 Tuesday February 2nd 2021 at 6.42 p.m. by a Google Meet. Adjustments to the agenda we have one adjustment we would like to bring number 12 executive session right up and make that number six is that right Jamie? Yes that will come right after board comment. Right after board comment we'll go into that and then come back to public session. And there is a separate link that's been emailed out to the board so folks that are on can stay on from the public. Okay thank you thank you good. So so moved to adjust remember Dina gave me a lesson on this last time that we make that change to change executive session to make it number six. I have a second second thank you Justine all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you Amy thank you Jenny good all right good then assigned timekeeper Amy you up for this again I've got some times for you I think five consent agenda five minutes or less board comment I don't have anything particular to say tonight but anybody else will give it five reports to the board because we've got the expenditure and revenue report I think for all reports to the board let's give it 15 probably to 20 that sounds optimistic I know and then discussion items COVID let's give that 15 budget is going to be let's give that at least 25 audit Tara what do you think you need for the audit 1920 five minutes five thank you stockridge decoupling vote and related dates timeline we're going to look over the timeline that Lori this 10 clerk at stockbridge let's let's say 10 for that and experiential outdoor education let's give that 15 no action items new hires public comment we'll see whatever time it is and then we have the final executive session okay does that sound good got all those Amy good okay great let's get to it we have prove the minutes of Tuesday December 1st 2020 regular prove the minutes of Tuesday January 5th 2021 regular prove the minutes to Tuesday January 12th 2021 special um prove the minutes Thursday January 14th 2021 special and approve the minutes of Monday January 25th 2021 special do we have any corrections to these minutes I do not okay thank you Amy I do not Jenny I hope I don't since I wrote love to them I watch again thank you so much for this I know it's a lot of work and I appreciate it very much we appreciate it I would entertain a motion to approve all minutes as a slate could somebody move that for me please I make a motion that we approve all minutes as stated as a slate second thank you justine and Amy all in favor signify by saying hi hi Jenny hi there thank you good we're done the okay board comment is there any board comment Amy yep I uh wanted to um compliment uh the administration and the teachers on their um monthly or weekly I guess newsletter that we receive as to um he letting all the parents know what is actually happening in the classroom I know it's something we discussed um prior before and I just wanted to say thank you I I think it's wonderful I think it's a great tool to to with parents I think that's great um I also wanted to compliment our stapler I don't have an example of it in front of me but I love the new stapler because it's not real staples it is just getting the papers together and I think that's wonderful I'm very environmentally conscious so I I appreciate that um and my only other comment is to please um we didn't receive the principal's report or the superintendent's report until 123 this afternoon so um I would uh appreciate as soon as we can get those um it would be greatly appreciated we got Tara's report yesterday um but in the packet it was sent out in in the uh packet on at 123 today with the um with the uh link to the meeting tonight I think we got it before but I don't remember when we got it yeah that was sent on Friday with the agenda and Ray sent it again but you always will get that with the agenda okay well then excuse me I misspoke then I will need to see how I missed that that was definitely an error then on my part so let me know I just I wanted to make certain we didn't miss a step here so it was sent Friday at 537 okay uh then excuse me I will figure out what I did wrong thank you Amy you missed it because you're admiring the stapler okay good justine board comment no thank you Jenny do you have board comment I do not thank you okay moving on we're going to go into uh I'll entertain a motion to go into executive session to discuss real estate purchase options somebody move that I moved to make go ahead I moved to um go into executive session to discuss real estate options second second Jenny all in favor signify by saying I I I so moved we'll see you back as soon as word done make sure back in session and we have some action to take uh David yes uh I I suggest that the board uh consider the following motion move to find that the former Rochester high school building then plus or minus 4.44 acres of land and an associated access easement to route 100 are unnecessary for the continued operation of our side and it's and it's educational programs and that our side should offer that property to the town of Rochester for one dollar in accordance with article 6 c of the 2018 r-sud articles of agreement I'm not sure if Ethan's talking but he looks frozen on my screen he does look frozen I will make the motion that you just said I have it in my notes I'll second I think we might need ladies and back yeah jeopardy is playing upstairs in my house I can hear it in the back he just left so he's probably gonna long back on it's probably final jeopardy at this time too isn't it yeah and we can do this over again if it's just for posterity that's fine are you back with us Ethan Ethan well he just left again so he must have some connection problems Amy too Amy's back should we move on reports to the board and tell he gets back I mean can we do reports to the board without a quorum I know we cannot do a motion without a quorum no I prefer we wait okay I don't know if the same thing's happening with them that happened to me but I twice I've just gone black my screen's just gone black nothing like meeting in a storm I could actually meet because we don't have to travel but on the other hand I can hold you well I was gonna suggest he just calls in we just sent him the call in number suggesting that Jamie did you try texting him to have him call in internet dropped he's gonna call in Justine so much for telling me just come me telling you just come on we'll try to get to business that might be Ethan yep I am here I'm very sorry internet just died and I'm not at my I'm usually down at my office which has much better internet snow day yeah that's okay so Ethan there was a motion that I made I can reread it it's gonna have to be because we didn't have a quorum while I was not there we didn't have a quorum so we didn't have a meeting okay so I will read I will read the suggested motion for the board it is a motion to find that the former Rochester high school building approximately 4.4 acres of land and an associated access easement known here after as the property are unnecessary for the continued operation of our side and its educational programs and that our side should offer the property to the town of Rochester for one dollar in accordance with article 6c of the 2018 our side articles of agreement do we have a motion and we'll make a motion to move that article I have it down in the notes isn't there more to it no that was the motion we can talk about the letter you separately but that's the motion that we need to the prerequisite motion it's been second moved it needs to be seconded I'll second Justine seconded is there any discussion it looks like Carl just joined huh okay um there being no discussion well maybe no but we're in the middle of what wait because he should be should be part of this Carl are you there I am I just the internet gods have been at ec fiber have dain to reconnect me okay okay well I'm calling on the phone myself so um I understand the problem we've had had some delays tonight yeah we're in the middle they're down I'm down on everything I think David you need to we're in the middle of a motion just coming out of executive session on the high school building okay David has proposed a motion um that um and I think David you probably need to read you need to read it again so that Carl can know it's been moved and seconded um then we're in the discussion part but if you read it again then you'll be caught up to speed thank you yeah Carl I think you've seen the language of this motion in an email however uh the motion pending is that the former Rochester high school building approximately 4.4 acres of land and an associated access easement uh here and after known as the property are unnecessary for the continued operation of our side and its educational programs and that our son should offer the property to the town of Rochester for one dollar in accordance with article six c of the 2018 our son articles of agreement uh Jenny has made the motion justine has seconded that motion and we are discussing it do you have any discussion Carl uh that seems fairly clear um I'm assuming that there was nothing uh a controversial or anything that you know the the discussion was was proper and appropriate in an executive session and obviously you can't say anything this is just what came out of executive session but I'm I'm certainly not going to try to reinvent the wheel or go through this I'm on board okay um I would take a roll call vote here um for this motion um Amy hi hi Jenny hi justine hi hi Ethan hi all right um now the second item we have is a letter to be sent to the Rochester select board um which we discussed as well and I think Carl have you did you have a chance to read the the draft of it that David sent out Carl are you there I'm sorry yes yes I am I would help if I unmute before I just say yes at my screen um no this this seems fine okay that letter seems fine okay um do we need how do we do this then David do we I don't see anything wrong with making a motion to sound the town the the offer letter for the Rochester high school building 4.4 acres of land and an associated access easement with the deadline for the town to accept the offer of Friday February 19th at 5 p.m with a proposed closing date of honor before June 30th 2021 so moved so moved uh Carl says and uh I know we've been getting in trouble for so moved uh but um without being able to read it um I think we're going to accept that somebody wants me to amend my I commend my motion to say that uh I move that we uh send the select board the letter as presented in David's email thank you more clear yes thank you uh do we have um a second hi second just in seconds I'll do uh is there any discussion yes um I'm concerned about the time frame that we're asking the town um that is all good for the discussion I'll just chime in to say that the uh this is the time period is exclusive for the town to accept the offer after that deadline uh the town still has the right to accept the offer if it so chooses but our side could also uh market the property commercially at that point further discussion justine no thank you Jenny no thank you Carl um yeah I think that you know I I understand what Amy's saying and I hear her um I think putting this out here doesn't mean that if the town said hey we we want to to put this at uh our annual meeting um you know we could extend our exclusive exclusivity I don't think that we're we're locked into this for forever and ever amen um and sub you know and as David points out that even if we didn't extend our extend that window of exclusivity um you know this the the town can still make an offer so I think it's it's appropriate to you know to put it out there with that deadline and let them uh come back if they have issues I should note further that the letter will be accompanied with a copy of the draft survey just so it's clear exactly what the property will look like so I have a question Ethan you're on mute we're in the middle of a um a board board vote so I'm afraid this isn't a time for questions right