 Having a quorum we're going to call this meeting to order at 6.39 Adjustments to the agenda we need to add a Action on action item on certifying tuition payments and We also need an action item on approving What's the word I'm looking for Tara What did the What do you give us to sign off on to pay bills warrants approving warrants a warrant approval policy Can you say the first one again? The first one was Tuition payment certification Thank you, and the second one is a warrant authorization There was a somebody said something in an email about an executive session did that was do you think that's warranted or not? Did I did did we need I had asked for that, but we can wait till next time. Okay, okay good Just want to make sure they get missed. Okay With those adjustments to the agenda will go to the We apparently have a few different public comments on the the agenda will go to to the opening public comment Before we get into our discussion on the tax issue does anyone have anything else? That they that they wanted to bring to the table or is it really? property taxes Public's mind Cheryl absolutely Um, thank you any other before okay, then then let's get into it so For those of you that weren't at the first special meeting we had about this three weeks ago at that meeting Brad James attended and spoke about The issues he's had with the implementation of the new student longitudinal data database system the SLDS and the changes in the way that that Manages Equalized pupil count and assigning Students to the appropriate local education authority Our budget that that the board built was built off The agency of education's a figure they gave us in January of a hundred and seventy nine people's pupils as As or right around when we were passing our budget they decided that they wanted to change that number and drop it Close to six percent What that what that had an effect of because now there's less kids to spread all that spending over it raised the Spending poor kid per kid so that added added the first quarter million dollars there abouts to to our taxes And then because that money was added and they said well you passed that budget now you're in the penalty So add another hundred and fifty thousand dollars of penalty to that at that meeting Brad James and Tara and we all agreed that what we needed to really do was to go back and look at a census of each of the Last three years because because the equalized pupil count is based on a two-year rolling average We need to go back three years to get three years ago and two years ago for last year's Equalized pupils and then get last years in this year's for this one so they sent us a file that Tara immediately distributed to the board of Six different a worksheet with six different tabs on it one for Stockbridge Fiscal 17 Rochester Rochester Fiscal 17 Stockbridge Fiscal 18 Rochester Fiscal 18 Stockbridge Fiscal 19 Rochester Fiscal 19 the student counts by town We went through that list. There were some problems There were there were a number of kids that that that got missed especially It seemed like in the Rochester the last year that Rochester was officially a high school But they were still tuitioning kids out It seemed like there was a group of those kids that got missed there were some Stockbridge kids that got missed There were also some Pittsfield kids that were in it incorrectly credited to us So part of the effect of this audit and then this discovery that we're doing is going to change Pittsfield's tax rate Because you know, it's a zero-sum game. The student has to go to you know town a or town B So we gave that all to the state the state then pushed back and said well Can you give us our their dates of birth to then when we did that and I said well What's their enrollment day? We supplied that The state is only the state has only looked through the numbers of one of those six student censuses and they find that There was about 12 12 student variants seven had to come off and five had to people or I'm sorry We we we ended up with a plus five To the count in Stockbridge. We don't have that information for the other for the other five Census surveys from the from the state yet and the state has said that with Brad James Brad James being out of the office to the end of the month the state will not be giving us any answers until that time at The last meeting we said well The first thing is we think we're right and so if you can you know if you can you know So let's get the numbers right and let's keep our budget because we'll find the students will make that happen That's not happening the other two options we presented at that meeting were that we would okay We would never have put a budget forward and pretended it got beneath the penalty when it did it We would have done what we always do which said okay. Here's the student count. Here's the the revenue We're gonna get we're living within our means here's the programs We're gonna have here's how many field trips we're going on here's you know what kind of a student supports We can afford so on and so forth So one of the options we put forward was if this count is wrong Maybe we maybe we should redo the budget so we have a budget that we can afford and then our taxpayers can afford With the state kicking the can down the road to to the end of August We would have to warn a meeting to redo a budget sometime in September I you know weeks after the school was opening when you can't when you can't say okay By the way, there's no more you know these field trips aren't happening We're just lose our our our our deposit we made on them, you know, we're gonna We that we really don't think that's a viable option as a board anymore, which leaves us with the other option which we're going to be talking about tonight Saying you know pointing out to the state that they had a legal obligation to give us that number By the end of the year by December 15th, and they did it and Brad James admitted that at the last meeting that yeah So we're just getting the number right in May We feel that that that perhaps the best option going forward is going to be to say We we took your information we put together a budget in good faith We passed it in front of our voters and had conversations with our communities to accept a budget in good faith that had you know a 3% 2.8 whatever our tax increase was our taxpayers agreed to pay that and So that's the but that's that's where we need to take recourse and if that requires an executive order Well, we'll ask for that if that requires legislative action, you know We'll reach out to Sandy and Allison and Alice and and and dick and and and say you you need to get this done because it's not fair I mean, there's laws in Vermont that say that the warning has to have a Specific paragraph that talks about the per-cost per student so that we are transparent to our taxpayers about what that for some million dollars goes to and You know Because of the numbers that the bad numbers they gave us the meeting we warned was illegal the budget is You know isn't isn't isn't statutorily as transparent as it was supposed to be because we had bad information. So that is Is in in in my mind at least and what the board is going to be discussing our best our best core course forward You know sort out the numbers on the back end We can figure out ADM for next year, but we made an agreement with it with with with the people of Stockbridge and then the people of Rochester that We're gonna tax you this much and we're gonna give you this much school and To say well, you know, we didn't give you good numbers So sorry is is in our mind just unacceptable We we gave him a few weeks to try to go through and do this we dropped I mean I personally spent you know I went to my regular job and then I came home and stared at a spreadsheet for a few evenings to go through and remember you know when When Marilyn Taggart's grandkid moved to Florida to remember, you know whether or not You know whether or not Livy Merrill is is still I probably shouldn't be using various students names But but but you know to understand when you know We've gone through and we've done our part and the state hasn't been able to Make it right. So I think that's the best remedy going forward One person in the state of Vermont I'll say this to the camera Because he's on vacation It's affecting 1,600 people It seems that he's the only one who knows how to do that job Because it's the time of year when schools are going back in we're going through this and so many schools are in the same problem It's not acceptable, is it? When I spoke to Sandy today she did one of the things she did say was that she has been the whole legislature has been up in arms at the lack of people that are at at the education department that they just don't have the number of people that they need to do the job I don't know that but I know I totally agree with you When we had we had our meeting three weeks ago Bruce was on Bruce was on a work. Yeah, he was he was in Cambridge He drove back More importantly training It was training So, yeah A lot of people And the other thing we found it seems that he's the only one who knows how to do that job for the entire state So that you can't put yourself on this pedestal And let's just say that the SU really tried to reach him for a very long time before this And he never returned phone calls or emails so that's a whole other issue And apparently that's a pattern And as I said to Sandy we can't just solve this then this is just one incident What happens when we have another problem? Can we expect the same reaction? Exactly Well, I think as Bruce said We might it's quite possible. We're not alone in the state We're starting to hear In the bottom of the bigger article which is the 23rd of July I believe the one that has Brad James on the principle The last paragraph talks about 28 towns as of Monday According to officials in the Department of Taxes 10 towns are still going through reappraisal but the majority of delays are related to district mergers under Act 46 So I sent I don't want to trump the agenda but you asked a bunch of specific questions One of them was about trying to find out who in the state of Vermont is going through this with us And so I sent an email this afternoon to the Supertenants Association They have a listserv that they can put questions out to everybody And they referred me back to this article I said yeah I know this article it features us So it's like I want to know who the names of these towns are so that we can contact them So Jeff Francis of course who's the head of the organization on vacation But his assistant did get it, did respond to me Asked me a couple questions and they are going to put it out So I just don't have the answers to which exact towns they are But the purpose is to be able to talk to them about is our problem your problem or whatever it is One of the things that I would say is that the impact on various towns is going to be very different So Burlington is missing nine kids an account which is what we're looking at here specifically I think it's 9.3 kids and Burlington is missing 9.3 kids The impact of Burlington is very different than it is for your towns So I am aware that I do have school districts that did have variances But they were within a threshold that didn't cause the same consternation that is happening to them Has the governor's office been made aware of the problem? We haven't done that yet. We were waiting to get through and give the AOE its chance to respond like they said they would Well no actually the secretary of education did respond to me today And he