ours and a much higher budget and so when they're going closer to 10% they're capped at five and they're they're going to be bigger their budgets double ours triple ours so it's it's a those are the districts that Jake is kind of talking about you know Essex Essex Westford's budget is triple ours Champlain Valley is probably probably quadruple ours and that those are the districts that are so to fill in the blank there or to complete your sentence I think to backfill from the Ed fund to their budget is a lot more money than to backfill yeah our budget right and can somebody remind me through our budget discussion for fund balance didn't didn't we like initially we were assuming we wouldn't use any of it and then we wanted to we had always known that we were going to use 400,000 that that's been in play and and uh long term yeah that that's been just a plan that we typically use 400,000 dollars of our fund balance over the last I don't know five year we've done that almost every year I've been here um and so this year it's like it's up to 568 or something like that but if I recall correctly FY 25 was the last year of that plan so so if for FY 26 and FY 27 we would be like like right now for FY 25 our plan is to you five to use 565,000 but if we put that 165 back into the fund balance and didn't use it then there's 165,000 more for 26, 27, 28 and to me it seems kind of significant that we didn't yet we don't it wasn't part of our long-term plan yet for FY 26 on to use fund balance because it feels like it it makes it even more valuable that it's there to be able to use it given the charts that we've been looking at. I think the other piece of you know pressure on fund balance it the we as a big group um it maybe puts pressure on the legislators to you mean on the education I mean yeah sorry the I misspelled the education fund um it puts more pressure on the legislators to really rethink what's happening here I mean they're going to have to deal with it. It clearly paints the picture of the impact of the legislation that they've enacted so in some ways it's like here you go. Back to the thoughtful I my vote is to do is to give Libby as much flexibility as possible and not to put like a number 9.5 percent but closer to increase and my vote would be a mix of both fund balance and um reduction in force to get closer to 9.5. I'm against the 0.5 pre-K position altogether so if you wanted to I would go for a 1.0 there otherwise nobody's going to go and that's a horrible program that is a shame and I don't know if a 1.0 would actually bring in revenue who knows there's a lot of need for childcare and and a working class community like mine and the surrounding communities and those are you know those are the values of the surrounding communities that uh you know pre-K after school programming like helping people work so that they can put money on the table that's that's what people need in in in my neck of the woods. Which of the options are you going for? Uh well pre-book. No I don't know yeah 1.0 pre-K no no it's not. I'm just for moving towards 9.5 I I don't I don't know what to say about how it's done. What? I'm for moving toward and wherever that ends up with Libby's thoughts about a safe margin there and and taking money from the fund bill. So just so I'm clear I've got to it I moving moving towards 9.5 mix of I'm just counting folks right now we've got one yeah go ahead Chris second okay second land and then same column so moving toward 9.5 and putting more money back into the fund balance together. I'm going to go on to Jill and Scott. Uh Scott and Jill or Jill and Scott over you want to go. Sorry I know I live in the world of math but I'm really struggling so when people are saying move fund balance to get closer to 9.5 they're saying don't buy down our budget with our fund balance yeah they're saying leave more money in the fund balance which will then okay I'm for that that's fine I'm I'm I'm pretty good with the flow but that that makes sense to me if that's the will of the board. Um oh Scott went away disappeared oh my buddy tried to unmute himself yep probably tried to unmute himself okay we'll come back we'll come back to Scott. Um Jake uh fund balance yeah uh fund balance Scott you're back or stay as in that's why I wanted ring choice voting but I knew that would get too complicated at 815 to 9. Yeah Scott can you hear me can I hear you I can't hear you can you hear me can you hear me yeah you can hear two of you now at least see two of you okay let's get too close I'm with you Mia I would if I was ranked choice I'm leave it as is or fund balance if that's helpful all right yep can you hear me yeah um I think it goes about saying that I um yeah I think it's a responsible for us to do anything other than get up to 9.5 or higher and how how would you like to do that leave it up to Libby fund balance I yeah I think I trust Libby all right and I I think I'm in the Mia Shell camp of either as is or fund balance and which I think I think the winner seems to be fund balance yeah and and I'm I'm also hearing most board members say let it let let's try to get closer to 9.5 yeah using fund balance using yeah right using every type of or use the fund balance right to to get there okay I can show you that um till next week thanks Christina thanks for staying like I'm gonna go crush some more numbers for you all thanks a lot thank you Christina thank you Christina um so we will come we will see that budget next uh week and we will um two weeks don't don't we haven't we don't do that to make we're not doing the every weekend don't do that and um I know you guys don't have votes but let's hear from the students as well oh it's a struggle it's a struggle um I have just been listening and at first I had some I think opposing opinions but what Mia said kind of put it into perspective about you know thinking about the future and every single student that's under these facilities and that's kind of made me not completely reevaluate what I think but it's kind of I guess made me think more adult than I think um so I'm just trying to deal with that reevaluation in my head tonight yeah that's real and to be clear to reevaluate your thinking is a very impressive thing to do that many adults pretty sure Laura and I have the same opinion on this I'm deeply uncomfortable with all of it because I know that I and my friends will have to live with all the consequences of this and I know that we as a board will have to live with that as well but um that means making tough choices as well I suppose Jill's got her hand up Joe just real quick I don't want to throw a wrench in the works but I remember at one point because we had a healthy fund balance we were worried that would get clawed back and feeling like we made it through that gauntlet okay in the last few years so there's not there isn't a risk that if we're really good about keeping our fund balance for the next five years that that could be somehow clawed back to the ed fund or used against us in any way right I mean I feel like that's part of why we wanted to sort of encumber it is because we didn't want it to get taken away sorry and I can only see Libby's reaction so I wanted that my reaction was the same as Jake's almost at the exact same time just another unknown but hopefully not it's yeah it gets threatened occasionally mostly by the governor I would say um but I haven't heard anything about that lately um I will tell you in all honesty that would take the agency of education having a pretty well versed idea of what our fund balance is and I can't see that happening anytime in the near future um and so I personally am not very worried about that um I think that a response from legislators who are more worldly um two critiques of this law could be twofold one could be our class sizes of Vermont are very small let's make them bigger and I didn't say that's a Libby that's a Libby thing I'd say that that could be a response to critiques of 127 um and another thing people could say is you have a flush fund balance use it and so it would just be more of a suggestion a strong suggestion to use it I could see that happening which sounds like it's part of the strategy it has to be part of our strategy going forward anyway so um so yeah that's what I would say okay thanks well we can't but they can't torture us you know if they're going to create a cliff after five years they can't also take our fund right that's like that would be just yeah it would be putting salt in a little bit yeah okay we'll put get closer to 9.5% okay okay um so we'll see that next week thank everyone for the hard work and great thought on this uh we're not done yet but I think we're closer um final order of business before we adjourn policy monitoring report we have B8 electronic communication between employees and students do I have a motion to approve the B8 monitoring report so second second any discussion I'll leave it there all right all right uh motion to adjourn so moved second forward there's a lot uh how's it ever all right all right