now Pat um yep uh so we are in the middle of our discussion is there any further discussion I'm going to go around one more time Carl I'm good justine no thank you Jenny I'm off uh Amy no I've said my piece okay um I'll take a roll call again for this um Amy nay nay Carl hi Jenny hi justine hi and Ethan hi the eyes have it the letter is going to be submitted all right and that concludes our executive session oh boy okay well that's way we're now on to reports to the board thank you everybody have a good night thank you David thank you David 6.1 superintendent report so you have my report uh came out to you on Friday um I've enjoyed I've been over in our our side quite a bit the last couple weeks um uh Bonnie was out so I was able to cover for her sometime in the Rochester campus which has been a delight um and uh you know the nice thing about our size uh across the SU is it doesn't take long to get to really know the kids so um I've learned names pretty quickly and I think that they recognize me pretty quickly and uh you know it's it's it's been pretty great and fulfilling as busy as things have been with COVID and stuff when I'm in the buildings it just feels terrific so certainly fills my bucket as much as anything and um I don't want to take much more time because we've got a pretty packed agenda still to go um in regards to reviewing the the budget draft the third draft tonight which is for discussion only and looking for further direction and I'll take any questions folks have um who has questions Jenny a question I don't think so justine no thanks Carl I'm good thank you Jamie Amy no thank you for the report moving on to our business manager Tara welcome good evening everyone so I sent out my report I believe it was the day before yesterday their kind of days are mixed together um I'll take any questions that you have on the report I did outline in the discussion items of my report the revenue and expenditure summaries so if Ray you want to put that up on the screen thank you so on the revenue side the items highlighted in orange are what I updated the interest income I updated from four thousand dollars to four thousand three hundred and forty eight dollars and then down below I have added the COVID reimbursement to offset the expenditure on the expenditure side of it Ray if you can go to the second page please so on the expenditure side we I didn't update to the health insurance based on enrollment changes so the over spending projection on the health insurance dropped from fifty thousand one ninety five to forty seven thousand one ninety five so this is Tara this is uh you said this is over spending this is above what we had budgeted for yes for the current is this current year that we're in right yes I increased the tech hardware savings from ten thousand to twelve thousand and then I added in tech supply savings of five thousand ninety five dollars and those were the only changes that I made for this month so if you go back to the first page Ray the projected deficit currently for twenty twenty one is a hundred and thirty seven eight oh one the biggest portion of that deficit continues to be the shortfall in the tuition revenue received because of the students who chose to homeschool this year in comparison to where they were last year Carl you had a question I did um the uh uh the labor contracts that we just ratified for this year are those uh is that all squared away now so that we're showing our actual salaries that we're paying out this year um you know inclusive of the um bump we had put in uh in anticipation of of said uh labor cost increases we are completing the increases this week uh Carl so I'll have more information at the end of this week for your next report thank you further questions for Tara Jenny not on this friendship nope justine nope I'm good thanks Amy you'll thank you okay good I think we're good on your report thank you Tara uh we'll move on to the principal's report maybe recognizing the time and the topics we still have to cover lindy and I could do the same thing and just take questions are there any specific questions on our report I did not have any Jenny uh Jenny um not for this month but next month will we be seeing or actually no it doesn't look like star 360 will be done by the next meeting or will it it will be well yeah it will be so we'll have a discussion on that yep you'll get to see that data there'll be an assessment report Jenny that will do to the board um uh justine nope I'm good thanks Carl Jenny just asked my question so I'm good very good thank you thank you for your reports all right we're moving on to discussion items 7.1 COVID-19 response thank you we have um Shane Oaks and thank you Shane for your patience I know we're hoping to get this he thought this was gonna be a lot sooner but uh welcome to our district thank you for having me uh guys have important business to attend to so no worries I'm here you know to answer any questions that that folks might have in our said community related to COVID-19 but I'll start by just talking a little bit about lessons learned from our situation in Stockbridge right before the holiday break and how that is going to inform some of our thinking and actions as as we move throughout this the remainder of the school year first of all folks know that we have changed our health screener to include an exclusion for people within a household if anybody in that household has been determined is needing to quarantine by the Department of Health the state of Vermont so three situations where somebody would be asked to quarantine as if it was out of state leisure travel if they were sick due to symptoms and their medical professional determined that a COVID test was warranted you're in quarantine until those test results come back and the third is if you've been identified as having been in direct contact with a known COVID positive case I think this is really important step for us to take as we know the cases while they're coming down in Vermont we still see that it's very prevalent in our communities and with the amount of pre-symptomatic transmission and asymptomatic spread we think that this is a really effective tool to just hold out our probably our most risky situations until we can be assured that folks are going to be able to come into our buildings safely but conversely I think what we found in in Stockbridge is that once things get in play it can take a while to really wrap your hands around what's going on where the contacts were and how it may or may not be spreading and and that has you know pretty pretty profound impact so I think we'll be looking at least shutting down for a period of seven days to give both the identification of those contacts and some time for symptoms to start developing before we really consider whether or not we're ready to open up we'll continue to make those decisions in consultation with the health department but we can we know that it may take even longer than a week to make sure that we've both contained everything and have staffing levels that are adequate to support in-person learning I'll say that that the health screening doesn't just exclude students from coming into the buildings it's impacting our staff as well across the district and so that you know that's certainly an important variable that we need to consider when we're looking at our readiness to resume in-person learning after a shutdown like that so I think that's what Jamie asked me to come and talk about and if folks have any questions I'm happy to field them. Jamie. Yeah I was just I wanted to add for folks and so they know that not all districts or supervisor unions have taken on the stance with the health check that we have in regards to asking folks to not come to in-person instruction if any member of their household is under quarantine as Shane discussed and so also just to clarify with folks what Shane's referencing is is if we had a positive case within the school community where someone was willing to be contagious within the school community while we were open that's where we would look to hit the pause button for probably up to seven days to just ensure that all contact tracing occurred and that we felt comfortable with staffing levels and comfortable that everyone was quarantined that should be before we would resume in-person learning. Originally we thought we could take care of that type of work within a two or three days luckily I mean if there was any luck in regards to the arson situation it was that we had a large pause right over break and we still decided that folks weren't ready to come back yet and so we took an additional week so do you know I think what I want folks to hear is is that we will take the time needed in the event that that was to occur. The positive news is we have had cases throughout our supervisory union our towns and we continue to mitigate the risk and that schools still do remain some of the safest places that we have in regards to spread of the virus when you're looking at the data points. Community spread is still the you know most significant factor of this virus and that our mitigation efforts do make schools safer. Amy? I was wondering if we had a number do we know how many students and how many of our district employees or rescue employees who were working in Starkbridge did end up contracting COVID? I said in previous meetings that I'm not going to disclose those numbers. The state reports active cases within a school community and so we're going to continue to utilize the metric that's being used and reported on statewide just for clarity as well as for privacy state for those families that you know have gone through this. Okay thank you. Further questions for Shane? Jenny? I did not have any questions I know there was I forget what the date of it was there was a kind of a school community forum and I listened in actually I think it was the same night as one of our board meetings so I think I was listening to both of them for a little while and I forget exactly where all of the panel was from but I was impressed that that those folks came you know to help out with the meeting and I thought that that was a really good opportunity for folks to listen to. Thanks for that feedback Jenny. It was a great opportunity to be able to speak with the community and to show some of the working relationships we have with folks in both the health department, local pediatricians as well as members of the CDC that we worked with throughout our response in Starkbridge and I just also wanted to add that our community and families have been incredibly responsive, transparent, they are reaching out to make sure that everybody is following the guidelines interpreting things correctly and taking all the steps necessary to keep our schools open and that is allowing us to keep cases and potentially people who would be spreading the virus out of our school settings so all those preventative measures that we have in place are certainly helping us to continue to stay open. Justine do you have a question for Shane? No questions thank you for taking the time to be in our meeting and giving us all this guidance. And additionally taking this on just to be this person I've been hearing. Lindy has been singing your praises for many months now and so I'm much appreciative really glad to see you and be able to thank you in person. Carl do you have any questions for Shane? No I just I'll piggyback on what you said I was at the SCS blood drive what was that two weekends ago and the people you know at least when I was in there we're all like this is you know we're doing a good there was positive talk about how the community had responded and what was going on and how the whole thing was sugaring out so thank you you all for your effort the administration the SU administration and you. Oh good and I think we're all set thank you so much Shane for coming on and taking giving us your time much appreciated. All right thank you all have a good evening. You too. All right seven two twenty