kicked it to Donna Russo-Savage who is their attorney for Can you remember that name? She responded to another one of Carl's questions And referred me to another part when we were talking about that 5% issue I'm not sure it's right. Dina why don't you respond to this according to what you read into this? So I looked at Act 153, Act 156 Can we let them know what we're talking about with the 5% There used to be a 5% whole harmless provision Which means just Was it the whole harmless or it was a merger 5% Budget increase Because the whole harmless is different There are a couple different things. It was the cap of an increase or decrease of 5% That existed in Act 153 It existed in Act 156 It existed in Act 26 Act 49 of 2017 Modified that out And part of what the issue is here if I'm understanding From the information that AOE provided prior to Donna being involved in mentioning Act 73 Is that you got your tax rates of your towns actually Where they were equalized with each other And that is what impacted on your ability to be able to access the decrease increase Act 49 does contain a procedure of going to the secretary if there are increases And having the secretary take a look and see if the increases are quote unquote within the control of the school board I think that it's very clear from your school board that they would not consider these increases to be within their control They dealt with one number and then had a finalized number some 5 months later than the statutory deadline Which impacted everything and has started this problem So that's part of the conversation that Carl and I have had about There are a lot of components in the sense that I think the secretary has some power here to make a decision That they missed what their statutory deadline was in terms of giving you a final number They are reluctant I will say I've been in contact with them They are reluctant to give me a sort of a heads up if they think it's going to be a positive change I can't necessarily fault them for that based upon what my role is You know as the board's attorney I can't fault them for being a little cagey Maybe perhaps with me on that And I think they want to get it right They want a number that is correct But I think there's a lot of validity to the issue that there is under the statute a deadline of December 15 The deadline exists so that boards can't build their budgets and that they know what they're going to be You know what numbers fit into their formulas and what their funding is going to be And I think Carl is correct in what he says that you know there is a Definitely within the law and I'm sure Cheryl you probably would agree with me There's absolutely a philosophy of transparency to your voters about what your budget is And what the equalized pupil rate is going to be and it has to be on your morning It tells you per kid so that people know what they're voting on Because it impacts on everybody within your time who owns property And it is something which is a measure of knowing whether or not expenses are growing up or not So you know at this point I think it's a two-prong issue for me Which is that as Carl said I don't believe that doing a revised budget a brand new budget And bringing that to the voters I don't think that that necessarily is going to be the most efficient way of addressing this I think there's a lot of ownership from AOE here Brad James at the last meeting for those of you who were there may remember he talked about He was on version 15 He also talked about mistakes he had made And he had made some mistakes there were some issues regarding about As well as he should Hard to get sometimes Right and I mean there were issues of also the mergers support Correct there was an issue that he had to correct about What used to be known as the small schools grant is now defined as a merger support There's still provisions that deal with that there were some mistakes within the calculation about that as well That was my baby was designed to help Specifically on the schools here You talked about political options Are there legal remedies that are under consideration or could be under consideration It seems to me that's pretty clear that they didn't follow the law You want me to answer? I do Which is always an uncomfortable issue for me to answer that because there obviously are conversations that the board and I have I think what I'm comfortable in saying is that yes your board is interested in anything which is going to move the dime here And I'm struggling a lot because I don't you know I understand people in their workloads and issues of that nature And so I want to be respectful generally speaking of that But there should be somebody who could be assisting us at this stage I know Brad James he's a nice guy I mean I've worked with him before He's a very bright very good guy There's nothing And he should have somebody who can actually do what he does as well So you guess your board is considering every option There are limitations generally speaking of how fast things like litigation You have to be realistic about it right You have a tax payment that has to come up in Thursday of next week for everybody In the short term I've had a conversation with your board chair about it And your board is going to be doing this in very open about it One of your towns I believe it's Rochester please help me if I'm wrong Actually does assess interest if payments are late Yes it is Sockridge doesn't do that until November I believe Right Your board chair is going to be discussing that with the Rochester select board The short term sort of lets make sure that people aren't penalized And have the accrual of interest We're going to request that they don't have the accrual of interest while we're trying to figure out what this is If people have a hardship issue I want to be very clear I can't advise anybody not to pay what their tax bill is It's an individual choice I'm not making any recommendation legally about the lights The lights are coming off Well you know we've got no tax money flowing in So that's a short term I think Disappointed more than I can explain to you about being told that the answer won't be given to us until the 24th At the earliest At the earliest I think that your board is still putting pressure about that this should be a priority For the part of the AOE that deals with this issue I think it's been very clear with me that there still should be pressure as well So that's the short term but in terms of generally speaking your board is considering every option that it possibly can do I will say this though The reality is to be very blunt and I want to be very transparent Even if your board felt that there were grounds and there was a reason to sue Relief from that isn't going to happen before the end of August Right And so that's also an expense for your town too For your town So it's doing it thoughtfully still being responsible and putting what the appropriate pressure is I think there's a lot of value to continuing the conversations with your legislator Very disappointed I can't have that conversation directly with you right now About that because I think that's going to be part I really think that that has to be an area of where your local representative is And they've been very willing and very engaged I believe in inquiries from the board about putting some pressure on Sandy Haas in my same class name correctly I mean absolutely took it upon herself to call A.O.E. and also inquire and put pressure on there And I think that that's beneficial too You guys should call too Call me back Steve, you're much kinder to them than I would be as far as getting the government involved Well I think that that's a valid point in that the governor You know I would hate to say that somebody on the government staff isn't somewhat aware of it It's a bigger issue but I agree with you I think I think that it's absolutely one of the ways And yeah we have a very responsive government right I mean that's part of our mantra We certainly will So the hotline Cheryl is that what you said? Yes So if all this works out positively and I'm hoping it does And they say yeah we made a mistake we're going to change it Your numbers are going to change And we have to cut back a little bit Because I know that we were at 10% increase in the spring Is that correct? No, no we voted There was a 2.3% or 3% So but if say we have to back it up a little bit So they don't give us everything back because it wasn't until the 14 students that we were behind Right It's less So would you as a board Look at the budget and maybe modify it a little bit If it's a field trip, would this be more fundraising or whatever? I think that if we got a response that was close You know that got us Under the cap Certainly under the we Obviously the penalties are no brainer And if it's you know instead of being nine some students it's two And it moves the tax rate by three or four cents Right That's a different conversation than We're looking at that Sure And we would be I mean obviously the other pieces that So the way they changed the Phantom Student Law is that You don't get to keep building them You can only drop that 3% or 3.5% in a year But the next year you start with your actual count again And you can only drop that So it's obviously going to if we did come down a few kids It would affect where we could possibly end up the year before And that would obviously affect the overall conversations Because we've always been very very We've always found that it's been very important to our towns That we are under the penalty And we are keeping you know We're not having an 8% raise Or a 9% raise because no one gets that kind of That kind of increase to their income You know Exactly We are very well aware that we have a number of our people On fixed income and yes there's income sensitivity But that only counts for the homestead part of your property And it's not fair to try to game the system And say well everyone's income sensitive So who cares what the real number is That's not ever been our approach And that's not So that's why I wanted to ask a question You felt like that's something that you will look at May I follow up on that Sort of black and white As things go right now We can open the schools We can have kids coming into the school We'll have money to pay for them Okay If we have to do this adjustment Of incremental hopefully it's 7 to 9 or something like that That they come back with her But if it's more than that Legally how do we Is that up to the administrators to say Okay Boom We've got to look You have fixed costs that are within your budget That you're not going to be changing right You've got healthcare costs And that's actually quite frankly A large part of every school district project I think it's being just really prudent Within your project And within what you're spending is It is going to be things more than likely To assume about extra Programming Extra programming issues You know The field trip issues that were brought up So there's a way to do that Now I have to say this Not every school district spends exactly What its budget is every year anyhow Right Because you hope to And I think you have a pretty good track record With your administrators of being Fiscal and prudent about that And some districts Because of variances You know People move in You know Issues happen that impact on Your school some do deficit Spending as it is So you do have the ability To open your schools You are going to have tax revenue To some degree Or hopefully all of the tax revenue With people understanding that If there is an adjustment it would be On their second payment You're going to Believe I don't know if you've already gotten Authorization You probably did it during your meeting With your tax anticipation They're available and we're available Tax anticipation Which schools use In the right course of business Not just in these situations So yes You'll be able to open your school And I think it's just being very Cautious about what you're spending Your money Well that's part of the reason to add Those couple action points To make sure That I don't think the board has any interest In trying to hold back People's paychecks Or paying The phone bill Or things like that But I think until we really know What's going on We should probably hold off Writing some of the bigger tuition checks for now Hold off on writing The first big S.U. Central office payment Until we understand Where are Our money's coming from And what we're getting Because if we don't have a budget We say okay we can't do this We're not going to spend towards this budget Because we don't accept the penalty Blah blah blah blah The law as I understand it If you go into a school year without a budget You get 90% of your last year's budget Or 80% It's 87% 87% And we can actually in fact Legally have a tax budget Right now Well sort of So you didn't have a budget That the voters did go on Which passed That was illegally warned Whether or not If there are grounds For taking a look and doing a new budget It's one of the conversations that we Right But again I think that Understanding that One of the worst case scenarios Is that we may only get 80% Of our last year's funding 87% of our last year's funding So being understanding that We have to first pay the bills That have the schools open And pay our teachers And then put food in the cafeteria And put gas and diesel in the bus So It's not a matter I think of Senator Good to see you sir Have a seat Thank you for coming It's not a matter of Trying to be punitive Or saying Well we're not going to write checks to anyone Till they give us our money It's a matter of being You know of prioritizing Our local children And the schools that are Right here And just down the road 11 miles And making sure that They have the resources That they need to open Cheryl is this Is this giving you the information You need to talk to people Back in the community They're talking to you Is this answering Some of your questions It's very helpful Of course You know We don't have an answer As you said No sunshine yet Yeah So that's why I think That To the best That you can The best of your ability It would be really good To plan With good notice Of public meaning So people have a chance Because otherwise Rumors fly Blame in the sign And the truth Gets lost Whatever that might be Yes And so I think it's very important I'll tell you My property taxes are going up $1,500 And That bothers me But it doesn't bother me as much As what I've heard from you About the state Doing what it did Because the legislature Clearly intended That you have that information When you need it So that when the budget is voted on The facts are correct They didn't do it It's clear cut to me They didn't do it They should take what we have Hold this harmless And another year we may have It sounds to me Like another year We're going to have to face The austerity If our If our pupil count Stays down But To me It's not acceptable That we don't know We don't We can't get the information Correct And This is Beyond the department of education The governor needs to know about it And all for considering legal options I wouldn't mess around I mean I know you have to be diplomatic But this is pretty serious And not everyone Is going to take the time to understand That it's a need to respond Well when it was one thing To sit in a meeting with Brad And have him say We're going to get on this We're going to sort this out Three weeks later to be told Well we didn't get it sorted out I'm going away I'll be back in the office End of the month We'll talk about it then And talk to your select board About maybe they can wave The interest penalty So that When the ball gets punted Like that we really have to rethink What we're doing And how much pressure We're putting on Because We can't You can't I mean even if So the next Rochester select board meeting Is Monday I'll be there Even if Dune and company say Okay yeah you're right We're still telling people We're still faced with Trying to get the word out With three days With three days notice And It's not fair to you It's not fair to the staff It's not fair to anyone And you know that's a shame And I appreciate the fact That it's pretty stressful On the staff and on the board But it's also stressful On the community Yes it is Absolutely Yeah I just wanted to remind you About the special ed assessments With all those people in your building That are special ed Special ed parents Occupational therapists Speech language pathologists They're paid for Yes If If assessments aren't paid That means You want to pay the local people I want to make sure That the people that are paid From the ASU office Which is a Large number of people Because they serve Sure Your building All the buildings Just to make sure That we have the cash flow To be able to pay them Sure no And that's I understand that And hopefully That's not going to be an impact It's just hard for us To think about writing And maybe we'll work out Of paying some of it Now But again We're not sure What we're going to be getting In terms of funding from the state To do anything that doesn't Absolutely need to be paid Is I think Approved for us And I certainly understand That People working in the building One get paid And one not paid Sure And hopefully At various times Other towns Have been late paying Assessments And hopefully There's enough to at least Get that first round Of checks out But it's hard Again it's hard to say We're just going to keep Writing checks Like everything is going to be Fine We can't assume Everything's going to be fine We have to At least At least in the short term Hold back And really really think About what we're doing And that includes not just Paying the SU assessment That includes You know as the bills You know come in From the Sharon Academy From Windsor Central From Randolph And from the other Other things Saying you know what We may need You may need to wait You know more than 30 days To get paid on that And that is also a function Of the state You know the state Needs to sort out where we are And what we're going to get And we absent their guidance And be foolish I think of us To just assume that Everything's going to Turn up sunshine and roses And I'm not advocating that I just want to make sure that Yeah no I understand That part of that assessment Pays all your workers It pays you It pays Bruce It pays Tara I'm well aware of that The big piece is just That's just a very large Piece of money And if we're putting That on a tax anticipation No without knowing when The revenues are coming in That's like putting The Disney World Vacation on the credit card Because we are paying Yeah we could write that Check it comes out of The tax anticipation note But at the same time That interest If that interest is going To be accruing For a longer period Because we're at Loggerheads with the State on funding That's not necessarily The fairest thing to do To the taxpayers either Would it be profitable At this juncture Because we haven't spent Any of the budget Other than a couple Little things In supplies and things That Bonnie and Lindy Go through an exercise Of felt tightening In case we need it Now With the hope that We don't have to ever do it But that maybe there should Be a thought about How we might look at things And I'm asking all of you This I don't know About the change Of the taxpayers Tax bill though No, that's not What we're talking about We're talking about It's anticipation Just what if Something happens Better to be prepared Because we had a budget That was within our means That was only a two Two and a half percent increase So if we stick to That budget And the extra came From the state Are we writing any Checks at this point For the addition Of the change Of the high school building No, the only check That was written for that Was for the assessment The study The study How much is that I came from the Dandelion You guys offer us that money To come to the Dandelion Daycare sale So it did not That was forty some thousand Dollars It was out of the budget Dandelion daycare Was a reserve There was money left over From that sale So that paid For the engineering study For the whole engineering study I believe Right Well, because again We had, you know Neither school had Real working blueprints Real analysis of the Systems and the structures Are we going to put The next step on hold Till we get this straight Now I think we're putting Most, I mean We're putting Most everything on hold Until it gets straight It is We're not And, you know Speaking to Cheryl's point About, you know About a big meeting We had been talking About having a big meeting Just to go over that Engineering assessment And to talk about Some of those options And there is no There is no way That we could hold That meeting And get people To come into it With an open mind At this time So, you know The biggest thing To, you know We're not going to get Good input from people In terms of discussing Which building to be in In Rochester And what would happen In Stockbridge And so on and so forth I think it's also Proving to find out How many kids Are knocked over The real countdown Because I know that There are some kids Leaving Maybe coming in also But there are some kids Leaving Stockbridge So, I mean That really Is going to make a Difference For the numbers Again Absolutely And I mean I think it's important To, you know Look at the trends And look at that And not Surely always be You know Holding off because Of what might happen You know The next You know The next school cycle We have You know We need to figure out We have way too much Square footage in Rochester For example We need to figure out What we're doing with that And You know That conversation Needs to be had I think where people Are calm And confident And they have trust In their leadership And right now There is absolutely no trust I mean I'm surprised I don't get thrown You know Tomatoes don't get thrown At me On Route 100 As I drive by People understand That you Are given the right information Yeah No But I mean At the same time They can't We need them To feel comfortable And trust What's going on So we can have An open And Planful conversation That's not Going to be A knee-jerk one Because In Rochester In Stockbridge If everyone's in a good mood It's a new kitchen The new You know Fizz and space And on that People in Stockbridge Will freak out Yes So it's Definitely not the time To be having that conversation But that's also one Of the reasons To bring an urgency To this matter Because We can't If we hold off Having that conversation You know Till We need to Have an idea What we're going to do And what we're going to Put into the budget And say Okay We'll You know Keep that building heated At 60 degrees For another year Versus Right But we can't We can't Physically Shut it down Till we decide That we're done with that I want her staff to Get paid So I think Getting resolution To this And then moving into That Is what the board Would like to do Is that my promise That we're not Going to talk About the building We'll try As hard as we can Yeah Can I ask Tina To clarify A little bit more About the 5% cap Because that really Confuses me Because