one twenty two budget third draft for discussion only. Jamie you want to start with this? Yeah Ray do you want to put up the budget document that was shared in earlier when you see there you go. So right now the current proposal that you have if you scroll down Ray I'm just going to give that that overview and then the principles are going to talk about the specifics in this proposal and Tara will then walk that the board through the tax sheet and actually if you want to go all the way down to the bottom the bottom line is only up about twenty two thousand dollars I don't have the the document right in front of me but that is been driven what is it Tara page five thank you right there yeah twenty two thousand six four six which is it fifty two percent point five two percent so less than a percent and we allegedly told you last month that we would come under two percent we're in here at a point five two percent and out of that increase Tara was it two hundred and eight thousand two hundred and five thousand four dollars yeah you can tell us up at four fifty two hundred and five thousand was driven of an increase in tuitions so what that means is in order to get us down to where we're at that required us to find efficiencies and savings both in buildings facilities and in our pre-k through six staffing and I think that's an important thing for us to wrap our heads around yes the budget is going up point five two percent or twenty two thousand but over two hundred thousand dollars was seen as increases in tuitions at the middle and high school level if you go down Ray the other thing I want to bring to your attention is is on the tax sheet Ray that due to the fact of decrease equalized pupils once again is what we're you know what the current number is is we lost about six pupils Tara yes that's correct which is not great news and the fact that we've been using revenue in regards to your guys's surpluses that you've had and so with the current you know offsetting increase in expenses and the decrease in per pupils it has increased your per pupil spending to with this current proposal at nineteen thousand two nine six and fourteen cents you do receive some exclusions due to your bond payments and what was the other piece Tara those insurance or those yes a retirement contribution yes it's what you pay in for the new teacher health assessment to the state teachers retirement system and then any special education excess cost that go over the threshold your portion of that is also an exclusion that we can add to reduce the per pupil spending to get you below the threshold penalty which this current budget is so I'm looking at this the adjusted per pupil spending calculation so though we are not penalized for being above the threshold we are still we still have to base our tax rate off of that number correct that is correct okay yep you're not penalized but you still base your tax rate off of that so as the principles walk you through what this budget supports and what's been eliminated one of the things we're going to need tonight is a direction from the board about whether or not you're looking to get under the amount without your exclusions I think that's a question that I want to frame to you right now because that's going to be an important direction for us to look to head to the other question that I know folks may have is that there is some more positive feedback coming out of my pillow right now around the ed fund and how that may or may not impact the yield right now at a committee it's showing that the yield could be positively impacted even more than the amount that we're using tonight which is the yield that we currently operate under this tax sheet will be adjusted once that yield is approved by the legislature the advice that I've received so far from the agency of education and that Tara and I've received from some other business managers is that this is a conservative approach it's one that we know we feel really good about that it won't change and go dip below this like originally forecasted but I do I do expect that that yield will be approved prior to you approving this budget so know that the tax rates that you're seeing tonight should be impacted positively as we move forward because I I do believe that yield amount should actually increase versus what was originally projected as a decreased yield so that's positive Amy yeah I had asked Tara earlier today about this because I had seen um information from the ways and means that they had of this new yield that is a higher yield so that was just proposed by a committee that then needs to be approved by the agency of ed is that what I'm hearing no that actually will go in front of the legislature okay this was a legislative update that I was I was reading so all right but that's just a committee of the legislature okay that is a committee that's what they're suggesting but it has not received approval yet okay I because if we are able if they do indeed accept that yield of 11,385 dollars which is above the 10,000 that drops our tax rate by six cents our our uh equalized uh tax rate by six cents it would definitely be positively absolutely yeah I just didn't want to I don't want to use a number like that and get our hopes up and then have to adjust it back I just want to make sure that we are aware of that happening I also I'm wondering how um uh is there other tax is that where the tax rate from the state comes in that you there's been this talk of of this nine percent increase that is absolutely correct Amy yep that was all around the yield that's all around the end okay thank you it's very complicated so no it's absolutely complicated so yeah I'm that's why I wanted to kind of start the conversation there and kind of give you the big picture things as then now we start to get more into the details uh Tara can you also let the board know what the decrease in expenditures would need to be or increase revenue in order for us to get under that 18789 mark without the exclusions based on using the current equalized pupil number of that 170.64 we would need to make an additional 86,600 dollar cut or increase in surplus or revenue to get you down to 18,788.63 but we have those exclusions so we are able to use them yes the exclusions make it so you don't pay the double tax penalty okay but by decreasing you still have to pay taxes based on what your actual equalized per pupil cost is so you're still basing your tax rates off that 1929614 you're just not paying above and beyond that in your property tax rate right okay so sorry explain that to me a bit more um why why do we not just okay we have the exclusions we're under the penalty level leave it at that why why is there's some concern about these exclusions and the Jenny I saw your hands up I'm sorry I'll I'll get to you right after that well it's philosophically whether or not you want to get under the excess spending threshold and be taxed at that rate because you're still being taxed at the 1929614 you're just not getting penalized a dollar on top of so without the excess spending threshold you without those exclusions Ethan for every dollar you spend more than 18789 you would get taxed at another dollar yep that's how the penalty works so you're not getting that penalty but you're still being taxed at 929614 okay Jenny I two questions the first one Jamie do we know what the timeline is for the yield number being approved you know there's a push to get this done because they understand some towns have delayed their votes and trying to get their budgets put to bed so I've been hopeful based on the information I'm receiving that that's something they're going to take up very soon and I know the governor addressed it again today in his address in regards to feeling better about the Ed fund in general so I think there's a real hope that this would be addressed prior to you adopting your budget and then the second question do we know what the so the tax rate that's shown here do we know what the difference would be if we were right at the 18789 versus the 19296 I'll definitely make certain you have that by the end of the night if Tara doesn't have that off the top of her head as the principles walk through the budget the one nice thing about that yield Jenny is that if it does get approved and again I completely agree we should not be banking on it until it happens by any means but that does put our equalized pupil tax rate a point is a half a cent more than last year if the per pupil spending was 1876663 no other changes made the Rochester tax rate would be an increase of point one two four zero and Stockwoods would be point eight point oh eight four three so it's about four cents Carl um thanks uh Tara when you look at page uh the the first page of the revenue sheet you show uh that we're carrying over a surplus from uh uh the audit uh that came in of 173 600 is that is that the is that a good figure or the auditor's pretty pretty comfortable with that or is that a portion of your projected surplus for the FY 20 budget they did provide me with a balance sheet which we'll go over in detail when we talk about your the audit when we get to that point but yes that is based on the numbers that they provided to me and what we would need to use to get you under the threshold penalty but there is further discussion we need to have around that as well okay thank you further questions i have questions on the detailed budget i'm not sure if we're going over right now or if that's something we're going over later so let's yeah let's move on from Jamie i believe we're headed to the principles yeah so um in this budget what it provides for us is um we were able to expand some programming within the kind confines of what we are trying to do financially so um some expanded programming opportunities looks like we'll have some out someone specific for outdoor education a day a week in each um campus as well as um we will be able to offer a foreign language multicultural uh position i don't know how to word that we're still working on what that can look like um as well so we were able to expand some programming that we've been looking to do for a couple years now within this budget also um support our classroom teachers as well as some of our um you know programming in terms of educational programming and mathematics um with a focus on mathematics and what else am i missing bonnie that it's helping um well it may it maintains our our pre-k6 program at both campuses that that doesn't change um i think you i think you covered it all indy in in terms of adjustments in terms of adjustments that we uh simply had to make to bring in to bring in the budget at the level that we did um we've had to reduce uh some positions uh the primarily those being um the receptionist position of the point five the halftime receptionist position um at the rochester campus uh we also had to adjust downward by one day um the music program uh also the art program we are also reducing uh an interventionist we have a point eight interventionist position um that is being reduced and i think that covers that covers the basically the the reductions did you cover we're also reducing one full-time fte paraprofessional in regular red right that's correct and and you felt you could do that without compromising our support well we felt that we felt that we could do it even i i i think what we would have to say is that all of these reductions you know are going to have some impact that's just of course of course that's just the way it is um do we think that we would leave children unsupported as a result of of the cut no and i think uh building wise this budget does not support uh keeping the heat on at 55 at the high school building and the electrical like those monies have been taken out of the budget so it does not support yeah this budget assumes that we will we wanted two things will happen we will not oh the our side will not own the building or the building will be shuttered so that we are not providing heat and electricity