as we Were doing All of these discussions About Merging It was really Presented to us Like David I think It was This 5% Cap That We would have This as a merger Incentive That for the first Five Four years Until we were Done with the 8¢ 6¢ You know Reductions That we would be protected That the Tax rate Could not fluctuate Either way By more than 5% And you named Some different acts And then you said It changed In Act 49 Which was in 2017 Which was When we voted On Our When we voted On a merger It was Worn for November Of 2017 And as Lindi Just said I never even heard of These acts Some of these Acts that Adjusted things That we were presented As a very Clear cut issue Yes So when the State first came out I want to Make sure I get this right So when the State first came out It was Act 153 Of 2010 It was the First time That the And Reds They were the Reds Then Act 156 Was in 2012 Those both Contained What you're talking about Which is The Not Shifting More than 5% Up or not So the Act 49 came out After Act 46 Act 46 contained The 5% provision Okay As well And I can tell you Because it was the last One you said That said And I remember Act 29 Happened So I think it was In section 22 About 46 or Act 49 Sorry Section 6 Of Act 46 Talks about the 5% Right It also Talks about What they call The merger support Which used to be Considered Small schools grant Right Act 46 Also talks about The 96 And the half percent Of the actual Equalized people Right And so then You get to Act 49 Section 29C And it's Calculation of tax rates For member towns And voluntary school Governments Mergers Which is What You all did And it says Calculation of certain Rates 5% Both harmless Rules And It talks about The extent to which The increase in education And spending And defining Enrollment And then The extent to which The increase is Per Equalized people Is caused by Unifying employee contracts Which did not happen But they're talking about Whole time That's different from This 5% cap They're talking about Equalized pupils Where They're talking about The moving up and down With the 5% That's In relation To the Equalized pupils No They're talking about On your tax rate So They're referring back To the tax rate They're talking about That 5% increase And the 5% Decrease So in other words Act 46 Has language In Section 6 That talks About That a town Will not Have Either a decrease Or an increase Of 5% Right In taxes It's In the homes In the homes The tax rate Correct It's just When you read that It said Start talking about Equalized pupils To determine Your Equalized homestead Tax rate That's part of The formula So they're going back To the Equalized pupils And talking about 5% on the Equalized pupils No They're talking about 5% on the tax rate Reduction Which would be Your homestead Tax rate But Brad The last meeting Brad Made a very clear point That Like We'd reached Some Equilibrium Where It came out In 2017 But that had nothing to do With budget Going up or down It was right when Scuttle Failed 49 Because were we Given the Incorrect information To begin with Yeah I think it was I think it's really shady Of the state What they did Because in Act 46 They sold That you Couldn't go below You couldn't Have an increase About 5% They said You got Your small For protections And I find it Very disheartening To find out That in Act 49 Which passed After Act 46 That they took that One provision away Which was a Major carrot And the entire Carrot And I just find it Extremely Frustrating Yeah That's over Right over again And we thought Because it was presented To us Is that 100% And that's why It's so When he starts talking About equilibrium Which is a word Which is really frustrating Because It's shady Again It's like How many things are happening That are not getting Communicated Okay anyway We should have one Conversation here So there's always Language in And I have to Look at it And And I didn't Recognize That there was Language in Act 73 as well Which talks about This There's a commission Of Or a committee Of superintendents And the secretary Of education Taking Doing Again With a budget Taking a look at And seeing Whether or not It's in The control Of the school That Why your Budget Not a certain amount I am Not comfortable Speaking to Whether or not That's an effect Right now Because I haven't gone Through Act 73 To make sure That What was sent to us From Information Very quickly To make this Very quickly Of Whether or not That's a So this is I just want to Make it clear That this is Along with Missing December 15th They Not getting back To our SU After we Found First heard About this Rate increase This is Another thing That we As a school board Were not informed That this Was In It was passed Before In June We didn't vote On it Until November So we were Given Incorrect information Again We were Given Incorrect information By the You need to Double-check that On triple-check that Because It's confusing It is But it's Just Totally new language That we had Never heard Until the last Meeting You have to Understand You did get the benefits Of the tax incentives For one year Well, yeah Eight Eight We're still the Eight-six That's where we're Still at But We were all Under the Understand that We would still have This extra Perfection For four years For the Entire In the Model 1 Days That was Talented Left and Right And In the In the Office of The State To Have something When they were Doing such a major Consolidation Of all these Small schools To pull Something like that Out From the rug From us On the family website There is A Governed Timeline With criteria Incentives And protections It's Posted According and under the reds and red variations, it says incentives protections include option one of the following. The homestead property tax rate reduction during the first 40 years with the money. Income payers percentage adjusted accordingly, which is the income sensitivity. And it says member towns rate cannot increase or decrease by greater than 5%. And then an italics after, and I don't know what the italics means, like maybe it was added after, it says until at unified rate. Do you make sure you hit that rate roughly? Yeah, and he said last year, you hit the unified rate, which you did because it's not your tax rate that it's the equalized pupil rate is what you're looking at, because then the CLA is added, which gives you your school tax rate. So those bottom were two different because the CLA and both towns are different. But it's that first unified tax rate that equalized was the same. You guys hit it last year. And so that's why he said, that's why he said once you hit it. Well, the calculations and the budget forced it to be the same. In some of the towns, it's more gradual coming together because they're- Well, they run two different budgets for a while. There's a big disparity in some towns between it. It's just- It's done. Six, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven. Okay, well- Okay. I think- There we go. Obviously we still need to get more understanding of that particular aspect of things. And we're saying, why we had talics there, because I don't know why that little phrase is a talisman. Right, and I don't want us to get too far into the weeds about this particular facet of it. I think going back to the big picture, we need to move with a quickness to get some certainty to our taxpayers so they know what they're gonna be able to spend, what they owe for their education tax. Joanne? Well, I know what the meeting with Stockbridge is pretty obviously meeting with CEO was there, and he didn't have an asterisk to that. And he said, this is the way to go. This town should merge because you're guaranteed. It won't go up, it won't go down, but you're guaranteed you're safe and you're not gonna be safe unless you merge. And that, I think, solidified many people's decisions, at least in Pyrtown, I believe that. And maybe he should come and ask me what- So if I can actually respond to that, when he said that to you, that's what the law was. That was what- When he said that to you, that is what the law was. In November of 2017- I'm sorry. It was- Yeah, he only came on board with us. June through 2000. Okay, I'm sorry. This was a very late-breaking process here. Yeah, it was August when we got here. I thought he had done it prior to that. It was in August when we first started talking, I do believe, so it's from August to November we created a merger. And then we got the handout in November of 2017 that said, these are the bullet points. And this is one of the things that you will get if you merge. I thought it was earlier. Yeah. Well, there was, I mean, there were fits and starts for Rochester was in a lot of merger conversations. You know, through the process. May I ask our esteemed Senator? Some of the issues we're dealing with, I know you might not have heard all of this, but some of the things we're dealing with is about particularly the AOE missing this December 15th deadline for the number that was counting on. And then it changed 15 times before they, without any notice, jumped it into our tax bill. And then when our SU tried to get back to them for two months, Stonewall didn't get back to them. This is a very serious issue for us. What can you speak to? I am not here to speak for, explain, or defend. It's a good thing to start with. I mean, a legislator is not, my job is not to speak for the state. My job is to speak to the state. Great. That's why we're just making sure of these issues. Also, I voted against that 46th because I'm possibly just telling you, I take no questions in saying I told you so in my college. My sense was once it was the law, I was hoping it would work well. And I was aware of the shocking tax increase in the shortage. But I was also, the last time knew that AOE and Conjecture is probably the clerical error will take care of it. And it was only until the last couple of days that I become aware that that has not happened. Great. So, sorry. So I've come this evening really to get informed. This will be my first work tomorrow morning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. At the very least, you're entitled to a timely and accurate answer. I mean, that's, at the very least, that. And then probably, you know, to a better answer. Does Knight, the Secretary of Education, is that his name? Den French. Den French, French Knight, something like that. Yeah. Can, I mean, can he, is there a magic wand? I don't know who answers this, but is there a magic wand that even with the man we want is off in vacation? He can say you're okay. He's, I was telling you this, that Senator, so that you're also aware of it. And I'm sure you're okay with me. Okay. He has been reluctant to provide any information other than the fact that the timeline that Brad provided us regarding his being out of the office and coming back and dealing with it is the last information that we had regarding the timeline. So, can he wave a wand? I think he controls the state agency and that he's got people who can do the work would be my statement that they could be doing the work. But it is with two people within that department right now who are still going through, as Carl talked about at the beginning of the meeting, the remainder of your fiscal years for both sets of schools. So there were six franchisees that were going through. They were unavailable today. They've been unavailable the last week for several days and today and yesterday because they are out in the public doing the SLDS training for schools for our data people and administrative assistance. So the two people who are the ones that do this are also the two people that are training everybody else how to utilize the system and how this information gets uploaded from our individual schools through the data files to the state longitude system. But meanwhile, they've been out of touch with us, correct? They've dropped, they've put aside our project. Jennifer is her name. She has communicated with me that exact thing that they were, what Brad confirmed this morning was that they were out and doing these trainings. Yeah, John, I communicate with Dan French at the end of the day today. He passed me over. I said, certainly there's somebody else that can talk to him because Brad's on vacation and getting those notices. He passed me off to Donna versus Savage and she gave me a response. We're not sure it's the correct response. After talking with Dina, I just don't know. But she was referring to unified union districts and that's not what we are. So, but he did at the least try to get me an answer this afternoon. So knowing that I was gonna come to this meeting and have to talk about it, I think the overarching part of this is that there is a lot of sure-handedness in the agency that's certainly Brad needs help if we're gonna get served. But that's a bigger fish to fry, I guess. But again, I think- I wanna go back to Ethan's question about the magic wand. Because the question I have is, who, if anyone, has the authority to say, does the commissioner of education have the authority to say, we made a mistake and we are going to let you go with what you have because it's our mistake and we don't wanna have- And we've got the money. The costs and you don't wanna have- It's not like we're holding the money. We don't go. That's what should happen. Right away, if the commissioner has that authority, I don't know if he has that authority. We need to find out if he does. We need to know if anyone- And this is where Dick- From the governor- That's a very valid question for you to ask. That's a good question. I'll ask- Part of that may be that he, in fact, exercises some discretion and you and your colleagues have to bless it. Have to bless it after the fact. It may be part of the resolution to that. And I think that's sort of where we're trying to see if that's worth it, that's not necessary. Just before you came in, I had been going over. So when we had, we found out about this on the 16th when the town clerks called the board and said these tax bills, they ain't right. We had a meeting the following week that Brad James attended and we discussed the problem. He pointed out that there were problems with the SLDS implementation, the student count. He's trying to make the numbers right. We offered and did sit down with him to go over year by year, student by student, the individual census. One thing we think part of the confusion is that we tuition the 7th through 12th graders so the state is trying to collect information and assign Woodstock kids to our district and Sharon Academy kids to our district and Randolph kids and Middlebury kids now and Harwood kids because our catchment is huge. We send kids all over the state. So that absent, that number not being right, we had, our point had been, part of the new tax bill that makes it jump so high is that by spreading our budget over fewer students, it pushes us into the penalty. $150,000 of the $400,000 tax increase is penalty dollars. We had said, well, we never would have, if that had been the number, we never would have made a budget that spent that much money. We've always lived within our means and if we had to, we would consider redoing a budget at this point with the fact that we're not going to have a number till school is basically in session, we really can't, the idea of trying to redo a budget, putting, getting something warned, getting something that's accurate and then properly spends the taxpayer dollars when school is already started is an impossibility. So what we're thinking, our best recourse is, is to say, we, you gave us, state didn't, you know, the state gave us information, AOE gave us numbers that they said were our equalized people count in January, we used their number, we did not transpose a digit or come up with a different number in our office, we used the state's number, we built a good faith budget, we warned it with the transparent language about how much it cost per student, so on and so forth. We got, we explained it to our taxpayers, we sold them what we thought was a 2.7, 2.8% increase and they passed it and in our minds, we put forth a good face budget and we really can't start and do business of educating kids and still have this over our heads. So that's where we're talking about figuring out if Dan French can wave that magic wand or if the governor can wave that executive order magic wand or if it needs to be something that's put together as part of a legislative blessing to make that budget go forward. But in our minds, that's the cleanest, simplest, you know, we got information from the state, we built a budget, we warned that budget, we presented it to our townspears, we passed that budget, sir. And that's the remedy that we think is the most, is the cleanest way forward. And I think the other thing I'd add to that is just that I think all of us feel, we feel pretty small right now, Dick. You know, just like, we're just this tiny little school district in the middle and here they are off training other school districts rather than dealing with us and if you can make some enough noise there just make us feel a little bigger because it's just, it's really appalling that these people are going off on vacation or not dealing with our problem because it's like educating our kids, it's like bottom line. It just, yeah, it just feels like they're neglecting what it means to live around here. I mean, we don't have the populations, we don't have the money that Montpelier has and they need to get out of Montpelier a little more often to understand what it's like to have this happen to them because this is just, it's unacceptable. I mean, everyone has the right to take a vacation but if you're in a department, you're supposed to leave a subordinate's charge and hold down the court while you're gone. So the fact that someone is on vacation is not a misuse. Thank you, thank you. Okay, well I think I got my marching voice. Thank you. Yes. Make some noise. Please. Absolutely. Does anyone else have any other comments or things they wanna put on the public record before we go on to the rest of the agenda or if we hopefully answered everyone's idea? Like I said, I'll be at the Rochester town clerks or the Select Board meeting next Monday to talk to them about waving or alleviating any kind of interest or late fee payments in this situation and as we said, Stockbridge already has had a policy of not charging late fees till after the second payment in November and hopefully we can figure out and get the word out to everybody and that's where Cheryl, Joanne, we can all use the help when we get some information if we reach out to you, if you can help us. Beat the bushes and get that out into the corners of our towns, that'd be great. I know you know how to do that in this town. I know a little bit about it. And thank you very much for coming. We appreciate that. And for your reasonableness too, I appreciate that. All right. Moving forward, we have a consent agenda about the Friday, August 2nd meeting minutes. I don't see the minutes. You don't have them. No, Jenny's wanted me to pass them. Oh, thank you. I didn't see any minutes. Okay, so we'll table that until our next time. I know the principals and the superintendents just reported to the business manager, well you weren't at our meeting place. You missed our retreat. So, but we had reports from the board. I'm assuming you guys have nothing more to add. Yeah, we're done with Dina. We're done with Dina. We're still in the meeting. Are you okay if I vacate the premises? Absolutely. Do you have anything else you want to talk to me about for a minute or are you good? Or we can talk later. I'm good and I think we'll catch up. Beautiful. All right, thank you. No, not a problem. Thank you. Drive safe and back. Thank you for coming. Are you coming forward? Sorry. I'm the one. Go. Are these books? Those are your FY18 final audits. Audit of this school. School audits. And I'm sorry, can I have your name? I usually put an attendance down. I just, you know, your name. Walter. Walter. No, not. N-E-R-D-N-K. N-E-R-D-N-K. Yeah, so one's Rochester and one's Stockbridge. Okay. And I'm sorry, what's your name? I'm not. Yeah, I was like, you're just kind of familiar. And we have at both the school's principal office and at the SU office, we are independently and professionally audited every year. So there's, we have years back, if you're curious, to really, really do some light reading of our finances. Thank you. Thank you for coming out. No worries. I was going to say that I pulled the information on the treasure. Ah, yes. It is there and I passed the mail around, so. Does anybody need another one of those? I'll take one. And I also passed around the health insurance increases that are there, which are the two things I left out. Can you explain just what the? 16, which is a 4.5% increase, 2016. Can you just explain the top numbers that were written in hand? Those are not, these are breakdowns within our system. Yeah. Very easy. Single. Thank you. Single, two-person family, and these are the plans. This is the VHP plan that cut off on yours and this was the JY plan that was in. So this was our business office doing total. So the way you need to know on each of these pages represents this 2016 year, the increase was 4.5%. I'm sorry, do we have another one of those? Yes, there's a pop up. Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you. And this is valid for how many years? One year. Right, so we've got the top pages, 16. I'll keep going, I'll do 17 was 8%. Okay. 18 went down 22%. And 30%. And 30% for what? That is when the plans changed. That is when VHP went to the new structure of health insurance plans. You could select what level you wanted. The old ones went away. And that was the year that they did that then? Because the plan begins in July. Why didn't I do it, that's what you do. Well, because I wasn't here back then. And this is purely from my prior career that I know these answers. So yes, when the VHP changed the health insurance plans which is all part of Obama's health care directives, that is when you saw the reduction from the old plans in 2017 to 2018. That's it. In 2019, when they started to get more control and knowledge about what rates are gonna be, they went back up eight to 10% depending on which health plan you chose because you could choose from any of the portfolio plans that were offered. Similar to what everyone experienced when they had to enroll in the Vermont Health Connect, we could choose which one best fit your needs. In FY20, they are up four to 12% depending on which plan that you chose. Oh. I tried to put your packets in order. It was almost in order, the last two pages are slashed. What is this? 19 was eight to 10%. What is the title of this, say, FY16? Because this is the first page, that's 16. Right, no, it's 18. Then you got each page historically. The last two pages are swapped. I like all my information on one page on the first page. Do you want me to stick in it? No, no, thank you, thank you. No, not only is it not on one page, it's on six pages and they're single-sided, so we're not saving any paper. I can't take responsibility for that, I didn't copy them. Rosie, come on, I lost control. So unless