to it at all yeah pipes would be completely drained there's money here to do that work and or move merchandise out but our sub would not operate that building that building would be completely shuttered and just so folks know that's the equivalent of about a 0.5 fte position i think that's important for folks to know i think i think it is i think it is safe to say that we have really really scrutinized uh this budget and um what we're bringing what we're bringing you is really our our best um our best figuring on how we continue to operate a a good instructional program while dealing with the uh financial realities that we're facing what is two things two major things that impact our budget in a negative way is the increase in um tuition that jamie mentioned and the decrease in equalized pupils those two things put together had a significant impact um on this budget me uh yes looking over the um notes on this budget draft there was um i had a question about it says tuition is based on projected enrollment from f y 22 using f y tony to announced rates plus one extra adding r w r no w r ud what does that mean is that a we put in one extra student attending rudd right river unified district we're building in question amy a question okay that's what we did yeah and the event that someone moves in so it's not as much as i'd like to build but based on where we're at financially um you know i'd love to have a two three four kids built in i just don't feel like we're at a place right now that we can do that okay and the further review comment on that amy is i'm going to work with bonny and lindy to find out if we can get any information on our homeschool kiddos and what their intentions are going to be for the next fiscal year thank you two of the obvious frustrating points of putting our budget together is that those two big drivers tuition and decrease in equalized pupils are are ones that we can't control really at this point in time in in any significant way jenny go ahead yeah i actually i have four questions the first one kind of sorry to backtrack a little bit but terra what um what was the increase in the tax rate um in what you have right now compared to last year rochester's uh point one six eight eight so 16 cents almost 17 and uh stock bridge is about 13 cents 1298 and um number two i know we've talked about this in the past i don't remember um you probably explained what the reason was but for um changing the transfer to food service last year was 56 000 and now we don't have anything for that i know there was a reason but i can't remember what that was yeah so i i can jump in there jenny that is how we've been navigating yet across the su with the premise being that we are pushing hard to centralize food service um so that would create a new fund within the the su a new enterprise fund and we would run food service from the su trying to secure efficiencies and after we ran it for a year then we would see where we came out and then those we would bit we would budget moving forward and assess that out across the su and of course one of the things we have contemplated and there's been discussion at the su level as well is the potential um pursuit of a food service provider or contractor and that's something we got to discuss at the su level two great thank you number three of funding of bonnie or lindy could summarize sounds like some of the positions have been you kind of explained in terms of days the art and the music teacher and uh i believe the receptionist i was wondering if you could just summarize in terms of of what what the proposed fte would be for each of those you mean the fte that remains jenny or the fte that we reduced just the ones that have been changed like art went from a you know 1.0 to 0.8 you know something like that okay uh well the receptionist position at um at the Rochester campus there were there was 1.5 there was one and a half positions and we're we're reducing the 0.5 position um music went from 1.0 a full-time position to a 0.8 which is a four four day a week position um the art position will now be reduced by 0.2 by a day um the paraposition uh we're taking out fully so the full 1.0 uh paraposition is being reduced and the interventionist at the Rochester campus that's a 0.8 position so uh we have 1.8 interventionist at the Rochester campus now we will have one did that answer jenny yes but we there's still a number in there for para so there's still one para yeah we still have regular ad paras in the budget we're just reducing one across the district and then the last one it's not a not a question but um a comment to Tara i think that's a great idea about the homeschool um you know reaching out to see what their plans are for last year i think i did a quick calculation if we hadn't you know if we hadn't lost and equalized peoples and obviously that will help you know help numbers in the future and also um kind of talk about it before but you know just kind of marketing to get kids from other towns and other families is always something that um we've talked about but we haven't really done amy i just would um i was wondering if you could speak to the the revenue carryover that just always baffles me that uh in 19 we carried over 181 thousand dollars i mean this is we're here scrutinizing a budget but in 19 we we had 181 thousand dollars carried over in 20 we had 236 thousand dollars in change carried over last year was 141 and this is a huge amount of money how would we why did this happen how going forward you know we have this 173 we could have been using that in last year's budget what why is it like this and um i just don't understand i just i see this big number and i'm saying well why aren't we just using that because i'm sorry i address that do you want me to go into the audit discussion now or do you want to wait until you get there okay let's go into it it's part of the audit discussion amy it's part of what you guys brought into the mergers as my understanding and and tara can talk to you about that what i can tell you is is that we're projecting the deficit this year and i've had tara analyze those numbers tightly okay and we just missed on our projected incoming tuition and a big chunk of that was cobit so it's not like we're projecting a big deal of savings in expenses right now because i asked the same thing i said there's got to be something to miss right and the fact is is that you know you've been using your surplus is up and offsetting revenue here's the issue we got we're still projecting you to use 173 six for next year i need you to know that means we're going to have to find that money for the 22 23 budget and i think what we're getting with this is i need you to know part of that means we have to start looking at doing business more efficient not watering down programming but looking at doing business more efficient i think that that is going to be a big chunk of our work as we move forward yeah just i'm just going to get off of those revenue dollars you know using that surplus as revenue right it just has always been so much every year and when you see that coming into the new budget you're like well i didn't we scrimped and saved last year on our budget but yet we have this extra and i understand those you know business okay thank you uh jamie just for clarification what's the su budget increase projected yeah do you want to go up to that right uh tara what page of that went on so there's been uh if you remember in the su we didn't move the su all technology to the su so there's a slight increase in that assessment you see in fiscal services it's going up 5704 and 6 cents grant administration at the su level though is going down 7499 and 94 cents you can see that the tech admin has gone up but part of that was essentializing old tech and where is special ed you can see your special ed assessment has dropped as well by 9828 and 26 cents in general ethan in most of our districts between the drop in special ed and the changes to the grants it's been about a wash wash should you have the exact difference so the overall increase is about the same as last year or what i'm sorry i guess i don't know what you mean by wash i i mean that we decreased your assessment went down in special ed and it went up in the su assessment around fiscal services um technology everyone else that works under my office like curriculum instruction and assessment they they offset each other so as you can see here like s do you see what ray's highlighting for you yeah but so so just because i'm a this is not my strong subject um how does that do in terms of the difference between last year and this year the difference or for your assessments was 2261 dollars and two cents more this year yes okay good thank you as about plan i was looking for tara to give me the exact nope that's sorry i was saying good night to the kiddos at the same time i know that feeling very well thank you we're at 28 minutes on budget okay um are we ready to move on to tara as part of this any any further questions carl any further questions um i'm good i i do think that going from 173 thousand dollar surplus to a projected 137 thousand dollar 173 thousand dollar surplus to 137 thousand dollar deficit is is something that we're going to have to uh uh sort out between now and next budget cycle justine i know you're about to head off would you like to make any comment before you leave no thank you um i have my questions had to do similar to what amy was asking and i might be able to stick on for a little bit longer to hear the answer okay good uh let's move on um so we're now talking to tara we go into the audit are we done with the budget i don't i'm not sure exactly where we are in the process here here i want to you just walk in through the tax sheet okay so ray if you want to put the tax sheet back up please so the way we work our way down through the tax sheet is we start with your budgeted expenditures of that four million three ninety four five hundred and ninety seven dollars we reduce that by your offsetting revenue which this year is an increase and it comes out to one million one hundred one thousand nine hundred and four dollars that gets you to your act 68 education spending so that number there is what drives what you get from the ed fund and what is used to determine your taxes and what the towns have to pay in for your taxes so you take that number you divide it by your equalized pupil of that one seventy sixty four i gotta update my sheet here sorry so that gets you the education spending per pupil cost of nineteen thousand two ninety six fourteen we then reduce out your exclusions that we went over which total five hundred seven dollars and fifty five cents so you do not have to pay anything under that per pupil over cap line so you're adjusted per pupil spending main pains at that nineteen thousand two ninety six fourteen you divide that by the yield and that is what gives you your equalized residential tax rate of that one point seven five four five we reduce out the merger incentive which dropped two cents it was four and now it is two cents so that gives you your preliminary equalized tax rate of one point seven three four five the equalized non-residential rate that is set by the tax department so that is that one point seven three they give us that number in their december letter and then we move from there to then we move from there to the individual towns so the Rochester CLA was one oh nine point eight nine percent that dropped to one oh two point nine eight percent per the letter that we received from the state so you take your equalized tax rate of that one point seven three four five and you divide that by the individual town CLA and that gives you the 22 homestead tax rate of one point six eight four three so the in the decrease in the CLA increased the tax rate just under 11 cents and we calculate that by taking what your FY 21 homestead tax rate was on your tax bill per the tax department you'll see that up there at that one point five one five five and