anybody has a question about that, we go back and talk about the treasurer, so I see that they're... This is going to take some explaining to me that I don't know of. The top, what Jane did, because Jane is the one that works very, very closely with the treasurers. She's the one that does all of our... Jane is who, sorry? She's Kelly, she's my accountant, thank you. She does our grants, she helps oversee SPED, she does all of my bank reconciliation for each of our districts, so she works with your treasurers to get bank records, deposit records, and... Okay, and how does a treasurer get that stuff? The bank. The bank is sending, at the end of the month, to the treasurer the statements from our bank accounts. Yep, and then they send it to Jane. And when you say our bank accounts, what bank accounts are you talking about? Your general operating accounts. The schools. Any other... The schools. The schools that you... Operating accounts. Right, okay. So it was money that goes to pay those bills. And do they really have actual receipts from deposits? Are they actually literally making deposits? Or they just get... Yes. Yes, they're going to the town clerk and getting them... Your checks go to your treasurer, and your treasurer takes it to the bank. Okay. Does a deposit, gets a deposit slip, fills out a deposit slip, gets a receipt when they go to the bank. And that's all the backup documentation that they have to send to Jane when she does the reconciliation and actually enters all of your revenues into the Infinite Vision software so that your budget reports work. Does this person get paid? Yes. Yeah, and that's kind of another question, but yes. Yeah, there is money in the budget for them. It seems to have been compiled into one line in our budget though, so we need to maybe as of... For your next... For our next budget, we need to make sure to break that out because that was the intention. And for some reason, it all ends up on one line. That's right. What else is it on the line with you? The secretary. So just because I, to learn of what treasurers do, who is sending the treasurer checks? The state of Vermont? The town? The state of Vermont, the payments that you get from the state are usually ACH, which is an automatic direct deposit type of things that come in from the state tax department. Your town clerk for each of your towns who's collecting your taxes would send a check to your school board treasurer when we send reimbursement back to your districts for grants. Those checks go from us to your treasurer. And your treasurer does the deposits. We, as the supervisory union, the only access I have to your bank accounts is view only. So I can go online and I can see, not all of your accounts, like I don't have access to your White River credit union, I think is what it's called. That's something that we've been trying to reach out to the Rochester, not the Stockbridge person. It's only the Rochester town clerk that had access to that account. So Jane's been trying to get that because we're trying to, we can't reconcile that account because we have no documentation on it. How is this even happening last year? Because we didn't really have a treasurer, did we? Joanne, let's finish it up. Yeah. Kathy was our, Kathy Brown's our treasurer. All last year. The town clerk of Stockbridge. Oh, okay. So she was doing for both towns? Right, for the district? Just fine. Yes, those are districts. And she's leaving. Okay. We will continue to need just one. We're going for your word. You only have one treasurer. Yes, yes. Right. We're going for a go and need one. Okay. It's useful to have a short memory because things get reconfirmed. Lunch money deposits, which would come from the school. Right? Don't they all go to your treasurer? Yes, they go to your treasurer. Okay. Just so all of you know. And I'm just thinking some other, yeah, some other, it depends on the district because I have some districts that have deposit slips. Okay. Right. Their administrative assistant has a deposit slip to go and do the food service deposit themselves. And then they just send a copy to the treasurer and to the supervisory unit office. Does one planet work that way too? One planet, all of their money goes to one planet. And one planet makes, we make that deposit on behalf of one planet. Excuse me, a question. Because one planet is paid out of that. I'm sorry. What bank do we use? Mascom. So somebody would need to take a trip over to Bethel's where Mascom is? The closest one. Yes. I don't know that answer. Yeah. It is. Okay. Mascom, I used to, on my agency, you think I know where all the branches are, but I don't. No, that's fine. Alright, so I understand that. Thank you. Make deposits and transfer school money taxes. Yep, okay. We'll draw a TAN money. So that would be something that you would approach the treasurer and say you need to take out the amount of money. I did not tell your treasurer when to draw down your TAN because your treasurer knows what's available in your bank account and can make that decision on their own when they need to pull down your TAN to cover expenditures. Okay. Do we have to instruct them? We go to the RFP process for the TAN on behalf of each of the schools, which is what you approved. Right. A couple of meetings. So they reconcile all of their bank accounts? They should. And then we also do it. And the ultimate goal is when Jane sends them her reconciliation, they match. Right. That's when we like it. So we really do. We have to have somebody who's an accountant. Yeah. Not necessarily an accountant, but they need to be, but they don't just swipe the card. More of an accountant. Yeah, yeah. More an accountant. Yeah, me too. Suggest that they, you know, have some bookkeeping maybe or, you know, they're really good in their own checkbook. I mean, if we could get, if we could get that right, that would be great. Not me. Okay. So I can't tell you who to pick. And Tana Cashflow. The norm is it's your town clerk for most of our other districts. It's either the town clerk or the town treasurer if there's a different one. I mean, that's, that's. Because this is kind of the stuff that they're doing for the town anyway. Exactly. They're doing the exact same duties. They know the rules and regulations. They know how things work. So is the town treasurer and the town clerk the same? Not always, but it depends on the town. Right. It's gonna be okay. All right. And like for an example, I can give you one example, you know, just because of my old prior experience, like F Chelsea in Tumbridge, they have two separate individuals. Okay. Chelsea has a town clerk and they have a town treasurer because that's the town that I live in. Yeah. And then Tumbridge also has a town clerk and a town treasurer. And the Tumbridge town treasurer is the treasurer for the school district. Yeah. Okay. Mail-out accounts payable or payroll checks, they actually mail-out. When we physically do the warrants. Yeah. You get a copy of the warrant itself and then the backup documentation, which is your copy of your check, the copy of the invoice and any other information that you have. So can you tell me what a warrant is? A warrant is what you sign to give us permission to release checks. It's a list. It's usually a list that says, you're paying this, you know, you're paying this much to... You can share it and have $78,000 for tuition for these five kids, you know, that kind of thing. It's basically a stack of bills that there's usually a cover letter on and you're just authorizing it, yes, please pay that stack of bills. Right. So what they get, what the treasurer actually gets is the physical check. Okay. Because they sign the physical check and they mail it out from their office. Okay. And then every couple of weeks, we come around and pick up all those black folders that you all get to sign and then we take them back to the SU in the copy of the check and all that backup documentation then goes back into Johanna's AP files. So they don't have to keep that, those records that it's passed. Because most of them, literally, just after they've pulled the physical check out, they put everything back in the black binder and they stick it on the shelf and we know where it is. We come in, we grab it and we go on. Okay. Well, thank you. That gives me very, very clear understanding what the treasurer does. Any candidates, please feel free to reach out to Jane because she is happy to talk to any of them. Okay. Does she have a direct line or what is her extension? No, no under extension. It's just called my office line. 7-6-3, 7-7-9, or what's my A for her? No, that's the extension is 1-1-1. Mine, no, 7-9-9-5. What is my 0.7-9-9-9? It's your extension. I got a business card, hold on. I always have to look on the emails that you send. Here we go, I'll give you one of these. My phone number is 7-7-9-5. I'll get the other numbers. I didn't even know that word. Wendy knows because she calls me. Wonderful, thank you. I would like to go ahead and approach Desiree again at the bank. I had approached her when we originally joined. Now there's better understanding and she'll have some support. Does anybody else have any other ideas? I don't know. Who's our new board? Yeah, I think that Kathy said she's just going to be learning our position. The same thing as ours. That's what our chancellor had said, was that there's so much that they are learning just for the town that to add another thing was quite overwhelming. Okay, I have a couple ideas, but if anybody else thinks of anybody... I mean, if Desiree says no, Becky Klein says no, but let me know, right? Yeah, she immediately said no, but then she said, oh, well, what does a treasurer do? Yeah, yeah, because she certainly got the experience. That was kind of activities, because she's worked at the town office for so long. What's the salary? Well, there's not a line item in the current budget for a treasurer. We put one in the... we warned us the salary when we did that whole, like, Articles of Unification or whatever. Wasn't there a dollar amount put in that? No, it was bundled together and it is one line item and it's not noted that it is a bundle. You and I had to dig to find it. Yeah, when we originally... I think it's only either a thousand or fifteen... It was a thousand. Yeah. I'll tell you the amount. I have that in... A clerical salary is $1,000. Here's the book. Right. So there is no... It says clerical salary and I know our intention was that there was the secretary and the treasurer that each got a portion of that. I thought it was $800 for the treasurer and $200 for the secretary because all the secretary really had to do was that annual meeting. Just the annual meeting, right. But it is not specific in the warning that that... So we have to wait till next budget, I believe. Who would be paying these checks like you do? We physically write the checks and your district pays for... It pays like our... Because I would... Amy, if it makes a difference and I don't know if we can do this, but I would take less salary to give this treasurer who sounds like they're doing quite a bit more money for this job. Personally, I would do that. Yeah. I just think, you know, this is... You want to have somebody totally reliable and who's really, you know, can make the commitment. And that's why oftentimes it is the town treasurer because that's where your stuff is normally going. They're doing it already for the town and it's just one more set of books that they have to keep. But just to keep that in mind that maybe if there's a negotiation about the money, we could certainly talk about that. Absolutely. Wonderful. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Amy, for taking it up. I would definitely have them reach out. Yeah, because she's happy to to help and explain in any way because they will have the most interaction with Jane. That's great. Thank you. In Johanna, obviously. This has been an honor to do this for a while. This is great to get to move on this. We need to move on this immediately because Kathy Brown is leaving. At the end of this month, yeah. She's not making it. The end of August is like everything. Everything. Everything. Life hangs by a thread. And then everybody's body. It must be like this. Yeah. This is going to come in one way or another. Okay. All right. I'm going to come down one way. So then just the two action items that I had brought forward, I think one of them, you know, I think it's important that at least in the short term, until we have some clarity around where our tax dollars are going, that we really, we as a board, we only pay essential expenses, not tuition and not central office funds. As long as we're not getting interest on any of those. I just started to see this week some of the tuition invoicing starting for the next year because a lot of the schools want their first payment due August 1st and they're just getting their invoices out. So just August 1st they want it? They do. A lot of them bill for August 1st. Some of them bill for September 1st. You don't even know for sure if the kid's going to be there. Yeah. The one I got today was from Carnegie Mountain. The one has to do with them needs the cash flow. Right, of course. Everybody's on the same note. And you know, normally it's one thing, normally we just write the checks and yeah, we pay a few weeks of interest on the tax anticipation note until we get the revenues in. Right. But I'm just concerned that we don't know. Your first deposit from the ed fund comes the end of September. So until we have some clarity, it's the first deposit from the education fund. Your taxes obviously usually come in end of August. Right. Because the town has 20 days from the date that they have it due to pay the school district by statute. Right. And what we don't know though is what we're going to get. Right. You know what we're going to get in. Right. And I agree. I think though if there is a, there's no school that charges interest for. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. I mean the things that you really want to be careful of are the utilities. Right. Your food service. You need to make sure that your food service stuff is paid for. Salars. Absolutely. So this does sound like a good one. Top priority. Yeah. Let them come after us. I mean, you know, I guess they get far the kid. They just send the bill again. I mean, that's the most. Yeah. No, no, that's. When we were arguing, when some families really didn't understand that you had to like bring in a copy of your utility bill to prove. Right. Well, that doesn't. I need to see how we need more. I need a physical food. Right. Well, and we've had, there've been instances where someone has said, oh yeah, I own property and they've, they've, they've, you know, put it in either fabricated address or they've, they've, they, they do own property, but it's not a homestead property. They just own a piece of land and they think that might count. You know, and that doesn't, you can't, you can't own. So they'll just rebuild. It was what the. Right. The school will just rebuild. I said we don't pay. I know. I can't think of any tuition bill that I've. Okay. Well, I think that's a good place to start, but then we can make sure that we have food in the cafeteria and that we are able to pay our staff. Right. Right. Well, and again, we, we have a tax anticipation note that we could just, we could just draw down and trust that things are going to be fine. The interest as best we can on that. But yeah, I think, if this drew, Carl, who are we instructing with this? We're instructing the board, us, because the people. But I'm saying we, who's paying, who would be paying these tuition checks? Everything comes to Janet for the central office. I write, Joe writes all checks. So all invoices come into the central office once they have been processed within your building. So they have to, the process for invoicing is the invoice comes in, the administrative assistant of that building and this situation for you guys this year being with the change here, Janet Brown, not Janet Whitaker, Janet Whitaker is doing invoicing for both of your buildings. Gotcha. So it comes in. She looks at the budget that you approved and identifies what account code that that invoice needs to go to. She codes that invoice and then it goes to your building administrators to review and approve. Can she get in any trouble by us telling her not to pay these bills? No, and actually where I think it would, the best place to have it stop is the, remember that Warren stage? Yes. So the Warren usually looks like a packet, it's got a big kind of spreadsheet page that says Amazon, $75. You know, of Sharon Academy, $78,000. Green Mountain Power, $437. Blah, blah, blah. And what she can do is she can say, I'm going to sign these ones. I'm going to sign the payroll. I'm going to sign the electric bill. I'm going to sign the internet bill. I'm not going to sign the tuition bills. I'm not going to sign the... But it doesn't even get sent over to go on the Warren. You give us the directive because that would be better than having it checked for you around. So let's do that. Okay. Communication. So we're giving you the instruction. I don't know if you have to vote on that or not, but like if you're giving the directive, then that's what Janet will just hold it on until we get this sorted off. Then let's do that. That's what you're comfortable with. I think we should... Do you need a motion on this, or do we just... I don't think we do. I think it's just an instruction. And do we all in agreement on this? Yes. I think we should be... Okay, good. I think it's just a first month's sped assessment. I think it's already coming because your sped teachers need to get paid. Yeah. I don't think I ever see it though for that. So I'm... I don't see assessment. So it's not... It's not... Because I remember... It's a separate invoice. I haven't signed an invoice in a while. But they used to be... It used to be at least when... I specifically remember from Windsor Northwest. There's been an assessment. I build that out. So there is one bill that you got that for your first quarter central office assessment was already done in July. So I'd already build out quarter one. I won't build the next quarter until October 1st for central office. So that's me. That's Mary Ellen. Right. That's Cynthia. That's Ray. That's your... Christy and Brunson. That's tech. No, sped is done by a different assessment. Oh, okay. Build separately. Done monthly. But because we need to have money in the sped budget to cover payroll, I asked that these sped assessments for the first six months be issued to each of the districts. So you'll see a larger lump sum for the second sped assessment versus the first month sped assessment which went out in July. This is all... I hate the very reason why we're doing this, but it's all very good to know. Yeah. The inner work is extremely important that you understand the process. Physically responsible as a board, you need to understand how it works. And some of the issues that we've had in other districts is that they don't understand the process and they get some miscommunication from vendors and, you know, then they end up being the sponge to that anger because they don't understand the process. And then the second piece, we may want to take more of a formal action on, but I think it's important because we have delved into the student census is that we really, I think, need to have a policy that does say we will not pay any tuition bill that we have not seen a current... We do not. We... You put that into effect at the beginning of last year. Yes. And we... Okay. And so we... Because you were newly married... Right. Right. We talked about that when we... Yes. That it was, you know, I guess I worry that, you know, was that something that David Larkham just kind of said, okay, I'm going to take care of that. No. It's very serious. Johanna has a spreadsheet. Ginger was the one that maintained that up until her... I can't tell you exactly what month ended. But Johanna received the books that had the tuition residency verification forms and there is a spreadsheet that identifies who we've received one for and who we haven't because those tuition residency forms are the folders I polled to be able to do the tuition part of that spreadsheet. Okay. And compared it to what was on the spreadsheet. So that is the SU's policy in the business office is that we will not pay a tuition bill and all of our receiving schools are aware unless we have tuition residency verification forms. Okay. Right. As long as we have you know, a definitive statement that the books stops here. Are you kidding me? This is all because because it is. We'll get just as an example Janet would get bills like I didn't be like I'm pretty sure I just paid. I signed off on Sharon. Like this is all looking familiar to me and Janet would be quick to point out well we must have just got this kids form and because it says to residency verified next to kids name because they list out all the kids that they're billing you for. So while the bill is finalized the residency verification well that's wonderful because again that was seeing seeing some of the state of that spreadsheet makes you know gave me pause that you know because again we had that was a very clear comment from our two communities especially for the Rochester residents who were not used to paying tuition and being very clear that we were we were only sending out money if we if we knew for sure you know we would have been here because their families move and the other piece that that becomes complicated is you know it's parental custodial rights have nothing to do with it you know you could the mom could have all the custody if dad lives in Stockbridge they can claim they can claim Stockbridge because it is long as there is a parent here and that that has been doing this that or the other we've we've had issues where the superintendent has to get involved yeah or you have to get a private detective to go and look at looking at address and confirm that that's where the people are staying can I ask a follow up question on that are we now that we've done this inventory of our counts the last several years do we know now going forward that we will be doing our counts now that we're up to date so Ray went to one of these trainings today because he actually called me yesterday to be like and Janet as well what what do you need to know what have you learned that you need to keep track of so there's this whole feature he came back and told me all about that we shall be unattended to so he he and I went back and forth about some questions like where are they pulling it from in our system which is what just school has done because when you there's gone kids right now it's it's blank yeah and so there is definitely the directive that I have given Ray is that my expectation for early on in this school year is that the administrative assistant team will be brought back to the SU office to do another training they did have one in June when I pulled them all in to go over stuff they will have additional trainings because the absolute pivotal information that impacts everything we're discovering that's what