you reduce that from what the new projection is and that gives you what your tax increases on the stock bridge side the CLA for the current year is a one oh five point three one percent that dropped to one oh one point three six so you're still over a hundred which is good because otherwise it would be worse but that gives you your FY 22 homestead tax rate of one point seven one one two you deduct that from what your tax rate was on the current bill per the tax department was one point five eight one four gives you an increase of point one two nine eight the CLA had a point oh six four one increase on the tax rate so that's how the tax sheet works so obviously as jamie pointed out earlier if the yield goes up that's going to have a beneficial impact on the tax rates if we have any changes to the equalized pupil that'll have an impact on the tax rate and if there's any additional adjustments made on the budget that will ultimately impact the tax rate any questions on that and just so you guys see on your tax sheet about $18,800 essentially I'm rounding up adjust your tax rate by one cent Tara did I hear you correctly that the change in the CLA in Rochester that just that change alone increased the tax rate 11 cents or were you talking about the 11 percent that shows there no that's just the tax rate alone the impact of the CLA dropping that much was point one zero five nine so just under 11 cents depending on how much rounding you do and how much did that change it would that change it in in Stockbridge just to kind of get a perspective because the CLA is obviously something out of our control right the Stockbridge CLA was a point oh six four one increase on the tax rate Tara um I was looking at last year's um estimated tax rate and CLA for Stockbridge in all of our documentation and I noticed that um it was projected when we we did our budget their CLA was noted to be at a hundred point seven zero so this this obviously changed when does the CLA change in towns if Stockbridge went through a reappraisal then that could have impacted it as you see I verified the numbers as to what they were on the tax department's website as of January 31st to verify what numbers I was comparing against so the CLA is driven by your grand list it's driven by your listers in your town in your property values so it's however they file it and when they file it that there could be any impacts on what the CLA is for the questions for Tara Carl I'm good thank you just can I add something quick Ethan mm-hmm people might be saying how did they increase revenue one of the things we did just so you know is that I I am utilizing Medicaid funds after a thorough dip into what we had in the SU and I am providing full funding via Medicaid for your nurse and that was to just try to offset the impact of the equalized pupils of course so you were saying you want some direction from us tonight to get under this excess spending threshold I believe correct and how yeah I mean I'm looking for direction both on whether or not the board's looking for us to get under that 18789 mark and Tara told you what that would take and or whether the board's interested in us looking at how can we look to decrease the budget to a point where they're more comfortable around the tax rate um I I think I mean in some of this discussion can happen in public I mean obviously we I don't know what's your what's your pleasure board um as far as how we want to talk about this do we do we want to put this off to a special meeting do we want to talk about it tonight Amy what do you think some big numbers we have to come up with there's some big numbers but there's a lot of things that are out of our control that have created our tax rate such as the town's CLA that is completely out of our control and that has has changed as Tara said 11 cents on our tax rate um you know the yield we don't know about yet that's out of our control as well um is it is it worth waiting a little longer in some ways I mean luckily we we're we're in May so you know things could change by then but I think we're we're talking tight ship yeah and to be able to um I mean we're just cutting more and more programming at this point and I do understand that that we do need to start the conversation for the next year probably immediately that we're going to need to make some pretty big changes yeah um uh in terms of restructure is this is this and I know it's hard when we have you know not a full board with us but um uh how do we want to go about these discussions I mean this is all the things that have been mentioned before and you know that are the boogie boogie people that have come up to us about changing around classroom coordinations between campuses I mean I don't know and it's all about whether this saves us money and increases educational opportunities um um and so I don't feel like I'm an expert on what decisions to be making about that um in terms of where we should be going I guess I would like some guidance of of of how to be looking at this so even my my experience just having done some of this work around restructuring in fbud was that we did look to appoint a committee of the board and the purposes of the committee was to increase educational opportunities for students while also ensuring that it found efficiency and that was their charge and we brought in a consultant to help us do that work and the consultant worked with the administration um and members of the community with teachers and administration to develop um a few different proposals there was public forums on it um eventually that committee made a recommendation to the board and then the board approved um the proposal and that worked well it engaged the community in the conversation throughout um it engaged really all stakeholders and I think that that's an important thing for the board to take into account as we talk about um maybe some larger scale changes well um we didn't do very well with the committee last time last meeting um but I'm um I I mean this is essential this is essential work um I'm already on the AOA committee what's what's what's your call Jenny yeah speak up before we talk about any sort of reprogramming we're going to be sending the letter to to the town of Rochester asking about the building the operation of buildings we have 285 thousand dollars in there I feel like we need um I feel like it would be good to have a better sense of going what's going on with that before we talk about anything major okay okay so let things settle a little bit more before we do any formal discussions about next year well I mean I don't want to keep putting it down the line but um it just seems like I mean that's a big number there 285 thousand I mean obviously you know it's not going to go to zero but I think that we're quite late in the season to look at full restructuring what I would say is this is not for an entire another whole year yeah right this is preparing us for what's coming I mean there may there may be some stuff going on this year that we still have to do and we have to decide do we want it do we want it lower do we want it still lower um that's a that's a big decision we I think we need to make tonight to tell to tell our administrator and our administration right keep going and and until until we say ouch I think that's that's what I saw this tonight and I didn't say ouch yet um but I think that's what we need to ask our administration for is um push push us to ouch and then we'll know in some ways uh Carl by ouch well I mean like how many cuts they're gonna make well what are you trying to go is my question I I guess I mean are we trying to reduce the tax rate by more oh and if we got if we reduced 86 uh thousand dollars to get under the threshold what would that do to the tax rate I mean how many cents are we talking about I I agree I mean I I I'm whatever your will is I it doesn't bother me personally I mean it's threshold it'd be a right around five cents Amy it's about right so 188 five cents that's that's quite a cut Carl um I think that um it's important that we get a we we we get a roadmap of what reducing uh uh down uh you know the the 85 thousand dollars might even look like um and and and you know tied to a I mean I get that it's going to be about a nickel um that gets stock bridge that gets stock bridge uh down under uh you know into a into a single single digit uh tax rate increase and it gets Rochester closer to 10 cents um you know I I I think knowing what that looks like is going to going to allow us to make a to to to to make a better decision you know and I mean I think the biggest thing I would just say about that is that it's the other the other angle that I'm concerned about is the whole is it one time cuts um where we're saying okay well we're just going to you know we'll put off buying more books or we'll defer this particular piece of maintenance or something or are we going to you know are we looking at is the rec recommendation you know systemic programming cuts where they say okay we're going to um combine grades somewhere or we're going to only offer after school at one place or you know I'm not trying to say that those are things I think we should do necessarily but I think that understanding you know as they try to cut us down to to that level understanding whether these are long-term you know we're never going to have um bus service again kind of cuts or whether we can just skimp for a year and uh and and help us now those are the Bonnie Bonnie first and then Jamie Bonnie um just just to respond to Carl's question these cuts that we've made um in our thinking they are long term I think we're beyond the point where we're looking at can we skimp buy for a year um we have slowly been doing that every since I've been here and I we're really at the point where um where the next level of cuts I think would be more like program cuts because one of the things you never want to do with the budget is you never want to reduce every single component of the budget beyond what it needs to operate because then nothing in your school operates well everything is everything is reduced beyond what it needs to operate efficiently so I think I think we certainly can look for this money that you're suggesting but it is going to probably be in programs and services expected but it's good to know the picture or know the lay of the land and be able to make a a clear decision on facts Jamie did you have something to add to that yeah I was just going to say that we're at a point where we're definitely we're looking at personnel and programming at this point um and you know it's essentially a little over 1.0 ft that we'd be looking to secure Amy so um in our original um merger documents the projected uh tax for FY 22 is $1.81 that was projected if we merged that was what we projected we would be at um I had something else but it has eluded me now can you say that can you say that again Amy my daughter had just come in the room for a second I didn't hear you yeah sure no problem so what I was just commenting that in the um in the articles of agreement in our original merger documentation we had there was projections of what our um tax rate would be in different scenarios if we didn't merge if we did merge if the state made us merge and um for uh FY um and excuse me we're actually in FY 22 now um what we had projected at that time was we would be at $1.90 so what's what's the point was follow up so the so what I just just in other words we're under it is that what you're saying yes yeah so that what's what's the problem right I I tend to agree with you personally I mean I I I did not that I don't think we have to do some really serious rethinking but I I don't see a problem with that well I agree I guess is what I'm calling and I I don't think fives you know trying to reduce down our programming and our education for our kids just for five cents oops oh shoot we lost her which means we lost our quorum so we have to wait until she comes back uh I'll be I do need to go to the bathroom I'll be right back sorry you can leave hey I mean he just skipped out for me sorry yeah I'm gonna squeeze a little harder no I think it's I think it's a really valid point because it's about what we're gonna in other words is this good enough I think it is good enough for now and I do think we do have some heavy lifting and hard work to do for the the next budget cycle and for what we're going to do into the future I I think we've squeezed out as much as we can without and still are able to provide our kids kiddos with programming that we feel that and want them to have I um it's about we need them to have a good education we need to give them the the resources that they need to get that I think Amy your point about a dollar ninety is is one that we need to make public you know when we present this that that this is the projection and this is where we are so in some ways that because that I didn't I didn't remember that I'm so glad you brought it up Carl do you feel okay with that then that or do you feel we need further instructions with them um yeah I mean I was interested I I'm not interested in in looking at you know that 85 thou you know I am perfectly fine if we are not paying penalty we have always said that we will not you know in the the the message in Stockbridge has been around going into the penalty and we have not so I'm I'm I'm perfectly fine with with that I don't feel like we're I mean I think last year we did the same thing we were perfectly good with presenting a budget that was technically you know over the the uh maximum tuition but because of the offsets we were under we avoided the penalty again I think our our so I mean I'm okay with that I just think speaking to Jamie's question or Jamie's uh uh ask of us I personally think you know I think it'd be worth you know not that I want to cut programming my the programming in Stockbridge got my kids into college I'm I'm I'm really pleased with what our little schools do but I think that it might be a good you know a good document at the very least to have ready when someone says well why are my taxes gone up so much and we can say well would you like us not to have you know any kind of art or any kind of after-school program I think understanding what that would look like might be a good piece of paper to be able to defend where we're at more so than let's try to let's try to squeeze more till you know till we get to all all our that's what that's what we've been having that that worked on that's what I meant by ouch Amy is a I sort of want an ouch document a document that just you know gets it down to boilerplate and we go no that's too much and it's just instinctive we say no that's too much because you know we're like we nick you know a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit there and at what point do we say no and maybe that's what Carl's looking for is that sort of document um Jenny for an ouch a budget to approve you know I don't want to give it an ouch a budget but I'd like to be able to show one okay I do think that's what Carl's saying so we will definitely what I'm hearing is come up with what would be what would be the additional cuts in order to get us under the threshold just I do think it's important though for the board to hear is that the principles have reduced quite a bit oh yeah I think that's probably the biggest chunk of staffing you reduce in quite some time this is this is not about um I am getting a consensus Carl Amy and I'm about to ask Jenny that I think the four of us feel like we're okay where we are but let's look let's let's have the answer for somebody who says why aren't we there you know what I mean let's have the answer for that so it's not about you know so it's not that you don't take this seriously you do you take it seriously but we want we want to be able to say listen this is this is what that would cost in this no art in this no this and this okay Jenny is that do you go along with that or how do you feel yeah yeah I agree with everything that you and Carl have been talking about I think your ouch document and what here look what Carl's looking for I think those are in line with each other great and I really appreciate again Amy I really appreciate you giving us the perspective of of of the projected tax rates because I think that that makes such a difference you know that makes such a difference to be like let's be real yeah I did have I remembered my other question and I was wondering um you know how how is our tax rate comparable to other school tax rates either within rsu or around the state I mean are we totally out of whack are we way over way under right right in where everybody else is I mean sometimes looking taking a step back and see how we all fit in um is nice to know so Amy we can definitely give you that document too the next meeting I mean part of what impacts it don't forget too is where other towns are at in regards to their um in regards to when they've recently assessed and how that's impacted their I know there's so many variables so I can give you one example of a district that we have that has the same structure that you do so they're a pre-k through six district prior to their CLA being applied they are at a residential tax rate of 1.6679 okay thank you that's the only other one I have an rsu that's comparative to your structure good so I think we're all are we I don't think we need to make a motion or anything I think we've given you the instruction Jenny Carl Amy I we agree let's see the ouch but we're actually okay with where we are now is that Jenny is that a thumbs up from you yes thumbs up great thank you thank you good thank you very much to our administration for your very hard work on this all of the all of you much appreciated um this is tough I know this is I can't imagine what these meetings must be like when you sit there and you go oh no uh yeah so very good thank you let's move on um to the uh 7.3 1920 audit and I am going to step off for a second Amy oh I can't step off because it's can I just go to the bathroom please thank you I'll be right back that's the way you don't ask you just maybe get the relevant documents queued up uh Ray slash Tara slash whoever I mean I was my first instinct was to start singing the jeopardy theme but I think that's probably a little bit rude Courtney is always telling me the schedule and breaks in these meetings because they always seem to be going three hours and I think we're gonna yeah we're gonna do three hours tonight easily yeah yeah yeah maybe that's maybe that's my goal I'll know it's time to leave being board chairman when our meetings start running on a regular basis of two hours and one and a half hours and things like that then I'll know my work is done I'm gonna be nice to have an uneventful meeting uh un-contentious we're doing great actually we're doing very well tonight good consensus I I totally support your right Amy to to disagree and I really appreciate that that you speak that up so good uh Jenny are you back Carl are you back I'm here I'm here Carl's here great let's get let's go on audit 1920 audit okay so we don't have the official audits in yet but the auditors did share with me the fund balance for the general fund so the projected surplus is $551,212 at the end of $551,212 at the end of year 20 this is sorry and that this is for us yes yes okay our district got you I just I missed the first part yep uh the assigned usage in the current fiscal year was 142987 so we reduced that from the surplus it leaves you with an undesignated fund balance of 408,225 so of that we would be using in the current projections 173,600 to offset your taxes which would leave you with a surplus of 234,625 we take out the projected deficit in the current fiscal year of 137,801 per my summary sheet I went over earlier it would leave you for a surplus to utilize an fy 23 of 96,824 dollars so as you can see we have been utilizing that surplus since the combination came the merger came to to light and each year as we reduce that you have in the each year that we use that you have to then in the next fiscal year try to find those savings in your budget or an additional revenue stream so we've been using over a hundred thousand dollars the last couple of years when we get to fy 23 that's not going to be an option for us if we continue in the way that we're going right now curl does that figure tarot does that is that excluding the money that came into the merger that was the uh a stock bridge building reserve fund does that include any of the money that Rochester realized for the sale of dandelion daycare or are those things just been long capital reserve fund is a special revenue fund that is outside of your general fund so that is not part of it the dandelion daycare sale proceeds are part of that surplus that is part of your general fund because i got rolled into the general fund which is not as we meant to Carl again um yeah no that's then we i i i i echo what i had said in the conversation with dina at the last meeting you know getting an understanding of what those special reserves reserve funds that we intended to have set up from the sale of the dandelion daycare building for for uh the the the Rochester uh campus and the existing building reserve fund from the stock bridge campus you know getting those legally nailed down and and properly properly uh set up would make me feel a lot more comfortable because i this reserve fund is already there Carl if you want to take the money from the dandelion daycare sale you have to put that on your warning and that has to be voted on by the town to create a reserve fund so your intent to do that and make that take those proceeds and make a general education reserve fund can happen but it has to be done at the at your annual meeting by a vote of your town which is the documents i'd ask you at the board level which is the which is the documents i'd ask dina for at our last meeting i wasn't part of that meeting so i don't know what you asked for and just tell you what needs to happen and make it happen Amy uh i do believe that in the um warning of one of uh our it was either wouldn't have been to merge but it was i believe our very first but uh first annual meeting there was um public vote on reserves being set up for um for specific um campuses and then also we did a uh tuition reserve fund uh that was for all students um so i do believe these funds have been created but have not been funded again it would take a vote of your town in your annual warning to take surplus funds and designate them into a special revenue fund you as a board and have the authority to do that right and that's what the problem was with the uh dandelion surplus at the initial exception of it but i do believe that the the actual fund has been approved by the voters but the it just has not been funded and we would have to take a deficit of whatever what was it 60 000 was the dandelion 75 something like that and then put it in and then yes we'd have to budget in the deficit of that amount to put it in there Amy we'll do some research if you guys look on your um your two-pager your uh projections for revenue and expenditures we do show your reserve fund balances so we will search to see what those other funds are that maybe were approved and not funded so they're at least represented on that document so you can keep track of them oh if you look it does show you the capital project fund which has 109,109,572 i see in the blue at the bottom of this yeah that's what Taylor gave us today because that's the only one that's identified right now as in the reserve fund with a balance in it at the end of your f y 19 audit right okay now that reserve fund says that it's a capital project fund it does not it does not indicate that it is stock bridge specific is that just you short handing it or is that is that uh that it's another fund that was improperly set up slash improperly funded that's the way it's named so in your articles of agreement in some of the other districts and without reading