we know now yeah that's how we learn from this process one more step and I don't know if this happened prior but it will be happening this year is once we get the initial round of tuition invoices and we've compiled the FY19 20 tuition list I will bring that to you and I would ask that you go through that list and we do the exact exercise that we just went through because if we don't get that system right this is going to continue to be a problem and we also we also have to be faultless their problems and their problems because the other problem with local people has been you have a family that chooses to come we've had families choose to come just because they say okay I really don't want my kid to go to school X I want my kid to have choice so I'm going to come and rent a place in Stockbridge and live there and so there's names that show up that are valid and we need to make sure that we're capturing them and getting that sort of information I know one example already of a family where the mothers here in Rochester the fathers in Stockbridge and they chose a kid to pre-k in Stockbridge because the hours were better so something like that has got to be listed because that pre-k is Twitch sir pre-k you can go anywhere it's just like school choice okay public comment public comment there's there's the last public comment and then we're going to talk about what our next meeting is that's you I knew you were kind of coming closer closer I'm so sorry I think you guys are all dealing so much but I want to come back to our carbon footprint issue and talk about our overall school maintenance when it comes to the outdoors and knowing what the inventory is the equipment we have and I understand you're basically busy thinking that you might like to actually see that electric tremor is still still here I don't know I'm hearing an answer you mentioned this several meetings ago and so we probably should have an answer for you I understand the process of our ability to follow through with our amnesia because all the other stuff comes up all the time but in the long term when it comes to cost savings and education as you were speaking of hey we teach reading right we might actually save some money here and actually do outdoor maintenance better and write and better carbon footprint and be educational so just for the long term we don't have to continue with the same old same old where the administration kind of looks at maintenance and says go do that you know maintenance needs to be educated along with the cooking staff and everything else there is a component that all the staff is educated to reflect education that's my speed of the day thank you very much thank you thank you thank you for being consistent in your message I just want to figure out going forward for this week are we going to put out something to our communities like we need to have something that we can post in our tongue clerks we just need to keep everyone as updated as we can so we can post online okay it's a warning she don't know okay this would have been I don't know if it's her email but right I think Megan has a very good point we had some people here we don't have a lot of top-tape we do something I'll put together a paragraph or two and we'll I do have an expectation that Jennifer will communicate with me before the 23rd to kind of go over as they've gotten the time to go through the additional issues and once I have any communication with her I will absolutely share that with you just you know this but I don't know if you too know this because I shared it last night I am in food authority training next week it's mandated by the state and federal government because I'm training school food authority because we do not have a food service manager it automatically defaults to your business it's part of it creating recipes and creating well you have to have you have to have so many units of vegetable seriously I mean all that you have to do I'm the new stuff I have to go otherwise we don't get our food service they will be there was a discussion it's a violation I wanted to do something else but he was talking so I have to go and it's all next week but he was talking at Middlebury High School oh my God I was totally throwing a curve ball when I found out when we had our food service one or two years duties as prior to business manager this is going to be but she this was her assignment by Donna so I will be educated next week wow we're so happy for you yeah thanks for sharing well and just keep us are you going to actually get some good food how long do you think it's going to take from Chelsea to Middlebury an hour and a half 45, 45 no you're thinking I don't think I think maybe you know where is it in Middlebury Middlebury High School okay from here to Middlebury High School you can get in about 50 minutes if you do not get stuck oh yeah from here and like I think it's I think it's 15 minutes from Rochester I've been doing it I've been doing it but it takes me 45 minutes to get here 25 from this point that's gone either way okay 25 25 is safe wouldn't it pay to get on 89 I don't that's what I don't know because I can get on 89 yeah but then that do you get on in Williston or no no no you don't want to do that I thought you said Montpelier High School Middlebury Middlebury High School you want to come over here and then Thursday after classes out I'm headed to where am I going Groton State Park for stay on Lodge Lodge to join all of you hopefully for some of you hopefully for some of you I don't want to oh my god please take care of yourself so that you don't burn out one last thing yes I just want to discuss is a possibility of our board coming together to compose a letter to the state just I think it should be on our letterhead I think it should be signed by all of us I think it should be addressed and to Governor Scott Governor Scott to the AOE to Dan French or Dave French or whatever his name is but I think we should formally file something yes my only recommendation I think it's a great idea just make sure yeah oh no absolutely absolutely I'm going to actually probably ask Dina we sort of implied that she was going to start a draft of it I'm hoping that she will give us a yeah definitely because we need to step by step of what the particular things that messed us up I think it's really should we write Dina and ask her no I'm going to tell thank you okay and I will get obviously I will not once she has something I will circulate it and then do the whole everyone sends me individually so we don't violate or yep and then make Bruce's hair fall out one question Bruce said and I never really got answered do you want Bonnie and I to go through the budget tightening with me exercise and if so what's this is just what do you well the thought the question that I had and I wasn't going to didn't want to necessarily say it in front of anyone else is view of the time to do that you know the question is to get to school open and deal with all those sorts of things because we can always burn that bridge when we come to it I think also just you know now where we stand not that you need to go through and maybe pick stuff out but you have an idea maybe you shouldn't be buying something like $131,000 Right, and that's part of it, we don't know. Right, and I'm really, what I'm really hoping is that again, you know, I'd, both Cheryl and Dick seem to, seem to say, you know what, yeah, you guys put together a good faith budget. And I think going forward, that's going to be, that's going to be the most, the simplest thing, and we'll see if we, because we can get that, then we don't have to cut anything, because they've, they've said you guys put together a budget and we screwed up and so your budget, your budget stands, your budget, it's number stand, so. I know, it's morale, I would worry for morale and what not, but Brian. Well, we had a PB day for Stockbridge teachers today and some of that PBIS stuff and the question came up, like, are we even going to be able to open? And I was like, yes, we're opening. Please tell them, absolutely. Any teacher, who was she there? One of the two was there. Just very anxious. Yeah, of course. They don't understand it, so it was. Right. I think it's an important thing to put, Carl, in the, you know, the basic stuff, like that, in this letter, that we don't get to, I mean, we want the complicated information of what we've gone back and forth, but also that schools will be opening. People will be paid. Basic, basic information is what people want. You mean for the community? This is what I'm just saying. This is the word we can put out, too. Schools will be opening, teachers will be paid, food will show up. The lights will be on. Yeah, the lights will be on. Well, maybe. Well, but I think that's it. The reality of it is, when the bottom line happens, you are going to be funded what your approved budget is, unless for some reason we have to go back and redo the budget. What makes the difference is what you're getting from taxes versus what you're getting from the Education Spending Fund. Yep. That's the difference. The bottom line number, that's still what you're getting. I mean, that for what we have. Right, or we think so at this point. I mean, that's how it works. Right, right, but we may not be able to, again, if the states, if the states is, we're playing hardball, you pass this budget, we're, you know, we're giving you this penalty. Right. We may, you know, at that point be saying, no, you're not. We're going to, we're going to push back and we're not going to, you know, take, I mean, you know, sometimes if you take the, if you take the bill or you take the invoice or accept it or take the check, that makes it harder to serve the warrant. Yeah, and they serve the warrant on the person. They have to touch them physically with it. It's like, no, no, no. I did not know that. Janie, when you're signing the warrants, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Okay. If I'm not in the office, tomorrow I'll be in all, while I'm in the administrator's meeting. In the morning. And then I've got a meeting from 12 to two, but otherwise. So should I not sign tuition to a lot? There should, I don't believe there is any tuition. Okay. It's probably a pretty small amount. Okay. Yeah. My, I don't, my recollection of what your run is, because that's also something new that I'm doing, is Johan is now required to give me a copy of all your warrants so that I can keep track of what's being paid. Okay. Because that wasn't something that I was regularly aware of other, because I just ran your expenditure reports. Okay. That's what I'm going to buy. So. It will be good that comes out of this sometime. It's just my theory of what to find. Yeah. Absolutely. No. I mean, this is really, you always try to find the good out of everything bad that happens. And I can say that in the business office, it's been very eye-opening for my staff to really get an appreciation and an understanding of where information comes from. No. And how. Important it is. And what's in your control. Right. You know, it really, it was very, it was a very good, even though it was a very long and hard exercise, it was a very good exercise to go through because for me, I learned a ton. Wow. Cool. Through this process. Like I understand some of the stuff now that even as a board member, literally went over my head. All right. Well, our next meeting is going to be Tuesday, September 3rd. It'll be at the Stockbridge campus at 6.30 p.m. With that said, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. No. Make such a motion. All in favor. All in favor, aye.