yours right now on the spot any and all assets were transferred to the new district so that could be the situation here but i'd need to do some further research on it okay again that that is the stuff that i was asking dina for at the last meeting in terms of the discussion around all the various ins and outs of the merger agreements and the articles of agreement and all that so getting some clarity on which funds we've actually created what their purpose and limitations are and what their balances are and how we would get the situation to where we wanted it which was that the stock bridge funds were reserved for the stock bridge campus and the rochester funds were reserved for the rochester campus would be a good piece of guidance thank you so i was able to find the warning um it was for uh may 22nd 2018 article 34 and 5 our um article 3 was to create the school district establish a reserve fund to be funded from time to time of its accumulated fund balance if any to be used to fund in whole or in part future capital improvements and maintenance of the district facility in stock bridge in such amount that the board of directors determines appropriate same language using rochester the fifth article number five is um the way um second student secondary educate students secondary tuition expense um fund so they have been approved by the voters um but just maybe not properly funded so for for the next meeting when we do the sheet we will have those added and we will do our research with dina carl and then you'll see that bottom page updated and we'll work with our auditors as well oh thank you does that work to help what you're looking for carl if my computer would respond i'm trying to put a put a put a thumbs up put a thumbs up and put my camera on and it doesn't seem to be doing that but yes that is what i'm looking for thank you no thanks carl i didn't realize that's what you had asked her for so we'll get that taken can i just get to jenny just because i had a chance just to see if she has anything to say here i don't i don't have anything in addition and amy thank you for looking that up and finding it so quickly yeah all the books right over there so really impressive really impressive thank you um i would like us to um possibly talk about if and i guess we need to talk to tara about the hra we are we are contributing to 100 percent now and i am wondering if at the end of the school year if we're able to take any specifically hra fund balance and move that create a reserve fund specifically for that so that maybe in future years we wouldn't have to fund it at 100 percent um i'd be something i'd like to look into oh great idea you got that tara i will research that for you amy if we can specifically identify an hra surplus and roll that out thank you that's my question good do we have anything further on the 1920 audit jenny oh i'm i'm all fed you think i'm all fed i'm sorry is there any way we could have a um lesson of how to read said audit large book do i'm going to resend you the powerpoint that walks you through it yeah you want to sit down and go through it i usually attach the powerpoint when i send you the audit okay that would be great that'd be a great place to start because i'm sometimes very it's a big document and i'm happy to sit down and do and in depth like this is what i look at when i look at your audit right there is a lot of information there might be that powerpoint probably follow up with a little class from you and tara i'm going to sound feel like a fool here but um have you sent it to us yet the audit it's not totally no i don't have the actual audit yet they only provided me with the fund balances no i just didn't want to use it for your budgeting it was an email that i should have looked at and i have not looked at good that's all i care about i'm just so i'm not stupid that's all fine no you're good good thank you um all right i think we're ready to move on but i would say um justine is the one who brought this experience in outdoor education motion so i i think tabling even we haven't done 7.4 yet shouldn't take long i just want to sorry sorry you're right i jumped right over it funny about that okay um rey do you have the the timeline i think we want to just take a look at this um that from malori at the stock bridge town office did a really beautiful job of um putting out a timeline for when things are happening wow this is even it looks fancier than when i saw it i think but uh so petition submission December 17th obviously we're past all this January 21st a select board meeting February 4th select board meeting um town mail reports yeah either it is informational school informational meeting February 23rd town meeting informational so where was so what we discussed um Ethan you want me to jump in it's getting late i can so Ethan and i um met with uh representative of the select board from stock bridge and jim jim and uh i got the name right right jim's great and so we met with jim they will be um warning this meeting we will warn it as well but we will be guest of theirs and we'll warn it because we will be talking about school district business and assuming that there would be a quorum potentially of our board and so both boards will warn it it'll be a joint meeting they will take the lead on it in regards to facilitation and they will solicit questions and then we will they will um facilitate the meeting and then we will address questions and then they would address questions that may be specific to them and that's what we discussed um it was a approach that we've used recently um with the tumblr select board that went well um and so that's that's the plan of attack as we move forward to these upcoming meetings here in february is that how you remember the the conversation even yes um well just help me because i'm looking at this and getting um is uh so there is only one meeting on the 25th the 23rd is are we doing something on that day for us or are we well piggybacking it all in the 25th my understanding was that they were still thinking about taking it up specific around this on the 23rd but we'll just need to double check that date with okay i can yeah let's check that again um so other uh item so this so that it's a it's we'll need to make sure we put that in our calendars jenny carl amy the 25th certainly and possibly the 23rd um for um uh presence our presence obviously be virtual um i believe they use zoom um which is so much easier to use uh so that'll be great but um as i say just our presence will be needed there do we know um sorry go ahead amy do we know what time uh not yet i would but we can jammy can we yeah so what i will do is reach back out to them solidify after our original meeting confirm the date and time and then i will send it out to you great thank you jammy i just i least wanted you to hear this is kind of how this is playing out yep um and and and i'll tell you be honest with you amy this had some um bearing on um the date i i picked uh for because i i wanted to be i'd love to go to the voters informational meeting and say boom we got a we got a confirmation a lot of details to work out a lot of things we don't know but we got a confirmation if we can get it if we can't that's that's the town's decision but that's what i'm hoping for both of those states season that are listed on the stock bridge website a meeting on the 23rd and the 25th at 7 p.m 7 p.m thank you thank you for i love collective intelligence by the way it's it's why i've done theater all my life it's just great none of us none of us could be as smart as all of us together so that's great um uh uh good uh the other jammy if i might uh i would really like you to address um the the there's been some controversy over the numbers that the school board that the i'm sorry the su has presented about the potential of unmerged budgets um and i just i think for the public record we should talk about that um your your feeling behind that uh you know work work i'm assuming you're going on your best estimate everything's an estimate um there's no so many uncertainties we broke we broke out the expense expenses by the function codes and we broke out the expenses around the the su assessment based on your average daily membership and how we calculate um assessments via the su the formula we use i will tell you that um i think that the the biggest area of um disagreement was we chose and i said at the last meeting i checked the notes and i did and i've said it to the select board we chose not to include the revenue of the small school screen because it wasn't guaranteed and i have no idea what legislation could be taken up or not taken up this year there's talk around Montpelier possibly taking up act 46 disillusion and how that could be could impact the small schools grant and the small schools grant has to be applied for year to year where right now you don't need to do that as a district and so we chose not to use that as a revenue source so i think that that is the biggest discrepancy that folks may have or disagreement um there was one other area that we've noticed was miscoded in regards to the school counselor um that was coded to Rochester and not shared appropriately over on the stock bridge side and so that would actually increase the expenditures on the stock bridge side Tara did i think i think i captured everything otherwise yeah there's a few other questions i haven't had a chance to to do dive in and i just got in the last day or so um but those are the majority of the initial questions we received and then charity colton just sent an annotated um breakdown to you and i understand that neither you or jamie were able to open it is that true i was able to open it but i have not had time to even digest what's in there for questions i i did have a conversation with charity and i addressed some of her questions um but yeah i have not had time today to go she just sent it today to go through it um and just for the record um charity colton had some specific questions about the the budgeting and the way the budgets came up within this projection and sat down with Tara and jamie to work through them and appreciated uh open exchange um and then came back just today with some more questions uh she was still concerned not to be going through the board but i actually think it sounds seems very reasonable to be going to you because this is what you're where the numbers are coming from it's not coming from from the board so i i felt that was very appropriate for you to talk um directly to her amy so it's charity is she going to be able is charity going to be able to do some type of presentations because she has such a wealth of knowledge at uh this school meeting is she passing a question along don't know don't know um i certainly think um i i would imagine there's going to be some um you know some balanced reply when this information is presented um and and i think that's certainly welcome so it gives the the voters you know the the full picture um they get to choose um uh so anyway just you know that that's going on okay uh anything further on our decoupling carl or jenny anything in terms of the the meeting itself are we presenting something or what is it just answering questions so so jenny what worked before is people submitted questions ahead of time to the select board and then the select board presented them to the board and to my office and then we were able to address each question through a presentation so i suggested that to the stock board select board and they they appreciated that suggestion that also gives me time to you know run numbers and scenarios and questions and not trying to do it on the fly as we all know that doesn't work very well i mean it's it's sort of what you're working with charity right now anyway it you're you're getting the questions now and you're working on them and being able to follow up with plenty of lead time which is exactly what we want we want we want people to feel they can trust these numbers or at least trust where they're coming from carl do you have any further comments on this uh no i i i think we're good i think that uh i like the idea of trying to pre-solicit questions so that we can have answers for people um other than that it sounds like you guys have it all well in hand thank you good okay now i'll talk about seven five experience and outdoor education um this is the thing i was looking most forward to talking about tonight and of course it's something we're going to pass on just because justine who brought it is not here and i think that's fair i think the other thing i'd like to do i i really would like the board to come up with a policy about this but i and and jamie's got some real exciting ideas about how we could be the pilot outdoor education for the su and then we try some policy ideas that then possibly become su wide um i think what we need is some ideas of what a policy would look like and maybe some examples from some other schools some other programs and that we can look at those and take those so that next time we're looking at this we're not coming in totally cold i mean i think we need something more than yeah we like this let's keep going i think what it needs to it needs to inform our administration how we view outdoor education as an integral part of our school programs so that they know when they say okay we're going to allocate this much time per day to this program we have we're giving them clear guidelines because i just think we've been sort of saying yeah it's great yeah it's great yeah it's great and that's not clear enough as a policy so um i'll i'll do my homework and i think jamie will do his and we'll come to you next meeting with uh um with some possible policy statements that then we can kick around and hopefully we won't have you know the world to decide just our budget nothing else um on a night uh is that is that fair enough does anybody else i don't want to supersede the this area but um anybody got anything else amy you fine with that good uh jenny you're good with that yeah i think that sounds good and it sounds like um i don't know if there's anything else to update about the outdoor structures but it sounds like oh they're moving forward yeah um and sorry me i i i i messed up i i was spoke i had the building permits and all the information and i just didn't get it done in time for their meeting tonight so i apologize for that um we do need building permits for the right now we have two structures definitely going up one at each campus and a second structure that is fully funded through um trustees at stockbridge will be going in there lindy's figure out where the the location is um we just figured out the location for the two at rochester as i said one is fully funded the second one is part of a sort of go fund type program that rob gardener is running to fund it and jamie you said something about there being some money about left over to me and i forgot to write down where you said it was because um it would be great yeah there there's potential potential if we come up a bit short that like how we used um crf monies for you know temporary tents we could potentially use some esser monies for a more you know permanent hold on a sec carls carl left us so we have no quorum just so we know until he comes back on hope we didn't lose him for good yeah well that would shorten our meeting somewhat and we would be right at three hours i'll see that's it it's it's fate it's fate that is not going to make the public happy well you could still entertain public comment yeah we can't take action i think it's okay then i was hoping so but really do any board formal board discussion but if you just took comment that would be fine we can just pass no response trivial trivial comments we can make about things anyway i mean i think i can finish the conversation about structures they're very excited we're very excited to have these lectures they're really interesting um they're they're just strong um i think the kids are going to love them um and um it's it's a real it's a real positive step forward for this outdoor education program to have dedicated spaces outside um so uh that's i'll finish that up then we'll wait for carl and hopefully it wasn't his uh and in terms of stock rich the stock rich pto is funding the second that's it yep sure and we're having an online silent option in may that we've already started getting some prizes for oh i didn't even see that can you please send me a link or send us a link for this absolutely thank you so much oh well that may be and thank you to lindy and i see janet whittaker's on the call who are helping with field prizes as they come in for us uh are you still janet lindy are you still looking for more prizes are you jenny is the prize coordinator uh oh you are we just hope we just house it all and it gets dropped off to miss jenny i was gonna say i bet i could i bet i could get my brother to throw some meat at that that would be great yeah we're getting a bunch of gift certificates and we've got two airline tickets from cape air um getting something oh gosh let me can use that cape air a bunch of stuff help me in get out of town at some board retreat board retreat board and administration su administration retreat uh carl i'm worried ethan that carl maybe did lose yeah i think he that looked very clean and solid um so i'm thinking that my recommendation would be that the board entertains public comment yep i think we do public comment uh let's let's work our way down here as my usual list uh we have an unverified caller i don't know if we know what that is ray but i'll go down to uh janet janet do you have any whittaker from stockards do you have any comment to the board no no i have no comment i'm good thank you great thank you joanne mills do you have any comment for the board hopefully be able to connect oh dear i'm good oh great okay thank you joanne yep uh mackayla richardson do you have any comment for the board uh no no comment thanks mackayla just question are you struck richard rochester rochester rochester thank you thank you for participating i've seen you the last couple times uh tim pratt do you have any comment for the board nope i think tim left yep okay uh then i'm going to go to our two phone numbers 802 uh finishing in three eight um star six two on mute please identify yourself hi yeet and it's keith over at stockbridge hi keith um the only comment i want to make is that i believe the board made reference to the uh merger documentation where it said the um f y 22 number was going to be a dollar 90 i believe that was also pre cl a so that number would come down and and get closer to where you guys are going to be um you know where where the actual taxes are going to be and that also made an assumption that it was just uh you know i get a dot board assumption that those rates are increased at a rate of five percent flat uh per annum which was really just you know an assumption that was made so i'm not sure you know to say that oh the rate would be a dollar 90 um you know that's what was projected um i think that's not 100 accurate uh that's my only comment great thank you keith appreciate it um 802 star star 97 please unmute star six to unmute and um identify yourself please it's charity colton can you hear me hi charity yes hi um so i just have a couple comments first i wanted to clarify the comments about me having conversations with para jay me yes i have been having conversations with them and just so everyone is clear while some of our conversation is in regards to specific budget lines or questions i had for them on it a lot of what i have been discussing with them is that in my 25 years of working in big business where i managed 12 million dollar a month budget um internationally i had a very different approach than some of what is being utilized by our district and so i had some questions for them that are very out of contact compared to what they're used to working with so it i don't want anyone to be you know misunderstanding what my my conversation with them i am not working or consulting with them on how to build the budget for our district i'm just offering an a different approach um a different set of insight based on what i've done in the past um so i don't want anyone thinking that i'm you know getting into something that should be between them in the board um the situation with me feeling like i'm going behind the board's back it that's just my ethical approach because i did come from a very different background of accounting um and in my previous experience i would be fired for doing what i did by talking with jay me and terra outside of the board knowing exactly what my conversation was going to be with them so again that's because my previous experience with big international business um my only other comment and i've made this one before but a long time ago is i know there's been conversation and it was brought up that there's you know 7.5 on the budget or on the agenda about experiential outdoor learning my only concern is is there an issue if we were to entertain that type of a platform that is a change outside of the standard public education platform and if you go too drastically outside of that platform you're not providing the traditional standard public education and you're also not offering choice to those people that want a standard public education we are like i living in stock bridge i wouldn't have the choice to go somewhere else that offer to standard because i live here in stock bridge i don't know what the legality or if there is a legality of that but i think it's something that if there really is the seriousness to entertain this type of platform what is that an issue and how do we work around it that's it that's great point um thank you that's definitely something we should take in consideration for our policy discussion very good all right um tim said his battery died so i guess he's he's out he sent me an email um that was our public comment for tonight i'm without carl um uh i think that's about all we can do tonight that's about it yes um so i don't even know that we can adjourn formally um but um well we'll do that and somebody can call us out if we're doing yeah you you could still move uh uh i'll entertain a motion to adjourn from one of my board members amy i i had a question do we need to meet make a special meeting to me uh for the second executive session or is it uh can it wait do you think uh just wondering if i need to be scheduling another i think i think it can wait i also think if we have a special budget meeting like we've talked about um that that could i'll reach out to the board i'm probably gonna look and i don't want to do you know we can we can talk about the the scheduling of a meeting via email that's permissible with open meeting laws let's try to look to lock you guys in the week of the 15th to put the budget to bed um and we can take this up all right thank you is there any is there a conflict with people's town meetings because that would be our march meeting just for thinking in march what are you talking about like i'm out for february 15 no i'm talking about our normal march meeting as well oh yeah that's true that's true that it is the night it's the night of i've heard i know everything's different because of covet i didn't mean to complicate i just know that that's town meeting day so i'm not sure what that means for i mean it won't matter to me because raw justice the night before well actually no we'll probably might even know some results so i'm sort of eager to meet that night actually if it can happen what's the start is the stock bridge um having a town meeting on tuesday evening the second of tuesday day i believe right i would really rather do this via email set up a meeting just to stay with open meeting laws because you're doing board business right yeah okay good we'll figure it out uh intend a motion to adjourn i make a motion to adjourn second thank you jenny all in favor signify by saying hi hi good night everyone thank you